The "General Games Chat" forum, which includes Retro Game Reviews, has been archived and is now read-only. You cannot post here or create a new thread or review on this forum.
[URL]http://news.spong.com/detail/news.asp?prid=6994[/URL]
Possibly anyway.
HDD? Still no decision, although "games will have access to a variety of storage devices, including connected devices (memory units, USB storage) and remote devices (networked PCs, Xbox Live)"
Does this mean Xbox2<->PC connectivity i.e. transferring save games, maps, DLC etc?
Interesting.
Possibly anyway.
HDD? Still no decision, although "games will have access to a variety of storage devices, including connected devices (memory units, USB storage) and remote devices (networked PCs, Xbox Live)"
Does this mean Xbox2<->PC connectivity i.e. transferring save games, maps, DLC etc?
Interesting.
Page:
First impressions...
Awesome game. The first decent FPS hybrid since Deus Ex. The opening section of the game shows a bounty hunter escorting you through the prison and as you go down Mr. Vin talks you through the prison etc. The detail on the characters and lighting is particularly noticeable as you go from a bright desert into a dark and clearly gritty rat hole known as Butcher Bay. At the start you basically look around for people to talk to and the RPG aspect is clearly highlighted for the first hour or so and because all of the early weapons are DNA encoded you are left to rely on stealth and some truly memorable 'sneak up and guard and snap neck style of play' which by the way looks top notch. You can also drag the bodies away so the other guards won't get suspicious as when they do they turn their torch lights on and search for you in every dark place, which basically means the area or floor you are currently on.
Control wise very similar to Halo only the character movement is far more refined and realistic. Audio wise it's up there with Halo, amazing score, excellent positional audio and some very eerie and disturbing background sounds coming from the upper floors where the fiends and creatures lie in waiting.
I have only played for around and hour or an hour and a half so I will be starting again later tonight to go through it from scratch. Will post a review later on tonight though when I have either finished it or when I have covered all aspects of the game, I haven't even managed to get a gun yet but I am looking forward to grappling with a guard, blowing his own head of as he fires the trigger only to pick up his weapon and trot along.
One other great thing, the game doesn't have any respect for language control and what not. It's dark, gritty and extremely entertaining to play.
Awesome game. The first decent FPS hybrid since Deus Ex. The opening section of the game shows a bounty hunter escorting you through the prison and as you go down Mr. Vin talks you through the prison etc. The detail on the characters and lighting is particularly noticeable as you go from a bright desert into a dark and clearly gritty rat hole known as Butcher Bay. At the start you basically look around for people to talk to and the RPG aspect is clearly highlighted for the first hour or so and because all of the early weapons are DNA encoded you are left to rely on stealth and some truly memorable 'sneak up and guard and snap neck style of play' which by the way looks top notch. You can also drag the bodies away so the other guards won't get suspicious as when they do they turn their torch lights on and search for you in every dark place, which basically means the area or floor you are currently on.
Control wise very similar to Halo only the character movement is far more refined and realistic. Audio wise it's up there with Halo, amazing score, excellent positional audio and some very eerie and disturbing background sounds coming from the upper floors where the fiends and creatures lie in waiting.
I have only played for around and hour or an hour and a half so I will be starting again later tonight to go through it from scratch. Will post a review later on tonight though when I have either finished it or when I have covered all aspects of the game, I haven't even managed to get a gun yet but I am looking forward to grappling with a guard, blowing his own head of as he fires the trigger only to pick up his weapon and trot along.
One other great thing, the game doesn't have any respect for language control and what not. It's dark, gritty and extremely entertaining to play.
First Impressions before the review?
adrian wrote:
> Yes but Alastair was referring to HDTV and not normal NTSC. HDTV is
> supported in games but as I don’t think we have HDTV in the UK we cant
> use it. HDTV uses much higher resolutions than normal TV and actually
> rival PC monitors. Theres a few different resolutions and I think
> XBox supports upped 1920x1440, so the picture quality is a lot sharper
> and will rival PC games.
