ICO getting a rerelease!

[Shifty Geezer]

I think that for this particular game, they should definitely be able to do 720p/60, especially if they put a comparable effort into it as for the God of War titles ... however nice these titles look, they're not likely to be even nearly as demanding for the PS3 as God of War 1 and 2 were.

It all comes down to whether they're emulating or rearchitecting. If the latter, 720p/60 with AA should be the mark. If they're emulating with custom code for bits that run too slow, just recreating the original experience will be a more realistic target.

 

[Black kolobok]

I finished Shadow of the Colossus for the first time several months ago on my PS3, that game was absolutely mind-blowing. I don't particularly care how it gets re-released, as long as it does. I think you guys are over analyzing it and expecting a bit too much. Comparing ICO to God of War is not accurate, since those games sold orders of magnitude different numbers of copies; and no one is going to invest resources into reviving 10-year old title that few are interested in.

 

[L. Scofield]

If the motion blur translates well, I'd be fine with SotC running at 30fps. I want it to look like a movie, not a soap opera.

Best way I've seen someone put the 30fps > 60fps argument

I agree BTW.

 

[patsu]

I finished Shadow of the Colossus for the first time several months ago on my PS3, that game was absolutely mind-blowing. I don't particularly care how it gets re-released, as long as it does. I think you guys are over analyzing it and expecting a bit too much. Comparing ICO to God of War is not accurate, since those games sold orders of magnitude different numbers of copies; and no one is going to invest resources into reviving 10-year old title that few are interested in.

Well, us consumers can only make noise to get attention. If we stayed quiet, we would not have Yakuza 3 in US for example.

 

[-tkf-]

In regards to texture assets. If the developers kept the original art from which they created the games textures it should be fairly easy(?) to update them. Afaik most textures start at a higher resolution then what is put in the game.

Models on the other hand is unlikely to exist in any other form than the ones in the game.

 

[London Geezer]

Wow is this actually for real? It's like a dream come true for me!

 

[N_B]

Still a rumor until Sony confirms it.

 

[Jedi2016]

In regards to texture assets. If the developers kept the original art from which they created the games textures it should be fairly easy(?) to update them. Afaik most textures start at a higher resolution then what is put in the game.

You would think so, wouldn't you? I've yet to see that be the case, though. Look at Street Fighter.. all of the sprites were what.. 128x128? They couldn't possibly have been drawn at that resolution originally, and yet they had to start from scratch when they upped the game to HD. I wonder if that's what's holding back a Mortal Kombat HD remix? Those were photographs, definitely higher-res than anything we ended up with, and yet there's no sign of a new version.

So I wouldn't hold my breath for high-res textures on a remake. GoW didn't have 'em, either.

 

[Sigfried1977]

You would think so, wouldn't you? I've yet to see that be the case, though. Look at Street Fighter.. all of the sprites were what.. 128x128? They couldn't possibly have been drawn at that resolution originally, and yet they had to start from scratch when they upped the game to HD.

Those old sprites were absolutely drawn at that low resolution. That's what pixel-art is all about.

 

[Jedi2016]

Those old sprites were absolutely drawn at that low resolution. That's what pixel-art is all about.

News to me. I know about pixel-art, but it seems like an odd way of making a game, rather than drawing them like normal drawings and downscaling them. Even if you're right, there had to be high-res art for them to draw the sprites from.. the sprites can't be the only existing version of the artwork.

But the point is still the same.. it's highly unlikely that we'll see new high-res textures for this re-release.

 

[patsu]

Still a rumor until Sony confirms it.

They better do !

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I believe Sigfried1977 is saying the SF artwork was drawn on computer - there are no high-res hand-drawn originals to scan in. For SOTC, if not ICO, I expect artist workflows to be a case of creating highres art either digital or traditionally and then scanning in. If so, you'd only need to resample the originals. It may not happen, but there's not a good reason for it not to happen, and if they want to maximise sales then they want the best possible presentation, and remastering the textures would be a significant step in that direction.

 

[-tkf-]

You would think so, wouldn't you? I've yet to see that be the case, though. Look at Street Fighter.. all of the sprites were what.. 128x128? They couldn't possibly have been drawn at that resolution originally, and yet they had to start from scratch when they upped the game to HD. I wonder if that's what's holding back a Mortal Kombat HD remix? Those were photographs, definitely higher-res than anything we ended up with, and yet there's no sign of a new version.

So I wouldn't hold my breath for high-res textures on a remake. GoW didn't have 'em, either.

Any links to some background info on the Gow PS3 version?

 

[Grall]

it seems like an odd way of making a game, rather than drawing them like normal drawings and downscaling them.

You have to consider the computers people had back then, and their hardware capabilities. Only arcade machines (and some extremely expensive workstations) had decently high-res, high-color framebuffer displays. Sprite hardware was limited too. Only so-and-so many pixels, each out of a palette of a fixed number of colors.

Scanning original art, and getting the best possible use of pixel dimensions and limited palette colors from automated software would be almost impossible. Scaling may be trivial for today's machines, not so much for the often fixed-point, single-digit (or low double-digit) MHz chips of the 80s. How would you get a multi-k rez scan into a machine with perhaps a few MB of RAM total anyway?

So in the end, any re-scaled scans would require extensive touch-ups by hand by a talented artist anyway, so why not just draw the sprites from the ground up in the computer, to the precise dimensions and specifications that will be used on the actual hardware. It'll be faster and look better...

 

[Arwin]

I finished Shadow of the Colossus for the first time several months ago on my PS3, that game was absolutely mind-blowing. I don't particularly care how it gets re-released, as long as it does. I think you guys are over analyzing it and expecting a bit too much. Comparing ICO to God of War is not accurate, since those games sold orders of magnitude different numbers of copies; and no one is going to invest resources into reviving 10-year old title that few are interested in.

That's the thing though - these titles have become much better known since their original release. They have a big potential of reaching a new audience. This is why I'm hoping for reworked versions, not just the originals. And the boost for the new team ico game that's coming in terms of marketing using these remakes could also be significant.

I'm a good example - I only played the demo for Ico, and never played SotC.

 

[Panajev2001a]

I'm a good example - I only played the demo for Ico, and never played SotC.

I have a few things to say...

GET HIM!!!!

J/K .

 

[KKRT]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81gCxvUo-dg&feature=channel
2:17

Render bug or volumetric lighting?

BTW this game is really a groundbreaking technology showcase of PS2 and Team ICO tech devs.

 

[Xenus]

If your talking about the shadow it's a render bug that's pretty common. Xenosaga also does it.

 

[patsu]

ICO and Shadow of the Colossus emulated in HD:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/ico-and-shadow-of-the-colossus-emulated-in-hd

In our feature we compared the PS3 versions with the source PS2 titles, running not just on the original hardware but also on the PC via the open source PCSX2 emulator.

The result? The PC emulation turned out to be very, very close indeed to the HD remixes, proving that the conversion team had replaced no original in-game art, aside from the on-screen text and button graphics.

With that in mind, we decided to check out ICO and Shadow of the Colossus running on the same emulator in order to get some idea of how the original titles would scale up to high-definition resolutions. The results were... intriguing.

...

 

[Npl]

The result? The PC emulation turned out to be very, very close indeed to the HD remixes, proving that the conversion team had replaced no original in-game art, aside from the on-screen text and button graphics.

You quote makes it sound like DF had access to the ICO/SotC remakes, when the article was talking abot the GoW remakes.
Unfortunatly the remakes still arent 100% confirmed.