Last night I spent some quality time with a friend playing his PlayStation 3. He has quite a few PS2 and PSP games in his library, so much so that he has a number of them still in shrink wrap. I cajoled him into opening God of War for the PS2, popped it into the PS3 and found it to be noticeably pixelated on his gorgeous plasma HDTV. We went through the options menu, switched on Widescreen, then Progressive Scan, and lo and behold the jaggies were gone. The game looked just as smooth and pretty as on the PS2. No jaggies, no pixelation, no problems.

Of course nowhere near a majority of PS2 games supported Progressive Scan mode, but some of the bigger franchises like Ratchet and Clank did. If you’re seeing pixelation or jaggies on your HDTV try switching on Progressive Scan mode in the game and see what you get.

Incidentally I also found that I really missed playing God of War. I had played through my own copy of the game and really enjoyed it. After I’d finished with it, I found no need to keep it around and sold it, fortunately before it became a Greatest Hits title.

When playing again last night I actually caught myself laughing out loud with satisfaction when Kratos would grab a soldier and basically punch him to death, or when he would pluck one of them off the ship’s cargo-net rigging, slam him against it a few times, and then chuck him earthward. Good times.