RANDOM VIDEO GAME NEWS!

[Nordicus]

Greetings everyone, what is going on in the game industry today?

 

I think I'll take ugly over gay.

[Volourn]

"They really show that America and Japan have issues."

 

BIGOTRY SHOWING. More than just those coutnries play FF. I know countries in Europe like them too.

[AwesomeOcelot]

"They really show that America and Japan have issues."

 

BIGOTRY SHOWING. More than just those coutnries play FF. I know countries in Europe like them too.

 

Japan is the only one that makes FF, and the multitude of other media that contains the same ****.

Edited November 12, 2012 by AwesomeOcelot

[Orogun01]

"They really show that America and Japan have issues."

 

BIGOTRY SHOWING. More than just those coutnries play FF. I know countries in Europe like them too.

 

Japan is the only one that makes FF, and the multitude of other media that contains the same ****.

Don't forget Korean MMOs

[Orchomene]

Microsoft gonna do what they always do (draconian DRM related)

 

Extract :

'Microsoft Kinect 2 will have the ability to intelligently scan a room and pick up on the audience (creepy right?), they’ve even included the ability for age detection. The technology will also be used to enforce ESRB ratings, something no console to date has been able to enforce.'

 

Is it for real ? I mean, are they seriously considering selling this ? Wow, I'm amazed people could buy such Big Brother system.

Also it's doomed to be cracked in the first month.

 

About PC/consoles, I just wanted to add that the time where PC gamers had to be careful looking if the game they buy will be able to be played on their PC is over. Hardware evolution has been slowed down a lot due to physical constraints. The only really important evolution are in term of power consumption. Now there is a phase of resource optimization, i.e. better use of memory, especially grphic cards memory. CPU frequency is limited by silicon semi conductor technology at less than 10 GHz for exemple. Above that, you need to have hyper frequency cavities and not use electronic/electricity simple physical laws but Maxwell electromagnetism laws (which is a pain). The challenge has evolved into a better reltionship between hardware and software ( i.e. having hardware (mainly GPU) well designed and software adapted to the hard architecture, like GPGPU for big computations, parallelization if interesting).

I don't think that the next ten years will see an evolution as impressive as the last ten. Of course, in ten years, there could also be a technological revolution, but it's not plausible at the moment (quantic processing, as far as I know, is not yet ready).

I think it's good news, we may have less focus on graphics.

[greylord]

Also, holy ****, is that screenshot from an emulator a cut scene? That's even more dishonest.How is it that your FFX is double the resolution of what it would be on the PS2, but Morrowind is less than its max resolution?

 

Yeah, if Bethesda decided to take control away from a player I'm sure they could dedicate all the polygons to the characters (while still managing to look really bad in the background) Morrowind could have looked as good. In the end you should care how much freedom of movement and control you are given, because a game completely on rails consisting of quick time events will look better than any other game, but it will be a ****ty game to play. Yeah, Morrowind looks way better. What is even happening in FFX?

 

no it isn't from a cutscene. The cutscenes in PSX were a LOT more detailed than what I'm seeing no his screen.

 

Your emulator stinks by the way for that last picture there. Heck, even on my HDTV via a PS3 (fat) I have better resolution. I have better resolution on my old tv that's a tube with a PS2 than what that is showing up on your computer with whatever emulator you are using.

 

Either that or you tuned the emulator wrong.

 

As others have already said, Morrowind always looked like #$%^#, even in it's heyday. People didn't play Morrowind because they felt it was the best graphics, they played it for other reasons.

 

As all gamers should do with games they enjoy playing.

 

Anyways, more onto news....

 

Microsoft gonna do what they always do (draconian DRM related)

 

Extract :

'Microsoft Kinect 2 will have the ability to intelligently scan a room and pick up on the audience (creepy right?), they’ve even included the ability for age detection. The technology will also be used to enforce ESRB ratings, something no console to date has been able to enforce.'

 

Is it for real ? I mean, are they seriously considering selling this ? Wow, I'm amazed people could buy such Big Brother system.

Also it's doomed to be cracked in the first month.

 

 

 

If this happens that's one console I will NEVER get if I can avoid it (and I should be able to). That's going waaaaay overboard on the CRM nonsense.

 

This entire security skillthrill that MS has been doing is one reason they've been the best advertising for Linux since WinXP!

Edited November 12, 2012 by greylord

[Zoraptor]

I can't see the kinect thing actually being used. Too many obvious ways to avoid or subvert it, too many potential problems.

 

Though at least for once it seems that it is actually a proper patent, for a proper invention.

[pmp10]

About PC/consoles, I just wanted to add that the time where PC gamers had to be careful looking if the game they buy will be able to be played on their PC is over. Hardware evolution has been slowed down a lot due to physical constraints. The only really important evolution are in term of power consumption. Now there is a phase of resource optimization, i.e. better use of memory, especially grphic cards memory. CPU frequency is limited by silicon semi conductor technology at less than 10 GHz for exemple. Above that, you need to have hyper frequency cavities and not use electronic/electricity simple physical laws but Maxwell electromagnetism laws (which is a pain). The challenge has evolved into a better reltionship between hardware and software ( i.e. having hardware (mainly GPU) well designed and software adapted to the hard architecture, like GPGPU for big computations, parallelization if interesting).

