PSP more powerful than PS2?

Plus! First official game revealed, tech demos and Havok on the handheld

Is PSP really more powerful than PlayStation 2? At the ongoing Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Jose, Sony have expanded on that claim and also unveiled the first official PSP title, which goes by the inviting moniker of Death Jr. They also revealed that the Havok physics engine is being ported and optimised for their new handheld.

Sony explained some of the more techie abilities of PSP, such as its improved clipping management, alpha blending, light mapping and surfacing on polygonal objects (bezier style). The upshot being that, due to its inherent hardware capabilities, PSP will be even more powerful than PS2 in some respects and in most areas will be at least comparable.

Sony visually demonstrated PSP with tech demos and in-game footage of the newly-announced Death Jr, developed by Digital Eclipse and development consortium Backbone Entertainment. Presented by Chris Charla, the game's senior producer, it appears to be a fairly standard platformer featuring a Tim Burton-esque figure of the grim reaper (see character art to your right). However, the salient point is that the game did boast looks comparable to earlier PS2 titles, providing visual evidence of PSP's graphical power. Chris Charla reiterated Sony's sentiments on that very subject, stating, "Polygon for polygon, PSP has more power than PS2."

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