I saw a copy of snatcher on the video for $250.
That’s literally unthinkable now
pain
I don’t know when or if this information will ever be useful to anyone else, but if anyone ever wanted to know:
The official Sony PlayStation 2 hard drive sled/caddy/rails attaches to the official Sony PlayStation 2 40GB 3.5 inch hard drive (HDD) with Torx T6 size screws.
I did not know this and had to speculatively buy some torx bits between T5 and T10.
So if you need to know, now you now.
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Been considering an import PS2 specifically to play Sega Rally 2006 which was never released outside of Japan. System and game would run me around $160 or so at the minimum so I’d really only invest if I thought there were other JPN only releases on PS2 that I could pick up right away or down the road.
So with that said, any recommendations? I know about the Sega Ages 2500 line, which might have a few in it that I’d want. Obviously there are some shooters, Initial D, but it really doesn’t look like there’s a ton of stuff that never made it out of Japan that’s worthy of purchase? @Yakumo ? Do you have SR2006?
All the Cave ports (Espgaluda and Dodonpachi DOJ in particular being superb), I imagine they cost a pretty penny though.
Do you already have a 5000x model (or above) PS2 if you do you can just use the Mechapwn exploit which once installed unlocks the PS2 and lets you throw any region disc in with no problems.
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Yep, I’m pretty sure I have Sega Rally 2006. From what I remember it was a pretty solid port.
It’s only available on PS2. That’s it! Never released anywhere else. No arcades. Nothing. Soundtrack has Hideki Naganuma, Takenobu Mitsuyoshi, all the names. It’s one of a kind.
Sounds great!
I…wasn’t a fan of Sega Rally 2006. Ended up buying it again last year to give it another go and I still wasn’t convinced. Buy it for the included arcade port of Sega Rally 1995, which is incredible, but Sega Rally 2006 came across as rather soulless. The course design is almost entirely forgettable, the visuals lack polish with some really glaring pop-in.
I might give it another go if I really have been missing something, but I thought it was mediocre - Sega Racing Studio’s Sega Rally Revo is the better modern game, but it too falls victim to featuring a glut of repetitive, forgettable content over focusing on a small number of expertly designed courses you’d want to replay over and over.
Well worth it! If you don’t mind having PS1 compatibility become emulation-based definitely consider the SCPH-90000 series models. The redesign is lovely with a half matte, half glossy top, they got the weight down to just 700 grams (same weight as the Steam Deck “handheld”), they integrated a multivoltage power adapter. It really is just plug and play. The vertical stand is to die for too, I think @poptart has it? (Hope I’m remembering this right).
As for Japanese PS2 titles, off the top of my head these are worth giving some consideration toward:
- Zettai Zetsumei Toshi 2 (Disaster Report 2)
- Atelier Viorate (unique RPG that won’t waste your time…)
- The good Sega Ages stuff - I think @Yakumo had a video covering all the ports.
- Densha de Go FINAL (The most feature complete in the series and probably the best overall)
- Densha de Go Shinkansen Sanyou Shinkansen-hen (Shinkansen-focused routes to Fukuoka, good fun)
- Densha de Go Ryojyouhen (focusing on electric railways in Japan)
- All four Taito Memories collections - but avoid if you have an aversion to 240p games running in 480i.
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Are you in/around Toronto. I could give you a bunch of Japanese games so you don’t feel that sting as much haha
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Sega Rally 2006 is very bland. It lacked polish as you say and just didn’t have the vibe of SR1 and 2.
The bonus port of SR1 is amazing though, it even has force feedback for PS2 Logitech wheels and if you hit select on the title screen you can choose resolutions to run it in.
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Just getting back to this. I am not in or around Toronto unfortunately.
I ended up getting the PS2 a little while back. Pics coming soon. It ended up costing me only $127 and included Vampire/Darkstalkers. I finally had a chance to fire it up this past weekend and it works great and looks fantastic on the old Sony Trinitron.
I’ve been doing some looking around at games and while I understand the underwhelming nature of Sega Rally 2006, as a fan, I feel like I need to play this. I’m definitely going to get the original game PS2 version included in any import buy from Japan. A few other things I’m definitely going to play that are long standing wish list items include Gunner’s Heaven, Tobal No. 2, and Thunder Force VI among others. Also underwhelming to some of course, but games I have wanted to play for years and now I can.
Unrelated, but I had no idea there is a Sega Rally Plus on Sega Saturn that is Japan only that natively supports the Nights 3D Control Pad. Another item on the list…
Sooooo… turns out that PS2 I bought doesn’t “work great”.
It’s creating radial scratches on discs.
From what I can ascertain, it’s a problem I’m having due to using it horizontally. There’s a long story on how I figured this out, but ultimately the gist of it is that I tried to play Sega Rally 2006 and didn’t have a memory card handy so all I could do was play arcade mode. I’d get just a little ways up the road and the game would pause. Made no sense! I wasn’t hearing anything out of the ordinary from the spinning disc at this point, so I thought it might be the controller that came with the unit?
