PS2 Appreciation Thread | The Greatest Sequel Ever Made

I think that my ps2 slim died yesterday. The unit power up (green light), but no image or sound and I can’t turn off, only pulling the plug. I never seen that defect before. Help?

What version slim? Any modifications?

Try a different video cable or adjusting the cable in the back of the system. The PS2 Slim’s AV port is pretty flimsy.

Last night we played some 3-player (one absentee regular) Downhill Domination. So good.

I’m going to see if I can get enough engaging footage captured to do a “Downhill Domination VS Excite Truck” retrospective of some kind.

How’s the PS2 version of Half-Life? Never played it before and want to try a console port.

I own it on Mac, but the control mapping feels all wrong for analogue sticks. Is the PS2 version any better?

I really liked it back in the day. Load times and framerate are worse than playing on a modern PC but of course playing with a controller is nice and it has some unique features like the HL Decay co-op campaign.

Also it’s quite thoroughly covered by @Dark1x here:

Do load times improve any if you play it from USB?

USB is the worst option overall, and by far the best option is to play from internal HDD. I’m not sure how much of an improvement is for this game in particular, but generally every game load faster from HDD compared to disc/USB/network.

I only have a slim so I can only use USB or Disc. I find USB removes laser seeking times compared to Disc. Bit I can imagine a PS2 with HDD is the much better.

On the Dreamcast Half-Life has crazy amounts of seeking and disc access, which ccanbe negated by using a version with specially reordered file structure.

The loading in the DC version is unbearable.

I have it on disc and I find it not too bad, certainly a massive improvement over the DC one, just if you go back and forth between a lot doorway it can be irritating.

I haven’t tried it via OPL any time in recent memory so I can’t comment on that.

1 Like

It’s good. It’s the only version I’ve played, but I did play it to completion and loved it about a decade ago. Controls fine and the framerate is pretty smooth as I recall.

Check out that DF vid above. It compares quite favorably in it.

1 Like

My PS2 stopped reading discs a while ago and after several attempts I’ve given up on trying to repair the laser. Any recommendations on the best place to buy a reliable replacement? Trusted sellers on eBay? The local search hasn’t been working out and it’s a crapshoot anyway.

Buy another system and swap it yourself. I see PS2 systems regularly in pawn shops for $20

Make sure it is exactly the same revision of PS2 though!

It’s amazing how there’s still a new stock of PS2 games for reasonable prices out there. It eases the blow of missing this platform in its heydey.

I’m not fussed with new and I’ve been picking up CIB hard-to-find used PS2 games from reputable business sellers on eBay for less than £3 delivered. Good times.

Downhill Domination was my most recent purchase.

Now is definitely the time to scoop up PS2 games for cheap. I have a sizable wishlist that I plan to chip away at next year. I want to avoid the problem I’m facing with the last few PS1 games I’d like in my collection.

It’s the calm before the storm. I have the feeling PS2 game prices are going to start creeping up over the next 5 years. Kids who grew up on the PS2 are going to be coming into that disposable income time to recapture my youth phase any minute now.

1 Like

Hi.

(I was a teen in the PS2 days does that count?)

I haven’t cleaned those but two of the Onimusha games were still sealed which was great. Hopefully the Japanese Switch copy of the re-release shows up before the game actually comes out here.

2 Likes

maaaaaaaan…this is the only system left vexing me

ive had the disc drive go out on 2 phat PS2’s (which is a shame, since i’ve still got a network adapter & HDD loader setup about), inherited 2 slims but 1 went missing with this move, and the 1 hooked up now works but gets some kind of video interference from either cable it uses. i know it’s not hard to find this hardware but stillllll

*edit: wait, come to think of it, i’m seeing said interference before even turning the system on. this is both with a SCART and a component cable…any idea what’s going on here?