Just a quick announcement for the people who ever read this blog:
I cut a deal with a friend, Tim0))), who is going to replace his PS2 with a PS3 when it comes out, to take over his old PS2 (the big model, yes!!!) for €25,00. Not too much if you’d ask me, I would even call it a bargain 😛
I’ll probably have to get my own memorycard(s) and extra controller(s), allthough memorycards might not be necessary, I could also choose to install a harddisk in it.
…End of line.
Zhooibaal\'s house of the unholy 
Memory cards ARE necessary – you can’t store game saves on a harddrive (unlike the XBox).
Comment by Daniel De Matteis — 08 March 2006 @ 12:09000000
aaah, bitches… And there is no hack for that?
Oh well, I’ll get me a memory card then 😛
Comment by zhooibaal — 08 March 2006 @ 12:17000000
The whole play-games-on-HDD is a big hack by its own, and doesn’t yield 100% compatibility. HDLoader has been discontinued for a long time now – its successor, ToxicOS, is embedded on the DMS 4 firmware BIOS. So, if you want a better and more compatible game HDD loader, you’ll need to buy a DMS 4 modchip, I’m afraid.
http://www.ps2hd.com for a compatibility list.
Comment by Daniel De Matteis — 08 March 2006 @ 13:59000000
ah, who cares anyway, I’ll buy the few games I want to have…
But anyway? What’s the use of installing a hdd without a modchip then?
Comment by zhooibaal — 08 March 2006 @ 17:44000000
Wow! You’re lucky 🙂
Comment by dementia — 08 March 2006 @ 18:30000000
The HDD was originally meant for two things:
1 – Massively multiplayer online games. Final Fantasy XI used it but little else. (several other SquareSoft RPGs from Japan used the HDD to store the temporary swap file in order to speed up loading times s- disappointingly, this feature was removed from the US version of said games – Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy X)
2 – The PS2 Linux kit. Sony ported an old Redhat version to the PS2 and decided to ship a kit. You could actually buy this as a consumer – for about 150 / 200 Euros you got:
A 40 GB Maxtor drive with Sony branding
A memory card meant for PS2 Linux
A VGA cable
A keyboard
A mouse
There are some forks of the original kernel – but still, it’s pretty limited. Casting aside the hardware constraints for a moment (32MB of RAM, 300MHz RISC processor), the DVD-ROM can’t be used to play DVDs while you’re in Linux (supposedly they didn’t have time to create their own licensed DVD software for Linux and they didn’t want to resort to libdvdcss) and the whole thing runs in a runtime environment – there are some limitations as to what you can and can’t do.
Much later on, somewhere in 2004, the team behind HDLoader released a tool (pressed on an original CD) that made it possible to copy PS2 games to your HDD. Obviously this didn’t make Sony happy – hence why the PStwo doesn’t have an IDE HDD.
Sony pretty much fumbled the ball with regards to online gaming. Even Sega made more of an effort with their DreamArena network – Microsoft clearly has an advantage here with XBox Live.
Comment by Daniel De Matteis — 08 March 2006 @ 19:50000000
# dementia Says:
# March 8th, 2006 at 18:30u e
#
# Wow! You’re lucky 🙂
Pretty much huh 😀
@Daniel, I think I’ll stick with an unmodded PS2 then, not much use for me to install Linux (or any other OS) on it anyway and I will just buy the few games that I’m interested in. That would be God of War and Shadow of the Colossus at this time, maybe some more, but I doubt that I will buy tons of games for it. When I play on a console I want it to be straight forward, just insert the disc and play and I prefer to have everything unmodded, keep it authentic. Softmodding could be an option as it is mostly reversable, installing a modchip requires soldering and can severly damage the equipment in question, so I think I’ll just stay away from that.
As for the online part, I don’t play online that much anyway, I only played Doom, UT, Emperor: Battle for Dune, Warcraft 3 and Dawn of War online for a while, but all not much more than a few weeks.
Comment by zhooibaal — 09 March 2006 @ 9:35000000
You can’t go wrong with the PS2 – it was criticized a lot in the beginning but I think you’ll find that out of all three consoles, the PS2 has the best exclusive games on any platform. The GameCube has simply not lived up to expectations (Pikmin, Metroid Prime and the Resident Evil franchise excepted), and the XBox has too many multiplatform titles and too little must-buy exclusives.
