PlayStation 2 Slim

In 2004, my parents were in the midst of a messy divorce, and that Christmas was the first year my family had two separate visits from Santa. I’ve never asked my mother outright if she was trying to set a precedent for her kids to be more excited to hang out with her during the holidays than my dad, but given the gifts my siblings and I got in 2004, it was probably in the back of her mind. My oldest sister had recently moved out and taken her PlayStation 2 with her. I had asked for Sly 2: Band of Thieves for Christmas under the impression that I’d play it at friends’ houses or whenever I was able to visit my sister and her PS2 that wasn’t seeing use as a game console, probably. But in the weeks leading to Christmas, my mother had been asking about the recently-released PlayStation 2 Slim console that was supposed to be smaller, thus cheaper to make and buy. I was still too young to have really been paying attention to the industry in any meaningful way, but I wasn’t expecting to get a game console for Christmas.

Well, my mother defied my expectations that year because I walked into our living room and saw a PS2 slim sitting on the couch with a copy of Sly 2 and a wireless MadCatz controller leaning up against it. I was fascinated by the PS2 Slim because I couldn’t believe it was technically the same device as my sister’s giant OG console. The new system having an openable top cover instead of a protruding disk tray broke my brain, but I was always glad to have it because I was less scared of breaking it every time I tried to switch out a game. But I wasn’t switching games that Christmas because I devoured Sly 2 that Christmas break. These days, I’m not usually one to play video games out of order, but Sly 2 catapulted my interest in Sucker Punch’s heist platformer from passing knowledge into obsession, so I got the first game shortly after. Now, thanks to that fateful Christmas morning, I am 18 years older and in constant distress about the fact that Sony refuses to greenlight a fifth game that would resolve Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time’s cliffhanger, which has been more traumatic for me than the divorce that probably got me this gift. So maybe, in the long run, I have suffered more psychic damage than enjoyment. But it still set the bar pretty high for the Christmases that would follow.

Kenneth Shepard, Staff Writer