PlayStation/PSone thread

zenarcadian

Howdy, longtime lurker, first-time poster here.

Just plucking up the courage to kickoff a general PSone love thread and ascertain the following for the grey box and its dinky successor, as well as the following:

- Official UK PlayStation Magazine
- Official PlayStation Magazine - Ireland
- PocketStation and third-party expanded memory cards
- 2D shmups in PAL format/casing
- Midas, Phoenix, etc. latter-day budget titles
- The case for 1998's winter lineup being among the greatest in gaming history
- The Tombi series

What say you, retro geeks?

Mr.Saturn

To this day, it astounds me just how much Sony got right with the original Playstation, and perhaps more impressing, how they built upon that momentum with the PS2.

zenarcadian

Mr.Saturn wrote: »

To this day, it astounds me just how much Sony got right with the original Playstation, and perhaps more impressing, how they built upon that momentum with the PS2.

A couple of unfulfilled promises (broadband, face-scanning, etc.) and a bad case of sequelitis, but you can't argue with the success of it.

I remember the first time seeing this on launch week in my uncles house!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y1qQlgFX70

horgan_p

I spent nearly a week doubting and second guessing myself installing an MM3 chip only to find it doesn't play imports without a boot disk.
One of the few times I want an original disk to boot in a PSX (albeit a JAP one)

Retr0gamer

Official Playstation Magazine was an absolute rag of a magazine. Terrible writing mostly (they tried a few times to get more serious) and awful Sony bias a lot of the time but the cover discs usually had the best demos on them and it was especially great for the NET Yaroze games. The Irish Playstation Magazine was the single worst magazine I've ever read. Awful stuff. I'd rather a copy of Bunty.

Third party memory cards can go die in a fire. Had so many fail on me, the worst case was when I was on the second last stage of Tomb Raider 3.

2D shmups in PAL format are sacrilege. They had much better box art than the American games (that G Darius box art is glorious) but the fact they ran at 50 Hz just ruined them, especially since it's a genre that relies on the frame rate.

As for the line up for 1998, it wasn't just the PS1 that made it special. The PC, N64 and Saturn had absolute crackers that year. What a great year for game and I'd be hard pressed to name a year better considering it gave us the likes of Panzer Dragoon Orta, Ocarina of Time, Half Life and that's not even going into the PS1 library.

Tombi, the game so great everyone loved the demo and didn't buy the game

horgan_p

I worked in GAME at the launch.

I remeber we got in a jap unit for display and being blown away by it. The saturn couldn't compete with it at the time.
I also remember just putting on Wipeout on a rear projection big screen TV and the playstation pretty much sold itself , between the soundtrack and the trippy club type graphics.

One of very few times that the first time I saw a piece of hardware in action it made me stop dead and be impressed.

Retr0gamer

AS Mr. Saturn said it managed to get everything right. Focusing on 3D instead of 2D was really forward thinking (3D was kind of seen as a fad back then). But even still it was the little stuff like having controllers that drew a lot of power meaning peripherals and add ons didn't need batteries. The N64 introduced rumble first but the dual shock didn't need a seperate power supply. And the cables were super long as well. They did everything right, even in getting support and allowing developers to code in C (even if it meant a lot of games at launch that weren't in assembly were ****e). The only thing they did wrong was the terrible CD drive as in nearly all Sony products. It really stands in contrast to the PS2 which was so safe and really succeeded inspite of itself on brand name alone.

The Last Bandit

Retr0gamer wrote: »

They did everything right, even in getting support and allowing developers to code in C (even if it meant a lot of games at launch that weren't in assembly were ****e).

This was one of the major game changers. Sony invested heavily in a solid development kit created by SN Systems who they later bought.

This brought console development to the masses thru 'C' and an extensive set of libraries, whereas Sega simply gave out the Saturn assemblers and reference manuals as had always been the case with console development.

CiDeRmAn

Retro geeks....

Is he talking about us?

I mean, Retr0 sure, but the rest of us?

