Having spent a few days with the PlayStation2, the videogames.com staff has decided to deliver impressions of the platform itself - the hardware, the first games, the controllers, and even the design. Is the system everything we thought it would be? Is the Dreamcast really in trouble? Are there really problems with memory cards and DVD? Read on...

Joe Fielder's impressions:

I wasn't blown away by the system at first. The graphics of the launch games aren't such a significant step forward that you stop and think, "This is the next step in the evolution of gaming!!!" But after you sit down with the games for a while, you find yourself having a lot of fun. There aren't any Super Mario 64s or Sonic Adventures among them, though there are a few pretty entertaining titles.

The system itself looks a lot better than I thought it would. I remember seeing the first shots of it and thinking that it looked like my brother's old eight-track player, but it looks pretty sharp. It also runs really quietly.

There are a lot of neat little things about the platform, such as seeing the graphics of normal PlayStation games get slightly improved, watching DVDs through it, and being able to use older peripherals like the JogCon and NegCon. I'm not going to go out and import it, but I'm looking forward to the US version.

Dave Toole's impressions:

When I saw the PlayStation2 for the first time, I knew instantly that the design was great. When I actually got my hands on the unit, it was even better than I had expected. You see, although I liked the design to begin with, I thought the pizazz of it all could be affected by how large the unit was, but when I actually saw it for the first time, I was actually amazed by how small it was. In the end, I think it's the best console design ever. One thing I have never liked to do is judge a system by its launch titles. They tend to be rushed and released whether they are honestly ready or not, and the same goes for the PS2. When it comes to its power games such as Street Fighter EX3 and Ridge Racer V, it's obvious that some work still needed to be done on them. Street Fighter 3 EX has a lot of slowdown, and Ridge Racer V has distinct pop-up. Personally, I like the Dual Shock 2 controller. The only problem with it is that while playing the Gran Turismo 2000 demo, I was forced to hold the gas button down very hard to go at full speed. After a while, I thought my thumb was going to break off.

I personally love the boot-up sequence in the PlayStation2. The one thing I didn't like too much about the original PlayStation's boot-up sequence is that, after seeing it a million times, it seemed to last forever. The PS2's sequence is nice and short.

I never let myself get caught up in all the PlayStation2 hype. When someone gets caught up in hype, that person almost always ends up being disappointed. Coming from this point of view, I must say that it's too early to fairly judge the PlayStation2. In some areas, it already looks spectacular, but it has problems in other areas. Its potential is scary. If developers are able to get a good handle on the system and exploit its power, we will see some amazing things in the future.

Ben Stahl's impressions:

All in all, I think the PS2 is kinda dope. I was really skeptical when I first saw it, thinking it looked like an old piece of stereo equipment, but now that I'm actually holding the unit, it doesn't look as bad as I had thought it would - at least while it's standing on its side. While sitting horizontally, the unit still looks a bit strange. But I really like how Sony did the drawer - standing on its side the drawer easily holds the disks in place and looks supercool while doing it.

But easily the most impressive feature about the PS2 is its blue light. It's a blue light! Everyone loves blue lights! In addition, I really like the way the unit is just continually on, letting you switch disks and reboot easily.

The controllers are cool - they're a lot lighter than the Dual Shock's are, which lends itself to longer gaming hours, and the analog buttons are kinda weird. I noticed the central control knobs are a lot tighter and return to center a lot faster than those of the original Dual Shock. I'm not sure if it's because the new controllers are so new that they haven't been broken in, or if Sony made major design changes in the Dual Shock 2. Also, the other analog buttons are kinda odd - the only game I've found so far that really uses them is GT2000, which forced me to squeeze the controller harder than I'm accustomed to in order to get the full speed of the car.

While I'm usually not too into Japanese console launches, I was fairly excited about this one. Sure, the games really aren't that much more impressive than those found on the Dreamcast, but the fact that Sony has two major titles on the PS2, with more in the works, is impressive enough. Mostly it just leaves me to wonder what games Sony will line up for its US launch.

