External Costs of the PS2

I’m not what you would call a “hardcore gamer.” Generally, when a game that I want to play comes out, I whine about not having it for about a month or so, then forget about it. Example: Amanda and I have been playing NHL 2002 for years now because I haven’t gotten around to buying an updated edition. Happily, this makes it easy for me to avoid sinking massive amounts of time into my PS2.

As far as I can tell, Steve occupies the opposite end of the spectrum. His game rack was flush with titles I’d wanted to try, and who was I to resist when he told me to “take a few” because he doesn’t play them anymore? Consequently, I spent about three hours yesterday playing Prince of Persia yesterday afternoon and last night. The good news? I’m more than 30% done already and I don’t have a whole lot of work to do this week. The great news? This game is awesome to the max. The bad news? I’m going to be spending some money on the inevitable sequels, because I’m in love with the concept and execution.

On a related note, I’ve been pestering Dan to lend me his copy of Final Fantasy VII. I played it for close to 30 hours freshman year on his PSOne, and I’ve been hankering to have another go at it for awhile now. I’m also looking into picking up a copy of Baldur’s Gate 2 for Amanda and me, because we need games we can play together that are cooperative, but she’d never played a turn-based RPG before. “What better crack-cocaine of the genre than FF7?” I thought.

So Steve had that on his shelf, too, and I took it, and I introduced it to Amanda yesterday. 10 minutes into it, she hits the first save point—and it requires a PSOne memory card. The good news? The insane time-sink that is FF7 won’t get any play for another week or so. The bad news? The insane time-sink that is FF7 will get a lot of play in another week or so. I’m going to enjoy the rest of college while it lasts.

March 29, 2004 - 11:11 AM