Indeed. Although I do believe the Xbox does goes over 2000 pixels, or at least it has the capabilities of doing so. Freedom Fighters is actually the game which has taken the biggest advantage of the HDTV function so far, with the Xbox 2 though and the fact that Sony are going ahead with a new generation of TV sets I would imagine HDTV will reach these shores at no doubt ridiculous prices. It's the way forward though, if you want to take the visual aspect as far as it will go a higher resolution is a must.
One other thing it shows though is how advanced the Xbox is as a console. To take PC games up to stupidly high resolutions you need a graphics card that can basically walk and talk. It's one of the reasons that Riddick doesn't surprise me, it looks awesome because I don't believe any developer (with the exception of Team Ninja) has actually taken serious time out to experiment with different graphical techniques (i.e. normal mapping - Half Life 2, Doom 3, The Chronicles of Riddick). Normal mapping is a superb idea as the actual models themselves aren't stupidly complicated and actually have very basic wire frames, it's the artists that step in and work on the nitty gritty details with normal mapping where as with bump mapping a lot of the detail actually goes into the programming and structure of the objects.
With full HDTV support, the Unreal 3 engine, more games going down the Normal Mapping route it does look bright for consoles providing you have the cash. Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow being the first game to utilise 7.1 Dolby Digital as well which bodes well for those into their audio.
I will do a review of Riddick later on as I only got around to playing it properly last night.
> Yes but Alastair was referring to HDTV and not normal NTSC. HDTV is
> supported in games but as I don’t think we have HDTV in the UK we cant
> use it. HDTV uses much higher resolutions than normal TV and actually
> rival PC monitors. Theres a few different resolutions and I think
> XBox supports upped 1920x1440, so the picture quality is a lot sharper
> and will rival PC games.
Indeed. Although I do believe the Xbox does goes over 2000 pixels, or at least it has the capabilities of doing so. Freedom Fighters is actually the game which has taken the biggest advantage of the HDTV function so far, with the Xbox 2 though and the fact that Sony are going ahead with a new generation of TV sets I would imagine HDTV will reach these shores at no doubt ridiculous prices. It's the way forward though, if you want to take the visual aspect as far as it will go a higher resolution is a must.
One other thing it shows though is how advanced the Xbox is as a console. To take PC games up to stupidly high resolutions you need a graphics card that can basically walk and talk. It's one of the reasons that Riddick doesn't surprise me, it looks awesome because I don't believe any developer (with the exception of Team Ninja) has actually taken serious time out to experiment with different graphical techniques (i.e. normal mapping - Half Life 2, Doom 3, The Chronicles of Riddick). Normal mapping is a superb idea as the actual models themselves aren't stupidly complicated and actually have very basic wire frames, it's the artists that step in and work on the nitty gritty details with normal mapping where as with bump mapping a lot of the detail actually goes into the programming and structure of the objects.
With full HDTV support, the Unreal 3 engine, more games going down the Normal Mapping route it does look bright for consoles providing you have the cash. Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow being the first game to utilise 7.1 Dolby Digital as well which bodes well for those into their audio.
I will do a review of Riddick later on as I only got around to playing it properly last night.
Valentino Rossi wrote:
> Habanero wrote:
> Valentino Rossi wrote:
> take anything Spong ever say with a pinch of salt .....
>
> What is the beef with spong?
>
> Spong has reported many many stories in the past that
> are completely untrue basically.
Every thing I read on spong either says clearly that its a rumour or is a fact / turn out to be true. If they report something and say its a rumour you can't complain when it turns up untrue. I've read a lot about spong posting made up stories and a few posters gave lists of false stories, but when I read the stories they fit into what I said about (apart from the Megaton thing - I think they got carried away with the hype)
> Habanero wrote:
> Valentino Rossi wrote:
> take anything Spong ever say with a pinch of salt .....
