The PS2 Blues.

• Author: Marriott, Michel
• Position: Disappointing quality of PlayStation 2 games - Brief Article

Frustrated with underwhelming first-generation games, players want to know: Will the real PlayStation please stand up?

So you managed to get a PlayStation 2, Sony's powerful game console that was in painfully short supply during the 2000 holiday season. Or you may lust for what continues to be a hard-to-find purchase, even with its $300 price tag. Almost as maddening as having to look at a bunch of empty PS2 "display only" boxes at your favorite electronics store is having to stare at tantalizing games that you still can't play.

Either way, you may be frustrated. Many of the relatively few garners who have gotten their sweaty hands on a PS2 are discovering that the quality of many of those games has been disappointing.

Take, for instance, Silent Scope, Konami's scaled-down version of its popular arcade shooter game. In an apparent gamble to have games ready for the PlayStation 2 launch last year before they were actually ready, this slow-paced sniper game is about as exciting as watching ice cubes melt. Little, if any, of PS2's much-heralded processing speed and heady graphics capabilities is on display when playing this stiff, two-dimensional shooter.

With rare exceptions, the games released in recent months for PS2 have felt and played a lot like games made for the old PlayStation. Rival console maker Sega tried to capitalize on the letdown by pushing its much cheaper game box, Dreamcast, and its deeper inventory of impressive games, including online gaming, which Sony can't match.

GET WITH THE PROGRAM

Part of the problem, explain many game developers, is that whenever a new game system is released, there is a learning curve for game designers. The more complicated the new console, the longer it takes for designers to learn how to create games that can make the most use of the new hardware. Game designers for the upcoming new platforms, Microsoft's Xbox and Nintendo's GameCube, are most likely going to have to wrestle with a similar learning curve.

"People don't understand the time, money, and commitment that it takes to create video games these days," says Chris Mike, vice president for marketing for the game developer Activision. Some of the newer games, he says, can take up to five years to complete from concept to store shelf.

"For a new game system," adds Melinda Mongelluzzo, a spokeswoman for the game developer Capcom, "it takes a good year for the developers to learn how to optimize a system, to fine-tune."

PlayStation 2 appears to...