Sonys PS1 emu on PSP - Crash Bandicoot Impressions
via chubigan who gives his impressions of Sonys PS1 emulator playing Crash Bandicoot :
It seems Sony is starting to realize the value of an indie platform, as they're starting to extend it to the PSP as well. They have started a service called Kit-Start, which gives devs a free dev kit for the PSP along with technical consulting and support straight from Sony. Perhaps the battle of next gen wont be decided by big-budget games...but rather, who has the bigger indie support. It will be an interesting next-gen race for sure!
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First off, you can choose either original, normal or stretch on the universal PSP menu...however, the normal function still has some black bars on the top and bottom (as shown in the pic above). Even stretched fills the left and right of the screen, but the black bars remain. Not sure if this is an issue with just the one game or not, so I'll have to find out later.
The game itself looks really great...in fact, I was downright impressed once I got to the waterfall/river section. The PS1 could really pump out some splendid visuals back in the day, and the PSP screen makes them sharper than ever.
The controls were interesting. This game came out before analog was available for the PS1, yet I felt much more natural with the analog stick than I did using the digital pad. However, in bonus levels and the 2-d scrolling levels, I switched back to Type 1 and used the digital pad. While it sounds like a hassle, it literally takes two seconds to do this, so its not a big deal at all.
The emulation of the game so far is great, but with a big problem. Bonus games are found midway through a level every now and then, and once you complete it you can save the game. Out of the five times I played a bonus level, the game failed to kick me to the saving menu twice, which leaves me with an empty screen. The game didnt freeze as the music and some effects were still going on, which leaves me to think this is an emulation problem more than the original ISO. And it's quite a big problem...because this game can be notoriously unforgiving sometimes, and losing that progress is just painful.
Thankfully the game also uses a password system, so I was able to look up some old codes on the net and get back to where I left off...but still, this is something that should have been fixed, no exceptions. On the plus side putting the game in sleep mode is instant, and un-sleeping your PSP brings you back to the game in just under two seconds. (I thought perhaps the sleep mode may have caused the save glitch, but I ran into it the second time on a fresh reboot of the PSP.)
I'm really lovin this game so far...it's a perfect fit on the PSP, despite the emulation hitch and the not-so-suitable save mechanism for portable gaming. It seems like a promising start for a service that will grow and expand for the PSPs future, and I'm very excited...and so will you be once Sony implements a PC or PSP download service early next year. For the lucky few with PSP and PS3s, consider it a nice test drive in the meantime.
