Metal Jesus & Reggie create a Buying Guide for the new PS1 Collector to understand the different console hardware variants, controllers and recommend some of the best games to get Day 1!

Buy the PS1 & Games here: http://goo.gl/l9XRlB (Affiliate Link)

GAMES SHOWN:
Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped
Die Hard Trilogy
Castlevania Symphony of the Night
Resident Evil 2
Soulblade
Puzzle Star Sweep
Rayman
Chrono Cross
Point Blank 1 & 2
Gran Turismo 1 & 2

PlayStation Analog Joystick (SCPH-1110)

Video Transcription:
Metal Jesus: Metal Jesus here and I am back again with Reggie. How is it going, guy?

Reggie: It’s going good, brother. Today we’re going to do a PlayStation 1 buying guide, so get ready.

Metal Jesus: That’s right. So we’re going to cover the hardware as well as ten games that we think are just perfect for a new collector. Let’s take a look. All right, dude, so let’s talk about the hardware. We have the original Model 1 right here.

Reggie: My favorite system of all time, the system that got me back into video games.

Metal Jesus: Now one of the great things about the PlayStation 1 is that it’s pretty cheap to collect for. You find these everywhere and you find them cheap.

Reggie: The reason why is, because the PS2 system, you have backwards compatibility so you can play all PS1 games. So it made this system pretty much worthless. It’s one of the most worthless systems price range wise…

Metal Jesus: Right, right.

Reggie: …out there.

Metal Jesus: But it’s fun to collect for.

Reggie: It definitely is and I would advise people to start collecting for it because the games are so cheap, especially the good ones. The system is $5 to $10 at the most.

Metal Jesus: But there are some things to look out for if you’re at a thrift store or maybe at a garage sale, and that is that they made a ton of different models of these. And they kept revising the hardware a little bit.

Reggie: Trying to get it right.

Metal Jesus: Trying to get it right. So here is the very first model, and this comes not only with the typical PlayStation AV out, which we all know and love today, but it also comes with RCA, the two audio outs, and then also the yellow outs.

Reggie: What do you think people mostly use those for? Do you think they use them at all really?

Metal Jesus: Honestly I’m not really sure why they have this in here other than audio files love the two audio outs because Sony was primarily known for making audio hardware back in the day. And so when they made the original PlayStation, they actually put an excellent audio chip in here. And so a lot of collectors back in the ’90s who were buying CDs, this was their preferred way of listening to them.

Reggie: Oh, wow, I didn’t know that.

Metal Jesus: So this version here actually would hook up to your stereo and you would have a fantastic audio player. It’s so cool but they got rid of this though.

Reggie: Pretty fast, I think.

Metal Jesus: I think so.

Reggie: Back then, I’ve never seen any.

Metal Jesus: And that’s the thing is that there’s a bunch of different models of this. We’re not going to cover all of them, but there are a couple things you want to know. So they got rid of these. They also got rid of the parallel ports here and the serial ports. Now the parallel port was used for…

Reggie: A GameShark, which I used mine for to help with a couple of games that I’m struggling with, but it was another good thing about the GameShark. It was the GameShark Pro that you could actually go into games, because back then, you couldn’t really look at game cinematics like Resident Evil or Mega Man X4, and look at the cartoon scenes. With that GameShark, you could go to the video scenes automatically and just watch them, which was pretty cool. It was a good device for it.

Metal Jesus: That’s cool.

Reggie: But I think that Sony seeing that kind of stuff, they didn’t like that because it would open up more possibilities for…

Metal Jesus: They didn’t really use it, and so I think as the revisions went on, it’s like they just lost the serial port and also the parallel ports.

Reggie: It could have been used as an expansion pack too, right, possibly?

Metal Jesus: Yeah, it could have been. That’s the thing is that when they built this, that was very PC-like to add those two things in there. They could have technically added a printer, because that’s how PCs back in the days would add printers. But there’s a couple of things you need to know about this though. So the first couple versions of the PlayStation were notorious with skipping FMVs, and a lot of it has to do with the way that they built the laser mechanism. They were made of plastic and so they would wear as time went on. And you mentioned how you would flip it over…

Reggie: Yeah.

