A 2005 Holiday Look at the PS2 Slimline Console: Does Size Matter?

Author's Rating:

Pros: smaller, lighter, built in network adapter, same power and accessories

Cons: no built in multitap, incompatible with a few ps1 games, no port for hard drive

The Bottom Line: 
If you're playing online, this is a great console to get.

Author's Review
So I decided to upgrade. It wasn't so much that my old PS2 bit the dust. In fact if I still had it today, my assumption would be it would still be running strong. So why did I buy the slimline? Well, a few reasons really. First, I'm playing more PS2 games lately because now that the Xbox 360 is out, the number of new Xbox games is dwindling. Given that, and the fact that I have two small kids, I find myself having to tote around my PS2 to different rooms so that I can play games while my kids are napping or when they go to sleep for the night. I'd rather be playing Dragon Quest VIII in my room than spacing out while watching whatever TV show I'm willing to settle for in primetime. Given I'm the original oldschool frugal gamer, I didn't take that much of a hit price-wise while upgrading. Certainly less than I paid for Dragon Quest VIII, but that doesn't tell you much, does it.


About the PS2 Slimline

The PS2 slimline's most popular feature is that it's a much smaller version of the original PS2. By small, it's really small. As an example, it's a little bit larger than a PS2 game case. The Dual Shock controller is taller than the slimline console. It's also half the weight of the original PS2, which wasn't that heavy to begin with. There are two controller ports are aligned on the left side of the front face of the console with the two memory card ports located directly above the two ports respectively. Directly to the right of the controller ports are two USB ports and located even farther to the right is an IR receiver port. Directly to the right of the two memory card ports is the eject button for the dvd disc drive and even farther to the right is the power toggle switch. The DVD disc drive doesn't eject like a typical disc drive you'd find on a computer or even on it's predecessor. Now, it's a flip up model like the first Playstation, the GameCube, or the Dreamcast. The disc snaps in snugly, but not too snugly like some of the game cases. Along the back face, moving from right to left you'll find: a circular AC input port; the AV port, which is the same configuration as the older PS2 AV input port, a modem phone jack, and a broadband ethernet jack. The PS2 also comes with a larger power adapter instead of the standard power cord from the older PS2 which was compatible with many other electronics devices as well as other consoles like the Dreamcast. Now there's an AC adapter "brick" similar to that of a laptop or what you get with the GameCube. It should be noted that this AC adapter does hinder the portability of this device. However, given that a laptop has the same problem and the slimline PS2 is smaller than most laptops, it shouldn't be a huge issue. It's only a minor inconvenience for me, mostly because of fact that the power cable isn't a common component that I can buy more than one of and plug them strategically in different rooms.

Aside from the smaller design it should be noted that the network adapter is built into the slimline console (as I implied when describing the layout earlier). I think this was a spectacular design decision on the part of Sony. The Xbox came with a broadband ethernet adapter built in and it really helped to facilitate online gaming on its console. Even though the PS2's online gaming support started out slowly, it's really picked up in the past year and now is the showcase of this generation's games. Having this built in saves the consumer roughly between $20-$30, which is the cost for a new online adapter for the older style PS2. It also should be noted that aside from the now defunct Dreamcast, the PS2 is the only online console that offers wide ranging dialup internet support for its online games. That is, the Xbox also has built-in online support, but it's only for broadband connections.

Lost in this design was a few features. While networking support was a fantastic design decision, Sony failed to expand the number of controller ports from two to four. So far the Playstation 2 is the only console to be released in almost 10 years that doesn't have 4 controller ports. Given the popularity of online games, and the smaller redesign, I guess Sony figured it wasn't worth the time or trouble to add that in. Another accessory that hit the cutting room floor was the expansion bay for the hard drive. The once coveted, now all but defunct hard drive will not be supported on the slimline console. That shouldn't be an issue unless you want to play the popular online massively multiplayer Final Fantasy XI game. Unfortunately, Final Fantasy XI is the only PS2 game that requires the hard drive to play. Thus the game is incompatible with the slimline PS2. Despite the success of that game, it shouldn't be seen as a big loss.


