Console - 10/10: Built to perfection and with dark, sleek colours the black version is gourgeous even in light rooms. You can stand it horizontally or vertically and it has a beuatifully crafted black ridge effect. Even the disc tray looks to be hidden.

Games - 10/10: The PS2, undeniably, is the best console for games with more and more bestsellers appearing every month (Grand Theft Auto, Hitman, Metal Gear Solid) and each game is depicted in its own way getting bettter and better as the console shows its full power.

Reliability - 9/10: Now the console is extremeley reliable provided that you take time and car over it and perform regular monthly cleaning of dust from it. However opening the case during the warranty period is inadvisable. If the console collects dust where it is be sure to clean oout all the vents and run a DVD cleaner through it at least every 50 hours of playtime.

Performance - 10/10: The console surpasses every other console in this area by looking good and staying good. There have been a lot of nightmare stories appear about disc read errors or DREs. This is becasue people do not take care of the console and give it regular maintenance. My Playstation has survied a year now of vigourous playing and regular maintenance and it performs just the same it did when I pulled it from the box.

Controller - 7/10: Although it has many improvements and looks the same as the previous DualShock controller I find that there is one major fault. If you play button bashing games such as FPSs or racing games it jjust doesnt stand up so I reccomend you purcahse a cheap controller for these games as the DualShoc 2 can go horribly wrong such as buttons can stop working and the reaction to pressing slows.

Graphics - 10/10: The graphics are fine tuned and excellent on this console. They may not be as excellent as Xbox but they are consistently excellent on many brilliant games in the marketplace.

Gameplay - 10/10: Unlike other consoles the gameplay is slick, fast and reliable. Delivering an excellent game is down to gameplay and many games do this surpassing expectation of this console which is another reason to get the console as it is excellent with the games too.

Other Media - 10/10: The Playstation 2 is not just about playing PS2 games. It also plays CDs, DVDs and old PS1 games making it an excellent console to purchase being the all round one on one console. DVDs are playe with no picture or sound trouble, however you may start to experience problems if you do not give it its regular maintenance. Also some DVDs can take up all the memory and stop but there is about a 0.01% chance of this happening. CDs, whethr bought or burned of your own bands tracks it plays excellently. Plug your console into an AUX socket on a hi-fi or buy the 5.1 speakers and you could get blown away. Whether youve just bought the latest rock album or youve burned your bands own music onto a CD-R you will have no trubles whatsoever. Finally I bring myself to the PS1 games. What can I say apart from the console plays them brillaintly and plays 99.99% of them no trouble at all and sometimes faster than expected depending what menu options you have chosen.

Memory Card - 10/10: The final piece of necerssary hardware. Ideally you should purchase one of these with the console. They are black, 8mb in length and match the console right down to the word card. They are also 200x ffaster than the previous PS1 memory cards and if treated with respect will return the same favour.

Well, the decision was quite easy to make. Sure, the X box has the capability to be the best of the consoles, then again didnt Dreamcast and Nintendo 64 also have that promist of a brighter future? And where are those consoles now?

Call me foolish, but I bought a PS2 with Metal Gear Solid 2 and GTA 3 for 260 quid and I am completely at ease that I made the right decision. The PS2 has playability and reliability. The other two console may be more powerful and have potential for better gaming, but then again Beta Max was better quality than VHS, Mini Disc is better than Compact Disc, etc.

Being lucky enough to own not only the PS2, but the Gamecube AND the Xbox, I can safely say that Sonys machine is easily the worst of the three, and my reasons are as follows...

1. Games. Yes, lots of games are available for the PS2, but unfortunately out of the hundreds available, only a mere handful of those are worth the money, and out of those, even fewer are not available on either of the other systems. With the Xbox and the Gamecube, both systems have a wide range of top quality exclusive titles, which make them much more appealing.

2. Poor DVD playback. blocky pixellated graphics, lipsync problems halfway through movies, no Dolby Digital support (surround only), and an incompatibility with over 800 dvds make this a bad choice for the movie buff. Also its only 2 speed fast forward, plus no zoom feature, or A-B repeat. If you want a console to play DVDs, get an Xbox, which has 36 speed fast forward, 10x zoom magnification, A-B repeat, and Dolby Digital sound.

3. Loading times. OH MY GOD! I thought I gave up waiting 3 minutes for a game to load when I got rid of my Commodore 64!
Its so much slower than the Xbox (which takes about a minute), and MILES slower than the Gamecube (which takes about 15 seconds).

4. Design. PS2 has an annoying ability of ruining CDs if you stand the machine up on its side, due to the poor manufacturing of the DVD lens... also the PS2 wont last you much more than 2 years before you have to buy a replacement.
Both Xbox and Gamecube are designed to last.

5. Cost of accessories. HOW MUCH FOR A PS2 MEMORY CARD!?! £30!!!
Gamecube memory costs a fraction of the price (£12), and the Xbox has a built in hard disk to store data on (£nada, included in the machine.)

So, at the end of the day, the only good thing PS2 has going for it, is the ability to play PSone games...but then again, if you had an Xbox or Gamecube, would you really want to play old, crumby, ugly games? Itd be like owning a Ferrari, and taking a Skoda for a test drive.