Last week I finally got around to buying a Playstation 2. The price dropped down to $130 and I had a $25 off coupon, so I figured it was a good time to take the plunge. I bought two games to go with it, GTA: San Andreas and God of War. GTA was about what I expected, I played the first one on the PC before and wasn't terribly impressed. This one is about the same. I'm not sure what people see in this game, it's pretty mediocre overall. As for God of War, I'm more than a little pissed with it. I got to the place where you fight the Hydras, rather early in the game, and I keep kicking this Hydra's ass, but it doesn't die and I see no special moves I can use to kill it. Consulting a walkthrough, it says I have to bash it's head against a pole three times to break the pole off, then I can beat it. I go back to the game and bash the Hydra's head against the pole at least a hundred times, literally, and the damn pole never breaks off! Going back to the internet, I find out there's a "glitch" [bug] in the game where sometimes the pole doesn't break and you have to start again from the begining. Argh! So I go back, start the game from the begining, make it back to the Hydra, and the fucking pole still won't break off!! Now I'm totally pissed off and I'm not sure if I want to go through this bullshit a third time to get past this fucking bug. So much for console games being "bug-free".

The console itself seems pretty sweet though. It's the "slim" model so it's pretty damn small. I put it on top of my old NES to keep it off the carpet, and it's amazing how much smaller it is than the good old Nintendo. I'm not sure I like the gamepad though, too many buttons and I keep hitting L2 when I'm trying to L1. The handles are also smaller than the Gamecube's controller, I have to kind of crunch my hands up to hold it. And if you're using the anologue stick all the time, it should be where the d-pad is, not way in the middle. Meh, I guess I'll get used to it. The power/reset and eject buttons are also way too small, hard to find in a darkened room. And I wish the red light didn't stay on when the unit is turned off, it's fucking distracting. It also seems rather cheaply made, at least next to the Gamecube, which is built like a tank. The one thing I do like about it is the digital out. After switching it over to the digital output it sounded much better! I guess they used cheap D/A converters to keep the cost down.

So yeah, I like it, but it certainly has it's flaws. Any must have games for this console? I was thinking of getting Gran Turismo 3 or 4 as they seem to be selling cheap. Maybe Shadow of the Colossus if I can find it cheap. Or Katmary Damacy if I can find it at all.

Update 1: It looks like I might have to return my copy of GoW, apparently this glitch is hard-coded into the game itself and there's no way around it. What a piss-off!!

Update 2: I found out how to get past it! Apparently, you have to hit the "O" button like a madman before the post will break. Doh! Oh well, I got past the Hydra, saw the naked chicks and made the vase fall off the shelf. Woohoo, this is getting good!