Metal Jesus: …to get it to play.

Reggie: I flipped it over just to get my play out of it, because it was kind of sad when you pay for a Java system that’s not working properly. So as a young teenager, I just flipped it upside down. I did whatever I could do to get it to work.

Metal Jesus: The other thing is that they were known at least early on for overheating.

Reggie: Overheating. They made fans that went under the system for it. The fans were pretty limited because they actually stopped making them because they made the new model’s systems work. So I’ve never seen too many of the fans out there, so it’s probably pretty cool.

Metal Jesus: Yeah, it’s pretty interesting. So we have another model here where you can see in the back they removed the extra audio/video out of here. But they kept improving them to the point where they made…

Reggie: My favorite version, the PS1 system. Now this PS1 system, I actually bought it with a monitor, which I thought was pretty cool because I was going to the military at the time, and they were talking about being in the field and stuff like that and have entertainment. So this was my entertainment. The monitor, really solid. It actually has those ports on the back of this monitor.

Metal Jesus: Yeah.

Reggie: Now this is a third-party monitor. It’s not the official Sony one, but this one’s still pretty good. The system is actually, as you can see, a lot smaller. It’s pretty much the same system, but the design is so much unique. It’s smaller. It’s quieter.

Metal Jesus: You can tell they are just refining. It’s smaller and better.

Reggie: They really did a good job on the system. I’m still impressed looking at it right now.

Metal Jesus: Well, I love the fact that Sony keeps revising their hardware. They do this with every system whether it’s the PSP, the PlayStation 2, the PlayStation 3. They always make slimmer versions.

Reggie: They did it three times with the PS3, which I was like, “Wow, okay.”

Metal Jesus: Yeah, it’s cool that they do that. At some point, it’s going to be like this big and it’s going to be in your pocket and you can attach your keys to it.

Reggie: It’s really awesome.

Metal Jesus: So that’s a quick overview of the console itself, but it was such a popular console that there was a ton of other stuff for it. So where did we start with the controllers?

Reggie: Yeah.

Metal Jesus: The very first version of the controller was this. The world was introduced to the PlayStation controller. A couple things here. Notice that there’s no thumb sticks. So that was not originally part of the design.

Reggie: To be honest with you, it’s very similar to a Super Nintendo controller. That’s one reason why I started to like… Just with the layout of the blend on the side, I feel like it’s close… That why I liked it a lot.

Metal Jesus: Interesting. Okay, so like kind of a natural transition for you, right?

Reggie: Mm-hmm. Yeah, very easy.

Metal Jesus: And then of course you have another variation here.

Reggie: Yeah, a red one which I don’t remember I found this at with cool color, I guess.

Metal Jesus: Oh, yeah, totally, but they did eventually do one with thumb sticks.

Reggie: Yeah, the Dual Shock. This is not the first version of the Dual Shock. They had another one that we don’t have, but this one was the defined version of it, and I remember this one came out during the time that Metal Gear Solid Head came out where they were really expanding on the vibration function, which was really cool.

Metal Jesus: Well, and also thumb sticks are really useful for 3D games, and so during this transition from 2D games to 3D games and controlling things with an analog stick in 3D space, it just became more natural and they stuck with it. It was nearly perfect.

Reggie: The other thing I should mention, when they made these sticks, Ape Escape was another game that these analogue sticks were really used for. So it was a really cool control for it.

Metal Jesus: So while you’re out collecting for controllers, you also need to take into consideration you will need a memory card.

Reggie: Yeah, and I want to tell you a little quick story about that because I had got two games for my system. Before I even got it, my mom helped me buy the system. I finally got the system, got home, was so excited to play it, didn’t realize I needed a memory card. So I played one of the games. [Inaudible 0:07:34] all the way to the end.

Metal Jesus: How many kids have this exact same story?

Reggie: Yeah, I know, right? And I didn’t want to turn the system off because I didn’t want to start over again.

Metal Jesus: Well, if you think about it coming from the NES and back when cartridges were the thing, they would have a battery save backed up into it.

Reggie: Yeah, those CDs where…

Metal Jesus: So you wouldn’t even think of that. It’s like, “Of course.” But CDs obviously can’t do that, so they need a way to save and so these are very important.

