Games like Gran Turismo 4 and Devil May Cry 2 weren't on the list at all, while popular casual games like SingStar were also reported as suffering from "intermittent issues". Well, having just shredded the cardboard away from our new console and updated the firmware, we're launching straight into testing the backwards compatibility. We'll be looking at the games that don't work (and seeing what happens when you put them in the console) and testing out those games that work "intermittently".
The following is a list of the games we tested out on our new PAL Australian PlayStation 3 with 1.6 firmware. We've looked at what Sony has said about each game, and then looked at what our tests have revealed. We've tried to test a wide variety of games, and it's possible that we've missed some of the game errors, so this guide isn't necessarily highly reflective of the full gameplay experience with a given title.
SCES-51719 AFL Premiership 2006
What Sony Says: Will not work at all.
What our tests reveal: They lie! "AFL Premiership 2005" appears on the list of compatible titles, but AFL Premiership 2006 plays without issues at all.
SCES-53950 F1 06
What Sony Says: No known issues.
What our tests reveal: This game runs fine without any problems at all.
SLES-54002 FlatOut 2
What Sony Says: Should play with noticeable issues.
What our tests reveal: There are two versions of FlatOut 2 listed on the backwards compatibility website and unfortunately we've been stuck with the version that is supposed to play with noticeable issues. It's recommended that all PlayStation 2 titles are played in 50Hz, but with FlatOut 2, we decided to take a gamble and run the game in 60Hz. Despite reportedly having issues, we didn't encounter any at all, and the game ran at full speed.
SLES-54623 Grand Theft Auto Vice City Stories
What Sony Says: Works with noticeable issues.
What our tests reveal: We didn't encounter anything out of the ordinary. The FMVs all displayed fine, and we didn't encounter any slowdown.
SCES-51719 Gran Turismo 4
What Sony Says: Doesn't work at all.
What our tests reveal: Unfortunately the screen below reveals everything you need to know. When selecting to play the game the PlayStation 3 will bring up a blurry green image and then you'll be booted back to the initial load-up screen for the console.
The screen that greets you when you try and play a PS2 game not compatible with the PlayStation 3.
SLES-54156 Mortal Kombat Armageddon
What Sony Says: No known issues to date.
What our tests reveal: During the 50Hz/60Hz test, the screen flickers, but you can successfully select 60Hz without any issues arising in the game; appears to run flawlessly.
SLES-51918 Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
What Sony Says: Should play on PlayStation 3 with some minor issues
What our tests reveal: The frame rate in the game can become a little jiterry but otherwise the game is easily playable.
SCES-50000 Ridge Racer V
What Sony Says: No known issues to date.
What our tests reveal: We had no issues with this game at all.
SLES-53810 Sensible Soccer 2006
What Sony Says: Should play on PlayStation 3 with noticeable issues.
What our tests reveal: Sensible Soccer 2006 was the first game we tested that was said to have noticeable issues, but the issues weren't as bad as we had expected. When the game first loaded and introduced all of the players we saw a bit of flickering, and when shooting for goal the game paused for about two seconds, but our experience wasn't representative of "noticeable issues".
SLES-53542 Shadow the Hedgehog
What Sony Says: No known issues to date.
What our tests reveal: At first we were a little alarmed because glitches were prevalent through the game, then we realised that we were playing Shadow the Hedgehog. Despite having terrible gameplay, Shadow runs without any issues at all on the PlayStation 3.
SCES-53602 SingStar '80s
What Sony Says: Should play on PlayStation 3 with noticeable issues
What our tests reveal: SingStar may not seem like a big deal to our American readers, but for PAL regions it's a big bonus if the SingStar titles work. SingStar '80s apparently has "noticeable issues". We tried changing disks and there were no problems with changing disks at all. While it's possible a few songs may have errors when played through the PlayStation 3, we didn't encounter any.
--------------------------------------
So there you go. It's hard to summarise the backwards compatibility capabilities of the system based on only a few tests, so we're not going to attempt to. Individual experiences with the backwards compatibility will vary, but we experienced far less issues with games than we expected to. Pleasingly, it didn't seem to make too much of a difference if you played the games in 60Hz either.
Nice. Sounds like it's not quite as bad as we might have thought.
Loading...
