Playstation 30th Anniversary

[telekill]

I've been with the Playstation brand since Christmas 1995... essentially from the start for N. America, and I thought it would be neat to have a Playstation appreciation thread, celebrating 30 years of the brand. We can get a discussion going on what are favorite Playstation era was, which games come to mind when thinking of each system, and where we think the platform is headed. While I'm going to be starting with PS1, this thread is for all Playstation systems across the 30 years, so dive into the conversation however you want.



Before the PS1 released, I was a Sega kid and looking forward to seeing what the Saturn had to offer. When the E3 editions of GamePro, EGM and other gaming magazines came out for their launch years, I read every detail for both systems probably a dozen times.

I looked at what each system offered in terms of games but also price, and I was only 14 years old at the time. I had no job to speak of and I had no reason to believe that I would be given one for the upcoming Christmas season.  Sony announced the Playstation would be a hundred bucks cheaper than the Sega Saturn, at the $299.99 mark and that caught my attention first.

Then I saw the games and accessories coming to the system. I thought the controller looked much better than the Saturn's. Then the memory cards looked like a fun piece of tech to own. Frankly, I wish Playstation still used memory cards like that. The game that really made me turn from Sega though... was Oddworld. Sure, they showed a CG video of the game followed by gameplay, but the graphcis at the time blew my mind. Then adding Wipeout, Ridge Racer, Destruction Derby and quite a few others they showed... and there was no way I was getting a Saturn.

Other notable games:
 - Dino Crisis 1 & 2
 - Resident Evil series
 - Tomb Raider series
 - Need for Speed series
 - Twisted Metal 2

[kamikazekeeg]

Fun note for PS5 folks that haven't found out already, but there's a limited time option that they just added that lets you tweak the theme abit so you can have a kinda goofy banner, but also audio from all era's of Playstation as your startup and menu.  Might just stick with PS1, but PS2 is also a possibility for me.  I really hope they change their mind on it being limited, it should be a permanent option.

As for my history, I didn't own a PS1, but I played it at a buddies house, the game I remember most there being Final Fantasy 7 as we played through that together.  I mostly played PS1 at a local card shop who had one so I would hang out there and play some of my favorite games on the system like Twisted Metal 2, Tekken 3, Crash Bandicoot, etc...

I went in proper with Sony on PS2, as I did eventually get an Xbox, but that was mostly just for Halo,  so I played most games of that era on PS2 and stuck with it with an original that I got for my Birthday and then bought myself a slim later on as I didn't need the HDD option for anything that I remember.

After that, I skipped PS3, went 360 that era, and didn't get a PS3 till sometime before the PS4 came out as family grabbed me a slim on the cheap and while there weren't a lot of games I was interested in, there were a few decent ones.

For PS4 I came back and got back into things for Sony, stuck through that, though I don't remember exactly when I got a PS4, maybe a couple years after it came out I think...It was probably a couple years before the Pro came out as I upgraded to that at the time.

And I'm here for PS5, enjoying certain games for sure, though not as much as in the past, but a lot of that is also because I'm a PC gamer primarily, meaning I mostly just go to console gaming for when very specific exclusives come out or I feel like it's a game that doesn't matter if I get it on PC or not, like most retro collection releases I tend to just buy for Switch or PS5 now.

[kashell]

Fun note for PS5 folks that haven't found out already, but there's a limited time option that they just added that lets you tweak the theme abit so you can have a kinda goofy banner, but also audio from all era's of Playstation as your startup and menu.  Might just stick with PS1, but PS2 is also a possibility for me.  I really hope they change their mind on it being limited, it should be a permanent option.

Thanks for the tip! I'm using the PS2 option since it's my favorite console of all time.

[telekill]

When Sony announced PS2 would play all my PS1 games, continuing with the brand was a no brainer. Most of what I was excited for didn't release until the following year (2001) so I waited until early that year to pick one up. Regardless of waiting the six months, the system was still insanely difficult to find but I managed.

The first game I got for it that really excited me was Onimusha. Absolutely incredible game for the time. I found that games like Midnight Club and Smugglers Run were also a lot of fun.

One of my favorite games of the generation was Resident Evil Outbreak. It was the first online multiplayer Resident Evil game and it was a blast. Capcom had also announced it would support the PS2's HDD add on so to play it at its best, I picked up the HDD, the network adapter and a USB keyboard to communicate with the other players. To this day, it was the only game I ever used the HDD for.

Other notable favorite games:
 - Prince of Persia SoT
 - God of War
 - ICO
 - Max Payne
 - GTA Vice City
 - Amplitude