Hurlshort Posted March 21, 2006 Posted March 21, 2006 Ok, I still have a few hours before I can go pick up the game, but I figured I'd make a pre-empive strike. Anyone have it yet? First impressions? I know a bunch of people are waiting to buy it...and a bunch just hate it, but shove it. Let's have a Bethesda topic that doesn't get closed down in less than a day.
mkreku Posted March 21, 2006 Posted March 21, 2006 It hasn't been released in Sweden yet, apparently. I guess the 24:th of March still stands. Swedes, go to: Spel2, for the latest game reviews in swedish!
ShadowPaladin V1.0 Posted March 21, 2006 Posted March 21, 2006 I'm more interested in the impressions after 48 hours. I have to agree with Volourn. Bioware is pretty much dead now. Deals like this kills development studios. 478327[/snapback]
Meshugger Posted March 21, 2006 Posted March 21, 2006 I'll buy it on friday. Then i'll finally be able to see what the Xbox360 is capable of "Some men see things as they are and say why?""I dream things that never were and say why not?"- George Bernard Shaw"Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man."- Friedrich Nietzsche "The amount of energy necessary to refute bull**** is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it." - Some guy
Meshugger Posted March 21, 2006 Posted March 21, 2006 (edited) Why do i instantly hear the tune "Up where we belong" by Joe C0cker(stupid filter) when i see that picture? I wonder.... Edited March 21, 2006 by Meshugger "Some men see things as they are and say why?""I dream things that never were and say why not?"- George Bernard Shaw"Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man."- Friedrich Nietzsche "The amount of energy necessary to refute bull**** is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it." - Some guy
Dhruin Posted March 21, 2006 Posted March 21, 2006 Might as well provide some actual impressions, cross-posted from elsewhere... Really quick impressions from two hours play... Seems to perform quite well on my P4-3Ghz, 2Gb RAM, 6800gs...detected as "High" settings, first dungeon ran very well and outside seems fine most of the time, although the grass texture on the hills opposite the river look pretty plain. The graphics are...great and underwhelming at the same time. The textures are nice and things like sword hilts and so on are incredible but the dungeon internals tend a little to shiny plastic and the faces are god-awful. First dungeon gameplay is fun in an action/RPG way. I didn't think the physics were as solid as HL2 but it is an RPG, so no problem. Enjoyed archery and fireball throwing quite a bit but melee didn't feel that much better than Morrowind at this early stage (probably just me). I dislike the interface and it annoys me that PC interfaces are dictated by consoles. I'll get used to it but the icons are meaningless at the moment, there doesn't seem to be any tooltips and it doesn't use the screen real estate efficiently because it was clearly designed for consoles - not a big deal in the whole scheme of things but a AAA product of this magnitude should be better, IMO. I was asked on another board to articulate my concerns with the interface, so here goes. I don't want this to look like a big whine - it's one element out of the whole game... - UI doesn't scale. Everything is within the "journal", which is the tabbed box you've seen in screens. It's only about 40%? of the screen area, so lots of scrolling regardless of your super 1920x1600 resolution or whatever. Things you might want nice and large, such as inventory or map, all fit in this box. - Because of the lack of space, there's a dozen tabs and you have to switch between 4? screens just to get complete character info, let alone spells, inventory, etc - Everything is indicated with icons - no text and no tooltips. Few of them made any sense at first glance until I had experimented or checked the manual. They look very stylish but aren't intuitive to me. - As far as I can tell (and I'd love to be wrong) there's no hotkey access to specific screens - I can't hit "M" for map or "I" for inventory...hit TAB for the journal and navigate the tabs. Did I miss something here?* - Journal seems pretty basic (although there's a map reference, which is nice) *Turns out the F1, F2 etc keys go straight to the map etc but that simply isn't in my manual. Surely "M" for map and "I" for inventory are RPG standards? Anyway, I was incorrect on this point.
Meshugger Posted March 21, 2006 Posted March 21, 2006 Chefe at the rpgcodex has his "first impressions" posted aswell. Hilarious "Some men see things as they are and say why?""I dream things that never were and say why not?"- George Bernard Shaw"Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man."- Friedrich Nietzsche "The amount of energy necessary to refute bull**** is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it." - Some guy
karka Posted March 21, 2006 Posted March 21, 2006 I like the screens.. There are some great pixel arts...
