Farewell, Little Buddy

Sony has decided to stop manufacturing the dear old Playstation One. A moment of silence, please.

(Sniff)

There.

To be honest, I was surprised that they were still slapping the little white boxes of wonder together. With the PS2 being backwards compatible with the old PS1 games, I thought Sony had just fazed them out. But that's why I have three dollars to my name right now and Sony executives can buy my entire street with their coffee money. They're smart and stuff.

And so here I sit, treasuring my old PS1 memories. Like most sad old fools, entranced by visual beauty and nonsensical story, I played a ton of Final Fantasy on the Playstation Numero Uno. I don't think I'll ever forget driving that motorcycle out in the desert in Final Fantasy VII, then realizing I had no idea where the fuck I was. More of my life was spent in Final Fantasy VIII--the horribly botched assassination attempt, the bad J-Pop singing, Squall's inability to commit, and the glorious coolness that was the gunblade.

Yet the game that really defined the Playstation One for me was...Silent Hill.

I played that game in my basement, with the lights off. It, to be honest, scared the living shit out of me. The creepy soundtrack, the fogbound city of Silent Hill, the way your radio began to scream when something was getting close, the midnight high school with the noises heard down the corridors...pure nightmare. But the absolute worst had nothing supernatural about it at all: it was just a common household appliance.

In the game, you enter a room to find a phone on a table. Outside, it's dark, and the room is barely illuminated. Out in the rest of the buildings, things move, groan, and lurk. You search the room, but don't find anything. So you go to leave the room, expecting to be attacked at any moment, go to open the door....and the phone rings.

I screamed.

Of course, I got the bad ending in Silent Hill. (Everyone dies.)I never went back to get the alleged 'good' ending, because one trip through the empty, abandoned streets of Silent Hill was enough. The game just creeped me out far too much to even consider playing a sequel.

So goodbye, Playstation One. You helped me scream like a little girl, and fall in love with big eyed Japanese women. You will always have a place of honour in my basement, where all good out of date game consoles go.

Goodbye, little buddy.

(Sniff.)