Emerging into a market dominated by Nintendo and Sega, Sony seemed foolhardy to many (me included), attempting to go head to head with Mario and Sonic's respective parent companies without any experience in the field. I for one wanted a Sega Saturn - Virtua Fighter looked awesome, as did Virtua Racing, and there was bound to be a Sonic game. In the end though, I couldn't afford one, and my parents bought me a new stereo for that Xmas instead.
Fast forward a bit and I find myself with a wodge of cash, and working at Domino's Pizza, where the manager just happens to have a PlayStation and some games he wants rid of. I just happen to have the right amount of money, and so the deal is done, and a Mk1 PlayStation is mine, along with a memory card, Worms, and Destruction Derby. I quickly traded those two stinkers in for Alien Trilogy, Ridge Racer Revolution and Thunderhawk, and played those three games for an eternity. It really felt like the most powerful machine in the world in those early days, although looking back at the games now you'd be hard pushed to see how! Hindsight's a marvelous thing, but I was hooked, tearing round Ridge city for hours on end.
I landed a job with Gameplay not long after, which only served to feed my addiction, and my burgeoning collection. I've well and truly lost count of the amount of PlayStation games I've bought, swapped, traded, and lost over the years, but here's my top ten list of PS games/series. In no particular order mind, as that's far too stressful...
Ridge Racer - Ridge Racer Type 4 is probably my favourite of the series, with its Ace Combat skies, brake light trails, and awesomely good soundtrack, but I could happily put any of the 4 PSone era Ridge games on now and drift my way to happiness for an entire evening. Arcade heaven, and easily one of my favourite game series ever.
Soul Blade - Another Namco triumph, I waited on this for months after spotting a preview in Play magazine. When it finally did arrive it became an obsession, prompting lengthy late night bouts against my mate John, pitting his Hwang against my Mitsurugi. It was like Ryu vs Ken with swords. Oh, and who could forget that intro! TO SHINE! This is the game that made me jump ship to Sega's Dreamcast (my all time favourite console), as the sequel was announced for the DC instead of my beloved PlayStation. So basically, I owe it a huge thankyou. Thanks Soul Blade!
Wipeout - I HATED the first Wipeout, I'm not ashamed to admit it. It was too hard for my clumsy thumbs, and the way it made you stop dead for the slightest nudge against the track drove me up the wall. Thankfully 2097 sorted out the handling/stoping issues, and I was once again obsessed. Wipeout 3 is probably my favourite, but 2097 was played soooo many times with friends, so I've got great memories of it. Shame the PS2 version pretty much bummed it in the gob, but never mind.
Parappa The Rapper - A music game? A MUSIC GAME? What witchcraft is this? Arriving eons before music games became the phenomenon they are today, Parappa fused brilliant tunes with button tapping gameplay, and wrapped it all up in a paper thin 2D world of rapping dogs, kung fu onions, angry mooses and ragga frogs. Insane. If Sony announced a third game, I'd buy a PS3 in a shot.
Tenchu - I'd never have gotten this if an Activision rep hadn't brought it in one afternoon. Admittedly, it looked a bit rough, arriving fairly late into the PlayStation's life and going up against games with far higher production values, but my god, the gameplay! I've got a thing for ninja anyway, so the chance to be one and properly sneak around all stealthy like, rather than slicing everybody into pieces like Strider or shurikening all and sundry like Shinobi was enough to get me hooked. Luckily, it played just as well as the premise would suggest, and it became another late night favourite for me and John. John has ridiculous patience too, which certainly helps in a stealth game, but having seen him wait for 15 minutes to get the perfect kill, I think it's safe to say he's a bit good at Tenchu.
Resident Evil - The second game might have been better in just about everyway, but the original was so different from anything else I'd played up until that point. The cheesy acting, the choice of characters, the combination of zombie heads and shotguns, Jill sandwiches - how could you NOT like it? Late night stoner scares ahoy too, which always helps.
Gran Turismo - I've well and truly gone off real driving games these days, but when GT arrived in the office on Jap import, it was incredible. Already being a fan of crazy jap cars like Imprezas and Lancers, GT was a dream come true for me and a gew of the other lads in the GP office, and once again it became an obsession. I clearly have an obsessive personality... Tweaking the setup on a turbo charged Toyota Supra for hours on end, just to get milliseconds of a lap time became normal, and it introduced me to my current car, the Mitsubishi FTO. I loved it so much in the game, I wanted a real one, and now I do! Yay for fulfilling a dream.
Tekken 3 - Tekken was crap. Oh it was! Tekken 2 was pretty tidy, although nothing compared with Soul Blade in my eyes. Tekken 3 though, lordy, what a game! It must have been, as I paid over 75 quid for an import copy on launch week, which I'm fairly sure meant I was living on pasta for the rest of the month. Incredible graphics, loads of characters, Namco's genius CGI movies, and bags of replay value, it was easily the best fighter on PlayStation. Just a shame it's turned to utter shit sense then, Tekken 6 included.
Metal Gear Solid - Couldn't really have a PS top ten without Kojima's epic could I? Just as well I genuinely like it then, as I'm not a fan of the later games. MGS blew everybody away, with intelligent storytelling, stealthy gameplay, quirky touches a-plenty, and some truly standout moments. Psycho Mantis reading your memory card, and making the joypad move? Ninja? Any bit with Meryl? All genius. As was the music, with the game over tune always lurking in the back of my head. Fantastic stuff, and Kojima managed to walk the line between atmospheric storytelling and overblown anti-war 7 hour cut-scene nonsense, which unfortunately he's never managed since.
Vib Ribbon - I struggled to pick this last one. All the rest HAD to go in, but I had a few games left to choose from for number 10, and it was tough trying to whittle them down. Vib Ribbon will ALWAYS stick in my head though, and I've still got the tunes on my Walkman, so I guess it deserves it's place in the chart. Not that you'd know it to look at it, with its monochrome vector graphics and scratchy animation, but once you've experienced the sheer joy of Laughs & Beats soundtrack as you tumble merrily along that ribbon of white, you either understand completely, or want to leave and never come back. I understood. I have no umbrella. <3
