by Mary Clark

Created on: January 11, 2009

Sony's PlayStation is an entertainment idol in our home. Living in a rural area where there is no movie theatre, bowling alley or any other form of entertainment, except perhaps watching the mountain grow rocks, the PlayStation fills our need for affordable family entertainment. Over the years, our family has accumulated a rather large collection of PS2 games. However, we discovered that we only play a handful of games. We each have our favorites that we keep pulling off the shelf every time we sit down to play.

When it comes to the entire family getting together for an evening of PS2 gaming, there is only one group of games that appeals to everyone in our house. When these gatherings happen as they often do, the house rocks to the tunes of Guitar Hero or Rock Band. We recently added the band ensemble bundle to our collection and have had hours of fun and a ton of laughs to go along with our obvious lack of musical genius. This game genre appeals to a wide age group and our family band includes members as young as seven and as old as fifty. It is comical to watch the youngest get excited about having to play an oldies rock song from the seventies and even more comical to watch grandma do some head banging of her own to a song by pumped out by Metallica.

The teens and young adults in the house enjoy the RPG and Action/Adventure Games like Resident Evil, Final Fantasy, and Grand Theft Auto while the older adults enjoy an occasional round with Tiger Woods on the golf course.

For the younger age group, the favorites remain Crash Bandicoot, Jack and Daxter, Sly Cooper, Spyro and Ratchet and Clank. The children will always ask if they can play these games when they visit and on occasion grandma and grandpa will dust them off for another run through too. The biggest downfall of this style game is that once you have played the first version, the sequels are pretty much the same. The games are all similar in many ways, as you will journey through various levels breaking things and collecting items to win the level and eventually the game. The true challenge to these games comes only if you decide not consider the game "beat" until you have collected every item that is available for you to collect.

We never imagined that we would enjoy Sony's Playstation the way we do now. Originally, we purchased it for our children who are now adults. Somewhere along the way, we managed to become addicted to the games ourselves. When it comes to family fun, PS2 games remain a good investment.

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