Harrison
24th January 2007, 00:35
The Dreamcast game Phantasy Star Online v2 (and v1 before it) was the first proper online game I had played and it was one of my favourite Dreamcast games at the time. I played many hours of that game, both online and off-line. It was the first time I experienced an online gaming community and taking the game online brought a hard to describe magic to the game that made it far better than playing off-line.
Remembering PSOv2 always brings back memories of dialup connections, waiting for the server to finally connect to the PSO servers and then working to create a party and go adventuring together. Having a proper DC keyboard was a huge bonus for PSO as it meant it was easy to chat to other players. Using just the controller for chat was very hard.
I have since played PSO a bit on the PC using a private server, but there was always a lack of players online due to it being a private server. Probably 6 people is the most I ever saw logged in. This compares to 1000's on the real PSO servers back in the day.
Sequels have been mentioned for a long time. Blue Burst was a more recent release, but it was basically still PSO, but with a few additions.
Now a true sequel called Phantasy Star Universe is released on the PS2. Has anyone else played Universe yet?
I got hold of this last week and had a quick play through the first couple of hours of the off-line mode and although it contains some elements from the older Phantasy Star Online from the Dreamcast, it is quite different in some respects.
The combat and weapons system is very similar to the DC game, as are some other elements such as the structure of levels being room based and the different races of people inhabiting the universe. But so far I've not experienced the same feel as the original DC game had. I'm hoping as the off-line story is following a more traditional RPG style than the older PSO games, that the more detailed and advanced areas of PSO will unfold as the story progresses and you gain more powers and abilities.
So has anyone else played PSU yet? and what do you think of it?
It is definitely a game I want to play more of to see where it leads, and I'm also tempted to try out the online mode if I can get it to work. :)
Remembering PSOv2 always brings back memories of dialup connections, waiting for the server to finally connect to the PSO servers and then working to create a party and go adventuring together. Having a proper DC keyboard was a huge bonus for PSO as it meant it was easy to chat to other players. Using just the controller for chat was very hard.
I have since played PSO a bit on the PC using a private server, but there was always a lack of players online due to it being a private server. Probably 6 people is the most I ever saw logged in. This compares to 1000's on the real PSO servers back in the day.
Sequels have been mentioned for a long time. Blue Burst was a more recent release, but it was basically still PSO, but with a few additions.
Now a true sequel called Phantasy Star Universe is released on the PS2. Has anyone else played Universe yet?
I got hold of this last week and had a quick play through the first couple of hours of the off-line mode and although it contains some elements from the older Phantasy Star Online from the Dreamcast, it is quite different in some respects.
The combat and weapons system is very similar to the DC game, as are some other elements such as the structure of levels being room based and the different races of people inhabiting the universe. But so far I've not experienced the same feel as the original DC game had. I'm hoping as the off-line story is following a more traditional RPG style than the older PSO games, that the more detailed and advanced areas of PSO will unfold as the story progresses and you gain more powers and abilities.
So has anyone else played PSU yet? and what do you think of it?
It is definitely a game I want to play more of to see where it leads, and I'm also tempted to try out the online mode if I can get it to work. :)