Craigboy2 Posted March 21, 2006 Posted March 21, 2006 Chefe at the rpgcodex has his "first impressions" posted aswell. Hilarious <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Sounds kind of fanboent. "Your total disregard for the law and human decency both disgusts me and touches my heart. Bless you, sir." "Soilent Green is people. This guy's just a homeless heroin junkie who got in a internet caf
Deraldin Posted March 21, 2006 Posted March 21, 2006 Chefe at the rpgcodex has his "first impressions" posted aswell. Hilarious <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Sounds kind of fanboent. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> It's from the Codex. What's your point?
metadigital Posted March 21, 2006 Posted March 21, 2006 I dislike the interface and it annoys me that PC interfaces are dictated by consoles. I'll get used to it but the icons are meaningless at the moment, there doesn't seem to be any tooltips and it doesn't use the screen real estate efficiently because it was clearly designed for consoles - not a big deal in the whole scheme of things but a AAA product of this magnitude should be better, IMO. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Hopefully there is a setting add tooltips ... - UI doesn't scale. Everything is within the "journal", which is the tabbed box you've seen in screens. It's only about 40%? of the screen area, so lots of scrolling regardless of your super 1920x1600 resolution or whatever. Things you might want nice and large, such as inventory or map, all fit in this box. - Because of the lack of space, there's a dozen tabs and you have to switch between 4? screens just to get complete character info, let alone spells, inventory, etc <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I hated that about KotOR2, too. OBSCVRVM PER OBSCVRIVS ET IGNOTVM PER IGNOTIVS OPVS ARTIFICEM PROBAT
Tigranes Posted March 21, 2006 Posted March 21, 2006 (edited) It's not released in NZ yet, but I've read 20-30 "impressions" from 3-10 hours of play so far, and it amalgamates into the following: -> The untextured hills and low draw distances DO exist. (if you dont know what I'm talking about, ground that is a bit away, but still clearly visible, often has no grass/rocks on it OR a recognisable texture, making it look like a greenish blob from 1999.) -> Some complain that the bloom is overdone. If you felt that way looking at screenies, then that is probably true for you, and vice versa. -> The faces are still as bad (art style wise), but again, screenies show this. Other than this, graphics are up to scratch. -> Runs nice with little loading time on most 360's and high end comps, low end comps are still able to run it. No game-killing bugs so far. -> Dhruin's comments on UI are spot on. There also seems to be some sort of crazy mini-radial menu when this guy in a video is using a potion in the middle of a battle. -> Physics are fairly good, killing a wolf on a hill makes him slide down, arrows stick out of things like legs, etc. -> The world is apparently more 'epic' and 'lifelike', as in mountains are really that, mountains (huge / tall), etc. -> Radiant AI: nobody is saying it's the best thing in the world. Most people think it's a good / great addition, apart fromsome ****ups that provide humour (hoeing concrete), but apparently it's not going to be as groundbreaking as some people thought / suggested. I'm not surprised. -> Combat looks and plays similarly to Morrowind, the "special attacks" and elimination of hit roll being the biggest factor. Also, the combat is more 'kinetic', but that looks REALLY retarded on 3rd person (everybody hopping around and turning sideways like little mannequins), in first person better but more disorienting. -> Wiki Dialogue still exists. There are many instances where when you choose what your character says, it is definitely wiki. Sometimes it's not though, I guess for important conversations. -> Persuasion minigame seems to involve a circle divided into 4 sides, and usually 2 are blank while the other 2 are coloured: I'm not sure exactly how it works, but you have to apparently find the most coloured section and select it...? It doesn't look any good at all, but I haven't actually played it myself. EDIT: metadigital: IGN comments that there are not tooltips in first impressions. Edited March 21, 2006 by Tigranes Let's Play: Icewind Dale Ironman (Complete) Let's Play: Icewind Dale II Ironman (Complete) Let's Play: Divinity II (Complete) Let's Play: Baldur's Gate Trilogy Ironman - BG1 (Complete) Let's Play: Baldur's Gate Trilogy Ironman - BG2 (In Progress)
Shadowstrider Posted March 22, 2006 Posted March 22, 2006 (edited) -> The untextured hills and low draw distances DO exist. (if you dont know what I'm talking about, ground that is a bit away, but still clearly visible, often has no grass/rocks on it OR a recognisable texture, making it look like a greenish blob from 1999.) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> There are no untextured hills, the problem is video drivers, and hardware configuration. Draw distance can be set as high or as low as the user wants. If you set it to the maximum on PC the trees appear as far as you can see, pretty much. On Xbox, since you cannot mess with the sliders, there are some instances where they seem to jump out of nowhere, usually when you load into a cell and the trees in distant cells are processed. One of the biggest problems with this is that it hits you RIGHT as you come out of the first dungeon. The positioning of the exit was so that you're looking up at an enormous cliff where there should be shrubbery and trees concealing the LOD textures. Unfortunately, if you have your LOD set low, you get to see the "low process" textures in the distance. That is one of the primary reasons it hits people right away, unfortunately. Edited March 22, 2006 by Shadowstrider
Lyric Suite Posted March 22, 2006 Posted March 22, 2006 I though they had solved drawing distance problems with Far Cry. Why is it taking so long for other developers to catch up?
