TRUE CONFESSIONS 4 - February 2001
| THE LAST PLACE YOU LOOK Hello viewers! Whether it’s the mild-mannered serial killer next door or the kindly old caretaker unmasked by Scooby Doo, it’s always the one you least suspected, isn’t it? And so it’s turned out for the PS2. As a nation’s gameheads, being crushed to death under an avalanche of dull, unimaginative, witless sequels, pleaded desperately for some fun, innovative games to play on their brand-new console, who’d ever have suspected that the knight riding to the rescue on a big white charger would turn out to be Sega? Yep, the news that Sega have finally, officially, taken the long-overdue decision to give up on hardware and produce their games for other consoles was a big enough surprise in itself, but after many rumours connecting the struggling firm with both Microsoft and Nintendo, the fact that the first fruits of their labours will be a PS2 game (a version of the superb Space Channel 5) caught most people completely unawares. It is, of course, great news – True Confessions spent most of its first column here in Engine listing some of the superb, ground-breaking titles available for the Dreamcast around the end of last year, and bemoaning the stifling lack of similar originality or playability in the PS2 lineup, and until now nothing much had changed. What people tend to forget is that the original Playstation made its name in the first place with fast-moving, simple and accessible, fun arcade-style games like Ridge Racer and Wipeout, which opened people’s eyes to the amazing potential of the new system to do things which had never been seen before. Producing half-arsed sequels to these same games with basically unchanged gameplay for the PS2 was missing the point by a very considerable distance, and the comparatively terrible figures for games sold per console bought at the PS2’s launch exposed that fact. Sega (unlike Sony, it must be said) are one of gaming’s all-time great innovators, and it’s innovation you need to make a success out of a new console. (It’s only later that the great mass of idiots who mindlessly hoover up every new version of WWF, FIFA, Tomb Raider etc show up.) Sega made this mistake themselves (the DC took far too long to get its ground-breaking games), but they may have arrived just in time to save the PS2 from a fate worse than death as a nerd’s plaything. Who’d have thought? |
"Reverend Stuart Campbell's religion is videogames - he owns more than 35,000 of them. He's a freelance journalist, ex-game developer with Sensible Software and industry analyst who's written for every games magazine worth a damn and a few more besides. Sinners beware." |
