Get the most out of PSP Remote Play

A feature of PS3 that seems to have passed under the collective gaming radar is its ability to transmit any PSone game to a PSP, whether over local airwaves or the world-wide web. That's right, any of your old PSone games, fully playable, in your pocket. Have you tried it? We have.

Before you jump in and wonder why the image quality is so bad,it's important to remember is that it's still your PS3 that's playing the game - you're essentially using the PSP as a wireless joypad and then watching a video of the game playing on the PS3 on your PSP screen. The PSP processes nothing of the game itself. So, when you save, you're actually saving on the PS3's hard drive and not your PSP's memory stick. See?

Now, we won't lie - sometimes it's awful. Unplayable, even.That's probably why Sony's official site doesn't mention the PSone playing feature at all. The method of delivery compromises a couple of crucial things, namely picture quality and response time. Even the fastest internet connection in the world is going to register commands slower than a console and its connected joypad.

Adding this to the fact that the PS3 has to compress the video and send it over the internet to your PSP means that the visible response time is even slower. Fast games likeRidge Racer are rendered almost unplayable as you can't even drive down a straight without serious thought and planning. Pants incarnate.

Also, at present, the control schemeis far from ideal. While playing downloaded PSone games

on PSP is made easier by having the extra triggers mapped to the analogue nub (or the d-pad if you change it), remote play only has two settings. The first doesn't seem to have access to the extra buttons at all as the stick and D-pad mimic the PS3 stick and D-pad respectively.

The second option lets you access all the other buttons, including L3, R3 and even the right stick by holding down Select as you do. Sadly, this doesn't work for games like Silent Hill, as the only way you can get your gun out is to hold Select and push the trigger. Only then X doesn't work so you can't fire it. Sigh. New firmware will hopefully address this issue, but currently it's not good enough. Especially when we've useda working solution already on the same PSP.

But all is not lost! Some games really shine. Hit page 3 if you want to see what works best with the tech, or if you want to know how to get the best from your Remote Play, stick around and we'll take you through it.

What you'll need:
A PS3
A PSP
A television set
Some PSone classics
A network connection
A PSN account set up on both the PS3 and PSP*
*(only required if you want to play over the internet from somewhere else)