Reggie: Very, unless you want to start the game from the beginning every time.

Metal Jesus: What’s also important too about these is that even if you don’t play your PS1 games one PS1, let’s say you play them on a PlayStation 2, you still need to use a PlayStation 1 memory card.

Reggie: Yeah, you do.

Metal Jesus: It’s always good to have a stack of these around.

Reggie: Yeah, it really is.

Metal Jesus: All right, so what else have we got?

Reggie: We’ve got a multitap port. It’s not the official multitap. I don’t know what happened to mine, but this is the knockoff one I had. Pretty cool still. It’s not as cool as the first model, because the first model actually slides on the system like a block.

Metal Jesus: You highlight something here is that that again there were so many third-party solutions for the PlayStation 1. It’s kind of crazy. You’ll be out looking at stuff and you’ll see something you’ve never seen before. Some third-party controller or memory cards were really popular, everything.

Reggie: Yeah.

Metal Jesus: Oh, yes.

Reggie: Another one, the light gun. Guncon 1 actually.

Metal Jesus: Sweet. This thing is awesome.

Reggie: Time Crisis. What else? Point Blank was another good game for it. This is pretty awesome. I didn’t get mine until later down the line, but if I had this in the beginning, I would’ve been playing a lot of cool, light gun games, because those were my favorite type games in my PS2.

Metal Jesus: Oh, yeah, and like you said, this is just such an awesome arcade experience in your house.

Reggie: But you definitely need have to have two TV or…

Metal Jesus: You do. One thing to note is that if you’re going to play light gun games, they do not work on modern HD televisions. You do need an old-school CRT, so keep that in mind.

Reggie: Let’s see what we have here.

Metal Jesus: Yeah, you brought these. Okay, I’ve heard of these. These are the pocket station.

Reggie: Pocket stations.

Metal Jesus: What is this?

Reggie: It’s like a MEmu just like the Dreamcast one. But for some reason, Sony of Japan, they want to bring it out to America but it’s compatible with one game in America, which is [inaudible 0:09:50]. It was a game I was playing pretty crazy. By hooking this to the game, you could actually with a memory card slot you could unlock other spells. They weren’t unlockable by other means except through these systems. So that was pretty cool.

Metal Jesus: Yeah, I can see where these would be appealing because again it’s like when you’re not home and you’re at school, you can still do some sort of gaming. That was the idea.

Reggie: Yeah, exactly.

Metal Jesus: Because at the time, Sony didn’t have a portal, so this was it.

Reggie: Pretty much, but I think by that time, they were in talks about it because they had an idea that they wanted to get into the model somehow. But another thing is that those are the original Sony mascots on the cover.

Metal Jesus: These cats.

Reggie: Yeah, these cats. I’ve got their names but…

Metal Jesus: Oh, interesting.

Reggie: Because Sony has so many mascots. Other systems don’t have that many, but Sony has. You don’t know who their main mascot. The first one was Crash. I don’t know who it is now. And another item I got which is like a pocket station, I guess. It’s called pockets guy [SP]. I have no idea what this is, and I got it. And it looks like a pocket station. I haven’t really opened and messed with it yet, but maybe somebody else will know what it is.

Metal Jesus: Wow, interesting. It says it’s a memory card but maybe it’s got some sort of screen or something like that.

Reggie: Yeah, something. I don’t know.

Metal Jesus: All right. So that is the hardware. Let’s take a look at some games. All right, so we have a stack of ten games that we think pretty much anybody who’s going to be getting a PlayStation 1 collection, so just go out and buy.

Reggie: Games like we usually use are games that kind of define the system.

Metal Jesus: These are not necessarily hidden gems. They’re just again it’s like, “Go get them,” right?

Reggie: All right.

Metal Jesus: Let’s start with Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped. So, dude, first of all, I think this is one of the best crash games ever. Honestly if I was to say, I think it’s like a masterpiece. It’s that good.

Reggie: I hate to say this, but on my first time playing that game, I think it was last night. I think I played it once when I was younger, but from what I’ve played off, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t played it yet. This game is pretty sick. The platforming on this game, and the voice acting and the story is really cool.

