[Roanoke]

I've told you before not to put any faith in Development shots.........

[Deepblue]

I just said, that's not a dev shot. That was taken by a website who broke NDAs by putting up a bunch of screenshots they took of the campaign mode.

[aldo_14]

I think it's worth pointing out the importance of a) level of detail modelling/texturing and b) actual gameplay views for this sort of thing.

Sure, we might have this lovely close up shot of an, er, ugly cartoonish bloke as seen above, but will we ever see that ingame?  Of course not.  It's just like if you get your actual gameplay shot of, say,  PGR3 (3?) on the 360 and compare it to the Xbox ones, and there's very little difference.  In certain examples it's clearer than others - say texture resolution in an FPS, when you do get close to the walls, etc - but often this level of detail is completely meaningless, and doubly so when it comes to the actual merits of the game.  Hell, I remember FIFA2001 boasting highly impressive detailed player faces.... in a special celebration 'mode' view.

By all reports Gears of War is a very good game; exceptional even.  But does the difference between, say, Unreal 2 and Unreal 3 engine graphics really matter in that?

[Deepblue]

I think it's worth pointing out the importance of a) level of detail modelling/texturing and b) actual gameplay views for this sort of thing.

Sure, we might have this lovely close up shot of an, er, ugly cartoonish bloke as seen above, but will we ever see that ingame?  Of course not.  It's just like if you get your actual gameplay shot of, say,  PGR3 (3?) on the 360 and compare it to the Xbox ones, and there's very little difference.  In certain examples it's clearer than others - say texture resolution in an FPS, when you do get close to the walls, etc - but often this level of detail is completely meaningless, and doubly so when it comes to the actual merits of the game.  Hell, I remember FIFA2001 boasting highly impressive detailed player faces.... in a special celebration 'mode' view.

By all reports Gears of War is a very good game; exceptional even.  But does the difference between, say, Unreal 2 and Unreal 3 engine graphics really matter in that?

By all acounts you get close enough to the character IN THE GAME that the sort of detail seen above can be seen in game.

And PGR3 not looking better than PGR2??? What the hell are you smoking?!!?

[aldo_14]

I think it's worth pointing out the importance of a) level of detail modelling/texturing and b) actual gameplay views for this sort of thing.

Sure, we might have this lovely close up shot of an, er, ugly cartoonish bloke as seen above, but will we ever see that ingame?  Of course not.  It's just like if you get your actual gameplay shot of, say,  PGR3 (3?) on the 360 and compare it to the Xbox ones, and there's very little difference.  In certain examples it's clearer than others - say texture resolution in an FPS, when you do get close to the walls, etc - but often this level of detail is completely meaningless, and doubly so when it comes to the actual merits of the game.  Hell, I remember FIFA2001 boasting highly impressive detailed player faces.... in a special celebration 'mode' view.

By all reports Gears of War is a very good game; exceptional even.  But does the difference between, say, Unreal 2 and Unreal 3 engine graphics really matter in that?

By all acounts you get close enough to the character IN THE GAME that the sort of detail seen above can be seen in game.

And PGR3 not looking better than PGR2??? What the hell are you smoking?!!?

http://worldofstuart.excellentcontent.com/pgr3/pgr3.htm

[Deepblue]

That's a pretty bad excuse for a review.

[BlackDove]

Yes, but only because of your title.

[Deepblue]

Troll much?

[StratComm]

Pot, meet kettle.  Kettle, meet pot.

[aldo_14]

That's a pretty bad excuse for a review.

And yet you fail to offer any reason for that view.  Possibly becase the pictures stand alone for themselves in indicating how fundamentally little difference all the detail in the world makes.

It's simple, really.  Increasing polygon counts, etc, can make a substantial fine grained difference.  But the range at which that difference is truly perceptible is usually far closer than any useful gameplaying view.  Now, you said "By all acounts you get close enough to the character IN THE GAME that the sort of detail seen above can be seen in game."; what possible use would such a view be?  How could you possibly play the game with that gurning muppet filling over half the view? 

We've already reached, I think, the tipping point where graphics aren't important in defining a games value.  That's not to say you won't get lots of muppets going 'ooh, specular facial pores!'; that's to say that graphics no longer alter gameplay to the extent where they can make a bad game better or a good game worse (if, indeed, they ever did).  I would say the success of both PS3 and 360 is not dependent on graphics, but on what the games actually offer to players (not just viewers).  The uncanny valley, in my opinion, has been reached and - perversely perhaps - we're now going back to the stage of actually having to value gameplay.

[Deepblue]

Actually it's because I didn't want to bombard the board with screenshots.

[aldo_14]

Actually it's because I didn't want to bombard the board with screenshots.

( :O )

By all means please post an actual gameplay screenshot of PGR3 as you would see it when playing.  I think you'll see exactly my point.

[Colonol Dekker]

I gotta say, I am thouroughly dissapointed when upcoming games only show pre-rendered movies as an incentive, on PC gamer or XBOX magazine for instance, it's like they cant rely on their own engine to speak for itself........


Case in Point is............Um,

I forget but it happens every day, Splinter cell i think did it a while back

[Deepblue]

For the last time. That Gears of War advert is not prerendered. You can see some serious aliasing right at the beginning with the buildings against the sky, as well as some clipping from the smoke.

[Colonol Dekker]

No i love Gears of War, dont get me wrong.............I'm still thinking here.



*cogs turn...............slowly*

[Mongoose]

Aldo raised a very good point.  Back when you were talking about things like the jump from the Atari/Commodore to the NES era, the latter to the SNES/Genesis era, the latter to the N64/PS1 era, and (to a lesser extent) the latter to the PS2/XBox/Gamecube era, there really were substantial expanded gameplay possibilities with each new level of technology.  (And, like he also said, even that doesn't always add up; as graphically primitive as Goldeneye is when compared to Halo, you're still looking at the same basic console FPS mechanic of gameplay.)  Mario64, Final Fantasy VII, and Ocarina of Time are all examples of this to a certain extent.  But as of the previous generation, which reached a certain plateau of graphical clarity and framerate smoothness, the real difference you can make to actual gameplay by adding more horsepower seems to drop off.  Now, I'm not saying that there's no difference whatsoever; certainly, greater physics-processing abilities does allow for more varied gameplay mechanics, but when it comes down to it, you're still setting them in the same gametypes.  You can't exactly re-invent the console FPS or racing game with a faster machine, after all.  In a way, I think gaming innovation has become more important than ever; games like Spore really are the best things that can happen to the industry.

[Deepblue]

First Gears review (put up early, removed from site navigation, but still in the site)

http://www.g4tv.com/pile_player.aspx?video_key=13749

5/5.

This part focuses on the multiplayer, but the score is for both SP and MP.

[BlackDove]

Now there's a reliable source.

In addition, while I don't know anything about the story and how those aspects of the singleplayer game handle, that multiplayer fragfest really does look like 5 out of 5.

[Deepblue]

Yeah, I know G4 tv is teh suxors, but you gotta deal with what you get before the official embargo ends at 9 am tommorow.

[BlackDove]

I'm hoping this game comes out for Vista if its singleplayer gets good reviews.