– Amplitude
– Frequency
– Shadow of The Colossus
– ICO
– Gitarooman
– Gregory Horror Show
– Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution
– Disgaea (an amazing 2D strategy RPG)
– Dragon Quest 8
– Final Fantasy XII (I actually hated FFX and FFX2, but this one will be great if only for Matsuno’s involvement in the project. Mark my words: this will be a return to form for the series)
– Rez (OK, so it’s also available for Dreamcast. Nevertheless, check it out)
– Katamari Damacy / We Love Katamari
And that is without even mentioning the big-name titles such as Metal Gear Solid 3, Soul Calibur 3, Devil May Cry 3 (coming to a PC near you shortly as well), Gran Turismo 4, Tekken 5 and God of War.
Simply put, you have not experienced the current-gen properly if you have not played SOTC, ICO or Katamari Damacy at least once.
Comment by Daniel De Matteis — 10 March 2006 @ 0:48000000
I haven’t big into console gaming just untill a little while ago when I first bought my Jaguar. Allthough the PS2 will not quite fit into my collection I will still gladly put it alongside the other 2 😀
I’ll which games I will get for it, everything at it’s own time.
Comment by zhooibaal — 10 March 2006 @ 11:44000000
To ebay i say!
I used to have a ps2, but sold it for pc hardware 😛
cheeky find jens!
Comment by Atariboy — 10 March 2006 @ 12:39000000
But eh… what is the deal now anyways? You get the PS2 when he gets his PS3?
If that’s the case, then, eh, what can I tell you, even Sony doesn’t know right now when it will be released. It’s all up in the air – several developers have got their devkits but not a single one of those in-development games is close to being finished.
Comment by danieldematteis — 10 March 2006 @ 22:29000000
heh, [end caring], I could care less 😛
I might also get it when he gets a XBox 360 😛 We’ll see.
The release date hasn’t been officially announced, that’s true, rumors aren’t actually something you can get too much info out of. One says it will be released by the end of this year, other’s say summer next year… I even saw one that claimed that it would come out this month…
Comment by zhooibaal — 11 March 2006 @ 0:11000000
The XBox 360 is actually getting some good-looking games now… play Fight Night on a HDTV and watch your jaw hit the floor. It’s that good (graphically). Dead Rising looks good. Given Capcom’s pedigree, I’m hoping that will turn out to be a killer hit (it’s actually closer to Dawn of the Dead than the official George Romero-sanctioned Land of the Dead videogame, which is crap) Of course, the game I will be buying when I get it will probably be something with current-gen graphics like Ridge Racer 6. I don’t like the Project Gotham Racing series. I played it when it was still known as Metropolis Street Racer on the Dreamcast and while I certainly admire the quality of the game, it just doesn’t float my boat. Realistic racers don’t interest me in the slightest. Give me OutRun 2 over Gran Turismo any day.
Back on topic… the amount of Full editions out there are extremely limited. I saw one Full edition at Bijenkorf and V&D one day and within a matter of days they were sold out. They only ship freaking Cores – the low-budget edition without the HDD, wireless controllers and decent cables.
It also begs the question – why are these things selling like crazy? Is it the Live Arcade games? (I’ve actually heard some extremely positive feedback about it – you can play games as old as Robotron 2084 and Smash TV to PC stuff such as Zuma and Bejeweled)
I might try to find one tomorrow and pick it up – I still don’t have a HDTV, so that will be something I will buy later – Samsung’s entry-level HDTVs start at 1000 Euros or somewhere near that, but they look absolutely fabulous.
Comment by Daniel De Matteis — 11 March 2006 @ 1:38000000
I’m not sure which version my friend will be getting, but I think he won’t wait for full (poor sob).
Anyway, I would never spend €1000 on a f*cking tv set, no way. I’d rather wait for the prices to drop to a reasonable level.
Comment by zhooibaal — 11 March 2006 @ 14:44000000
Sweet deal, deffinatly calls for you screaming “yoink!” when you finaly take it.
Comment by jest — 17 March 2006 @ 12:27000000
I heard that the ps3 will be released around November this year, so I’ll still have to wait for a while, but that doesn’t really matter to me.
Comment by zhooibaal — 18 March 2006 @ 12:51000000