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I got so long-winded last time when talking about the games in my last blog on the mini PlayStation Classic that I decided to split it into two blogs.  So if you haven’t read that one yet, I encourage you to please do so.  Anyway, here’s the second batch of games on the PlayStation Classic.  I don’t have as much to say about most of these games, so hopefully this will go by a little faster. 

Cool Boarders 2

It’s a snowboard game, and pretty bare bones from what I could tell.  I don’t really get into snowboard games that much.  Only one I really got into was We Ski and Snowboard on Wii.  Never did play the N64 Snowboard Kids games, even though I would’ve liked to.  I think I like the snowboard game in FF7 better than Cool Boarders 2.  Luckily you can play that on this collection as well, which we’ll get to later.

Destruction Derby

I think this was an early title on the PSX and it shows.  It’s an off road racing game with emphasis on crashing into cars.  You can see damage on your car, which is cool.  Wasn’t really that much fun, though.  I think it’s neat that the game was made by Psygnosis.  There are billboard ads in the game for another one of the games they published early on the PSX: Lemmings 3-D.  That was one of the few games on the PSX that interested me at first, but I ended up getting it on the PC.  One last thing about destruction derbies.  When I was little, for my sixth birthday my dad took me to a monster truck show.  The finale was a destruction derby between three mac trucks with trailers.  For a six year old, that was pretty darn cool.

Twisted Metal

It’s a car battle game with a bunch of crazy characters and cars.  I never did get into this series, but it certainly represented the PlayStation well, so I can understand why it’s on here.

Resident Evil: Director’s Cut

This is another one that I can understand why it’s on here, even if it’s not my cup of tea.  Resident Evil certainly was a big hit for the PSX and Capcom, and become one of their most successful franchises with tons of sequels and even movies.  I’m not a big fan of survival horror games or scary games in general, so I never got into them, but I did see a few of the movies at home and I know about the characters from other Capcom games like Marvel vs. Capcom and such.  I think it’s interesting that they put the Director’s Cut on here, hopefully that means we got a better game.

Metal Gear Solid

I remember my friend and I renting and playing the Metal Gear games on the NES.  I know they aren’t the TRUE Metal Gear games, those were on the MSX. But it’s all we knew and had.  While I thought the stealth gameplay was pretty original in comparison to other NES games, I didn’t like it much in the long run.  So I never got into the PSX Metal Gear games.  One of my friends sure did, though!  Also, my brother Jeff loves the Metal Gear games, but he didn’t get into them until way later.  He was too young when this one came out.  It was my fault that got him into Metal Gear games, though.  You see, when Metal Gear Solid 3 came out on the PS2, I learned there was an Ape Escape mini game in it (Ape Escape 3 had a Metal Gear mini game, too).  So I waited until the price went down, and I got it and played the Ape Escape mini game.  Afterward, Jeff played the main game and loved it, and he’s been hooked ever since. 

Grand Theft Auto

As big as the GTA franchise is now, it’s interesting to go back and see that the first game was a top down 2-D affair.  The other interesting thing about this game to me is that it was made by DMA Design.  They made one of my top favorite puzzle action games ever: Lemmings.  It’s hard to believe those two games were made by the same folks.

Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee

I know this game was super popular and had a few sequels, but I never understood its charm.  I played a little bit of it on a demo disc and found the characters ugly and didn’t like the 2-D Prince of Persia/Out of this World/Flashback style of puzzle platforming.  Just one of those games I didn’t ‘get,’ I guess.

Syphon Filter

I never gave this game much thought but I know it must’ve been popular as I saw it in stores everywhere back then.  As a third person shooter game, I guess it’s all right.  The in-game graphics look pretty good, but the cutscene visuals look and sound like a bad N64 game.  Bleck!

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six

I wonder if kids today know that Tom Clancy originally wrote books.  This is a series that Ubisoft still uses today.  Or at least I think they do, as I get press releases about these Tom Clancy games all the time.  I’m not sure if this is the first Tom Clancy game, but it has to be one of the first.  So if you like these games and want to see how they started, here you go.  It’s a first person shooter so that’s why I never got into them.

Revelations: Persona

One nice thing about the PlayStation Classic is that it has a wide variety of game genres.  There are puzzle games, racing games, action games, and a few RPGs, too.  This is one of the RPGs in Altus’ long-running series.  Not sure if it’s the first that made it to the US, but it has to be one of the first.  Unfortunately it has elements that I don’t like in RPGs, like a serious, darker storyline full of high school students, and first person perspective dungeons.  No thanks.

Final Fantasy VII

I imagine this is one of the big draws on the PlayStation Classic, and while I prefer FF9, this one needed to be on here as it really defined the PSX.  While I’m not a big fan of it now, back then, I was super excited for it, as I had just gotten off the high that was FF6, one of my top five favorite games of all time.  I did play through FF7, but after I finished it, I decided I didn’t like it as much as FF6 and had no desire to replay it again, even though when I finished FF6, I replayed it several times after that!  However, I still have respect for FF7 because it tried so many different things.  Unfortunately, it’s the different things that I didn’t like that they focused on in future games, so FF7 was really the turning point where I wasn’t into FF games anymore.  When I replayed the beginning on the PS Classic, I have to say it didn’t seem as bad as I remembered it, and it certainly had higher production values than most other games at the time.  I can certainly see why it blew everyone away at the time, including myself.  Can you guess who my favorite FF7 character are?

Wild Arms

When this game came out, I already had my PlayStation.  Wild Arms came out a few months before FF7, which was good timing because of the hype around FF7.  I wanted to play Wild Arms, too, but I was a poor college student and couldn’t afford to get all the games out there.  I think I would’ve really liked this one, though, as it has a lot of what I liked in RPGs at the time.  Sprite based graphics on the map screens, for instance.  I’m glad I got to play it on here, but I don’t know if I’ll want to keep at it since it also feels a bit slow.  It kind of reminds me of the Lufia games in a way.

Conclusions

And those are all the games on the PlayStation Classic!  Naturally since a lot of these games are rated M, it’s better for older gamers.  I know that when it first came out, a lot of people complained about it, but I don’t think it’s THAT bad.  Sure it doesn’t have a lot of the games I would want, but because of my eclectic tastes in games, these mini consoles never will (although the SNES Mini came close).  Overall it had a good mix of game genres that helped define the PlayStation.  I’m a little surprised it didn’t have games like Crash, Spyro, or PaRappa the Rapper, though.  Me personally, I would’ve loved for it to have games like the Namco Museums, Pac-Man World, Tales of Destiny, Tomba 1 & 2, FF9, Tail Concerto, Brave Fencer Musashi, Mega Man Legends 1 & 2, The Misadventures of Tron Bonne, Mega Man 8 and X4, Ape Escape, and probably some others I can’t think of right now.  What PlayStation games would you liked to have seen on here?  Let me know in the comments section.  Later!  --Cary