Bluepoint Talk “Team Ico” HD Remake Issues

The HD remakes of Team Ico’s Ico and Shadow of the Colossus are out this Friday – you can read our full review right here but chances are you’re already set to drop the money on enhanced versions of two of the best games made for the PS2.

[drop2]What you might not be aware of, though, is how much of a struggle updating these two well loved games was for developers Bluepoint, who sailed through the remastering of God Of War but found multiple problems facing them with Team Ico’s titles.

The studio’s Andy O’Neil, talking in this month’s Edge magazine, says that “Japanese developers have a very different philosophy [comparing the Ico games against God of War].”

“They use Linux, to start off with,” he says, “so you have to get the first drop and have to find a Japanese version of that.  And they use an unusual build pipeline.”  The issues include differences in fill rate between the PS2 and PS3, the PS3’s transparency problems and getting Ico to run in 1080p.

Technical Officer Marco Thrush said there were “thousands of Assembler functions that simply didn’t compile” – Shadow took “a lot longer” to get running that God of War, which apparently was up and going in a day.

And then, after working hard on getting the two games flowing, Sony asked about 3D support – O’Neil said that the games were “already hammering the crap out of the hardware” and then they had to figure out how to display everything twice to get the 3D effect.

It’s a great article, discussing everything from the ideal 3D sweet spot to fixing bugs that were present in the originals.  It’s in Edge 233, with Skyrim on the front cover.

15 Comments

  1. In Edge magazine? I am not buying that POS LoL

    Anyway i can’t wait to play ICO :P

  2. This week…….

    ugh I was pre-ordering Dark Souls…

  3. Still haven’t played these games but, what with everything else coming out soon, they will have to go on the back-burner once again. Given ICO is only a few hours apparently it doesn’t sound like the collection is worth any more than about £10 so..

    • In this case length certainly shouldn’t influence your buying decision, these games are unique and like with flower or journey a description can’t capture what makes the games so special. Assuming you prefer quality over quantity, these games are easily worth the asking price.

      • “Assuming you prefer quality over quantity, these games are easily worth the asking price.”

        Thanks for the feedback. I prefer a nice mix of both categories if possible. If I know a game is really short I will try and hold out until it drops to around £10-£15. Given most other HD collections have dropped to 8.99 quite quickly (Tomb Raider, God of War, Price of Persia, etc) I’ll probably hold out until this does the same.

      • That’s quite alright :)

        I guess since they’ve been out so long waiting for a few months won’t make much of a difference but definitely give them a play eventually, they really are superb and unique, though perhaps somewhat of an acquired taste.

    • Your loss.

  4. I do read Edge on a fairly regular basis, and for in-depth, behind the scenes, articles like this it’s great. Everytime I read a review I want to tear it into tiny little pieces and vomit all over it. To me, there is a lack of consistency or justification, too much hypocrisy.

    • Endge if probably my favorate cross-platform mag. I did love the Batman AC editorial.

  5. i’m swamped with games at the moment. where am i going to find time for these classics ?.

  6. Well, the delays make sense now.

  7. New EDGE? Holy shit! I’m still reading (what I thought to be) the latest one (Vita on cover).

  8. Interesting

  9. Cannot wait to see the finished game

  10. too… many… games…

Comments are now closed for this post.