metadigital Posted March 22, 2006 Posted March 22, 2006 One of the biggest problems with this is that it hits you RIGHT as you come out of the first dungeon. The positioning of the exit was so that you're looking up at an enormous cliff where there should be shrubbery and trees concealing the LOD textures. Unfortunately, if you have your LOD set low, you get to see the "low process" textures in the distance. That is one of the primary reasons it hits people right away, unfortunately. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I blame those insidious Knights Who Say Ni! ... OBSCVRVM PER OBSCVRIVS ET IGNOTVM PER IGNOTIVS OPVS ARTIFICEM PROBAT
@\NightandtheShape/@ Posted March 22, 2006 Posted March 22, 2006 I though they had solved drawing distance problems with Far Cry. Why is it taking so long for other developers to catch up? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> setting up the draw distance is easy enough in code, the hard part is getting everything to scale correctly to distance.... Brute force can only get you so far before you have use tricks. So basically it's not the draw distance at all that is a problem. Far cry != Oblivion ^ Not even close "I'm a programmer at a games company... REET GOOD!" - Me
Lyric Suite Posted March 22, 2006 Posted March 22, 2006 setting up the draw distance is easy enough in code, the hard part is getting everything to scale correctly to distance.... Brute force can only get you so far before you have use tricks. Fine, but what's stopping developers from copying whatever technique Crytek used to eliminate this problem in Far Cry?
Lyric Suite Posted March 22, 2006 Posted March 22, 2006 Game Engines. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> It's all code...
metadigital Posted March 22, 2006 Posted March 22, 2006 Game Engines. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> It's all code... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Try imaging the microbial life in a drop of water with an optical telescope ... after all, they're all lenses. OBSCVRVM PER OBSCVRIVS ET IGNOTVM PER IGNOTIVS OPVS ARTIFICEM PROBAT
Lyric Suite Posted March 22, 2006 Posted March 22, 2006 (edited) If only it were that simple. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Maybe it is? Who knows? Ever looked at the actual code? I can accept the fact it may actually be very difficoult to pull this off, but it just seems they haven't even tried... Edited March 22, 2006 by Lyric Suite
Hurlshort Posted March 22, 2006 Author Posted March 22, 2006 Ok, I've got my first 2 hours in... First off, the start is very solid. It reminds me a bit of Daggerfall, where you basically start out in a tough situation and fight your way out. It isn't hard, but it's entertaining. It also does a great job of making your character creation seem very natural. It's a way better start than Morrowind. Secondly, the game is gorgeous on an Xbox 360. I'm having a few lighting issues, but that could be my TV and settings. It's a bit hard to see rats. I actually think I got attacked by some invisible wolves and rats...they didn't seem visible until I killed them. Not sure what that's all about. Lastly, the interface is pretty good for a console game, but I'd be ticked off if it was the same on my PC. The draw distances are not great, but that's not a huge deal to me. You are trading in a ton of detail at close range for some plain-ness in the distance. It really doesn't affect the game in any way. I'm excited so far.
karka Posted March 22, 2006 Posted March 22, 2006 Ok, I've got my first 2 hours in... First off, the start is very solid. It reminds me a bit of Daggerfall, where you basically start out in a tough situation and fight your way out. It isn't hard, but it's entertaining. It also does a great job of making your character creation seem very natural. It's a way better start than Morrowind. Secondly, the game is gorgeous on an Xbox 360. I'm having a few lighting issues, but that could be my TV and settings. It's a bit hard to see rats. I actually think I got attacked by some invisible wolves and rats...they didn't seem visible until I killed them. Not sure what that's all about. Lastly, the interface is pretty good for a console game, but I'd be ticked off if it was the same on my PC. The draw distances are not great, but that's not a huge deal to me. You are trading in a ton of detail at close range for some plain-ness in the distance. It really doesn't affect the game in any way. I'm excited so far. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Is your TV HD?
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