History, Sony Online Drama
I bought a Sony PS2 a few years ago, when it just got out. I beleive it belongs to the first or second batch of Playstation 2 consoles arriving in the Netherlands. It costed a small fortune. About a year later, I purchased the Linux kit for my PS2. The Linux kit came with a network adapter and a harddisk. It worked like a charm. Sony had not started the online game service back then.
When Sony finally announced their network gaming plans, the Linux for Playstation group very kindly sent me a “Network Access Disc”. This is the disc you normally get when purchasing your network adapter for the PS2. However, being an early version and all, I never got it working properly. I spent hours (no, literally!) trying to register my handle and username. I never got it working properly. Friends of mine who bought the official adapter had newer versions of the software, which seemed to work better but still not good enough.
The beautiful world of non-Sony developers
I had given up on online gaming on the PS2 by now. A few months ago I played an online demo of DTM race driver 2 on my PC, and had great fun. I registered with GameSpy and was online and gaming with my friends in less than 5 minutes.
Last weekend, I found a copy of DTM2 for the PS2. Since I liked the fysics engine of DTM2 for the PS2, I decided to give it a try. Not even thinking about the cruddy PS2 online gaming option. When I got home and started the game, I was pleasantly surprised to see that DTM2 for PS2 actually uses the GameSpy system in stead ot the stupid Sony stuff. Again, I was playing online in within 5 minutes (had to look up my old GameSpy Id). I even hooked up an USB keyboard, which made logging in even simpler! Terrific!
My compliments to Codemasters and Gamespy, who have restored my hope and ability to play online games with my PS2.