Hardware

The slimline PS2 has the same computing power as the original PS2.

Processor: 128-bit running at a speed of roughly 300 MHz
Memory: 32MB of RAM
Graphics: 4MB of RAM, 150MHz processor, MPEG2 encoding, max resolution of 1280x1024
Sound: 48 channels, 2MB of RAM
Media: 8 inch CD/DVDs holding roughly 4 GB of data
Drives: 24x CD speed, 4x DVD speed

The hardware itself is rather outdated by today's standards. The Xbox is roughly twice as fast as the PS2 and whose media can contain twice as much data as the PS2. This leads to some more intriguing titles exclusive for the Xbox. However the PS2 does still run rather well on even this dated hardware. So while the hardware is old, that shortcoming doesn't affect the games too much except in some cases where some titles are ported from the Xbox to the PS2, but those are rare.


Accessories

The library of accessories for the original PS2 is all compatible with the slimline PS2. So if you're upgrading like me from an older or broken PS2, you're in luck in that you don't have to buy all new accessories.

The most important accessory is the controller. The look of the PS2's dual shock2 controller is exactly the same as the dual shock controller that was released with the PSone. The major difference between this the newer version of the dual shock is that the buttons are pressure sensitive. That means that the harder you press down on them, the greater of a reaction you get from the system or game. On the left side of the controller there is a directional pad used for the typical 8 directional movements. There are also two analog sticks on the left and right side along the bottom of the controller. These are for more precise and sensitive directional movements. These analog sticks can also be pressed in and used as another button (L3, and R3 respectively). On the right side there are 4 more buttons shaped in the form of a diamond. A colored shape also represents them. Starting clockwise from the top there is a green triangle, orange circle, blue X, and red square. Along the front side or top of the controller there are 2 sets of stacked shoulder buttons: L1, L2, R1, and R2. This corresponds to the side and depth they are on that side. In the middle of the controller, there's a select and play button as well as a button to toggle the two analog sticks on and off. The controller is easy to grip and for many games you end up using three fingers on each hand for the different buttons and your ring and pinky fingers to hold the base grip of the controller. Inside the grips are motors that control the "rumble" function. To me this is the best-designed controller that was ever made. It's one step up from the Super Nintendo controller in size, feel, and overall comfort.

Games and content is saved on a 8 MB memory card, which sells for roughly $20-$30 new. Most saved games will only take up a fraction of the space on the memory card. However, there are a few games like sports games where franchise data, updated rosters, and other modifications that can take up enough space to fill almost an entire memory card. Also, at one point, SOCOM II required the downloading of a patch to fix its online portion, which took up roughly half of my memory card, but those required patches are rare and heavily frowned upon in the gaming community.

Other accessories include a multitap adapter that costs roughly $30 new. Adding two of these adapters allows you to add 8 ports to your PS2 for a wildly entertaining 8 player game. There's also a light gun for games like Time Crisis, many different dance pads for DDR-type games, a DVD remote which isn't required for watching a DVD movie, and a USB headset for communicating in online games. Also the slimline also has a few specially designed carrying cases. Finally there are different AV cables for S-video, component video, and even a coax adapter.

As always, you can purchase 3rd party accessories at a significant discount, but beware that many accessories are not of high quality. Purchasing a 3rd party memory card might cause data corruption and lost saved games after just a few months. Also controllers are a mixed bag of good and bad. Some controllers are just as good as their first party counterparts, but others have miscalibrated analog sticks, sticky face or shoulder buttons, while others are just plain uncomfortable or break very easily. Just about the only 3rd party accessory I would recommend universally is the 3rd party AV cables.