Retr0gamer

All the games programmed in C were absolute dirt though. Really if you weren't coding in assembly your game was running at sub 15 fps. Still it opened it up to students with the net yaroze and they did bring out solid libraries and development platforms that made it a lot easier to work with while Sega was basically, code this to the metal or it's not going to work at all... and even at that good luck. Nintendo was another disaster as well with dev kits being multi million dollar SGI workstations that cost a fortune and wer terrible to work with.

CiDeRmAn

I worked in Gamesworld, later to be Gamestop aka Evil Corp, at the time of the PS launch.
It was exciting times indeed and the fact that it was the only thing people could talk about at the time was a sad thing for the Saturn, that came out around the same time.
The launch lineup was stellar, or at least it seemed that way, with Ridge Racer and Wipeout being mind blowing, to be able to play these at home.
I still have a lot of love for my PS, though the PS2 gets far more play and the PS3 is shaping up to be every bit as diverse a games platform as it's progenitors.
Those budget publishers you mention, what people didn't realise, at least outside of these forums, is that these were often Japanese titles that seemed to fail to find a publisher elsewhere.
Now, they butchered some releases, to be sure, but the likes of those mentioned released games that would simply not have seen a release otherwise, such as Strikers 1945.

Retr0gamer

A lot of them were from the simple 1000 series in japan. Plenty of absolute cack in there but some gems as well. It lead to GDF on the PS2.

CiDeRmAn

The one thing that the PS made aassive business of was modding and piracy.
Gone some 10 years were the days of tape to tape copying of Spectrum and C64 games.
Instead we were seeing mod chips and games at markets.
That said, I also got my first taste of importing with the PS and a modchip, with Pocket Fighter followed by many more.

Retr0gamer

I never pirated on the PS1 until well after it was dead. It however was the first console I imported for. FFVII turned me into a massive weeaboo and turned me on to all the RPGs that the US and Japan was getting and we weren't. My first import was Final Fantasy Tactics and my god was it worth it. Got a swap disc for import games from the shop down the road from games exchange. Never realised until much later it could play back ups

CiDeRmAn

Tekken 3 and MGS, the delay in them being translated over to the EU market was appalling, and inevitably the sales of the games were hurt upon release as everyone who really wanted to play them already had.

zenarcadian

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Official Playstation Magazine was an absolute rag of a magazine. Terrible writing mostly (they tried a few times to get more serious) and awful Sony bias a lot of the time but the cover discs usually had the best demos on them and it was especially great for the NET Yaroze games. The Irish Playstation Magazine was the single worst magazine I've ever read. Awful stuff. I'd rather a copy of Bunty.

Third party memory cards can go die in a fire. Had so many fail on me, the worst case was when I was on the second last stage of Tomb Raider 3.

2D shmups in PAL format are sacrilege. They had much better box art than the American games (that G Darius box art is glorious) but the fact they ran at 50 Hz just ruined them, especially since it's a genre that relies on the frame rate.

As for the line up for 1998, it wasn't just the PS1 that made it special. The PC, N64 and Saturn had absolute crackers that year. What a great year for game and I'd be hard pressed to name a year better considering it gave us the likes of Panzer Dragoon Orta, Ocarina of Time, Half Life and that's not even going into the PS1 library.

Tombi, the game so great everyone loved the demo and didn't buy the game

Tend to disagree on PSM UK, was a formative experience for me to read growing up in the late nineties. OIPM was more of a look at an Irish gaming media that might have been, but didn't appreciate syndicated content where irish journos could have been employed.

Funny that - I have an 8mb deal that's still going strong 15 years later.

I agree on the slowdown but I wouldn't have had Strikers, Sonic Wings without the PAL editions.

I ****ing bought it! By that I mean, pestered my poor folks to find it somewhere!

zenarcadian

Retr0gamer wrote: »

All the games programmed in C were absolute dirt though. Really if you weren't coding in assembly your game was running at sub 15 fps. Still it opened it up to students with the net yaroze and they did bring out solid libraries and development platforms that made it a lot easier to work with while Sega was basically, code this to the metal or it's not going to work at all... and even at that good luck. Nintendo was another disaster as well with dev kits being multi million dollar SGI workstations that cost a fortune and wer terrible to work with.