The boot screen is cool. I like the way it changes as you play, but I would have liked something a bit more dynamic. I mean, this is a powerful console. Where are all the lighting effects and explosions and stuff? Oh well, maybe I'm asking too much.

Still, the PS2 seems like a solid system with plenty of potential. I can only hope that it lives up to it and delivers some excellent gaming experiences.

Ike Sato's impressions:

I liked the design of the PS2 when I first saw it, and my opinion hasn't changed. I was surprised, though, to see it is smaller than I had imagined, and placing the console in a vertical position actually doesn't look bad at all. I was also wondering how the vertical position would allow CDs to be in place when they are inserted into the drive. At first I thought it was going to be like PCs with those lousy clippings, but it actually has a groove that it sits right in, so it's pretty cool. Even without a vertical stand, the PS2 is quite stable. I wouldn't really want to pay $10-15 just to get that piece of blue plastic prism.

In terms of the launch games, I had an eye on Eternal Ring and Street Fighter EX3, and they are as great as I expected. But one game that caught me off guard was Kessen. Sure, the visuals looked stunning in the previews, but playing the game just really changed my opinion - there's a lot more to this game than good imagery. Eternal Ring was disappointing at first because the character walks really slowly, but actually he can run after you fight the first boss. So now I got my character running really fast across the map, and that dramatically changed my impression of the game. I haven't played DrumMania, but seeing our editors play it with the Guitar Freaks controller was great. I would like to try it when I get the chance. The rest of the titles didn't strike me as worth while. Ridge Racer V wasn't really that great (maybe because I am not a RR fan though), and the new mascot girl is ugly. Personally, I would have rather seen Reiko Nagase again.

Although the appearance is just like Dual Shock from the PS, the PlayStation2's controller is quite different. The vibrations now have more variation, and the D-pad is much softer. Before, playing fighting games on the PS controller was just bad, but using the Dual Shock 2, I can play Street Fighter EX3 with no complaints. Overall, the controller is lighter in weight too.

Initially, one of the DVD movies we had did not read due to a problem with the drivers on the memory card. This may have something to do with the recent report we mentioned about the defects on the memory cards - we reinstalled the driver onto the card, and it then worked fine. Another thing that caught my attention was that there was a section called "Region Code" and right below it was "01 United States." It was in faded gray, so I couldn't access that section. Does this mean the PS2 actually can be multiregional? A different driver may actually load up American DVD-ROMs? Can someone hack the drivers and make it multiregional? Please (grin)?

As for the PS2 boot-up sequence, it's too bad you can't skip it. It is cool watching it the first few times, but you would definitely want to skip it (as you can on the Dreamcast) if it were possible. At least the sequence is much shorter than the one on the original PS, thankfully.

I would like to address that there really is something wrong with the memory card. As I've mentioned earlier, the DVD did not work because the driver that was already installed could have been corrupted. The data apparently can get corrupted or erased for no reason. Jeff started up the PS2 one time to find that all the saved data was gone, so he had to unlock the characters again in Street Fighter EX3. I hope this won't happen to me since I am working on Kessen and Eternal Ring for reviews!

The PlayStation2 definitely is promising, but the DC is here to stay at this point. I just got my Code Veronica Dreamcast the other day, so I'm really getting into the DC again. The PS2 still has got a ways to go before it catches up to the DC, which is already in its second-generation software lineup. I still also have to get PS games like Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy IX, and a couple of others I missed last year. So I am probably going to hold off buying the PS2 for the meantime. Plus, our office has a couple units anyway, so I can always take it home for a spin!

