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Before the PlayStation 5 graces our living rooms in November, its older sister, the PlayStation 2 turns 20 today. In honor of this milestone, IGN Southeast Asia is looking back at all the innovations that the PS2 brought to gaming in general.
Dual analog controls
While the DualShock controller debuted during the original PlayStation run, it was the PlayStation 2 that standardized the use of the second analog joystick to control a game’s camera, in addition to making use of analog like the L3 and R3 buttons. This has since become a common control method in the modern era of gaming, where L3 is typically the speed button and R3 is used to re-center the camera.
Voice acting
The original PlayStation had notable voice acting in several games, but the PS1’s CD-based games limited the amount of voice acting that could be done. The PS2, on the other hand, with the use of DVDs, could contain many more voice clips and even improved soundtracks for games. It really brought the games to life, and even brought in celebrities from the 2000s like Mandy Moore and NSYNC’s Lance Bass to voice iconic PS1 characters, specifically Aerith and Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII, respectively, in the first Kingdom Hearts.
Eye toy
This often-forgotten peripheral for the PS2 was many people’s first exposure to motion gaming on home consoles, before the advent of the Nintendo Wii, and long before the very similar Kinect peripheral for the Xbox. The Eye Toy basically functioned as a webcam and tracked a player’s movements in entrances to a handful of games. He was a bit fussy, but he was definitely hallucinating.
DVD Player
The PS2 was really the first video game console to really be more than just a gaming device, as games would run on DVD anyway, you could let the PS2 play DVD movies and TV shows too, right? This became a major selling point for the PS2, as it was much more affordable than normal DVD players at the time. Nowadays, it is quite normal to watch YouTube or Netflix on your preferred gaming device.
Open worlds
Having fully open and explorable video game worlds was something of a pipe dream, with PS1-era Final Fantasies and games like Super Mario World 64 and Ocarina of Time scratching the itch, but never fully satisfying that open world concept that the players had in mind. It was the trio of Grand Theft Auto games on the PS2, namely III, Vice City, and San Andreas, that really gave players the opportunity to traverse entire worlds by land, sea, and air.
Online support
While it’s one of the more low-key features on the PS2, it definitely had online multiplayer support from the start. Most parts of the world would not have been able to fully experience this side of the PS2, but it was integral in the transitions of the games, going from a purely physical experience to one that can be taken to the world wide web. Games like Final Fantasy XI relied heavily on online support, and even games like Burnout 3 and Call of Duty supported this functionality.
Exclusive Sony Studios
meimagine the PS4 without characters like The Last of Us, Spider-Man or Ghost of Tsushima. Shining examples of the ingenuity and quality of PlayStation’s own games. These three studios, namely Naughty Dog, Insomniac Games, and Sucker Punch, created three flagship franchises that were exclusive to the PS2, paving the way to their successes on later consoles. The PS2 wouldn’t be the same without games like Jak & Daxter, Ratchet and Clank, and the Sly Cooper trilogy.
Backwards compatibility
Turns out, backward compatibility wasn’t a huge draw or even a feature most people knew they wanted. Why play old games when you can buy new ones? The Super Nintendo couldn’t play NES games, so why should the Nintendo 64 play SNES games? Sony changed all that by making the PS2 backward-compatible with its predecessor, allowing older games to exceed their lifespan and reach new fans along the way. This lasted until the very first model of the PS3 and is making a comeback with the PS5 to be able to play PS4 games.
USB ports
Interestingly, USB ports weren’t a common sight in 2000, and today it is arguably one of the most important pieces of technology. The PS2 was the first console to feature USB ports, which can be used to connect peripherals like the Eye Toy, Taiko drum controllers, microphones for games like Rock Band, and more. This little addition turned out to be one of the most innovative features of the PlayStation 2, especially if you look back today.
New games for everyone
The best thing the PS2 brought to games in general was the new franchises that players still enjoy to this day. This includes blockbusters like Kingdom Hearts and God of War, action games like The devil can cryand experimental games like Katamari Damacy. Even games that didn’t become a multi-entry franchise are still alive today thanks to re-releases and ports – like Okami and Shadow of the Colossus – all started running on PlayStation 2.
