RevieWednesday: Sony Paystation

The Sony Playstation was released in 1995. It was a 32-bit machine born out of the failed SNES CD add-on that resulted in Nintendo creating its biggest rival yet (and indirectly killing SEGA in the process) and Phillips making the really awful CD-i Mario/Zelda games (the only good thing that came out of the CD-i games was its major contribution to the Youtube Poop scene). The console pretty much lasted until slightly after the release of the Playstation 3. So lets look at this grey slab that you could possibly write the ten commandments on.

POSITIVES

The Sony Playstation has a great variety of quality titles ranging from Crash Bandicoot to Final Fantasy VII to Gran Turismo. Playstation unitized Memory Cards for storage and used CDs as a gaming medium allowing for cheaper production and more memory to make stuff with. Plus the Playstation's shape allows for tidy storage, since its about half the size of a stone slab from Minecraft. The Playstation is the 90's equivalent of the Atari 2600, underpowered (we'll get to that later) and sold like hotcakes.

NEGATIVES

The Sony Playstation's controller uses directional buttons instead of a D-pad, but because internally, its just one piece of plastic that pivots around, it feels wonky and doesn't feel responsive (it is responsive, it just doesn't feel like it). The discs (unlike cartridges) scratch easily and renders the games unplayable and thus the costly search for more discs becomes a thing. The console is relatively underpowered compared to the SEGA Saturn or the Nintendo 64 (but sales say otherwise). The memory cards fill up quickly, so if you have a large collection or is the kind of person that uses up save slots all the time, you need a least two (at the most, like 30). Plus some of the better titles on the system don't have support for analog sticks so your stuck with the poor man's D-pad.

VERDICT: 4.4 out of 5 stars

"Despite its quasi-glaring controller/save memory issues, its a great video game console. Play this and the Playstation 2 if you want to play Sony and not deal with their shite security problems."