Sam Kennedy's impressions:

I really like the PlayStation2; the system just feels really nice. I love the design of it; I love that you can stand it vertically; I love that little blue light on the DVD drive. It's just sleek. However, I'm pretty disappointed with the software so far. Ridge Racer V is awesome - I'm so addicted to that game. But beyond RRV, none of the software is that great. There are some others I've been playing a lot, but nothing that has blown me away. I suppose this is where Nintendo and Sega triumph over Sony - they have some great internal teams that can develop killer launch titles. The PlayStation2 launch had me all excited - after picking up the system in Japan, I immediately raced to my hotel room to play it. But I tell you, when Dolphin comes around and it releases with a new Mario or Metroid as a launch game, that's when I'll be really excited.

Graphically, there's not much being done on the PS2 right now that couldn't be done on the Dreamcast. Yeah, maybe some more polygons are being pushed, or maybe there are some subtle graphical effects we haven't seen on the Sega console, but I can still think of lots of Dreamcast games that look superior to a lot of these PS2 launch titles. I was pretty disappointed to see little to no anti-aliasing on the PS2 launch games - I had really thought all of these jagged edges could be done away with in the 128-bit age. Maybe not, I guess. To me the most impressive games are Kessen, with its amazing real-time movie sequences, and Fantavision, with its great light effects. That's about all I haven't already seen done on other platforms.

But one thing that the PlayStation2 has is some major potential. It has the DVD, it has the emotion engine, and it has most of the big-name developers backing it fully. Hopefully by the US launch we'll have some really amazing stuff in our hands. I can't wait.

Ryan Mac Donald's impressions:

The PlayStation2 is physically the coolest looking console system ever. I really like the sleek design and the color scheme. As for the images it puts up on the TV screen, I can't say that I am blown away, or even impressed over those I've seen on the Dreamcast. What I can say is that I think the majority of launch titles aren't really using that much of the system's capabilities.

I think that for the most part, this first batch of games are just really pretty PlayStation games. If you look at the launch titles that were released for the original PlayStation and compare those to the games we're seeing on the same system today, it's amazing. Game designers constantly learned how to push the power of the system further and further with every game they made and I think that's going to be the same case with the PlayStation2. While I am not clamoring to play many of the games we have in the office today, I am really looking forward to see Tekken Tag Tournament, and Square's baseball game.

So while I am not currently overwhelmed by the PS2, I am excited. By the time the system comes to the US, I am sure we'll see some amazing stuff.

Jeff Gerstmann's impressions:

I've been spending most of my time over the last three days playing games on the PS2. The games I've spent some real time with (Stepping Selection, DrumMania, EX3, and Ridge Racer V) are all pretty good games. But the system just doesn't have one title that sticks out and sells the system. The four games that I personally feel have been the most playable and fun aren't exactly genre-busting games. They're reworkings of existing themes and sequels. That said, I still feel that this is the best Japanese system launch I've ever seen, and the system definitely looks as if it has the muscle to compete with future technologies.

Others in the office, however, seemed to be a little disappointed with some of the software. I sit in an area that is prone to fairly heavy foot traffic by people in other departments, and my constant playing of Ridge Racer always drew a crowd. While everyone thought the game looked nice, it was almost as if they were expecting a bit more from the superhyped machine.

On the hardware and peripheral side, that crazy black box just looks amazing. I always like the look of the unit, especially when it's up on its side. It's a bit smaller than I envisioned it to be when I was looking at pictures of the system. The Dual Shock 2 controller is, for all intents and purposes, identical to the Dual Shock 1, though the analog pads are a little springier. The analog buttons don't really make much of a difference, at least not with any of the existing software.

The stories and rumors of memory-card problems and lockups have both reared their ugly heads here at the office. I lost my EX3 save, which had all the hidden characters unlocked. The system just all of a sudden reported the card as being unformatted. Also, after leaving the system on almost all day, I started having a bit of trouble getting Ridge Racer V to load.

