Funeral for a Friend

I bought my PS2 on launch day. It was the first video game system that I saved up and bought by myself. Before then all of my systems were Christmas gifts or hand me downs.

Last night I went to play some God of War 2. I toss the disc in my old fatboy PS2 and I notice it is making a bit more noise than usual. No big deal, right? I've been riding the PS2 hard the past few weeks, been checking out the Gamestop B2G1 free sales on used PS2 stuff and racking up a bunch of disc only classics. I even bought a brand new dualshock 2 controller because my old Mad Catz one finally took a dump on me after 5 or 6 years.

Well, the game loads, with no issues, and I start just fine. While fighting the first mobs I notice a bit of lag. No big deal, I've dealt with lag in video games for 20 years. I get to the first save point and try to save. The true grinding begins. I let it run for about 4 minutes and nothing. Nothing at all, except it sounds like it is eating my disc, not saving, nothing on the screen is doing anything.

I reset.

I start again and get to the first boss fight with the statue, then it happens. Square, Square, and finally Square for the killing blow. I shove my blades deep into the eye of that beast and when the scene switches...I get the "You are Dead" screen. I am dead serious.

I don't reset, but instead swap games, Kingdom Hearts, which I just finished. Nothing. 5 minutes or so and it recognizes the disc, but won't read it. I toss a PS1 game in, nothing, some random blue disc, all the same. My PS2 predicted its own death!

I took it apart, for the first time, busting that sweet seal that said she had never been touched. It wasn't nasty inside, but I decided to clean it and adjust the lens. I couldn't get it to read anything. At around midnight on the morning of Wednesday, May 9, 2012, my PS2 was declared dead, after a long surgery.

While I was at work, my wife did the legwork and found me a brand new PS2 Slim, at my local Best Buy (on clearance !!!). I got it on the condition that I purchase 3 things for her, Mario Party 9, and Fifty Shades of Grey (some book she likes), and frozen yogurt. This is the strange part of the story, my Best Buy sucks! Their game selection isn't very good, and their movie selection isn't very good either, but they had a PS2. It must have been destiny.

When I got home from work, I put all the screws back in her. I wiped the thin layer of dust from the top and unplugged the cord from the wall and TV. I put her in the trunk of my car and went to my local Best Buy, where I turned her in for recycling. Threw the cords in the box at the front, and took her to Jonathan, the employee at the customer service counter. He remarked on how he hadn't seen one of those for a while, and we joked about how those archaic devices gave s so much enjoyment over the years.

After I said my goodbye, I walked back to the PS2 section, and picked up my brand new Slim PS2 with Toy Story for about $58. It was the last one in stock. Which is a great deal, compared to anything I could find used. I paid for that and Mario Party, and headed to Target to buy some books, the to Tropical Moon to get some yogurt.

Sony was a pain to deal with in getting my grandmother's dead from the box PS3 repaired, but they are forgiven now. I got 12 years of use and abuse out of my PS2 and bought another to replace it.

Now I need some new games.

[quote name='burritoman']and Fifty Shades of Grey (some book she likes),
[/QUOTE]

All due sympathy to your recently deceased friend, but this is the most interesting part of your post. Do yourself a favor and read a synposis of the book.

The PS2 was the best console since the 16-bit era. The hardware wasn't perfect, but it was incredibly well-designed.

well she went out with a bag & you can definitely say you got your money's worth. This is the main argument I've had with people who don't game but say it's a waste of money to spend $250-$400 on a gaming system with $50-$60 waste of money games. But then they'll spend $500 + on a Ipad or another device & place angry birds on some other games that can't even hold a AAA PS3 titles case.

My condolences but I thought this was going to be about the band.

[quote name='willardhaven']The PS2 was the best console since the 16-bit era. The hardware wasn't perfect, but it was incredibly well-designed.[/QUOTE]

What was great about the design? It was notorious for disc read errors.

[quote name='J7.']What was great about the design? It was notorious for disc read errors.[/QUOTE]

it was slight voltage errors. Open it up, tweak the cog and good again. 360 is pure hardware failure. This is just misaligned voltage. I rather have something fixable by normal people then something that gets sent back to India.

12 years of service? That's like 40 Xbox 360s. No such thing as a working launch model.

[quote name='Paco']it was slight voltage errors. Open it up, tweak the cog and good again. 360 is pure hardware failure. This is just misaligned voltage. I rather have something fixable by normal people then something that gets sent back to India.

12 years of service? That's like 40 Xbox 360s. No such thing as a working launch model.

[/QUOTE]

Never heard about the voltage errors, heard about dirty or failing lasers though as well as blue disc problems. Most people cannot fix it nor care to take it apart and fix it. If the system fails, the system still has failed regardless of why. If we're talking from 16 bit era up to now, I wouldn't put PS2 in 2nd place for hardware. PS1 would be ahead of it and N64 and GC tied with PS2.

[quote name='J7.']Never heard about the voltage errors, heard about dirty or failing lasers though as well as blue disc problems. Most people cannot fix it nor care to take it apart and fix it. If the system fails, the system still has failed regardless of why. If we're talking from 16 bit era up to now, I wouldn't put PS2 in 2nd place for hardware. PS1 would be ahead of it and N64 and GC tied with PS2.[/QUOTE]

The PSX was far more faulty than the PS2. I had to put that piece of crap on its side to work. I remember back in 2001 telling my friends my PSX still worked great. It refused to boot five times in a row. It worked when I put it on its side and he laughed and said "That's classic"

Still lasted longer than any current gen system at least.

[quote name='m6oo']All due sympathy to your recently deceased friend, but this is the most interesting part of your post. Do yourself a favor and read a synposis of the book.[/QUOTE]

OR even better; look up where the story came from and what fictional characters it was based off of. :lol:

[quote name='J7.']What was great about the design? It was notorious for disc read errors.[/QUOTE]

I meant all the improvements to the design in terms of what it did and how it looked. The console looked cool, had a motorized disc tray (which made it seem like a real piece of technology), the controller was fully analog, plus it played DVDs. I know it was the first DVD player a lot of people had (including me).

[quote name='Paco']The PSX was far more faulty than the PS2. I had to put that piece of crap on its side to work. I remember back in 2001 telling my friends my PSX still worked great. It refused to boot five times in a row. It worked when I put it on its side and he laughed and said "That's classic"

Still lasted longer than any current gen system at least.[/QUOTE]

I'd still say that the PS2 had rather shitty hardware. My PS3 has lasted longer than the PS2 (and, for that matter, the PSX, too. Although the original Xbox with Thompson drives were pieces of shit as well.)

It has a pretty amazing game library, though.

Still got my launch ps2. Man, I beat this shit up! Countless hours into it and I even ed it up when I was break dancing and got in the way. That scared the shit out of me but it's all good still.