Games

Like the original PS2, the slimline PS2 can play older PS1 games. However, there were a few compatibility issues. For instance I found a few minor titles that didn't work like NHL 2000. Also some of the Chrono Cross movies played kind of funny when I compared it to an older PS2 and the PS1 hardware. However, aside from those minor issues, I really wouldn't worry about compatibility issues because I played dozens of PS2 and PS1 games on my slimline and only encountered just those two issues. Meanwhile searching Google only revealed that the extent of the compatibility issues is about as minor as my experiences.

The PS2 in general has a vast array of titles that span several genres. The PS2's strongest supported genre is probably RPGs. The PS2 has many exclusive RPG titles from SquareEnix as well as many other great developers. Going all the way back to the PS1, SquareEnix has released or re-released just about every Final Fantasy incarnation on the PS2 or PS1 game formats. Also the last two Dragon Quest/Warrior games have been released on either the PS1 or PS2 formats as well. Not only that but the PS2 also has many of the Xeno RPG series just to name a few. There are really some fantastic RPGs released for the PS2 that any RPG gamer shouldn't miss out on.

Aside from RPGs, the PS2 also supports many other genres as well. The PS2 has countless sports titles that range from publishers like EA Sports, to 2K Sports, to extreme sports games like Acclaim's Tony Hawk series. Sony also has it's in-house 989 studios that has in the past developed some less than spectacular sports titles. The only exception to this is the recent installments in the MLB series, which has really been impressive the past couple years. There is one big drawback from playing sports games on the PS2, and that's for gamers who like to play in franchise mode and download rosters on their PS2. The problem is that many of these games can take up an entire memory card with saved data. This is why I bought an Xbox because the hard drive made playing in franchise mode much less expensive.

The PS2 also has many widely popular games like the Grand Theft Auto series as well as the Metal Gear Solid games. There are also some great racer games like Gran Turismo and Burnout 3 (even if I didn't particularly like it myself). Finally you can also get more mature games like Resident Evil 4 and the popular God of War.

If you're searching for good platformers, the PS2 does have some good titles like the Jak and Daxter series, the Sly Cooper series, and Ratchet and Clank series, but they don't stack up as well against some of the more established Nintendo characters like Mario, Link, and Metroid.

As far as shooters go, the PS2 does have Killzone as well as 3 different SOCOM games. Despite the popularity of these games, they aren't quite as stable or as well developed as many of the Xbox shooters. While I like the SOCOM games myself, the cheating is much more rampant than in Halo on the Xbox.

Speaking on cheating and online games, online games in general on the PS2 are more prone to cheating. There are many hacks out there for games ranging from Madden to SOCOM. The reason for this is the fact that the PS2 is slightly easier to hack and modify. In addition the online gaming is free such that cheaters rarely face banishment as a punishment. This is unlike the Xbox where modding the Xbox and taking it online is much harder to do. Besides, taking away a gamertag can cost gamers upwards of $60, which can add up as a significant punishment for being caught cheating. I and many other friends consider playing strangers online on my PS2 to be a wasteland. The best way to combat this is to develop a close knit community of friends who enjoy a particular game. Get to know them so that you're trusted. That way the accountability is higher when one of them begins to cheat.


Conclusion

I would definitely recommend the slimline PS2. Not only does it have all the advantages of the PS2's library of games and accessories, but it's smaller and about as portable as a laptop computer (or even more so). Finally, if you're going to play games online, the built in network card is a huge advantage than the older PS2, which requires extra money and a little bit of work to buy and install. Also the network adapter for the original PS2 does add a lot of bulk and weight to the PS2, while the slimline is already small and light with the built in adapter. It's really a great product that really is a good excuse to get into this generation of video games if you already haven't. Also if you had an older PS2, which is now beginning to break down, the slimline PS2 is a great product to replace your older PS2 with. Aside from minor gripes, and older hardware issues, my biggest concern with this machine is that its smaller size does make it seem much more fragile. So if you have a kid who's rough with their video games, I'd recommend a Nintendo console instead due to their sturdier nature. Overall this is a fantastic machine.