I loved playing Yaroze games and following the fates of those involved. The Yaroze megadisc doing the rounds on the emulation circuit is a blast.

zenarcadian

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

I worked in Gamesworld, later to be Gamestop aka Evil Corp, at the time of the PS launch.
Those budget publishers you mention, what people didn't realise, at least outside of these forums, is that these were often Japanese titles that seemed to fail to find a publisher elsewhere.
Now, they butchered some releases, to be sure, but the likes of those mentioned released games that would simply not have seen a release otherwise, such as Strikers 1945.

I adored their rag-tag means of going about things - Chris Kamara's Street Soccer, Buttsubushi, Kotobuki GP, The Hunter and more are little gems in their own right. :-)

CiDeRmAn

The Official Irish PlayStation Mag was published out of the basement of Gamesworld on Liffey St, where Gamesworld is now.
True story....

Retr0gamer

zenarcadian wrote: »

Tend to disagree on PSM UK, was a formative experience for me to read growing up in the late nineties.

It might have been formative but it didn't mean it wasn't a load of rubbish. They were very childish and they put a lot of focus on the THQ and Wrestling game rubbish to appeal to that crowd. The writing was pretty terrible as well.

zenarcadian

Retr0gamer wrote: »

It might have been formative but it didn't mean it wasn't a load of rubbish. They were very childish and they put a lot of focus on the THQ and Wrestling game rubbish to appeal to that crowd. The writing was pretty terrible as well.

After 1999, yes, absolutely. The PS2 announcement pretty much doomed the PS1 to a younger audience of casual gamers and console-inheritors. However, its print run from 1995-1998 were among the most cerebrally-written, incisive, intelligent games mags ever put together.

zenarcadian

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

The Official Irish PlayStation Mag was published out of the basement of Gamesworld on Liffey St, where Gamesworld is now.
True story....

T.P. Media, I believe? A few of its writers went on to stock tech writing positions elsewhere in Irish media.

CiDeRmAn

I was once told just look who has taken double page Adverts in a given magazine, and then be sure they have gotten a very forgiving review.

But, back in the day, I pretty much read everything and, working in Gamesworld, got to play everything, Yay!

I can recall Driver stopped the shop when a rep brought it in. Everyone driving around the Underground carpark, figuring with some time at home they'd get past it.... the fools!
Also, the mic drop that was Gran Turismo, wow...

zenarcadian

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

I was once told just look who has taken double page Adverts in a given magazine, and then be sure they have gotten a very forgiving review.

But, back in the day, I pretty much read everything and, working in Gamesworld, got to play everything, Yay!

I can recall Driver stopped the shop when a rep brought it in. Everyone driving around the Underground carpark, figuring with some time at home they'd get past it.... the fools!
Also, the mic drop that was Gran Turismo, wow...

That's the way in every stream of media, it's down to the journalist to be honest. I remember the kerfuffle when Star Wars Episode 1 got 9/10 in 1999, and the journo involved had been treated to a trip to the set and such in exchange for a favourable review. It was later re-reviewed after the truth outed and revised down to a 6/10.

Retr0gamer

zenarcadian wrote: »

After 1999, yes, absolutely. The PS2 announcement pretty much doomed the PS1 to a younger audience of casual gamers and console-inheritors. However, its print run from 1995-1998 were among the most cerebrally-written, incisive, intelligent games mags ever put together.

It might just be nostalgia there but I remember it being very juvenile and far behind the other magazines of the day and the american ones. PS1 format magazines were pretty awful for the most part back then with the multiformat ones being were the better games journalism was. It might have been one of the better PS1 mags but that's not saying much.

The Irish one though was so bad. The letters section was painful.

Retr0gamer

zenarcadian wrote: »

That's the way in every stream of media, it's down to the journalist to be honest. I remember the kerfuffle when Star Wars Episode 1 got 9/10 in 1999, and the journo involved had been treated to a trip to the set and such in exchange for a favourable review. It was later re-reviewed after the truth outed and revised down to a 6/10.

