PlayStation



The PlayStation's creation was a bumpy ride. It began as a CD drive for the SNES, but Nintendo noticed too late that the contract was too favorable to Sony, jumped ship, and went to bed with Philips (which ultimately led to the creation of the infamous CD-i and the worst Zelda games ever). Scorned and fuming with resentment, Sony decided to take what they had at that point and make their own console. Many expected it to be an also-ran, at most a distant third place. Yet the angry newcomer came out swinging and crushed the competition, leaving them asking: what the hell just happened?

Here's what: the PlayStation was their perfect storm. While everyone else fucked shit up, Sony got pretty much everything right. While Sega did a complex and expensive design that left even the best programmers scratching their heads, Sony did a simple but powerful machine that was much easier to code for; and while Nintendo tried to gouge third-parties with cartridge prices, Sony offered their CD manufacturing plants and distribution structure to publish their games at much lower costs.

Ultimately, it became the best selling console ever (later surpassed by the PlayStation 2), so you will find a vast game library. Quite a lot of garbage in the pile too, but that's what this wiki is here for, right?


 * Positive Metacritic Reviews
 * Neutral Metacritic Reviews 
 * Negative Metacritic Reviews
 * No Review Listed 

'''Yeah you can play PS1 games on a PSP, a PS2 or a PS3*. If you have to get a PS1 get a Yaroze, it plays games regardless of region, unlike the regular PS1s.'''

Please note that "PS1-PSN" denotes games available on the PSone Classics service on Playstation Network (simplified for space issues).
 * Protip: Contrary to popular belief, ALL PS3 units can play PS1 discs. PS2 games however are out of the question.

Emulation
PSX emulation evolved considerably along the years and the Recommended Emulators section has four capable pieces of software for you to choose from.

Stick to Xebra or pSX if you don't want to waste too much time lurking around and\or doesn't have patience to tweak stuff. Both are very stable and emulate the ol' Playstation pretty reliably. If your PC is dated and you're not sure about its performance, those two will probably work better for you.

PCSX-Reloaded is for those that have a good gaming system, are picky about graphics or simply like messing around. Both have a myriad of plugins to customize video, audio and gameplay settings and can be tricky as hell to set up; however, there are some really neat options for both, like extra filtering for textures and using custom shaders to improve visuals: Check it out.

Look for guides to help you configure everything if you're going with the second option. Also, note that custom shaders that might work for some games can make others look terrible. AA and Color Boosting effects are recommended for pretty much everything but there's fun to be had experimenting with the others (Cartoon Shaders make some polygon-heavy games look like they were cel-shaded, which is pretty cool, although they destroy 2D sprites).