Feature: My life and games...Part 3

I look at the last generation

Read previous parts here:

• Part 1
• Part 2

I spent a long time in the N64 era, played many of the classics many times. But around the Christmas of 2002, it was time to look at getting a new console. It was at this point, all my friends appeared to have PS2s. What what this magical black console. Being a stalwart Nintendo fan at the time, I found that if I was going to get any console, it would be a Gamecube. I was slightly driven by fanboyism I admit, this was before I developed my anti-fanboy rules in my mind. A friend of mine had a Xbox, but that was not for me, so it was between two consoles.

There was another console, the Sega Dreamcast, but this was truly the end of Sega, poor third party support, and once the PS2 got rolling, it was clear that the Dreamcast was released too early, with not enough power. It was home to some good games, and had some generally good ideas behind it such as online play, but unfortunatly, it just didn't work out for them.

My views changed however after going round a few friends after Xmas. I had mostly moved over to playing PC games at this point, and had moved away from consoles slightly (PC's are appearing later in the week). But three games seemed to change my mind from Gamecube to PS2. I saw within a short period James Bond 007: Nightfire, GTA: Vice City (a friends dad was playing on it) and Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

I was amazed at the scope and size of Vice City and couldn't believe the way that the FMV's blended into game in TTT and the likenesses of characters in Nightfire. It was kind of a random thing that made me think 'OMG the PS2 is amazing', but it did. So for my birthday in March, we got one. Now I did something very dangerous, left the PS2 game buying strategy in the charge of my parents. Basically meaning that if the box art looked pretty good, it was chosen.

Thus the games I had were:

• X-men: Next Dimension (comic book based beat-em-up)
• 007: Nightfire (alternative film-like game)
• LOTR: The Two Towers (based on the film)
• LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring (based on the books, truly awful)
• Gungrave (anime shooter)
• And for my dad- GTA: VC, though of course a snuck a play...

So, some good, some bad, and some truly awful. I managed to amass quite a collection of PS2 games over the years, and having never traded any in, I still have all the really poor games I have bought over the years. Using the Dualshock 2, although I had used it before, was much more comfortable for long playing session that the N64 pad and *shock horror* I could access all the buttons without changing my hand position!

But, although I enjoyed some Sony based franchises, I longed to play The Wind Waker, Super Mario Sunshine and various other games which had made their home on the 'cube. I remembering entering a competition to win a ton of Gamecube stuff and hoping and hoping that I would win (silly I know). Therefore, I bought one of eBay for quite a small amount of money. It came with a few games, and as I did with the N64, I developed a small but fairly quality collection of games. For the small amount I did have, I had quite a long playtime of them all, which is all you can ask really.

So, looking back, was this the best part of my gaming so far. Possibly. I certainly improved my knowledge of everything massively, and often practiced writing reviews on games that I had played. I got better at a greater variety of games, expanded into different genres. If anything it was much more varied than the N64 days and maybe because of the sheer amount of second hand games that were available for the PS2. Whatever happened, I know it shaped what games I play now.

Coming tomorrow: PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii...