Dom Robinson reviews

Distributed by
Sony

Price: £169.99 (Originally £299.99)

The year 2000 saw the launch of the follow-up to one of the world's best-selling consoles, the now-five-year-old Playstation, but it wasn't an easy one for Sony. It could, however, be argued that its success exceeded all expectations because Sony put out a product that sold faster than the proverbial hot cake, many of which were accounted for prior to the respective day of release in their respective territories and if you could make something where demand outstrips supply, you may too consider that the ultimate success.

Launched in Japan on March 4th, sales of the new super-console in shops and online achieved 980,000 units in the first three days, including pre-orders. The PS2 was due for release on October 26th in the UK, but the date was pushed back by four weeks and the allocation dropped from 200,000 units to 165,000, which meant that 35,000 people who thought they'd secured their console prior to Christmas becoming disappointed.

Word had it that more units would not be available until Easter, but as of December 30th last year Toys R Us managed to obtain and sell around thirty per store, but you can imagine people getting trampled in the rush, even though, in addition, you had to buy a couple of games making the total package price £369.99.

As for the availability of consoles for review, scarcity was also an issue, as there were just two DVD-capable units throughout the whole country to go around, resulting in, no doubt, many tears being shed when it was time to wave goodbye.

The first thing you'll notice about the PS2 is its sleek, black design, with a touch of blue that verges on aquamarine in both the stand - given that it can be used both lying down and vertically upon one of its edges - and the colour of the discs, not to mention the name embossed on the top.

On the front we are blessed with the standard connections for two memory cards and two dual-shock analogue controllers. However, while you can use normal controllers with this unit - but note you'll need analogue ones for games like Fantavision - it is not possible to use the memory cards from your old PSX onto which to save games. You can use the memory manager to delete old saved files, but the unit would not allow me to save anything on them, so a memory card is required for this.

It's worthy of note that the analogue controllers, one of which is included in the package, are the new 'Dual Shock 2' type, in which in addition to the joystick controls, all of the other buttons are now analogue too. Press one a little and your character will move or act in a small way, but press harder and this will have more impact.

One difference between the PS2 and the PSX is that the new console has a slide-out tray compared to the pop-up original, making this a move in the right direction.

Something altogether new is the inclusion of two USB ports and a firewire port, allowing connections to be made at a future date including digital cameras and broadband internet access for superior online gaming - something that will trounce the Dreamcast when announced.

Round the back are the standard power outlet and AV multi-out connections. With the PSX, these were usually supplied with an RF lead while our European counterparts were provided with SCART leads, which make for a much-improved picture. This time round, the lead ends in a composite phono video, plus phono audio leads. A SCART convertor is also supplied, but I have my reservations about this on a certain aspect which will come later. When it comes to playing games though, I mainly used an s-video lead in the PSX's later years and have continued to use this with the PS2 as it gives a comparable quality to SCART.

Also to be found are an optical digital output and an expansion bay. The latter looks like is can take a hard drive which will prove useful, but as for the former I'm surprised there's no coaxial output - most DVD players include one of each - and it's a shame because I have that connection available which I normally use with my Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM drive, but do not have the optical equivalent, which is around £9.99 from a company like Maplin, although many shops now sell them and it can use a standard digital optical lead to take the sound from the PS2 to your amplifier.

Having the lead makes it handy to have a standalone DVD player, since the PS2 can output a DTS signal which my Dxr2 sort of cannot. I say "sort of" because it actually can, but the cruel bunch at Creative disabled this feature on the Dxr2 and will not release the software to activate DTS so I am stuck with Dolby Digital only.

What happens when you switch the PS2 on? A swirling blue design and sound to match greet you along with the Sony name, before just two options remain: Browser and System Configuration.

Browser takes you to an off-white screen where memory card data can be managed and deleted and the option to select the DVD/game disc inside, the type of which is displayed, is also made available.

The System Configuration provides options to alter the current date and time, menu language (English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Dutch and Portuguese), Component Video Out (RGB or composite), Optical Digital out (on/off), and Screen size (4:3, Full and 16:9).

The screen size applies to DVDs. 16:9 is the only option I've used given that the PS2 is hooked up to a widescreen TV and it will give an anamorphic widescreen picture, which will take advantage of the TV's increased vertical resolution. The console indicates that "4:3" is for a non-anamorphic letterboxed picture, while "Full" will crop the sides of a 16:9 widescreen picture - and anything wider will still result in black bars being visible to a degree - for those, seemingly few, DVDs that support this feature. If you're not completely au fait with these technical terms don't worry about it too much and stick with "16:9" for a widescreen TV and "4:3" for a normal one.

Going back to the clock and I love the way the display changes as you alter it. You can sit back and just watch its hypnotic appearance.

Four of the PS2's launch titles.

Games, games, games. That's the main reason people will buy the PS2.

There are around 40 launch titles including the four which I received for review: Fantavision, Dead or Alive 2, Tekken Tag Tournament and Ridge Racer 5. While full reviews shall follow in due course, to summarise, the last three are sequels and the first one has its roots based in the Tetris camp. They all become a little tiresome after extensive playing because there's not much to them after the initial 'wow' factor has worn off, but one important point of note is that they're all very accessible for those who aren't normally used to arcade games.

If you have a large library of old Playstation games though, almost all of them can be played in the PS2 thanks to it being backwards-compatible. Unfortunately though, when I played them on this console it disappointly played them with the same graphics as the old PSX. I've since learned that a selection is available on the PS2 to change them so that their graphics are improved a la the PC utility Bleem, which hasn't been officially blessed by Sony, usually to the standard of the 3D card inside, presuming you have one in your PC.

The secondary reason to buy a PS2 comes down to its ability to play DVDs (Digital Versatile Discs). Even the Jim Royles of the world will know what these are now - superb-quality films on a CD-sized disc for those still playing dumb - and given that a penny short of three hundred notes will get you a next-generation console and a DVD player it seems, on balance, that you can't go wrong... or can you?