I was a huge PS1 fan back in the day so when the first news about the PS2 came out I devoured it all. I think by 2000 between myself and my two brothers we had a PC, N64, PS1 and Dreamcast in our house and whilst we still enjoyed playing all these we were still itching for the next big thing!
I recall reading magazines talking about how powerful it was going to be and how the emotion engine was going to blow the Dreamcast out of the water. I think there was a quote from George Lucas in one magazine saying how he thought the PS2 would be "approaching photo realism" - yeah, good call on that one George!
Like many watching the MGS2 E3 trailer was probably the moment where my brain decided that I absolutely had to get one of these machines. I think I must have downloaded a shitty version of it from the internet at the time, but eventually bought a magazine that came with a VHS (!!) of it in higher quality as well - that thing got watched a lot!
My first actual hands on experience of one was when a teacher at school managed to bag one on release and actually brought it in for people to look at - managed to have a cheeky go on SSX and I remember thinking it looked fantastic. Given how dodgy our school was (teen pregnancy, drugs, gypsy's, thieving kids, crusty jugglers - we had the lot!) it was suprising that the teachers PS2 was not actually robbed the instant he brought it onto the premises
I can't remember exactly when I got my PS2, but it was around the time that GT3 A-spec was released as it was a pack in version that came with it - I still remember the red box that it came in and being unbelievably excited about getting it home. I actually traded in our old PS1 and loads of games in order to get the PS2 cheaper - well I say "our" PS1, it actually belonged to both of my brothers but I figured that given the PS2 was backwards compatible so they weren't actually losing anything in the deal...
GT3 looked great but I remember being somewhat disappointed with the console at first, it was mainly used as a DVD player for a while as I still had loads of great games on Dreamcast to get through in the summer of 2001 (most prominently Skies of Arcadia
) but the big moment that really solidified the greatness of the PS2 for me came with the release of GTA3 that October. I was utterly blown away by how amazing GTA3 was, the level of freedom the player had, the slick presentation, and the fantastic soundtrack and radio stations (gotta love that Chatterbox!). In the year between the release of GTA3 and Vice City I think there must have only been a handful of days where I didn't load it up and have a blast around Liberty City, it completely absorbed me like few games have and It's still my favourite GTA game to this day.
Following that there were so many other fantastic games I experienced via PS2: Jak and Daxter, MGS2 & 3, Ico, Vice City, San Andreas, Burnout, Final Fantasy X & XII, Kingdom Hearts, God of War, I could go on for ages.
It was a fantastic machine, hats of to Sony!
