Remembering the PS2

On February the 13th of this year, NASA ended communication with the Opportunity Mars rover. The rover had only been expected to last 90 days on the Martian surface, but it had kept going for a whopping 15 years. What surprised many people is the response to this announcement, almost immediately after the news was announced tributes started pouring in from all over the world for the little robot, now abandoned on an alien planet.

As sad as Opportunity's story is, it’s a fascinating example of how humans personify inanimate objects, and project emotions onto them that their creators never expected, and this is what I want to talk about today.

Two months ago I travelled home from University to see my family for Christmas. I always enjoy this time of year because I often bring home some video games for us to play together, who doesn’t love a bit of mario Kart or Wii Sports at Christmas? This year I decided to bring my Playstation 2 as it’s the only system I have a rally game for, and I was asked to bring one when I visited. My PS2 had been sitting for a couple of years on my shelf along with some other consoles I own, ever since I got my PC and Nintendo Switch it’s really fallen out of use, but I threw it in my rucksack with some games and thought nothing of it before leaving to catch my bus home.

Once home, I set up the PS2 and inserted the disc for WRC Rally, but I was met with the dreaded disc error screen that haunted my eight year old self’s nightmares. I tried again and did get it to work for a couple of minutes, but after several frozen screens and crashes, I realised the day I didn’t know I’d been dreading was here, My childhood PS2 was dead.

Upon returning to my flat at uni and placing the PS2 back in it’s spot on the shelf, I realised just how much I’d actually lost. I’d owned this console for 15 years or as near as makes no difference, and it had been there for the majority of my life. I had spent countless hours of time enjoying it, running home from school to play on it and waking up early on weekends due to the sheer excitement of a new game, games that would go on to shape my tastes and opinions on gaming as a whole for the rest of my life. It would inadvertently influence my decision to join the Game Development course at my university, and my decision to pursue Games Journalism as a career. It had been an escape and an emotional support through frustrations at school, family trauma, loss and stress, and I realised just how important it really was in the grand scheme of things. I never owned a Playstation 3 or an Xbox 360, so the humble PS2 was my main console long after it had become obsolete. The purchase of a Nintendo Wii and later a PC never stopped the occasional game of Need for Speed Most Wanted or Tony hawk’s Underground 2.

And now… it was gone.

This raised the question as to what to actually do with it. I could attempt to diagnose the problem and replace components, but with new parts and a new soul would it still be my childhood console? I could replace it with another PS2, but that somehow seems cruel. I think I’ll let it stand on my shelf as a monument, a symbol of the happy times video games can bring, and the childhood friends you end up sharing them with. I can always emulate PS2 games on my PC, so I can let this console get the rest it deserves. It’s funny how we personify inanimate objects, and project emotions onto them that their creators never expected, but now I totally understand.