As both the video game console that defined my teenage years and the reason I failed to get decent GCSEs - who needs to attend first period or hand in their homework when they're smashing it on Pro Evo, right? - the PlayStation 2 remains an important part of my growing up

Weirdly though, through all those educational attainment decimating hours of Final Fantasy X and Smackdown vs Raw, there was a hidden message that I never even thought about. One that was popping up day-in, day out, every time I changed game but that went completely unnoticed.

See, up until today I never knew what determined the number of towers that appeared on the loading screen. You know the one I mean:

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But now I know. In a Facebook post that has recently gone viral a social media user claimed: "The start up screen on PS2 showed different amount of towers based on how many games you played, and the height showing how long you played said game."

The clear squares are apparently related to how many PS1 saves you have. All of which appears to have been validated by a number of articles.



As well as these tweets:

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The number of blocks on the PS2 loading screen represent how many games you've played, and their length is your progress. https://t.co/Huz8cyQJ38

- ChakraZulu (@Claude_Himself) November 1, 2017

It's tied in with the number of saves on your memory card, if you remove the card, it will revert back to none on boot up :)

- Simon Lock (Aergan) (@A3rgan) August 19, 2017

i only found out a few weeks ago that the blocks on the ps2 loading screen represents how many games you've played lol

- Pickle Dave (@rDaveHoward85) August 19, 2017

Remember the PS2 loading screen? Those white blocks? They represent your games stored on your memory card. Awesome!

- Final Boss Fight (@FinalBossFight) February 3, 2016

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I was planning on checking out whether this is true myself on my old PS2 but then I remembered that it's in my gran's attic and to be honest, fuck trying to go up there with those dodgy ladders.