>
> What is the beef with spong?
>
> Spong has reported many many stories in the past that
> are completely untrue basically.
Every thing I read on spong either says clearly that its a rumour or is a fact / turn out to be true. If they report something and say its a rumour you can't complain when it turns up untrue. I've read a lot about spong posting made up stories and a few posters gave lists of false stories, but when I read the stories they fit into what I said about (apart from the Megaton thing - I think they got carried away with the hype)
In regards to an Xbox 2 hard drive, I'd put my money on an external 20GB (or near or nearabouts) hard drive as a launch periperhal, along with the standard memory cards. Microsoft need to make money from this iteration of the Xbox - I remember reading back in the heady days of the Xbox launch that MS needed the Xbox to be financially successful for 5 years to begin making a profit, but it'll have only been on the market for just over 3. Tsk.
At the moment, nothing could make me want to sway from the Microsoft corner. Xbox 2 is where it's at.
At the moment, nothing could make me want to sway from the Microsoft corner. Xbox 2 is where it's at.
Notorious Biggles wrote:
> ÂLŠ†ÂÎR wrote:
> Until Sony go bang out with next generation TV sets in 2006 (much
> higher resolutions, touch screen etc) consoles will always be at a
> disadvantage for having a low shot resolution, this is of course
> unless you buy American games and are lucky enough to have HD-TV
> with
> low end monitor resolutions.
>
> Actually, NTSC games have a lower resolution than PAL games as NTSC
> has fewer lines. That's why some PAL games used to have black
> borders, because it showed the same amount of lines as was on NTSC,
> but on a PAL telly that could show more. They do run at a higher
> frequency though.
Yes but Alastair was refering to HDTV and not normal NTSC. HDTV is supported in games but as I dont think we have HDTV in the UK we cant use it. HDTV uses much higher resolutions than normal TV and actually rival PC monitors. Theres a few different resolutions and I think XBox supports upto 1920x1440, so the picture quality is alot sharper and will rival PC games.
> ÂLŠ†ÂÎR wrote:
> Until Sony go bang out with next generation TV sets in 2006 (much
> higher resolutions, touch screen etc) consoles will always be at a
> disadvantage for having a low shot resolution, this is of course
> unless you buy American games and are lucky enough to have HD-TV
> with
> low end monitor resolutions.
>
> Actually, NTSC games have a lower resolution than PAL games as NTSC
> has fewer lines. That's why some PAL games used to have black
> borders, because it showed the same amount of lines as was on NTSC,
> but on a PAL telly that could show more. They do run at a higher
> frequency though.
Yes but Alastair was refering to HDTV and not normal NTSC. HDTV is supported in games but as I dont think we have HDTV in the UK we cant use it. HDTV uses much higher resolutions than normal TV and actually rival PC monitors. Theres a few different resolutions and I think XBox supports upto 1920x1440, so the picture quality is alot sharper and will rival PC games.
Habanero wrote:
> Valentino Rossi wrote:
> take anything Spong ever say with a pinch of salt .....
>
> What is the beef with spong?
>
Spong has reported many many stories in the past that are completely untrue basically.
> Valentino Rossi wrote:
> take anything Spong ever say with a pinch of salt .....
>
> What is the beef with spong?
>
Spong has reported many many stories in the past that are completely untrue basically.
NTSC games running in NTSC 60 look better than games running in PAL 60 providing you have decent RGB scart. This isn't always the case but 9 times out of 10 it is. Take Ninja Gaiden as an example (just playing it now), it looks and runs better in NTSC 60 than PAL 60. That's not because there are more moves and they didn't edit the game out, it just looks and runs smoother. If you are running composite scart that may be the case but with RGB NTSC is better on the wole.
Sadly borders are still around in PAL games, Devil May Cry is an example.
Sadly borders are still around in PAL games, Devil May Cry is an example.