James Mielke's impressions:

The PS2 in my opinion is a nicely designed machine. While I originally thought it to be a bit too retro-looking, kind of like those old crappy stereos you used to buy at Sears in the '80s, when you actually have one in front of you, you get the feeling you have a powerful piece of hardware sitting on your table. The console itself is too sleekly designed to stick on your carpet. The PS2 carries a confident air that is exemplified in the understated DVD and other technological logos, which are black on black, outlining the perimeter of the machine. The little details like the lights on the machine, the unorthodox styling, and even the sideways loading disc-drive are cool. However, there are some details that haven't done much to impress me, starting with the Dual Shock controller. Although it's supposed to feature analog buttons, it didn't seem to make a bit of difference while playing Ridge Racer V. I tend to use digital controls in racing games, and although the D-pad isn't supposed to be analog, the buttons (that is, brakes, gas) still performed like digital controls and not analog controls. Another problem is that the launch software is almost universally unimpressive. RRV and SFEX3 are excellent, but they aren't anything you haven't played before. In fact, while we had both of those games in the office, most people stopped by my cube to play Dead or Alive 2 for Dreamcast instead. Those same people asked why this was better-looking than any of the PS2 stuff. Evergrace and Eternal Ring were also painfully boring. Evergrace is just dull, while Eternal Ring makes you want to write to From Software and ask them to stop making these "games." Eternal Ring, in particular, just had better graphics, but it still played as horribly and as slowly as Shadow Tower.

Despite the amazing numbers of units sold, the Japanese PS2 launch is only marginally better than the Dreamcast launch was, as far as content is concerned. I hope the US launch is up to snuff, because from what I've seen here, I'll just go back to playing DOA2 on the Dreamcast, thanks very much.

Lauren Fielder's impressions:

I have to say I was a bit skeptical of the PlayStation2. Not only was my heart still aggressively cheering for the Dreamcast camp, I thought it looked just plain ugly from the screenshots. It reminded me of those horrible 20-pound stereo components from the '80s. Yuck.

But then this sleek little number showed up in our office on Sunday and my steadfast Sega loyalty slid out the window - at least temporarily. The PlayStation2 is much smaller and much better-looking than I had originally expected. And not that looks are everything, but its appealing face made me want to get closer to it to really check it out.

Many of my friends and e-mail buddies are asking me what I think of it so far. How are the games? Do they look better than those for the Dreamcast? Is the Dreamcast dead? What's your favorite? And these are pretty easy to answer. First of all, the games don't look noticeably better than the current crop of Dreamcast games at all. In fact, they look similar, if even a bit more "first generation" than many DC titles available today. That makes sense, as it's early still. But PlayStation fans have long since learned to shelve graphical judgments and just enjoy gameplay. The PlayStation has always had a lot to offer in terms of the different types of games available, and with that in mind, I had an amazing amount of fun this weekend, and that's what playing games is about. Bottom line.

Is the PlayStation2 a Dreamcast killer? Nope. Not any time soon. I think Sega has a lot of rethinking to do, and you're not going to hear me complain when I say the company needs more games. All companies need more games - that's what holds our interest. But the DC still has life, to be sure. Competition? Surely. But the DC has a lot to offer still, technically and content-wise.

I really had fun watching the games we couldn't play - yep, 0 Story is really funny, to say the least. And I really had fun with the games that were playable. Even though I think that Stepping Selection is an entirely different game from DDR, it was still really cool to play and laugh at. Perhaps it was just the spirit of the day.

In any case, I think the game I'm most excited about (OK, there's Fantavision, too), is Kessen. I really couldn't play that much at first because, well, I can't read or speak Japanese, and Kessen is a strategy game. But I am absolutely, without a doubt counting the days until this game's US release. And I'm not just talking about graphics. Sure, it looked really good, but I think the concept and the epic quality of the gameplay is what really reeled me in. It was a good experience, watching the general hack his way through lines of horsemen and then spinning his sword at the end.

I hope the memory card and DVD issues get totally straightened out before the US launch, because the system is good, and it's been a lot of fun so far. This is exactly what I like to see: lots of healthy competition among game companies and system developers, and a lot of variety in the types of games we get to play. That's what's ultimately best for us, the gamers.