The answer, of course, is that we never actually needed the Dreamcast. We wanted it. Do we want PlayStation2? Yes we do.

This bugger sold out at every gaming store nationwide before the sun could rise on Oct. 24. Most of the American public will have to put their sad little names on a waiting list and weep. That’s because they won’t get their thumbs on the PS2 until spring 2001 at the earliest. To get it quicker, some will pay monstrous prices for a Japanese version on eBay.

What progress does the $299 price tag, ridiculous hype and waiting period get you? Well, DVD technology, for one thing. When you’re not using the PS2 to look down Lara Croft’s shirt, you can utilize it to play the latest laser-enhanced movies. CD-ROMs and original PlayStation games also work.

The controllers are comfortable and nice-looking, featuring two sets of triggers, two joysticks and two analog directional keypads. The rumble pack — a.k.a. the gamer’s vibrator — is sleekly built right in, buzzing your hands when you steer a digital automobile into a digital wall. The console only accommodates two controllers, compared to the Dreamcast’s four. But how many serious gamers actually have three friends? The various add-ons (hard drive, pistol-shaped controller, mouse, etc.) are sold separately. A "complete" PS2 could end up looking like a personal computer, and costing you about the same.

With lots of lame slang, trash-talking and cutthroat competition, Midnight Club will be many suburban kids’ introduction to "ghetto." Give it a 3 of 10 yo-mama’s-so-fats on the Snaps-o-meter. But for us streetwise crackers, the great revelation is that a racing game can be so un-ironically amusing. The pace is lightning fast and the graphics display crisply without pop-ups or hang-ups; score it a solid 8 on the Hutch/Starsky scale.

Smuggler’s Run (Rockstar, $49.99) is pretty much the same game, except in a hilly, rural setting, and you get to choose from lots of hickmobiles: buggys, SUVs, monster trucks, etc. It’s not quite as thrilling, but it’s almost as addicting, racing against time, police and other smugglers to deliver contraband from points A to B. The overt sexual innuendo of the game’s narrator ("Faster, baby, faster," "It’s a solo mission, baby, you’re playing with yourself,") might make this game inappropriate for the young ones, or too obnoxious for the mature. It’s the Bill Clinton of games: a sometimes-embarrassing yokel that’s actually good at what it does. Six of 10.

But where PS2 is a clear step up in virtual racing technology, there doesn’t seem to be much room for improvement (save for really kick-ass graphics) in fighting games. Street Fighter EX3 (Capcom, $49.99), a precursor of Mortal Kombat, is full of the same old friends you laughed about. (Welcome back Blanka, who’d have thought you’d make it this far?) Yet EX3 is practically the same as it always was. The lil’ fighters have the same moves, the arenas are still mostly 2D and the thinly veiled Asian chic is intact: All characters, even clearly non-Asian ones, exclaim loudly in Japanese after each victory. It’s charming and competitive like chess, but PS2 won’t make you Bobby Fischer. It’s just a 4, not the sort of game you’d expect to usher in a new age of home entertainment. It’s the future, man, where’s our progress?

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