ÂLŠ†ÂÎR wrote:
> The Xbox 2/Xenon won't have that though. For the Xbox they reported
> 125 million polygons per character (laughable) but this was announced
> at the E3 launch with Dead or Alive 3. It was closer to 20 million.
If I remember rightly, they claimed 125 million polygons per second total, not per character. Either way, the spong thing said that was with shaders on, not just a theoretical figure.
Bear in mind that actual processing power is increased by a factor of almost 30 at least.
> Until Sony go bang out with next generation TV sets in 2006 (much
> higher resolutions, touch screen etc) consoles will always be at a
> disadvantage for having a low shot resolution, this is of course
> unless you buy American games and are lucky enough to have HD-TV with
> low end monitor resolutions.
Actually, NTSC games have a lower resolution than PAL games as NTSC has fewer lines. That's why some PAL games used to have black borders, because it showed the same amount of lines as was on NTSC, but on a PAL telly that could show more. They do run at a higher frequency though.
> It may seem a bit of a poor example but monitor resolutions make a
> massive difference to the picture quality. Plus with a PC you have a
> never-ending battle between ATI and Nvidia, Intel and AMD, so on and
> so fourth. With these companies constantly trying to better each
> other with each new release I really can't see consoles catching.
That's partly what I'm saying though, Intel and AMD haven't been constantly trying to better each other. If they had been we should have off the shelf 6 GHz processors by now. But we don't.
> The Xbox 2/Xenon won't have that though. For the Xbox they reported
> 125 million polygons per character (laughable) but this was announced
> at the E3 launch with Dead or Alive 3. It was closer to 20 million.
If I remember rightly, they claimed 125 million polygons per second total, not per character. Either way, the spong thing said that was with shaders on, not just a theoretical figure.
Bear in mind that actual processing power is increased by a factor of almost 30 at least.
> Until Sony go bang out with next generation TV sets in 2006 (much
> higher resolutions, touch screen etc) consoles will always be at a
> disadvantage for having a low shot resolution, this is of course
> unless you buy American games and are lucky enough to have HD-TV with
> low end monitor resolutions.
Actually, NTSC games have a lower resolution than PAL games as NTSC has fewer lines. That's why some PAL games used to have black borders, because it showed the same amount of lines as was on NTSC, but on a PAL telly that could show more. They do run at a higher frequency though.
> It may seem a bit of a poor example but monitor resolutions make a
> massive difference to the picture quality. Plus with a PC you have a
> never-ending battle between ATI and Nvidia, Intel and AMD, so on and
> so fourth. With these companies constantly trying to better each
> other with each new release I really can't see consoles catching.
That's partly what I'm saying though, Intel and AMD haven't been constantly trying to better each other. If they had been we should have off the shelf 6 GHz processors by now. But we don't.
Valentino Rossi wrote:
> take anything Spong ever say with a pinch of salt .....
What is the beef with spong?
The fact that the article puts 'leaked' in quotes and uses the terms 'purported' and 'claim' says to me that it's not official and it's not being reported as fact.
What are you after? A screaming disclaimer saying that THIS IS A RUMOUR - MAKE OF IT WHAT YOU WILL. Jeez some people need spoonfeeding.
The reason I didn't read it is because I couldn't give two sh!ts about Xbox2 until it's official annouced. All the frothing over leaked specs and backward compatability is pointless. Just be patient.
> take anything Spong ever say with a pinch of salt .....
What is the beef with spong?
The fact that the article puts 'leaked' in quotes and uses the terms 'purported' and 'claim' says to me that it's not official and it's not being reported as fact.
What are you after? A screaming disclaimer saying that THIS IS A RUMOUR - MAKE OF IT WHAT YOU WILL. Jeez some people need spoonfeeding.
The reason I didn't read it is because I couldn't give two sh!ts about Xbox2 until it's official annouced. All the frothing over leaked specs and backward compatability is pointless. Just be patient.
Page: