Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Deepblue on December 15, 2005, 08:47:47 pm
-
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=26604
Whoa!
(this is not an exclusively xbox thread because it's just showing off some amazing UE3 stuff, even if it is GoW)
-
Looks Great. Surprisingly the gameplay seems to look good as well as the graphics.
-
Thats the biggest point. Everyone was saying the gameplay would suck even if the graphics are great, but the game has "water cooler moments" down (running up to the door, kicking it down, stumbling across gorey remains/ carts heading into furnace almost.../ locusts climbing on the ceiling above the opposite cart...)
I love the part after they stumble in upon the little critters tearing up the corpses and Cliffy B. is like "This will probably be an M rated game..."
-
Doesn't look too bad thus far, but i'm thinking this is going to end up like PDZ; it'll be fantastic right up to the moment it's released, and turn out to be spectacularly mediocre..
-
Suoer-size crotchguards for all!
-
Not really impressive, in my opinion. The only thing that seems nicer than other near-state-of-the-art engines is character animation, and that's mostly a matter of motion capture than anything else. They'll need to do much better than that in the graphics department to get my attention.
-
It looks ok, though not nearly as spectacular as I was expecting. The sound effects seem pretty poor - especially the shotgun sound - and the graphics, while very nice, don't seem particularly "next-gen" to me. It looks like a top-end PC does at the moment...
-
woah, DB pimpimg M$. Didin't expect that..... :blah:
-
I wonder if he'll ever get sick of whoring himself for corporate interests......
-
(this is not an exclusively xbox thread because it's just showing off some amazing UE3 stuff, even if it is GoW)
Hahahahahahahahahaha
Oh, wait. You're serious.
I'll laugh harder.
HA HA HA HA HA HA
EDIT; it's hard to judge visual quality on such poor footage, but I'm not seeing anything that strikes me as stunning. Better than my Pc, sure, but not better than a good PC. Um, action wise it looks like it has the sort of nice-but-uninspired gameplay of, say, Call of Duty. Which is not necessarily a bad thing - Call of Duty was ace - but it's not the sort of groundbreaking next generation stuff we were told to expect. I'm slightly dissapointed at some of the physics, though; in particular when that car blows up, as it just still looks unnatural.
-
Well, the graphics do look pretty nice to me, but from the looks of it, freedom is a lot more limited than it looks in the game. It looked like one of those games in the arcade game usually called 'Day of the Zombie' or the like, where you have a somewhat droopy plastic gun attacked to the machine. Also, the guy playing it was making sure triggers were only set off once, so no-one said the same thing twice etc, i.e. deliberately presenting it as a movie, rather than a game. Don't blame them at all, you must present your product in the best light, but whilst the game looks good, I'll wait and see ;)
-
This is the one 360 game that actually looks quite interesting to me, and I'm a total PC gamer as far as FPSs go. I bet my brother will get a 360 just for this though. :p
-
Well, the graphics do look pretty nice to me, but from the looks of it, freedom is a lot more limited than it looks in the game. It looked like one of those games in the arcade game usually called 'Day of the Zombie' or the like, where you have a somewhat droopy plastic gun attacked to the machine. Also, the guy playing it was making sure triggers were only set off once, so no-one said the same thing twice etc, i.e. deliberately presenting it as a movie, rather than a game. Don't blame them at all, you must present your product in the best light, but whilst the game looks good, I'll wait and see ;)
I think it will/should be a good game, myself. Perhaps a bit generic in setting. But I don't think it'll offer anything we can't get on Pc or current gen in terms of actual gameplay, which to me is what a killer app (which is surely what the xbox360 needs) should do.
-
That's exactly why I believe Mass Effect will be a killer app. GoW just proves the X360 is more than capable of outputting next-gen graphics.
-
That's exactly why I believe Mass Effect will be a killer app. GoW just proves the X360 is more than capable of outputting next-gen graphics.
But that's the thing, they're not true next-gen graphics. We can still get this stuff on high-end PCs with no problem, maybe no my PC - which is an absolute piece of three-year-old **** - but a nice gamers PC would have no qualms pumping out graphics of this quality or better. I'm thinking we'll have to wait at least until the second generation of '360 games comes out to start seeing anything we could term as 'next-gen', as most of the titles so far are just re-hashes with prettier graphics.
Now, what's this 'Mass Effect' you claim could be the first killer app for the '360? I've heard nothing about it, care to post a few links, please?
-
That's exactly why I believe Mass Effect will be a killer app. GoW just proves the X360 is more than capable of outputting next-gen graphics.
But that's the thing, they're not true next-gen graphics. We can still get this stuff on high-end PCs with no problem, maybe no my PC - which is an absolute piece of three-year-old **** - but a nice gamers PC would have no qualms pumping out graphics of this quality or better. I'm thinking we'll have to wait at least until the second generation of '360 games comes out to start seeing anything we could term as 'next-gen', as most of the titles so far are just re-hashes with prettier graphics.
Now, what's this 'Mass Effect' you claim could be the first killer app for the '360? I've heard nothing about it, care to post a few links, please?
IIRC it's a promising looking sci-fi RPG from BioWare. I think maybe with a FPS view, not sure.
It is true, though, that a Pc should surpass the next gen in less than a year; for example the U3 engine should be easily runnable on a mid 2006 PC (if perhaps not an affordable one). If we ignore the whole resolution thing - because most people don't have HDTVs, what with the insane cost - I think you can already get comparable lower resolution graphics on a mid-to-high end modern PC.
Although it's worth noting that the PS3 reportedly ran the Unreal3 demo epic made using only about 30-40% of it's performance, so both that and the xbox360 should be considered far from at peak. Albeit that has to be taken with an additional pinch of salt, because of the creational demands of such graphics - just look at the utterly, utterly awful Fifa2006 on the Xbox360 for that, which not only has ****ty zombie graphics but more importantly lots of stuff cut from the current gen versions. The danger is that for the luxury of specular mapped dashboards and bumpmapped stiching on uniforms, we'll see a rapidly thinning group of titles which becomes constrained to franchises and sequels.
That's why I'm most interested in the Revolution, to be honest. It promises actual innovation rather than this sort of (highly visible) diminishing returns. Plus it reportedly uses a very similar setup to the Gamecube, making development quick and easy; i.e. so we should see its - graphical - potential tapped quicker than the other next gen consoles, even if said potential (in terms of processing power et al) is lesser. Although so far, no next gen game I've seen on any format has made me actually want it (it being the game or the console).
-
Gears of War: another possible good game that will probably never see the PC...
Even so, don't expect me to shell out for a 360 just to play this. I've got enough good games.
Such as Descent 1 and 2, Quake 2, Freespace 1 and 2, Diablo 2, Starcraft, Warzone 2100...
Why is it that all of those are more than five years old?
-
aldo_14: I think that oppinion is colored by the low quality video, because some of the screens I've seen are simply not possible at this point in time.
(http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/2332/11300082875qk.jpg)
I can't think of one PC game you can get right now that looks that good.
It's an exclusive space odyssey RPG trilogy by Bioware. It looks gorgeous but sounds like it will play even better.
http://games.teamxbox.com/xbox-360/1325/Mass-Effect/
-
Well, the graphics do look pretty nice to me, but from the looks of it, freedom is a lot more limited than it looks in the game. It looked like one of those games in the arcade game usually called 'Day of the Zombie' or the like, where you have a somewhat droopy plastic gun attacked to the machine. Also, the guy playing it was making sure triggers were only set off once, so no-one said the same thing twice etc, i.e. deliberately presenting it as a movie, rather than a game. Don't blame them at all, you must present your product in the best light, but whilst the game looks good, I'll wait and see ;)
Not true. The game has multiple paths according to Cliffy B. In fact during co-op (which should be a bloody blast) you can split up with Dom and go seperate ways.
-
Gears of War: another possible good game that will probably never see the PC...
Even so, don't expect me to shell out for a 360 just to play this. I've got enough good games.
Such as Descent 1 and 2, Quake 2, Freespace 1 and 2, Diablo 2, Starcraft, Warzone 2100...
Why is it that all of those are more than five years old?
You don't have D3?
Get. It. Now.
And yeah, old games are fun. But so are new games.
-
I can't think of one PC game you can get right now that looks that good.
I'm not actually all that impressed by that. I don't see... well, i don't see a point in it.
Particularly because the uncanny valley effect comes into play, it looks no better than, say, your squadmates in Call of Duty (1).
Obviously you can get that level of graphical fidelity on current top-end PCs (because that'd be a/the development environment for the Unreal 3 engine, which is being used in the scarce PS3 devkits as well as Pc and 360) anyways, but the market isn't yet ready for it because there's not enough machines capable of running it to make it economically viable. I'm pretty sure we'll seen GoW or a similar game on the PC before, ooh, mid 2007 if not sooner, though. Dependent more on development time than technological process, of course.
I have seen the GoW screens, of course, although how reliable they are is TBC. Particularly, I remember a still which had a very odd blood effect that, in comparison to even the blurry handcam footage, definately looked photoshopped on. Also, it's very easy to pick show-off shots (for example, close ups of characters as above to use the highest LOD, rather than what you'll see in 99% of play time).
Not true. The game has multiple paths according to Cliffy B. In fact during co-op (which should be a bloody blast) you can split up with Dom and go seperate ways.
Isn't this multiple paths in the sense of 2 linear levels, though? Everything I've seen of that game screams scripted sequence which, whilst not bad in itself, limits that sort of gameplay options.
-
I can't think of one PC game you can get right now that looks that good.
I'm not actually all that impressed by that. I don't see... well, i don't see a point in it.
Particularly because the uncanny valley effect comes into play, it looks no better than, say, your squadmates in Call of Duty (1).
Obviously you can get that level of graphical fidelity on current top-end PCs (because that'd be a/the development environment for the Unreal 3 engine, which is being used in the scarce PS3 devkits as well as Pc and 360) anyways, but the market isn't yet ready for it because there's not enough machines capable of running it to make it economically viable. I'm pretty sure we'll seen GoW or a similar game on the PC before, ooh, mid 2007 if not sooner, though. Dependent more on development time than technological process, of course.
I have seen the GoW screens, of course, although how reliable they are is TBC. Particularly, I remember a still which had a very odd blood effect that, in comparison to even the blurry handcam footage, definately looked photoshopped on. Also, it's very easy to pick show-off shots (for example, close ups of characters as above to use the highest LOD, rather than what you'll see in 99% of play time).
Not true. The game has multiple paths according to Cliffy B. In fact during co-op (which should be a bloody blast) you can split up with Dom and go seperate ways.
Isn't this multiple paths in the sense of 2 linear levels, though? Everything I've seen of that game screams scripted sequence which, whilst not bad in itself, limits that sort of gameplay options.
1. Um, that blows CoD2 faces away, even if they both look freakishly unnatural.
2. ??? Watching that vid reaffirmed to me that the blood was realtime, it's just moving faster in the vid, but you can clearly see it's the same effect. Furthermore, a GeoW dev confirmed it was all in-game stuff captured from non-standard angles on the EPIC boards. And the shots are not just "show off." You've seen the game footage, the cutscenes (which the screen above is from) are short, to the point, and above all, completely part of the game. I didn't even see any LOD popping. You have UT2007 PC screens looking that good, so why is it so hard to believe?
-
I can't think of one PC game you can get right now that looks that good.
I'm not actually all that impressed by that. I don't see... well, i don't see a point in it.
Particularly because the uncanny valley effect comes into play, it looks no better than, say, your squadmates in Call of Duty (1).
Obviously you can get that level of graphical fidelity on current top-end PCs (because that'd be a/the development environment for the Unreal 3 engine, which is being used in the scarce PS3 devkits as well as Pc and 360) anyways, but the market isn't yet ready for it because there's not enough machines capable of running it to make it economically viable. I'm pretty sure we'll seen GoW or a similar game on the PC before, ooh, mid 2007 if not sooner, though. Dependent more on development time than technological process, of course.
I have seen the GoW screens, of course, although how reliable they are is TBC. Particularly, I remember a still which had a very odd blood effect that, in comparison to even the blurry handcam footage, definately looked photoshopped on. Also, it's very easy to pick show-off shots (for example, close ups of characters as above to use the highest LOD, rather than what you'll see in 99% of play time).
Not true. The game has multiple paths according to Cliffy B. In fact during co-op (which should be a bloody blast) you can split up with Dom and go seperate ways.
Isn't this multiple paths in the sense of 2 linear levels, though? Everything I've seen of that game screams scripted sequence which, whilst not bad in itself, limits that sort of gameplay options.
1. Um, that blows CoD2 faces away, even if they both look freakishly unnatural.
2. ??? Watching that vid reaffirmed to me that the blood was realtime, it's just moving faster in the vid, but you can clearly see it's the same effect. Furthermore, a GeoW dev confirmed it was all in-game stuff captured from non-standard angles on the EPIC boards. And the shots are not just "show off." You've seen the game footage, the cutscenes (which the screen above is from) are short, to the point, and above all, completely part of the game. I didn't even see any LOD popping. You have UT2007 PC screens looking that good, so why is it so hard to believe?
1/ Look up the meaning of 'uncanny valley'. In essence, above a certain level of 'realism', the human eye begins to resist that visual effect and 'reject' the effect; in essence countermanding the added details. For example, this bloke is more detailed, but not more realistic. I actually find him - whilst nicely bumpmapped - somewhat cartoonish. And hence unimpressive as a realistic face.
2/ I'm not saying that's not realtime, I'm saying it's selectively picked to show the best bits - like a touched up model on a cover. For example, just look at the camera movement and panning to highlight detail (such as the enemy things running into the screen). That would not occur in a real game, it's far too off-putting. Additionally, the player (demonstrator) is capable of acting out the exact 'expected' behaviour requried for the best setpiece effect; shoot this window here, select an explosive weapon to blow away the creature jumping at you rather than a prolonged fight, etc. Just like they'd demo, say, the Stalingrad level of Call of Duty and not show what happens if you don't take the requisite path.
This will and does occur in all demos.
In terms of the visual fidelity of screenshots; we all know how they can be manipulated and selected to show only the best. So it'd be a bit daft to benchmark the overall visual quality on what the developers - the people trying to sell and advertise the game - are selecting. The particular blood effect I say was a lot higher definition and clarity than seen (accounting for the nature of the footage) in that video. Assuming it wasn't in fact tidied up for publication, then it must be the game adding blurring. In turn, I guess, making statics a lot less valid as judges of clarity. i'd note said blood decal was of an unecessary level of detail in the screenshot I'm referring too.
Finally, LOD popping wouldn't be expected to be visible; it occurs at a point where the visual difference is negated by distance. That's the whole point of level of detail effects, and it'd be idiocy if they didn't employ that for the face as you will almost certainly never, ever see it at that distance outside a cutscene.
-
I can't think of one PC game you can get right now that looks that good.
I'm not actually all that impressed by that. I don't see... well, i don't see a point in it.
Particularly because the uncanny valley effect comes into play, it looks no better than, say, your squadmates in Call of Duty (1).
Obviously you can get that level of graphical fidelity on current top-end PCs (because that'd be a/the development environment for the Unreal 3 engine, which is being used in the scarce PS3 devkits as well as Pc and 360) anyways, but the market isn't yet ready for it because there's not enough machines capable of running it to make it economically viable. I'm pretty sure we'll seen GoW or a similar game on the PC before, ooh, mid 2007 if not sooner, though. Dependent more on development time than technological process, of course.
I have seen the GoW screens, of course, although how reliable they are is TBC. Particularly, I remember a still which had a very odd blood effect that, in comparison to even the blurry handcam footage, definately looked photoshopped on. Also, it's very easy to pick show-off shots (for example, close ups of characters as above to use the highest LOD, rather than what you'll see in 99% of play time).
Not true. The game has multiple paths according to Cliffy B. In fact during co-op (which should be a bloody blast) you can split up with Dom and go seperate ways.
Isn't this multiple paths in the sense of 2 linear levels, though? Everything I've seen of that game screams scripted sequence which, whilst not bad in itself, limits that sort of gameplay options.
1. Um, that blows CoD2 faces away, even if they both look freakishly unnatural.
2. ??? Watching that vid reaffirmed to me that the blood was realtime, it's just moving faster in the vid, but you can clearly see it's the same effect. Furthermore, a GeoW dev confirmed it was all in-game stuff captured from non-standard angles on the EPIC boards. And the shots are not just "show off." You've seen the game footage, the cutscenes (which the screen above is from) are short, to the point, and above all, completely part of the game. I didn't even see any LOD popping. You have UT2007 PC screens looking that good, so why is it so hard to believe?
1/ Look up the meaning of 'uncanny valley'. In essence, above a certain level of 'realism', the human eye begins to resist that visual effect and 'reject' the effect; in essence countermanding the added details. For example, this bloke is more detailed, but not more realistic. I actually find him - whilst nicely bumpmapped - somewhat cartoonish. And hence unimpressive as a realistic face.
2/ I'm not saying that's not realtime, I'm saying it's selectively picked to show the best bits - like a touched up model on a cover. For example, just look at the camera movement and panning to highlight detail (such as the enemy things running into the screen). That would not occur in a real game, it's far too off-putting. Additionally, the player (demonstrator) is capable of acting out the exact 'expected' behaviour requried for the best setpiece effect; shoot this window here, select an explosive weapon to blow away the creature jumping at you rather than a prolonged fight, etc. Just like they'd demo, say, the Stalingrad level of Call of Duty and not show what happens if you don't take the requisite path.
This will and does occur in all demos.
In terms of the visual fidelity of screenshots; we all know how they can be manipulated and selected to show only the best. So it'd be a bit daft to benchmark the overall visual quality on what the developers - the people trying to sell and advertise the game - are selecting. The particular blood effect I say was a lot higher definition and clarity than seen (accounting for the nature of the footage) in that video. Assuming it wasn't in fact tidied up for publication, then it must be the game adding blurring. In turn, I guess, making statics a lot less valid as judges of clarity. i'd note said blood decal was of an unecessary level of detail in the screenshot I'm referring too.
