I could have mentioned this days ago, but the LinkSys WRT54G went into service smoother than silk. There was literally nothing to install or tweak, as my PC was already setup from the previous LinkSys router and my Macs just know what to do naturally. My real concern was the WET11, but it too settled into the LAN perfectly. My wireless network was up and running in about 20 minutes.
I registered my PS2 Network Adapter immediately afterward, and that too was easier than you could imagine. I guess it would be a harder setup if you're dialup or AOL, but if you're on broadband with DHCP, it's basically a series of screens saying "Success! Press X to continue!"
The Network Adapter comes with an online demo disk, with playables of Frequency and Madden. I checked out a Frequency chatroom and it was as you would expect. Meaningless preteen jibber jabber. Madden wanted me to create an account, so I bailed, seeing as I will never actually play it anyway.
This weekend, I picked up SOCOM: U.S. Navy Seals. Right now, that's just about the only non-sports online PS2 around, so I felt obliged to try it out. Honestly, it's not a great game. It's perfectly serviceable, but not amazing. But I'm still suffering from FPS burnout, so maybe I'm not being fair. It's a realistic, team-based third-person shooter... not really pushing the genre at all, other than the use of voice chat. In the single player game, you can use the mic to issue terse commands to your CPU teammates (the 1P game uses the headset/mic extremely well), and in multiplayer, you use it to swear loudly and annoy people.
When other players aren't trying to wreck it, I really like hearing other people talk strategy. In the games I played tonight, a couple players would invariably assume the lead and suggest map plans and shout out warnings. I chimed in a couple times, but as I am still getting used to the controls, it seemed stupid for me to participate overmuch. Although I racked up my fair share of kills, often my involvement consisted of distracting the enemies long enough for the truly skilled players to take them out.
But I must point out how well it worked. Perfect connections, clear chat, smooth gameplay. I look forward to playing my own friends in games that are better than SOCOM. Resident Evil Online and NHL currently top my list.
After all I've read about Xbox Live, it does sound like a more efficient setup, however. With the PS2, you have to create a username and account on a game-by-game basis, instead of Xbox's systemwide username system. But Xbox Live is a pay service, so there you go. Plus, Xbox is hackable.
No Broadband Adapter for my GameCube yet, which is no great loss since there's exactly One online Nintendo game at this point anyway. But if the rumors hold out and Mario Party, Mario Kart, Animal Crossing and Pokemon all get online, I'll be spending more time online with my Cube than my PS2.
