For a lot of you the answer to this question will likely be "nothing" because you were either a baby or weren't even alive at all in the mid 90's... But for me this was a point in time where I was a legal adult and had expendable income for the first time in my life. No more did I need to worry about only getting one game a month because I only had time for a part-time job in high school, I was working full-time and had plenty of money.
I didn't get the PS1 at launch because the Atari Jaguar had already taught me a lesson about doing that. Sony was untested in the gaming industry when the Playstation was released so there was no reason for any of us to believe that it was going to become the industry giant that it is today.
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It was a pretty slick looking system and the controller in particular kind of blew us away. It was simply perfect in design and I wouldn't mind seeing a documentary about how they came to decide on the design of the controller the way that they did.
If you look at PS controllers over the course of history, they haven't really changed all that much because if it aint broke, you don't fix it. Certain additions have been made to it, sure, but for the most part the original design was perfect and there was no reason to change that. I'm glad they never really did.
My original question was "when you see the picture of a system, what game do you think of?" and for me the answer to that question is Resident Evil.
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I liked a lot of the games on PS1, but nothing holds a candle to Resident Evil. I don't know for sure about this but this was one of the first "survival horror" games that ever existed. It was the first one that I ever played for sure.
The graphics look stupid by today's standards and honestly, the controls were pretty hilarious in how you would run even if you were stuck on something or in a corner, but overall, this game was something the likes of which we had never seen before.
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The first zombie that you encounter right at the start of the game was such an iconic moment in gaming that it has been turned into collectible statues that you can buy. If you have one of these in your house and someone recognizes it, you will know that you can be best friends. That was such a wonderful moment in this short but perfect cutscene that you encounter near the very start of the game.
Since there was very limited internet when this game was released, it's not like we all knew exactly what to expect in this game. I knew nothing about it other than what was written on the box and this was truly a shocking moment.
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This game contained elements of many other types of games but they put them all together in a way that had never been done before. It was an RPG of sorts, it was a FPS (over the shoulder) kind of game in a way, it was also a puzzle game and a story-driven game. There game was linear in a way, but it also had optional aspects to it that could only be unlocked once you progressed with certain items. It also introduced limited ammo that was potentially very frustrating. For me, this whole running out of ammo all the time got so frustrating that this is where my tradition of saving all the "good ammo" that I would find to the point that I would finish the game and still have most of it. Oh so you found some rocket launcher rounds did you? Well you probably aren't going to use them because you will be saving them for a battle that never actually happens.
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How about a giant snake boss that took up almost all the space on the screen and gave you a sense of claustrophobia? That was just incredible and once again, this was something that us gamers had never seen before.
Perhaps the most memorable moment in the game for me was when I was looking around a room that was a billiard hall and it is totally quiet except for a grandfather clock ticking and you search around and don't see any enemies and you relax and figure that this is a "puzzle room" only to not notice gigantic tarantulas that are hiding in plain sight.
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When these these things hit the floor with a thud I'm pretty sure that I jumped out of my beanbag chair and ran like hell to just get out of that room and consider never going back into it. You don't really see many more spiders at all in the game so this was something that really scared the hell out of us.
The very first day that I bought this game me and my "co-pilot" stayed up all night playing it and still hadn't completed it despite working as a team. When my roommate came downstairs in the early morning to get ready to go to college classes, she looked at us with tired eyes and said "you guys are nuts." We laughed and carried on playing until around lunchtime and still hadn't defeated the game after around 20 hours of straight gameplay. I have never done this with any other game that I have ever owned.... RE was truly that epic.
When I finally did defeat it, it was a bittersweet moment because now I had played what was at that point in my life, the greatest gaming experience I had ever had and therefore anything else I might play wasn't going to really resonate with me. I think I took a break from gaming for a month or so after that.
I'll never forget the day I first fired up that game nor the time me and my pal (who unfortunately I lost touch with) ooohed and aahhed over and over again at this legendary game unfolding right in front of us. Resident Evil of course went on to become one of the most famous gaming franchises of all time and other than RE6, most of their games are considered really damn good. It all started somewhere though and that was on the PS1.
So tell me: What game do you think of when you see a picture of the Playstation 1?
Resident evil 2, I bought PS console for this game on purpose, I got Sega Saturn for Resident Evil
I never had Playstation but man, Resident Evil has to be the best series for me.
Not even the PS1?