Happened a lot back in the day. 10/10 reviews for the likes of Rise of the Robots in Amiga Format, Driv3r getting similar scores and there was also the case of the UK exclusive review of Manhunt getting taken off PS Max (I think) since they gave it a 2/10 and then going to OPSM where it got a 9 or 10.

CiDeRmAn

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

I can recall Driver stopped the shop when a rep brought it in. Everyone driving around the Underground carpark, figuring with some time at home they'd get past it.... the fools!

please elaborate !

Retr0gamer

I think he is talking about the next to impossible tutorial stage in driver that about 0.99% of the population could beat.

CiDeRmAn

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I think he is talking about the next to impossible tutorial stage in driver that about 0.99% of the population could beat.

That's the one.
Reflections bookended the game with a pair of just stupid hard levels.
The tutorial was ridiculously hard and the last level made the tutorial seem like a Kirby level, just impossible.

I never played the second one but picked up the third one very early from Gamestop, and then returned the broken piece of crap. They asked why, I told them and then they told me of the shelves and shelves they had brought in of the thing to sell based on the Promo and advertising material.
I think it wound up being one of the most returned games of the lot.

zenarcadian

Retr0gamer wrote: »

It might just be nostalgia there but I remember it being very juvenile and far behind the other magazines of the day and the american ones. PS1 format magazines were pretty awful for the most part back then with the multiformat ones being were the better games journalism was. It might have been one of the better PS1 mags but that's not saying much.

The Irish one though was so bad. The letters section was painful.

I remember PSM winning media awards at its brainiest/wordiest, though it went off the cliff after 1999-2001, briefly becoming a very likeable cult mag for the rest of its run until 2004.

My flatmate used to write in to OIPM. He's threatened to disown me if I ever reveal who he is. :-D

zenarcadian

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Happened a lot back in the day. 10/10 reviews for the likes of Rise of the Robots in Amiga Format, Driv3r getting similar scores and there was also the case of the UK exclusive review of Manhunt getting taken off PS Max (I think) since they gave it a 2/10 and then going to OPSM where it got a 9 or 10.

****ing Rise of the Robots, like. They tried so hard to sell that game. Driv3r was also a ridiculous situation - a thoroughly broken game with a huge PR campaign that ruined the series.

Aah, PS Max. The slightly cheaper, less satisfying one you could get midweek with pocket money.

Retr0gamer

zenarcadian wrote: »

I remember PSM winning media awards at its brainiest/wordiest, though it went off the cliff after 1999-2001, briefly becoming a very likeable cult mag for the rest of its run until 2004.

My flatmate used to write in to OIPM. He's threatened to disown me if I ever reveal who he is. :-D

It went through editors that tried to do some good things with it and then the readership dropped and they would go back to business as usual. Pity, I remember some of the official magazines like the Megadrive and Saturn ones actually being really great.

I actually feel sorry for your flatmate. Ask him if he had to sort through letters giving printing priority to the most opinionated teenager who had the best Metal Gear Solid and FF7 completion time? The writing was dreadful in that magazine but I feel it was due to very young inexperienced writers. I imagine your flatmate is a lot better now!

Retr0gamer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zafl_68PfOo

Access

I remember the whole of the summer of 1998 spending my time playing Colin McRae rally.

It was just brilliant when it came out.

Access

The Driver series was pretty cool with the release of the first one, but fell away after 2 and 3... sad in fairness... it could have been great.

CiDeRmAn

Driver Parallel Lines is surprisingly great tbh.
Lots to do, big game world, two time lines with new cars and changing cityscape, its on the PS2 as well and cheap as chips.

zenarcadian

Retr0gamer wrote: »

It went through editors that tried to do some good things with it and then the readership dropped and they would go back to business as usual. Pity, I remember some of the official magazines like the Megadrive and Saturn ones actually being really great.

I actually feel sorry for your flatmate. Ask him if he had to sort through letters giving printing priority to the most opinionated teenager who had the best Metal Gear Solid and FF7 completion time? The writing was dreadful in that magazine but I feel it was due to very young inexperienced writers. I imagine your flatmate is a lot better now!

The Saturn one was fantastic. I have them all in .cbr on my hard drive, an amazing trove of games writing.

He was one of those opinionated teenagers! Heh.

TechnoFreek

Anyone remember this promo video?
I got it on vhs at the time. Can't recall where I got it from.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO5ptU3IUU4

Doge

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I think he is talking about the next to impossible tutorial stage in driver that about 0.99% of the population could beat.

Ah it wasn't that hard! Feckin sunday drivers!

Doge

Access wrote: »

I remember the whole of the summer of 1998 spending my time playing Colin McRae rally.

It was just brilliant when it came out.

They have outdone themselves with Dirt Rally again this time round, even though it's in early access.

I have a Logitech G27 racing wheel on the way at the moment and I cant friggin wait to play it properly.

MontgomeryClift

TechnoFreek wrote: »

Anyone remember this promo video?
I got it on vhs at the time. Can't recall where I got it from.

It came from Sony.

I got it on the cover of C+VG. They got some letters of complaint about bias, but they explained that Sony paid for the video to be packaged with the magazine, so it was all advertising money for C+VG.

As for the Playstation, you could justifiably get nostalgic about playing WipeOut or Colin McRae Rally, but practically every game was squashed 50Hz, so you were playing in slow motion. The 3D might have been better than the competition, but it was still bad. Can you remember what it was like to play Scud Race in 1997, then go home and look at some blocky, wobbly 3D on your PlayStation? The 2D stuff is still relevant.

CiDeRmAn

I have gone back and played a lot of PS content over the years and its all too easy to say that 3D is a bust on early 90's consoles.
Wipeout 2097 and F1'97 still look good.
Yes, the resolution is a tad low but the games are still a good way to spend a few hours even now.
Colony Wars and its sequels, Roll cage and its sequel, Micromachines V3, Resident Evil, 2 and 3 just plenty of decent games and rendered in early 3D.
Fade to Black is another one, the sequel to Flashback on the earlier consoles and computers, a fine 3D rendered title that is better on the PS than it was on PC.

Thargor

zenarcadian wrote: »

Howdy, longtime lurker, first-time poster here.

Just plucking up the courage to kickoff a general PSone love thread and ascertain the following for the grey box and its dinky successor, as well as the following:

- Official UK PlayStation Magazine
- Official PlayStation Magazine - Ireland
- PocketStation and third-party expanded memory cards
- 2D shmups in PAL format/casing
- Midas, Phoenix, etc. latter-day budget titles
- The case for 1998's winter lineup being among the greatest in gaming history
- The Tombi series

What say you, retro geeks?

What does that line mean in the OP?

Retr0gamer

Got to agree there's plenty of good 3D PS1 games out there, some even hold up well and look gorgeous. Megaman Legends series in particular used the blocky angular polygons to create it's own distinctive art style and it's pretty much as close to a Studio Ghibli film as games got until Ni No Kuni (although that failed as a game while Legends is like a videogame version of Laputa). Anything by the big companies usually looked good and ran at a fair auld clip, although Square Enix liked to sacrifice frame rate for spectacle (but at least kept the menus running at 30 FPS... unlike ****ty Legend of Dragoon).

Damien King

Access wrote: »

I remember the whole of the summer of 1998 spending my time playing Colin McRae rally.

It was just brilliant when it came out.

Same as. I loved that game. At the opposite end of the driving game realism scale I remember circuit breakers being great fun with 4 players on a multitap.

airmax87

What's the best modchip variation for a pal PS1 ?
I was going to get one of the goldfinger yolks but my model doesn't have the serial port.

horgan_p

I went looking at them about 3 months ago.

Old crow version from eurasia was what I finished up with

airmax87

horgan_p wrote: »

I went looking at them about 3 months ago.

Old crow version from eurasia was what I finished up with

Would it work on SCPH9002?

Had no idea they were so cheap

airmax87

sugarman wrote: »

Where abouts are you located?

Have an MM3 modchip lying about if you want it, will have to be soldered in tho.

I'm down in Celbridge.

eddhorse

airmax87 wrote: »

I'm down in Celbridge.

Whoop Celbridge FTW