Rumors and control issues for Play Station

Good,thanks for clearing that up for me.Their's a big difference in price between ps2-129.00 and ps3-499.00.And like you said not that much difference in quality,so even if I don't like it after I buy it I haven't put that much money into it.And true I'll take game play over graphics any day.Part of my problem with pc is that I can't play a lot of the window 98's with the xp without some problem.It seems like they took their time back then and came out with some really great games,not a lot of short cuts.I have games that I'm still playing even after 4 or 5 years.Who do you think is one of the better game review sites on the web if your able to list them?

I would say that sounds like a good idea. Not to mention the PS3 is only about 6 months into its 10 year lifespan, so there's plenty of time to pick one up later.

Console games in general, tend to be higher quality than PC games, largely by necessity. This may start changing now that every console comes with a HDD, but once they start pressing game discs, that's it. You can't issue some little patch to fix problems like you can with PC games, so they tend to be tested much more extensively. Which isn't to say there are still some horrible games for consoles with show stopper bugs, it's just there's less of this, "We can fix that later," mentality. I've run into a few annoying bugs in the GameCube version of the Prince of Persia titles, such as running across a wall to a platform, only to fall right through the platform to my death. Of course that happened when I got lost in a section of the game, and was running around in circles, so most people may never see it.

As for game review sites... Some may call me cynical, but given how big of a business gaming has become the past few years, and given the highly subjective nature to game reviews, I don't trust any game review sites. At least not on their own. I will usually check both IGN and GameSpot at the very least, and if the review scores seem pretty similar, I assume that it's a fair assessment of the game. But there are times where GameSpot or IGN will give a wildly different rating to a game, or games from a specific publisher, so there's likely some under the table deals going on. There are also sites like Somethingawful which is largely user submitted reviews of games.

I also remembered I forgot to mention Radiata Stories in my game list... It's kind of a nice light hearted RPG that can make for a refreshing change from the usual. Control system is a little sloppy, particularly for a Square-Enix game. There's also Star Ocean 3: Til The End of Time. It has some issues later on in the game when you start rapidly picking up characters for your party, but it's still pretty fun. One final thing... You may want to skip Final Fantasy X-2... It's not a bad game, it's just that it will annoy the crap out of you if you liked Final Fantasy X. It's the first ever direct sequel to a FF game, but it doesn't do justice to the masterpiece that was FFX. It's mostly just a large collection of mini-games and side quests. The maybe 10 hour story that is a sequel to FFX absolutely destroys almost everything good about FFX. The US version also lacks a 10 minute or so video that fills a lot of the gap between the end of FFX and the beginning of FFX-2.

I agree with you.You have to take the reviews with a grain of salt.I've read some reviews of games that were played out like they were the best thing,only to be totally dissapointed.Usually forums like this one are a good place to get answers.RPG DOT Forums is pretty good for help also.I've already checked the store for some of the games you mentioned,I think I ran across 5 or 6 of the ones you listed all under 20 dollars.So if you think of more let me know I'm writing them all down.Anyway,let me say thank you for all your help and exta input,because the people at the stores don't seem to have the time to tell you much,thank Innos for sites like this.PS Neverwinter Nights kind of got flaky after Hordes of the Underdark

I'm about 8 hours or so into Grandia II... Not the greatest game in the world, but I've seen worse. I think the synopsis of the review I read was pretty accurate. It's not a bad game so long as you haven't let FFX set the bar too high on your expectations.

Can't remember if I mentioned this, but if you like strategy RPGs, Stella Dues is a pretty good game. Haven't gotten around to playing either of them yet, but the two Disgaea games are supposed to be quite good as well (and they're also strategy RPGs). There's also Final Fantasy Tactics for the PSX, which a lot of people love. I'm holding out for the PSP remake myself.

You can get all the NES and SNES Final Fantasy titles remade for the PSX off Ebay, and even the Chrono Trigger game. All of them except 3 anyway, that one is only on the Nintendo DS in english.

Don't think I mentioned Devil May Cry last time... First one is really short, like not even 5 hours, but it's a pretty good hack n' slash sort of game. Second one I kind of lost interest in a few levels in, but it was clear they were paying attention to the Prince of Persia titles when they made it.

Beyond Good and Evil isn't bad, just kind of short.

Dragon Quest VIII is pretty good, though a tad corny at times. Reminds me of playing Dragon Warrior on the NES, which was basically a text adventure game with some limited graphics and animations.

A lot of people like Dark Cloud 2, I just couldn't get into it. It was made by the same company that did Rogue Galaxy, and there are a lot of similar elements to it.

If you like the horror survival sort of games, or just killing lots of zombies, you can't go wrong with any of the Resident Evil titles.

I haven't gotten around to playing any of them, but the Suikoden series has a pretty good following. My understanding is that you don't need to have played any of the previous games to understand the later ones, but it helps explain some of the more subtle nuances of the plot.

Another one I haven't played yet is Valkyrie Profile 2. Instead of the usual Japanese or Greek mythology styled plot, this one uses Norse mythology. I hear many good things about it.

