Ratchet & Clank Size Matters!: PS2 Fidelity mattered

In Ken Strickland’s post to IGN Blogs, he really wants to give the High Impact Games engineers their props. The devs had one (of many) objective for the PSP Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters!, and that was “to make Ratchet move and respond with the same grace that he exhibits on his modern PS2 adventures. We know it was TASK ONE because we stapled these words to Roberto’s shirtsleeves and monitor for the duration.”

Yes, one wouldn’t expect less of a Ratchet & Clank game, right? In this case, the solution they found was similar to that which Namco Bandai’s Project Aces team worked out for their own recent baby with a PS2 mommy, Ace Combat X. They mapped sidestep to the D-pad. “Personally, I find myself switching between analog stick and D-pad moment to moment.”

It might work out well – this writer does a similar thing in Ace Combat X, switching between the nub for bank and the D-pad for yaw as necessary during dogfights (and it worked out generally well, to my surprise. We’ll see how it plays for Ratchet).

Here’s what Ken had to say for graphics:
We have pushed the PSP’s processors to their limits to bring you the same explosive destruction-wielding weapons you’ve seen in past Ratchet games. And it always astounds me when looking at Ratchet himself – he’s been cut down to half his normal polys, but the furry little guy looks almost indistinguishable from his PS2 counterpart!

(Yeah, lots of people also said the same thing for Ace Combat X as well. Only the planes weren’t furry).

He did have a few words to say about multiplayer – that it will be both ad-hoc and infrastructure – but he’s leaving that to multiplayer designer Dave Goodrich to discuss.

In Ken Strickland’s post to IGN Blogs, he really wants to give the High Impact Games engineers their props. The devs had one (of many) objective for the PSP Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters!, and that was “to make Ratchet move and respond with the same grace that he exhibits on his modern PS2 adventures. We know it was TASK ONE because we stapled these words to Roberto’s shirtsleeves and monitor for the duration.”

Yes, one wouldn’t expect less of a Ratchet & Clank game, right? In this case, the solution they found was similar to that which Namco Bandai’s Project Aces team worked out for their own recent baby with a PS2 mommy, Ace Combat X. They mapped sidestep to the D-pad. “Personally, I find myself switching between analog stick and D-pad moment to moment.”

It might work out well – this writer does a similar thing in Ace Combat X, switching between the nub for bank and the D-pad for yaw as necessary during dogfights (and it worked out generally well, to my surprise. We’ll see how it plays for Ratchet).

Here’s what Ken had to say for graphics:
We have pushed the PSP’s processors to their limits to bring you the same explosive destruction-wielding weapons you’ve seen in past Ratchet games. And it always astounds me when looking at Ratchet himself – he’s been cut down to half his normal polys, but the furry little guy looks almost indistinguishable from his PS2 counterpart!

(Yeah, lots of people also said the same thing for Ace Combat X as well. Only the planes weren’t furry).

He did have a few words to say about multiplayer – that it will be both ad-hoc and infrastructure – but he’s leaving that to multiplayer designer Dave Goodrich to discuss.