Happy Birthday PSOne

If you're willing to ignore the fact that Japan saw the release of the Playstation on December 3rd 1994 then this month is very special in the life of Sony's first computer console.

September 9th and 29th 1995 marked the release of the Playstation in the US and EU respectively, which makes it 15 years old this month.

The Playstation wasn't my first gaming console by any means, that distinction belongs to the Nintendo Gameboy and Sega Master System (i wanted an NES). Along the way i owned a SNES as well, spending many a happy night playing Mario All Stars, but it was the Playstation that stole my heart and took it's place as my favourite games console.

Sony had such a wide array of different games available on the system that any gamer could find something to play and enjoy. Puzzle Fighter, Worms, ISS, Resident Evil, Ridge Racer, Destruction Derby, Gran Turismo, Final Fantasy VII and Grand Theft Auto. All these disparate games have only two things in common, first they were all available on the Playstation and secondly i owned them all. There is just a snapshot of how diverse the games library could be, and similarly how random my taste in games became once i switched to Sony's system.

My favourite game on the Playstation, and still one of my favourite games of all time was released two years after the systems launch. Final Fantasy VII came out just a few short months after i became the proud owner of my own Playstation. The opening cinematic, accompanied by Nobuo Uemastu's stirring soundtrack blew my mind. I never thought a video game could rival movies as a form of visual entertainment, yet here i sat watching, not playing the beginning of a game that would go on to swallow months of my life. I was so obsessed by that game that i spent a whole week in bed (I assure you i really was ill) playing through the final stages of the last disc.

Sony's Playstation was the first system to truely embrace three dimensional gaming. Tekken, Battle Arena Toshinden and Driver spring to mind as examples of developers taking advantage of the systems power to deliver a more immersive gaming experience.

I'm taken back to a time when Grand Theft Auto was the game all my friends were playing, i bought the new issue of PSM as i always did and opened the page to read about a new game being released soon by the name of Driver. My mind once again exploded, this time at the thought of driving around in a 3D environment with absolute freedom. No need to follow tracks, no caption flashing up on screen informing me that i was indeed "Going the wrong way", in fact there were no real rules at all. Half the fun i had in that game was when i was trying to break it, The monster Truck cheat was great fun, jumping over bridges with suspension jacked up to three times the normal height was an obsession for me, watching replays of my stunts afterwards made it all the more addictive.

The graphics of the PSOne (as the smaller yet similarly powerful update was known) pales in comparison to the later PS2 and PS3, yet it retains it's appeal to me based on the strength of the games and the feelings attached to them. I still play destruction derby and worms from time to time, but dare not touch FFVII for fear of losing my social life to it.

Now that they have made FFVII available on PSN i might risk my social life by downloading it again, i still own my copy of the game from back in 1997 but haven't got the room to set up the old PS2. On second thoughts it would give me a chance to play ICO and Shadow of the Colossus again...

Happy Birthday PSOne, I still love you x

Robinho.