Sony Computer Entertainment's first console is coming roaring back, this time in portable form. SCE announced earlier that it would be featuring downloadable PS1 games for its PlayStation portable system, and in a test station here on the show floor, the company showed off Namco's PS1 game Ridge Racer playable on the portable.
Ridge Racer was a good choice to show on PSP, because it's one of the most visually-impressive and yet simple to control games on the PlayStation 1. And "simple to control" is key here, because several questions are still left unanswered with this demo. Chiefly, how will PSP cope with the lack of a second set of trigger buttons? It's possible that SCE and developers may be able to map one set of the triggers to the D-Pad when using the analog nub, but since the Ridge Racer demo didn't use both buttons, it's unknown how that'll work. In fact, it's unknown in general how emulation interfacing will work -- as demonstrated by the Pre-E3 demo by SCE, the PS1 demos on PSP boot straight to the game after download (although it's possible that there will be an option outside of the boot menu before the game starts.) Once in the PS1 game, it's a PS1 game -- the select and start buttons do what they did on PS1, and the only buttons that you can interface PSP-style are the volume, screen, and home buttons. Games made for the emulator from PS1 will be carefully remapped to the PSP controller to make the most of the system. On the start menu, when you go to controller options, you see the ancient PS1 white controller, pre-DualShock. Interestingly enough, the analog nub didn't work at all in the demo -- we're not sure if this is because the real PS1 game didn't have analog (although that should be an easy thing to cheat onto the stick), or because we were not able to find the analog switch-on feature, or if the feature is just not implemented yet.
Click for more
Ridge Racer was a good choice to show on PSP, because it's one of the most visually-impressive and yet simple to control games on the PlayStation 1. And "simple to control" is key here, because several questions are still left unanswered with this demo. Chiefly, how will PSP cope with the lack of a second set of trigger buttons? It's possible that SCE and developers may be able to map one set of the triggers to the D-Pad when using the analog nub, but since the Ridge Racer demo didn't use both buttons, it's unknown how that'll work. In fact, it's unknown in general how emulation interfacing will work -- as demonstrated by the Pre-E3 demo by SCE, the PS1 demos on PSP boot straight to the game after download (although it's possible that there will be an option outside of the boot menu before the game starts.) Once in the PS1 game, it's a PS1 game -- the select and start buttons do what they did on PS1, and the only buttons that you can interface PSP-style are the volume, screen, and home buttons. Games made for the emulator from PS1 will be carefully remapped to the PSP controller to make the most of the system. On the start menu, when you go to controller options, you see the ancient PS1 white controller, pre-DualShock. Interestingly enough, the analog nub didn't work at all in the demo -- we're not sure if this is because the real PS1 game didn't have analog (although that should be an easy thing to cheat onto the stick), or because we were not able to find the analog switch-on feature, or if the feature is just not implemented yet.
Click for more