Metal Jesus: Well, I think also to the graphics. At this point, they knew this is not a dog. They knew how to make awesome games in a PlayStation 1.

Reggie: Yeah, they learned that system.

Metal Jesus: This showcases that. It’s got so much going on. Personally I think the platforming is just perfect. It’s the best version of the Crash series. Anyways, highly recommended.

Reggie: Did you like the one-hit kills in that game or…? It had pet [SP] points. That kind of made me mad a little.

Metal Jesus: Well, I never liked those, but, no, you’re right. These games have always been tough. Although I feel like this game is easier than the first game.

Reggie: Yeah.

Metal Jesus: The first game is really hard for me for some reason. I don’t know why. I think it’s just that they have refined it quite as much.

Reggie: Somebody else had totally said the same thing to me. They said that one was the best one to play.

Metal Jesus: Yeah, definitely.

Reggie: All right, another game here. I got this from my buddy, Joe. Die Hard trilogy, this is three games in one based off the first three Die Hard movies, which I think they have five of them now.

Metal Jesus: Let me just say, I haven’t played this game but it’s so wild that we have a movie tie-in game. Who knew, right?

Reggie: I know, and it’s pretty good actually. The voice acting is corny because they’re like imitations of the actors, but they’re good imitations. They’re like corny…

Metal Jesus: Bruce Willis.

Reggie: Yeah, like, “Get the hell out of here,” like in the first movie.

Metal Jesus: Oh, okay, trilogy so it is the first three movies. There was Die Hard, Die Hard 2 and then Die Hard with a Vengeance.

Reggie: The first Die Hard is basically you’re rescuing hostages out of a building. You’re shooting the bad guys. Just rescuing people. That’s how that game mainly is from what I’ve played. The second game is like a rail shooter. You’re at the airport, which is like the second movie. He was at the airport and you’re shooting the bad guys, trying not to shoot the civilians of course. They like getting in the way. And the third game, which was pretty cool, is basically a car chase, car racing game. You’re trying to race to get the bombs in town in a time limit. Samuel L. Jackson character is telling you where to turn to get to the bombs in time. And of course people are in your way in the streets. I tried to dodge them but they’re just in the way.

Metal Jesus: Okay, I just noticed something in the back here. We forgot to mention the mouse, and this game supports the mouse.

Reggie: It supports the mouse. I did not know that. That’s probably for the first person shooter.

Metal Jesus: Yeah, probably. I could see why that would be pretty interesting. Yeah, so we didn’t show the mouse. We have it and we just completely forgot about it. That’s cool it supports that.

All right, so next up is Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. A lot of people consider this to be probably the best Castlevania game or at least up to this point for sure.

Reggie: My second favorite Castlevania game is Symphony Of The Night. It is really cool because the intro starts you off from the previous game’s storyline, which really is actually really cool the game did that. So that sucks you in like that, and the game pretty much starts you with a newer character. And you’re basically just going through this massive castle trying to get to the last boss.

And the story really unfolds going through the game. It’s really pretty cool. You’ll say it kind of feels like a Metroid type game like Metroid and stuff like that.

Metal Jesus: This is one of those games that kind of created that term though, Metroidvania.

Reggie: Basically because it’s massive, wherever you’ve been, you create a map where you’re going. So you can always backtrack and know where you went, but in new areas, you’re kind of just building the map, which is cool.

Metal Jesus: The other thing about this game is that people even today say this has one of the best gaming soundtracks, and so again it’s just a really well-rounded game so definitely.

Reggie: Yeah, definitely. My second favorite Resident Evil game, Resident Evil 2. When this game first came out, I was bugging my mom to get a ride to the store. I was trying to do whatever I could to get down there to get it. Finally got home and played it. Played it with my cousin but he didn’t want to help me play because we were both scared to play through it. And this game was… Man, it is massively good and scary.

Metal Jesus: Now one of the things, on this one, it says it supports the Dual Shock analog controller. So was this one…?

Reggie: They made a version of it after the regular version came out. It was before the Dual Shock because Dual Shock had just come out at the time.

Metal Jesus: Now is this a director’s cut or something? I know there’s different versions.