Finally, LOD popping wouldn't be expected to be visible; it occurs at a point where the visual difference is negated by distance. That's the whole point of level of detail effects, and it'd be idiocy if they didn't employ that for the face as you will almost certainly never, ever see it at that distance outside a cutscene.
Actually all those camera angle shifts like when the main characters view suddenly shifts to see the thing crawling along the wall are part of the game itself.
And keep in mind Cliffy B. seems to like highly detailed gore...
-
Gears of War: another possible good game that will probably never see the PC...
Even so, don't expect me to shell out for a 360 just to play this. I've got enough good games.
Such as Descent 1 and 2, Quake 2, Freespace 1 and 2, Diablo 2, Starcraft, Warzone 2100...
Why is it that all of those are more than five years old?
You don't have D3?
Get. It. Now.
And yeah, old games are fun. But so are new games.
I do have Descent 3. I didn't include it in the list because I don't consider it as good (except multiplayer, which I rarely play).
-
D3 actually has way better level design and weapon balance, but D2 did somehow have a greater fun factor, as far as the singleplayer is concerned. I can't pinpoint exactly why; maybe it was a little faster paced? D2 also had some outstanding user-made mission sets that are much better than the original levels. I did a big run through all of the D2 mission packs I have (about 70 levels, including the official counterstrike and vertigo missions) last year. It's too bad I can't get the 3dfx version of this to work correctly.
[q]And yeah, old games are fun. But so are new games.[/q]
:yes:
Although I think it's safe to say that there were more extremely good games back then than what we get now. Maybe it's just a result of there being simply fewer games these days, but my top four or five all time favorites are all older things.
-
Actually all those camera angle shifts like when the main characters view suddenly shifts to see the thing crawling along the wall are part of the game itself.
And keep in mind Cliffy B. seems to like highly detailed gore...
Christ, that would be the most irritating thing in history. You mean every 10 seconds it removes control and switches to a psuedo cutscene?
-
I don't think it would be that bad if it's not in action sequences.
-
I don't think it would be that bad if it's not in action sequences.
It was in action sequences, though. That's what I mean; like the first shooting starts on about 2:15, and there's a jump at 3:16 (to show onrushing enemies), then 3:58 (to show a fuel tank or something), 4:28 (as he turns the wheel, apparently still shooting going on, and the camera zooms slightly onto another enemy group) and then the end cutscene bit at about 5:10.
It's obviously WIP, to be fair. For one thing some of the animation seems jerky IMO, and there aren't apparently any bullet damage decals. The latter, I'd imagine, could look pretty neat in a system which has normal mapping. Another thing; is there IK for the bodies? I couldn't tell; I'd expect so, but not sure.
I mean, it should be a good game. But whether it'll be a genre-redifining or unique game, I doubt it at the moment. It has that sort of Halo 'feel' to me; a perfectly executed but ultimately generic shooter with very little real gameplay innovation and mainly consisting of adapted 'best of' moments from prior games.
-
I would say it's harsh to call Halo generic. I reckon the problem was Bungie layed all their card within the first couple of levels. I happened to like both games myself.
-
I would say it's harsh to call Halo generic. I reckon the problem was Bungie layed all their card within the first couple of levels. I happened to like both games myself.
I found it quite generic; the first, that is. Had a feeling of not being that surprising or striking, I'm not sure quite why. It may have been graphical limitations compared to the games I'd been playing at the time, which were newer. When Call of Duty is doing a more convincing Stalingrad, the fairly samey and undetailed levels did feel somewhat lacking. I think at the moment (in relation to this) we may be reaching the point where graphical diversity has less and less impact, though, which is what I meant by the uncanny valley refence (both for human faces, but also environments).
Although the main, er, genericity of Halo for me was just that it felt very samey... the weapons, gameplay, etc.
Not played or really seen the sequel, though.
-
I wonder if they'll bother to port Halo2 to PC......
-
I wonder if they'll bother to port Halo2 to PC......
Doubt it. Wouldn't seem to be much point, especially now. IIRC it's main draw was multiplayer, too, and there's not exactly a shortage of MP games on the PC.
-
wow awesome magnificent incredible hyper stupendous
What is it?
-
Too bad, I've been looking forward to that possibility. :( I still boot up the ol' Halo now and then.
-
Don't feel too bad. Halo 2s multiplayer kicks arse, but the campaign isn't quite as good as Halo 1 (level design etc. are better, but it just doesn't have that sense of mystery the original had, AND THEY TOOK OUT THE ASSUALT RIFLE!!!).