It looks like the trend of translating PSP games over to PS2 has no signs of stopping this year. Last February's highly impressive debut of Ratchet & Clank on PSP, Size Matters, will make a bow on PlayStation 2 this March, although features such as online multiplayer won't be making the transition. Recently we got a chance to talk with some of the members of the Size Matters staff at High Impact Games to find out what's making this console port tick.



GameSpy: Although High Impact is largely made up of former Insomniac employees, how much input did Insomniac have on the creation of another Ratchet for PS2?
Lesley Mathieson, Design Director: While Insomniac Games was not involved directly in bringing Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters to the PlayStation 2, Insomniac's Ratchet games have served as a frequent inspiration for beautiful worlds and great gameplay. Our goal was to make Size Matters' PS2 version of the level of quality that Ratchet fans of previous games have come to expect.

GameSpy: Will there be online multiplayer?
Tyler Wells, Gameplay Programmer: We decided to keep the PS2 version of Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters as a more local, bonding experience since the platform allows for that. The multiplayer options available are two-player versus and cooperative modes in the familiar game types of Iron Lombax and Capture the Flag.
GameSpy: Since you're programming with a platform that has two analog sticks, have you made tweaks to this version to bring it closer to a pure console experience?
Tyler Wells: We definitely took full advantage of the second analog stick. The control scheme returned to the PS2 Ratchet style of binding the left analog stick to player movement, and the right stick to camera control. We even brought back Lock-Strafe camera mode for those who preferred that in the other PS2 Ratchet titles.

GameSpy: What kind of visual upscaling will this version get from its predecessor?
Jared Bishop, Environment Artist: We've retouched the lighting scheme and added more environment objects to create a richer, denser game world. Wherever possible, we created higher-resolution models and textures that look crisp on the big screen.
Jon Mayfield, Engine Programmer: The most obvious upscaling is that the actual rendered resolution is more than 60% greater than the PSP. To compliment the higher-resolution screen and take advantage of some of the extra power the PS2 has, we retouched and upscaled most of the textures and meshes, and made the worlds more lush by the addition of more plants, rocks, and other detail items. Additionally we rewrote and polished some of the post effects to take better advantage of the additional power the PS2's graphics hardware provided us.