Now that we have had some time on our hands to play around with the Japanese Playstation 2, it is our responsibility to report everything we know and think about this hyped-up system from Sony. So we will break down the report into various categories, starting with our first impression. Whenever you see a link in the article, you can click on to get more details on a certain game, news or any other subject.

First Impressions on PS2:

      When we first laid my eyes on PS2 it was back in September 17, that was when Sony revealed the little guy to the public. From that day on we dreamed of having it in our hands. Six months later, the time actually came when it arrived at our office, I was jumping up and down, screaming as if I was a monkey being teased by someone who won't give me a banana. I opened the PS2 box and I felt the power surge through me and quickly hooked it up to the TV. Before doing anything with the games I played around with the browser in the system menu which was in Japanese by default. There are plenty of system menus in there including the screen ratio option where you can select the dimensions of 4:3 or 16:9 to fit your TV type. The browser language could be changed to English as well and of course I did that. After that I looked at the DVD demo that was on the Utility Disk; the quality of that video blew me away. Just ask Val (Webmaster) I was drooling like Homer Simpson.

      After screwing around with the system options, it was time to get to the bottom of the point and I finally started Street Fighter EX 3. To be completely honest, I was a tad bit disappointed. Don't get me wrong, the game is fun as hell, especially if you have three friends, but in some spots of the game it felt a bit rushed. Its plague is that on occasion the frames would start to slow down when you have an extreme amount of action going on. What impressed me though is the fact that when you beat the game the fighter is thrown into a room with about 15 fighters surrounding you. They aren't Ryu or Ken, they are just baddies that need a hit or two, what I'm trying to say is that the PS2 performs that task well with some frames skipping here and there. Take note of this, you may be noticing many people saying that the PS2 isn't all its cracked up to be. That isn't true, right now current software that is available for PS2 was developed in less 8 months, while such games should take about two years. The PS2 is a hard machine to develop for, but once a developer discovers the system's every nook and cranny then we will have better titles on our hands. An eight months deadline is incredibly short for developers who are not used to the system, why do you think Sony is taking their time with GT 2000?

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