Reggie: No, this is just the Dual Shock version of that one. Dual Shock version added the extreme mode, I think, to the game, which is pretty cool.

Metal Jesus: Awesome. All right, I’m going to be shocked. You brought a fighting game.

Reggie: Yeah, Soul Blade.

Metal Jesus: Which turned into Soul Caliber right?

Reggie: It’s actually really called Soul Edge. I don’t know why they changed the American name.

Metal Jesus: Oh, interesting.

Reggie: Maybe, I don’t know. Very good game. Still playable to this day. It’s a solid fighter. It’s very cheap. It’s probably $5-$10 at the most, I would think. It’s got a lot of good characters in. The arenas, you can knock people out of the arenas if you’re really good. Solid characters, solid music and a story mode, afighting game with a story mode. That’s always a plus to me.

Metal Jesus: Yeah, that’s cool.

Reggie: Next game, Puzzle Starsweep. Now a lot people don’t even know what this game is.

Metal Jesus: I had no idea.

Reggie: It’s a puzzle game but it’s a unique puzzle game because it plays like a battle Tetris type, but it’s different. It’s where you have to switch the blocks to match the colors. It’s hard to explain because I haven’t played it that much myself but the game is only $5 and it’s really addicting. It has a versus mode, and a story mode, and an arcade mode.

Metal Jesus: That’s cool. Never heard of it.

Reggie: It’s unheard of like one of those last PlayStation 1 games that came during the end of its lifeline. Next game is a platform game, Rayman. You have to have this game if you’re going to have a PlayStation system.

Metal Jesus: Okay, so this is the 2D platform Rayman game before they switched over to 3D, which I definitely prefer the 2D ones.

Reggie: I do, too.

Metal Jesus: Okay, wow. I haven’t played this. This looks awesome though. It’s beautiful.

Reggie: The graphics are really like… they stand out really good.

Metal Jesus: Okay, cool.

Reggie: Starts off really easy then it gets kind of hard.

Metal Jesus: Wait, before you show that one.

Reggie: Okay.

Metal Jesus: We had a challenge and that is that the PlayStation 1 is known for so many role playing games. And so we’re like, “Dude, we’ve got to have a role playing game in this video. Which one do you choose?” So we ran through all of them. Final Fantasy VII, VIII, IX, Xenogears.

Reggie: Then we said one at the same time.

Metal Jesus: Yeah, we did. Actually I was surprised you said this one, because it’s one of my favorites. It’s the first RPG I ever played on PlayStation 1, and that is Chrono Cross, and I love this game. It’s funny because a lot of people will say, “Oh, Chrono Trigger is better,” and that is a really good game but I really, really love this game.

Reggie: I like Chrono Cross better, and the Chrono Trigger, a lot of people hate me for saying that but there’s reasons why that I like this one better.

Metal Jesus: For me, it just starts off right off the bat with the beautiful music that is in this game. That opening cinematic just sets the stage. I love the battle system in this game. I think it’s one of my favorites.

Reggie: The battle system is… and one thing about the battle system, if things get too tough, no matter what, you could always run away. There’s no like you can’t run away, which I hate when you’re trying to get some boss.

Metal Jesus: I know because it penalizes you for sucking. I’m already hurting and you’re going to make it hurt more.

Reggie: Let me grind a little bit more and then I’ll come back okay.

Metal Jesus: This game is massive, too, so it’s definitely a huge value. Not enough people talk about it, so it’s awesome that you and I both picked it at the same time. It’s so funny.

All right, so the next one, we had to add these through. That’s right. The Point Blank series and it’s because the light gun games on the PlayStation 1 are so much fun, so well made and I love these games.

Reggie: You could tell by what they put into these games. I played the first two. I didn’t play the third one that much. It’s addicting. You really want to try to win. And then some of the games are funny, because you’re trying to save one of the guys being set on fire, and you’re shooting all these items and the time limit and everything.

Metal Jesus: Yeah, but lots of humor in there. This is the kind of game where if we have a party at my house and the light gun is set up, we’ll put these in over like say Time Crisis, even though I love Time Crisis. People can get into this that aren’t even necessary gamers just because, I don’t know, it’s just something whimsical about them.

