Modern Vintage Gamer Digs Into The PS2's Much-Hyped "Emotion Engine"

When I was in high school the chatter about the "Emotion Engine" was all the rage amongst us kids. That and the fact it also was a DVD player. Mind blowing stuff back then.

"Emotion Engine" always just seemed like a natural counterpoint to Sega's "It's Thinking" campaign for the Dreamcast.

This kind of stuff is always nonsense. Another point in a very long line of console makers making silly claims for the sake of marketing.

Although regardless of what cutesy name they gave it, at least this was an era in which new console generations felt like actual improvements over the prior ones. Nowadays, we still get the rose-tinted marketing and overhyped promises but the games barely look or play different than the previous generation.

Let’s be real, the main reason for buying a PS2 was that it played both games and DVDs. Being a DVD player in itself was the main selling point at the time.

@mwatcher The main reason for buying a PS2 was that it followed the PS1

For impoverished, mid-adolescent nerds like myself who were unsullied by the internet of the time, the Emotion Engine was a magic box of power.

My ignorant self thought it could recreate the entirety of New York in Metal Gear Solid 2 down to the buildings, where every single one was was enter-able, where even the post cards could be destroyed and where the populace could all be fully animated.

That was my expectation for MGS2 after playing the demo. Basically Escape From New York done in the Emotion Engine. You can imagine my disappointment when I first arrived at Big Shell.

That childlike optimism was kinda nice though.

@mwatcher

some heavy projection going on there, friend. surely, some people were encouraged by the dvd playing ability, while others didnt care about that, or already had a dvd player (✋.)

for me, the main selling point of the playstation 2 was that it was the new playstation, broadly, and Metal Gear Solid 2, specifically. 👍 it ended up being one pf the best games consoles of all time, while i personally played very few dvds on it ever, and never found it to be a particularly great player. ✌️

@jimmytodgers

i was disappointed initially as well, but then the game proceeded to blow my 15 year old mind, and become one of my personal favorite videogame experiences of all time 🤯

(ps the 'boat' chapter of this game was indeed a new benchmark for attention to detail and interactivity in a game! I'll never forget what a wonder that was at the time 🥂)

I seem to recall Sony being especially brazen in how they hyped some of their systems. I think they did more embellishing than their competitors at the time. In the case of the PS2, I think they exaggerated what the system would be able to do and how many polygons it would be able to push in a practical sense. With that said, the best hype for the PS2 was that it was the follow up to the PS1. The fact it could play DVDs no doubt helped it as well as many people still had not picked up their first DVD player, so the value proposition of that probably was a factor for many. But those early PS2 games definitely did not live up to the hype. I guess game development was behind what was technically possible. Eventually, though, it did go a lot farther and could push a ton of polygons, though probably not near as much as they said. I never did buy into the "emotion engine" stuff though, and never liked that branding either. I was already a Dreamcast fan, so that made me more sceptical, but it was obviously marketing and not magic. Sony's marketing tended to fall flat with me, but the PS2 ended up being a good system.

Always hated the ps1 3D graphics in comparison to the saturn. Always hated the ps2 graphics in comparison to the DC. So very gritty and peppered with black dots and sharp edges, like sandpaper polygons.

@Sketcz

I got a dreamcast for my birthday that year, 1 month after release. I had such high hopes for that console, and I spread the good word for that entire glorious 18 months, bringing it to every gathering, birthday party, etc etc. it's the only time I can remember EVERYONE taking turns playing, EVERYONE wanted to get into Soul Calibur, NFL2K, Crazy Taxi. NO one could believe what they were seeing! It was the biggest perceptible technological jump of my lifetime, like a miracle!

Like you, DC owners were rare in my area. In actual fact, I never met a single other person who had one during it's short life, and to this day I have one other friend who does. It felt like my own little portal into the future!

Nevertheless, the writing was on the wall already when I saw MGS2 fir the first time, and realized there was no way I was missing out on the sequel to MGS. It did feel like I was betraying my DC, but I'd have happily supported both consoles at the same time. they were the Genesis/MD + SNES of their time, like peanut butter and jam.

For the record I still have both, and they are probably still my two personal favorite Nontendo consoles ever. 👍

"I am convinced that if Sega paid enough to make MGS2 exclusive, they would have won the console war."

btw, I hadn't ever heard this. was this in the cards at one point?

I was out of my teens when PS2 came around, so the marketing didn't grab me like that. Nothing was as in-your face as the "Blast Processing" stuff from Sega. LOL

I loved the PS2. I think it was my #2 system behind the SNES. The library for the PS2 was just nuts. My kids still play SSX and Tricky. It was such a jump from the earlier systems on several fronts. I still have my PS2. I'd forgotten about the whole Emotion Engine marketing stuff. Putting the marketing aside, the technical capabilities was just amazing at the time.

@Sketcz

no apology necessary, my friend! it's all ancient history. ✌️ daydreaming, history, and counterfactuals are all we have left, along with our memories and aging consoles 😂

I agree that MGS2 had alot to do with the popularity of the PS2! in the ballpark of DVD playback and PS1 backwards compatibility.

Typical year 2000 gamer conversation:

You like games?

yah.

Me too what's your favorite?

well Earthbound, but right now I'm into Shenmue and Toy Commander. ✌️

😐😑😐

I'm not old enough to remember when the ps2 launched (I was only 2 at the time) , I have to admit SEGA did a wonderful job of screwing up & leaving kids of my generation without the knowledge that sega consoles even existed (SEGA was that company that made 3rd party games on ps2 , xbox
& gamecube while dreamcast was that company logo that appeared on old Arsenal shirts from a few years ago at the time , I had no idea dreamcast was a console) while Ps2 built my nostalgia in the 2000s.

Years later I became a student of computer science & electronics engineering & while studying a bit of CPU/GPU design I finally learned exactly what the hype for those early 6th console marketing was about with regards to the emotion engine & supposed 128bit gaming. The questionable marketing is referring to the machine's ability to process 2**128 arrays & vectors at once for improved 3d performance over 5th generation consoles but most elements of the machine are still 32bit meaning that in one go they only handle 4billion bits of data for processing at once & even this is true for the n64 with the 64bit elements of the machine not actually being usable in an practical way due to RAM size & speed plus the processor speed. So questionable & dodgy marketing in orde to over hype these consoles knowing full well most gamers don't understand how they work.