Sean’s House

Ok, so I got hit with massive SDA (Senseless Desire to Acquire) syndrome this weekend and rationalized my way into picking up FFXI for the PS2. (The short answer is, multiple games will eventually use the HDD, and you can back up memory cards to it)

Short review: PS2 version is no worse than the PC version. Given a choice, you should go with the PC version unless you have older hardware…..

Long Review:

The drive itself is a rebranded Seagate 40GB drive. (I don’t have the model number handy, but it’s printed on top) It is a vanilla standard IDE drive, with an array of brackets attached to it, which look easy to remove. You attach the drive to the network adapter, then slide the whole thing into the PS2 and screw it down. You also get two relatively large manuals, (large because each one is in a bajillion languages) a cdrom containing HD tools (for reformatting, etc.) and a shrinkwrapped copy of FFXI, containing an FFXI install DVD and a PlayOnline/Tetra Master install CD.

Since everything said it was “pre-installed” I figured all I had to do was fire it up from the System Browser and be good to go. This is not the case. You must boot once with the PlayOnline CD to configure network settings and update the PlayOnline software. Once that’s done, it soft powerdowns the PS2, and you boot up without it. From the Browser menu you select the HDD, then PlayOnline Viewer and go from there. It then proceeds to update FFXI when you launch it. Ironically, due to file format differences, it seems the PS2 version has a smaller number of individual files (less than 1000?) whereas the PC version has somewhere around 8500 or so. Updating took less than half an hour (versus 2-3 hours for the PC) on 1.5MB DSL. Logitech Netplay controller in lap, I proceeded to reacquaint myself with Vana’diel.

Pros:

Depending on the size of your TV, you get big screen goodness. It supports 16:9 view, which would be great if I had a plasma TV.
Lazing on the couch is more fun than sitting at a computer.

Cons:

Depending on the size of your TV, you get big pixels.
Screen realestate is at a premium. The chat window takes up a large portion of available space.

For some reason, the default gamepad config on the PC version with my Netplay controller is different than the config on the PS2. On the PC, Triangle opened up the menus, square was the weird select button, circle selected and X cancelled. On the PS2, however, Triangle and Square were swapped (unexpected) and circle and X were swapped. (expected) This really screwed me up for the first half hour or so of playing.

Nighttime is DARK on a TV. Of course, I can adjust Brightness and Contrast on the TV, but that’s much more of a pain than on a monitor, not to mention other people in the house bitching if you forget to put everything back. (”WHY IS EVERYTHING WASHED OUT?!” :P)

All in all I’m happy with the PS2 version. I’m going to stick mainly with the PC for the better resolution, but I think if I ever start selling things via Bazaar, I’ll use the PS2 version for that to keep my computer free for other things.