The Ateleir Iris series is supposed to be not too bad. On my list of games to play some day.

A Twisted Metal game can never go wrong either. Sometimes it's nice to have a simple mindless game where the goal is to just blow up anything that moves. And how can you not love the psychotic ice cream truck? Most of these were for the PSX, but I think there was at least one for the PS2.

If you like RTS games like StarCraft (it's sequel will probably be one of the few new PC games I buy) and WarCraft, Grim Grimoire is supposed to be pretty good.

A lot of people seem to like the Persona series, but they just don't really strike my fancy.

The Ratchet and Clank series were supposed to be pretty good. Got most of the way through the first one before kind of losing interest, and it's a decent platformer game, with lots of light humor like the Jak and Daxter series.

Retro gaming has also been a big thing lately. Sega and Atari in particular have been releasing compilations of a lot of their back catalog. So if you're in the mood to play all the old Genesis/MegaDrive Sonic games, you can do that. I think all the NES and maybe SNES Mega Man games were released on a single disc as well.

The great thing about most of these games, is that they're a few years old, so they're cheap. So between this list and the one I gave you before, you should have most of your free time for the next year accounted for, maybe more. And best of all, you'll probably still have money left over from that $1,000 you were willing to spend on a new gaming computer.

And I'm glad to have been able to help, as well as point out an alternative you hadn't considered. Good to finally have some kind of use for this knowledge, which normally just sits around in my head doing nothing.

I feel like I opened Pandoras Box but in a good way of course.You lost me with the abbreviations - NES SNES .I got a real late start in the gaming world so I'm like way behind everyone else,which is good because like you said all the games are so much cheaper being 2-5 years old now.Also I live about 40 miles one way to the nearest game store so I have to do my homework at home before I venture out.That's why all of this is such a great help to me.Yes I play tons of strategy games also lots of world war 2 games.And I do like to break away from difficult games to just fun games so I can unwind.Most games I never play on a easy level.Theirs only a few I can think of that I have because they were almost impossible to beat,at least for me.With all this said I think you opened a whole new world of gaming for me.Here we go again.Thanks again.

The NES was the Nintendo Entertainment System. Released sometime in like the mid-80s I think. You can check Wikipedia if you want more detailed information. It was the first really successful home game console. A few years later, early 90s IIRC, Nintendo launched the NES' successor the Super Nintendo or SNES. This went until around 1995 when Nintendo launched the Nintendo64 or N64, which was the first game console capable of rendering 3D graphics. About the same time, Sony launched the PlayStation (PS1 or PSX -- Technically PSX refers to a specific PlayStation model, but it never really went anywhere, so everyone just calls them all PSX)... Then game the PlayStation 2, or PS2, and Nintendo's GameCube, or GC.

Sega also was involved in the game console market for a time... The first major one was the Genesis or MegaDrive as it was known in Europe. This was a direct competitor to the SNES. Then came the Sega CD system, followed fairly quickly by the Saturn... Then came the final Sega game console known as the Dreamcast.

That, in a very small nutshell is the history of the console gaming world from about the mid to late 80s to present day. You can find far more detailed info on Wikipedia if you're interested.

There were a lot of good games for those systems as well, and you can pick them up off ebay for pretty cheap. Anyway...

Don't forget that you can order games online via Amazon or EBGames/GameStop. Even most of the bigbox retailers (Target, Best Buy, CompUSA, etc) will ship games to you. EBGames/GameStop are kind of nice because they also sell used games, but they no longer guarantee anything more than a paper sleeve with the game disc in it. For the most part, I've had good luck buying used games. Think all but 2 have worked flawlessly. There's also ebay, but you want to be careful to check that the seller has a large number of positive ratings.

In any case, I think you've probably about exhausted my list of PS2 games. If you get an Xbox, be sure to check out Halo and Ninja Gaiden Black. Fable is also pretty good, though not quite as good as it might seem from reviews. On the GameCube/Wii front, all Zelda and Metroid titles are musts. Tales of Symphonia is definitely worth a look. Eternal Darkness was another rare gem. Most of the rest were cross platform titles, and I likely already mentioned them for the PS2.

Well,they have a patch that was sent to fix a problem with Warhawk and Madden 08 online play.I have both games so i know hands on about it.It works!

driven2excell

The PS3 has way better graphics and better gameplay,as well as having the "BIG " title games only for the PS3(UNREAL TOURNAMENT 3,HAZE,ASSASINS CREED,UNCHARTED:DRAKE'S FORTUNE,etc.) Its worth the money,but if you wait till the upcoming holidays there are rumors that there will be a 40 GB PS3 coming for $399.00.

driven2excell

Thanks for the input,I did check that out,especially for upcoming games,but being a first timer in the console world I did not want to take a chance at investing that amount of money and end up not liking it,which I can say now is not the case.I'm in no big hurry at this time.Thanks

Sorry, I did not understand your reply that you posted.If I'm not using this forum in a correct manner please let me know. Thanks

I think that person was the only one who understood the point of that post... And maybe they didn't either, who knows. I just know I was ignoring it as jibbering nonsense, figured others were doing the same.