All the Video Game Consoles I’ve Ever Owned in Chronological Order, Pt. 4 of 4

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PlayStation 2

My assertion [in Part 1] that the TurboGrafx-16 was ‘the best console ever’ was kind of a little bit facetious. It might have a ‘special place in my heart’, but if I had to have only one console ever for the rest of my life it would be the PlayStation 2, and sales numbers seem to agree. The PlayStation 2 is the longest-lived gaming console with the largest library of software and pretty much the highest unit sales after a decade on the market, although in much less time the Wii has closed the gap and will likely be shown by history to be the ‘most successful’ console ever, if not the best or most versatile.

When I was in high school every girl I hung out with had a crush on the same kid, he ‘dated’ my friend [inasmuch as one can ‘date’ when one is 14]. I decided to have a crush on his older brother instead, I crushed pretty intensely, but when I got older we just became friends mostly because of video games. The first time I saw a PlayStation 2 was at his house, he showed me Final Fantasy X and I remember being pretty much mindblown. There are some kinds of gamers who only require being shown dramatic video of plaintive anime eyes, feathers blowing, some really gorgeous female character possibly leaping in an action-oriented way to get excited, I am kind of like that, so I was like ‘wow, need this console.’

PlayStation 2 remains the only ‘prior gen’ console I own still and routinely use, probably use it more than the Wii. It is actually a PS2 ‘Slim’, pursuant to Sony’s usual MO of ‘slimlining’ its hardware when it needs a ‘market reinvigoration’ aka a ‘mid-cycle refresh’.

I bought it after a long relationship ended. Lived with my ex for a long time, we played a lot of PS2, seems like that graceful black tower with its blue-breathing mouth was a ‘lynchpin’ of our relationship. When we broke up he took our original PlayStation 2 and most of the games except for the Metal Gear Solid boxset. That was okay because he bought most of them  anyway and we were pretty fair about it, I let him have everything with shooting simply because he is a better shot.

Used to have to have him help me beat ‘bosses’, a confession I don’t mind making even though an approximate number of people are going to go ‘cry in a forum’ about how I am ‘misrepresenting women’ again, or how I am a hypocrite re routinely writing feminist articles despite having needed my ex to beat bosses for me, or how me saying ‘he had way better aim in Resident Evil than I had’ will be ‘setting back’ women gamers. If I say I AM NOT ASSERTING THAT WOMEN NEED THEIR BOYFRIENDS’ HELP, I JUST DID BECAUSE I KIND OF SUCK AT VIDEO GAMES DESPITE THE VOLUME OF TIME AND EFFORT I SPEND, maybe that will result in less negative comments, don’t know, really. Might lead to someone going to a forum/comments section to sarcastically write ‘HAY BOYZ LOOK AT ME I AM A GIRL,’ thinking they are being ‘incisive’/original. [NOTE: dude. After writing this part I checked comments on Part 1 of this ‘series’, saw someone doing that already. Damn.]

Anyway, when I think about my ex these days I basically think about how it sucks that no one will beat bosses for me now and I have to allocate my stat points all on my own when I level up rather than asking ‘so which attributes should we raise’ and when I’m playing something and I go ‘do you want to do another sidequest’ I am literally talking to myself.

Can’t tell if I miss my ex or miss when Silent Hill games were really good. Had a dream last night about my ex, he was standing on water, I was trying to talk to him but sinking.