I haven’t played anything on my US PS2 in quite awhile so I had to dig out my controllers and when I plugged one in, I still got the same problem. At this point, I removed the disc and took a look at the back. It seemed like there was wear around the outside edge. It being a regular DVD, it was hard to tell. I put back in Darkstalkers (Vampire) and after playing the intro and the game a bit, it seemed ok. Looked at hte back of the disc… faint rings… “Uh oh”.
At this point, I looked more closely at the unit. The little PS logo was turned so that it would be showing properly in VERTICAL orientation. Hmmmm…
I then grabbed the Genesis Mini box next to me, used that to make sure the PS2 stood upright, and put back in Sega Rally 2006. Suddenly it’s working fine! Now I’m pretty sure that I’ve discovered the issue. Horizontal is a no go. This is where I got stupid though…
I got a US disc I don’t care so much about and put that in with the unit horizontal figuring that if it has problems, I’ll hear it now that I know what I’m listening for. It has to spin it up at the start, right? After doing this, I really didn’t notice anything and the disc didn’t look scratched. “Maybe I’m imagining all this?”
Stupider me puts in the pristine Thunder Force V. I start the game. Intro is playing fine on screen. Then I hear it… scraping… while spinning. “Oh god! I’m an idiot!”
Thunder Force V is pristine no more. *sigh*
At this point, I’m pretty mad. I disconnected the PS2 and boxed it back up. I have no recourse on eBay. It was an “all sales final” and it’s been a month. I could fight to try to get some dough back, and maybe I would, but I just don’t want the hassle. When I ordered, I never really thought I’d have a problem except for a nagging feeling this seller was just a little off. I think they knew it had to be vertical and didn’t say anything in the listing, which is shitty. From what I’m reading online, this is a mildly common problem with Slim PS2s where the ribbon cable attached to the laser assembly is raised up enough to scrape the disc. When I pull the laser forward on the track with the unit off, it sure looks like it’s a little too high depending where the read head is located.
At this point, on Saturday I was pretty upset. I figure I will re-sell this unit for whatever I can get for it (and if someone here is interested, PM me…) to get back something. It’s a white 75000 series model. This is the original listing on ebay and you can see the little PS symbol in Vertical orientation in the pictures.
I ordered another one, from a seller I trust in the States (who I should have used the first time… or just ordered from Japan, which is damn near always a perfect transaction). This time I got a Phat PS2 model 50000. Fingers crossed.
I’m the UK even if I say no returns on my listing, the seller can still return it if they claim it is “not as described”. You get some people taking advantage of that, of course.
Bad luck for you on this one!
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I’m guessing I could probably do something here. One thing I just noticed is he has the listing as a 50000-FW model, which is incorrect. It’s a 75000 Slim. You can see it in the pictures. On that alone I could probably make a fuss.
On the other hand, I’d send it back, and some other schlub would receive it and not know if you use it horizontally that it will eff shit up. I’ll take the bullet for the next guy I think.
One aside, while the geometry on my Sony Trinitron is all effed up atm, it really looks amazing to play these games on a TV. Fricking composite still looks awesome.
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I couldn’t resist and picked up a SCPH 70002 slim (the model that still has the MIPS R3000 on board) I saw going fairly cheaply.
I’ve wanted to own one of these because these really are the perfected versions of the PS2. I’m hopeful one day we’ll get a full ODE and I can retire my PS1 and have a single system for both, I’ve also got a soft spot for the bilinear texture filtering option on PS2.
In the meantime my plan once it arrives is to soft mod it in a couple of ways:
- Install Mechapwn to make PS2 and PS1 games region free.
- Install ps1vmodeneg as the 70002 has a clock oscillator you can reset via software to make sure you can generate a true NTSC video signal for PS1 games (only an issue for PAL territories wanting to play NTSC games).
I’m on the fence about installing a chip, because honestly I don’t think you need to anymore these days. I’m also not going to bother with OPL because without the HDD bay the results are too variable to be a viable experience for me.
EDIT For any PAL and ASIA models unfortunately there are additional bios checks that more or less make mechapwn useless on the 7000x models. Guess I am installing a chip!
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I have a SCPH-70003 not sure how that compares? I know it can be modded to add a hard drive if you don’t mind it dangling off awkwardly. I’ve not done it because…
Access speeds and loading times are good over SMB network share. I don’t have any complaints about it since switching from USB.
I don’t think a chip is required these days. Mine was fitted back in the day to play import Katamari Damacy but I only use it today for booting into uLaunchELF file manager to transfer saves.
I have a SCPH-70003 not sure how that compares?
It’s the exact same model, the last number is the region.
Access speeds and loading times are good over SMB network share. I don’t have any complaints about it since switching from USB.
It’s been years since I tried it, I might set it back up to see how it has improved it was pretty shoddy when Iast tried.
I don’t think a chip is required these days.
The only reason was PS1 games, because without a chip or swap trick you couldn’t get the PS2 to boot out of region or backup PS1 games via its native BC mode, but as I said in my earlier post there is an easy home-brew solution to that now.