FIFA
despite being American, that was really popular here as well and me and my roommates played a LOT of it.
Oh broh that's a cluster of games! Like there's a bunch flashing through my head now! Crashbandicoot! Tekken! Some Pirate Game! Some Racing Game! Damn dude those were the days!
I was a fucking toddler back then my guy! How life has paced by!
They were pretty great days because the new tech was so much better than the old tech. Wipeout was a pretty revolutionary racing game on the PS1.
I've never heard of it but then again I was extremely young! On the other hand I think most of the games released back then was out of this world!
Madden 98
Spyro, Crash Bandicoot & Croc!
The PS1 is a very nostalgic console for me. When I see that pic, I remember Tekken 3, Resident Evil, Crash, Metal Gear Solid and many other games were part of my childhood.
I've never really played PSX since I lived in slavpoor conditions during the 90s when that platform was popular. And yet, years later I downloaded and launched a PSX emulator to play Parasite Eve, a game I was curious about when reading its reviews in gaming mags. So yeah, the answer to your question is Parasite Eve since it's the only Playstation-exclusive game I've ever touched.
I don't even know what that is. Gonna go YT it right now!
That looks really good! I think the maker of this video cheats a bit by putting in cutscenes from the remake rather than the original because those look too sharp for the PS1.
I'm disappointed that I didn't even know this game existed when I was younger because the combat especially looks like something I would really enjoy.
Playstation 1 was definitely a dream console with an amazing list of titles. When I see a Playstation I think of Final Fantasy 7, Metal Gear Solid, Spyro the Dragon, Crash Bandicoot. I usually rotated between all of these games. Getting the demo discs in the mail was a fun experience because I never knew what games they held.
I didn't get a chance to play Resident Evil 1 until later when I tried it on a PSP and the 'tank' controls were certainly a product of their time. Still a fun game to play! The dogs jumping through the windows in a hallway always made me jump.
Thank you for sharing your overview and recollection of your favorite game on the Playstation 1!
Tank controls... haha.... that is a wonderful way of putting it. How many times did i get stuck in a corner while a very slow moving zombie was hot on my tail. Tomb Raider's controls were very similarly wonky.
All the games you talked about were absolutely epic and many of them are still good by today's standards.
I think of Twisted Metal 2, the first game I got for PlayStation when I bought one (I bought the Saturn many months prior as I was into arcade games quite hard). Twisted Metal was one of those games that no other platform could compete against. If you wanted vehicular combat like this, you had to get a PlayStation.
Such a fantastic game. I don't know how many hours I put into playing that and don't really understand why no one has attempted to make a reboot of that. Imagine the online multiplayer options that we could have with today's tech?
I know they did a sequel, Twisted Metal Black with an online multiplayer option on PlayStation 2 (it was the first multiplayer console game I ever played). I am not sure after that though. I think the PlayStation 3 Twisted Metal game offered online multiplayer but I am not sure. I don't think it matched Black though which let you play on the regular levels in the game in multiplayer.
Sadly, Black did not match the frenetic energy of 2 though. 2 was straight up action with very optional side quests on some levels. The levels were well designed to keep the action going. Black was more an attempt at giving you an area (on some levels) about half the size of New York City with mandatory side quests versus up to 8 players (way too big, way too monotonous chasing faster characters and not enough players per map). Still, Black was fun for a while - not as long as TM 2 though.
I don't think I ever played Black but do remember it being heavily advertised.
Huge maps would have gotten on my nerves as well. I dont' recall which of the characters was my go to in TM1 but i think it was some sort of military vehicle that had heat seeking missiles or something like that. I think I'll go watch a YT video about all the characters right now and go on a mini trip down memory lane!
Black was awesome online if you had a group that were interested in fighting, much like Battle Royale games today - sadly, being in a group like that is harder than it should be. Even back then there were people that camped, hid, didn't want any part of the actual fight till they could come in with an advantage. That meant a lot of boring driving around looking for them.
Kind of like Battle Royale games if they did not shrink the map and force players into smaller areas as time went on. If Sony would have added some kind of shrinking of the playable area, it would have been a game changer for Black.
I honestly cannot remember and still think we have one packed away in a box somewhere. I bought my kids one each because they were using mine all the time.
Tobal Nº1 & Tobal Nº2
never heard of either of these, gonna go look them up now!
This console was so great. It made an insomniac out of me.