In light of this years e3 and the announcement for The Last Guardian by the renowned Team Ico, it has been brought to my attention that I have never played Shadow of Colossus. This is one of their more acclaimed games and highly recommended. Due to my PlayStation 2 being packed away, I have emulated the game instead and it runs surprising well!
I’ll talk you though the process to get the game running and to optimizing the emulator to play Shadow of Colossus. You can also use this for other PS2 games with a few tweaks. If you have any questions or just want to say thanks, please leave a comment at the bottom of the article.
To do this you will need to get hold of an ISO of Shadow of Colossus and a Bios for a Playstation 2. I can’t supply these as it illegal unless you own them. Once you have sourced these two things, follow the instructions below.
1. Download the latest PCSX2, this is the emulator for the Playstation 2.
2. Install it and then run the program.
3. It’ll run a wizard for setting up. Press ‘next’ and you will eventually come to this screen. Choose the same or similar plugins as the screenshot below.
4. Press ‘Configure’ for the first option ‘GS’. A new window will open.
5. 3rd option down should be ‘Renderer’ make sure this is set to ‘Direct3D10 (Hardware)’ or above. Mine was set to Direct3D11 for best results.
6. Now press ‘ok’ and click ‘next’. This will bring you to a Bios list (It will be empty). Find the bios you sourced before the guide.
7. Click ‘Finish’.
8. Now go to ‘Config’ and click ‘Emulation Settings’
9. A new window will come up, click ‘SpeedHacks’ and make sure ‘EE Cyclerate’ and ‘VU Cycle stealing’ are toggled to 3. Then press Ok.
10. Now go to ‘System’ and click ‘Boot CDVD (fast)’ and select your Shadow of Colossus ISO image. It should now run at 60fps.
To get the most of out this I would recommend using a PS4 or Xbox One Controller and configuring the buttons to it. I used a Xbox One controller and it must better than using a keyboard.
