On March 4 2000, the PlayStation 2 was released in Japan and also made its way to North America and Europe in the fall of the same year. The follow-up to the incredibly succesful first PlayStation turned out to be a major success: with 155 million units sold, PlayStation 2 the bestselling game-console to this day. The system sports an amazing library of games in every conceivable genre and, it can be argued, marks the beginning of many still current trends in game design. In spite of all this, however, the system seems to get little love from historians, designers and also modern players: „This looks like a PS2-game“ is a common argument when people complain about lacking graphical finesse in modern titles. In this elective, we want to explore the tech, the games and also the gaming landscape of the PS2-era, look at changes, emerging and dying design-trends, games that defined the system, conceptual dead-ends and also the influence the PS2 and its games still have on modern titles. Each participant is expected to hold a presentation and hand in a written assignment at the end of the semester – another requirement is, that the games discussed are actually played! Software will be provided, a halfway-decent computer is a required to use emulation.