Reggie: Yeah, anybody could play it. It looks really fun and something you could hop into and have fun.

Metal Jesus: Yeah, those are great games. The next two games here actually. I guess they’re our last ones. So you originally had Moto… What was that, Motor?

Reggie: Moto Grand Prix.

Metal Jesus: That’s right.

Metal Jesus: It’s from the same makers as the next game we’re going to bring up.

Metal Jesus: But I was like, “Dude, as awesome as that game is, Gran Turismo.”

Reggie: Gran Turismo. The reason I didn’t choose Gran Turismo at first because I never got out to it, but I remember all my friends were into this game. I wasn’t like into cars back then, so maybe that’s why I wasn’t…

Metal Jesus: No, this is a simulator and these games definitely they can try your patience because they’re are not Arcadian, and so they’re a very different experience I think.

Reggie: Because you’re building up your cars and stuff like that. Parts stuff like that.

Metal Jesus: But I think for me back when the PlayStation first came out, I had a roommate who had a PS1 and he showed me Gran Turismo and I was a PC guy. I was a little bit of a snob. I was like, “Oh, consoles, right?” Dude, Gran Turismo blew me away. It’s a hardcore simulator and it really impressed me at the time.

Reggie: Tell me this. Is it still playable today?

Metal Jesus: It is, it is because it’s such a well-made game. You could probably argue that maybe the physics now are better in newer versions, and they probably are, but I think the thing is you can go too far with that. Some games are unplayable because they’re so hard to control say with a controller. This games is just the right amount of difficulty, plenty of content. I don’t know. I just think that they’re definitely some of the best driving games on the PS1.

Reggie: I agree, man. I’m going to give it ago.

Metal Jesus: You should definitely check it out. All right, so that is our quick, little buying guide to the PlayStation 1. Although we did forget one controller. It’s the biggest controller of them all. Actually I think the only thing bigger would be like the Steel Battalion controller on the Xbox One.

Reggie: Yeah.

Metal Jesus: So, dude, what is this?

Reggie: This is the analog controller which was used… it’s actually used for quite a few games for this system. One game I remember on top of my head right now is Elemental Gearbolt. You can use it for that.

Metal Jesus: Which I think is a light gun game.

Reggie: It’s a light gun game and you can play this one. So can you imagine playing that game with multiple controllers?

Metal Jesus: Dude, this is awesome. I guess actually probably Ace Combat.

Reggie: Ace Combat, too.

Metal Jesus: Yeah, it has a little hat here and everything. Wow, it’s so interesting.

Reggie: They took it out the function for three for some reason.

Metal Jesus: Wow, it’s cool. So as you can see, there’s an awful lot to collect for when it comes to the PlayStation 1. We’ve only barely touch on it. Here is the mouse as well, which again it’s like they had a mouse. It’s so awesome.

Reggie: I know and the mouse is used for a clock tower point blank I’m assuming.

Metal Jesus: Also I’m looking over here Discworld, so some adventure game as well.

Reggie: Oh, Discworld as well.

Metal Jesus: Yeah, so much to collect for with the PlayStation 1. So this just the tip of the iceberg, but we’d love to know what you guys recommend for new collectors. What games do you think they should go out, get day one. We’d love to know, too, because there’s some on that that we haven’t heard of or we don’t have in our collection.

Reggie: Yeah, and another thing, the mouse can’t be used for Point Blank. I actually mentioned that earlier so just don’t want anybody get confused.

Metal Jesus: But it’s kind of a hit and miss, and that’s the other thing too on the back of these. It will tell you right down here below what they support and how much space they use up on the memory card and stuff like that. All right, man, awesome video. Thanks for coming on.

Reggie: All right.

Metal Jesus: All right, guys. Thanks for watching my channel. Thanks for subscribing. Take care.

Reggie and I have done a bunch of PlayStation 1 videos. So if you’re new to collecting for the PlayStation 1 or you’re just looking for some hidden gems, we also cover some PAL games and a bunch of stuff. So definitely check out my channel. I release new videos every single week. So you’re going to want to subscribe. Thanks for watching.