Published , by Shack Staff
Published , by Shack Staff
There have been a lot of PlayStation consoles since Sony released its first entry in the bloodline back in the early 90s. Since then, players have flocked to the systems and enjoyed countless hours of games across a variety of genres. Lots of people have grown up with one in their household and have since become life-long fans of the PlayStation. But there will always be a favorite among the many generations. Let’s chat about our favorite PlayStation consoles and the sweet memories they conjure up.
I'm always going to have the PlayStation 2 as my favorite console, if only because it helped introduce me to the Kingdom Hearts series. I don't know where the franchise is now, where the story's going, or anything, but I'll always treasure my time with this series. And while it's jumped across different platforms, its best days will always be on Sony's PS2. Even once Kingdom Hearts 2 wrapped up, things were still relatively on the rails.
So here’s some lore about TJ Denzer. I’ve always loved Guilty Gear since the first game in 1998 on PS1. It’s one of my favorite games and where the fires of my obsession with that series began, but it was on PS2 where the spark of passion became a roaring flame. Guilty Gear X2 came to the PS2 in 2002 and it is, in many ways, still what I think of as one of the most iconic moments in Guilty Gear history. That game is amazing and I played it for hundreds of hours, dabbling in every character, earning all of their Story Mode endings, challenging my friends, and jamming to the music. I loved this game so much I burnt CDs of its soundtrack so I could listen to my favorite songs from it in my car. I still use those tracks in my Ranked matches in Guilty Gear Strive today.
Then there’s the fact that the PS2 was just a great place for a lot of my favorite games of the time. Silent Hill 2, Resident Evil 4, Tales of the Abyss, Suikoden 4, Tekken 4, the Onimusha games, and so much more all found their way to the PS2, and I could still play all of my favorite PS1 games (like OG Guilty Gear when I felt the itch)!
There’s so much I love about the PS2 era of PlayStation, but it will always hold a treasured place in my heart as my Guilty Gear X2 machine.
The PlayStation console that I have the most hours played on also happens to be my favorite one of all time. PS2 shook up the video game industry with excellent technology, and some amazing video games released on the system. The most important title that had me playing PS2 every day was GTA 3.
I was in college during the PlayStation 2 era, and didn’t have a lot of money in those days. My housemates and I actually purchased a PS2 for our house pooling together money. In fact, our PS2 funds came from a house-wide effort to sell bottled water off of our front porch during Ann Arbor’s Art Fair event. We made enough cash to buy multiple kegs and a PS2 by reselling bottled water we bought in bulk from Meijer to boomers and yuppies. Truly the stuff of legend.
I’m going PS3 because that was the most influential console for me as I was just dipping my toes into the gaming world as a career. Making the jump from SOCOM 2 on PS2 to Modern Warfare and Battlefield 3 on PS3 was crazy. A whole different world. I know those jumps have occurred with other platforms and other eras, but I wasn’t really knee deep in the gaming world when those happened. I was here for this one, and it had a profound impact on my love of shooters specifically.
I never had a PlayStation 2. I went from gaming on the Nintendo 64 and PlayStation 1 directly into the OG Xbox territory. I was a fierce supporter of it whenever PS2 versus Xbox conversations cropped up in the school yard. However, some of my fondest memories belong to the little powerhouse that is the PS One.
I’m not talking about the big rectangle, I had the cute thing with the rounded edges. I remember playing Driver on that and getting stuck for days in the damn tutorial mission. I went out and purchased Worms World Party on Boxing Day, making progress in Die Hard games and asking mum if I could buy a light gun. I even went and hired out the OG Grand Theft Auto from Blockbuster.
God bless my mum, because I even remember begging her to take me to K-Mart to buy a memory card because I couldn’t actually save my progress on anything. Man, those were the days.
I’ve owned every PlayStation console excluding the PS3, but the PSP is where my fondest memories lie. I remember opening it Christmas morning, and playing Need for Speed with my brother for hours on end. My family took a vacation to Florida, and I watched Family Guy on the plane on my PSP. It was the first gaming system I used to watch TV and movies. It also had a sleek design, a cool UI, and wicked looking mini discs. We should be on like the PSP 4 or 5 by now. I wish Sony would bring it back.
What is my favorite PlayStation console? I never was a PlayStation kid growing up as if that shocks anyone with me being the host of the Stevetendo Show. That being said, I think I will have to go with the PlayStation 1 as my answer for this question. I got a PS1 very late in the lifespan of the system for my birthday and I had a fun time with it. I loved playing the Crash Bandicoot Trilogy, Mega Man games, and Rugrats. I almost forgot that I had the Mortal Kombat Trilogy and I played the hell out of it. So much so that I had an old, very small TV with the PS1 hooked up just to play Mortal Kombat. My answer for this question is the PlayStation 1.
There you have it, those are the Shack staff’s favorite PlayStation consoles. Do you have one that you think of fondly or do you love all your iterations of the PlayStation equally? Please join us in the comment thread below!