I don't think that the next ten years will see an evolution as impressive as the last ten. Of course, in ten years, there could also be a technological revolution, but it's not plausible at the moment (quantic processing, as far as I know, is not yet ready).

I think it's good news, we may have less focus on graphics.

If GHz were the major limitation we could play modern games on decade old celerons.

The reality is that most PC games are bottlenecked by CPU and there is no good way to find out how accurate 'requirements' are without playing the game and benchmarking resource use.

[MacMichael]

Microsoft gonna do what they always do (draconian DRM related)

 

Extract :

'Microsoft Kinect 2 will have the ability to intelligently scan a room and pick up on the audience (creepy right?), they’ve even included the ability for age detection. The technology will also be used to enforce ESRB ratings, something no console to date has been able to enforce.'

 

Is it for real ? I mean, are they seriously considering selling this ? Wow, I'm amazed people could buy such Big Brother system.

Also it's doomed to be cracked in the first month.

 

Real, probably, seriously considering using it, probably not. Remember reading several years back that Sony had a patent on a technology that could read a decryption code off a disc, then destroy it, so that disc could only be used in the first console it's put in, removing any ability to resell it. But it's yet to actually show up in any system of theirs, as far as I'm aware. Companies like having vast portfolios of patents that they can use against each other. I'd be surprised if they actually put it to use. I can't see how it wouldn't hurt their sales if they did.

[AwesomeOcelot]

 

Also, holy ****, is that screenshot from an emulator a cut scene? That's even more dishonest.How is it that your FFX is double the resolution of what it would be on the PS2, but Morrowind is less than its max resolution?

 

Yeah, if Bethesda decided to take control away from a player I'm sure they could dedicate all the polygons to the characters (while still managing to look really bad in the background) Morrowind could have looked as good. In the end you should care how much freedom of movement and control you are given, because a game completely on rails consisting of quick time events will look better than any other game, but it will be a ****ty game to play. Yeah, Morrowind looks way better. What is even happening in FFX?

 

 

no it isn't from a cutscene. The cutscenes in PSX were a LOT more detailed than what I'm seeing no his screen.

 

Your emulator stinks by the way for that last picture there. Heck, even on my HDTV via a PS3 (fat) I have better resolution. I have better resolution on my old tv that's a tube with a PS2 than what that is showing up on your computer with whatever emulator you are using.

 

Either that or you tuned the emulator wrong.

 

As others have already said, Morrowind always looked like #$%^#, even in it's heyday. People didn't play Morrowind because they felt it was the best graphics, they played it for other reasons.

 

 

As all gamers should do with games they enjoy playing.

 

Anyways, more onto news....

 

Microsoft gonna do what they always do (draconian DRM related)

 

Extract :

'Microsoft Kinect 2 will have the ability to intelligently scan a room and pick up on the audience (creepy right?), they’ve even included the ability for age detection. The technology will also be used to enforce ESRB ratings, something no console to date has been able to enforce.'

 

Is it for real ? I mean, are they seriously considering selling this ? Wow, I'm amazed people could buy such Big Brother system.

Also it's doomed to be cracked in the first month.

 

 

 

If this happens that's one console I will NEVER get if I can avoid it (and I should be able to). That's going waaaaay overboard on the CRM nonsense.

 

This entire security skillthrill that MS has been doing is one reason they've been the best advertising for Linux since WinXP!

 

 

Of course it's from a cutscene, just look at the screenshots I posted of FFX, the faces look no where near as detailed. Since when do you get a close up of two characters like that when it's not a cutscene? Obviously it's not a prerendered FMV, but that screenshot doesn't look at all like the gameplay screenshots. Confirmed, left is gameplay model, right is cutscene model:

 

The screenshots I posted are from the PS2, that's the resolution the PS2 renders FFX in, the only way you get higher resolution from the PS2 is by scaling, which doesn't add detail. You are lying, your TV does not have better resolution, since it's a CRT it might blur it while it's scaling.

 

As can clearly be seen, on the PS2, FFX graphics when you're actually playing the game look like ****, way worse than even Morrowind's. Just look at how FFX actually looks on the PS2:

 

Edited November 12, 2012 by AwesomeOcelot

[Volourn]

"FFX graphics when you're actually playing the game look like ****, way worse than even Morrowind's."

 

No. Hell no. Hell **** no.

[greylord]

someone's trying to disguise what the cutscenes in FFX look like.

 

there's a difference between an ingame rendered cutscene and the ACTUAL CGI cutscenes...

 

Here's one on Youtube of an actual cutscene as opposed to the ingameplay graphics you've been posting....

 

in poor resolution even...and it kicks the crud out of anything you've been saying.

 

http://youtu.be/TyxDVVNyXYs

 

The guy has been posting in game play graphics, and you tried to disguise the in gameplay cutscenes using the same graphics as are used to play the game as CGI (which they are not...that's akin to stating that when you have the BG2 in game cutscenes using the same views as when you play the game as a CGI cutscene...which they obviously aren't).

 

I'm not a hardcore on either PC or console side...

 

But people lying about things to try to make themselves look good is annoying...

 

The video shows the obvious differences between the in game cutscenes and gameplay.

 

FFX still looks good to this day. And that's even on the POOR resolution that this youtube video has.

 

However, true gamers play because of gameplay, not graphics... (though I think FFX rocks to tell the truth)

Edited November 12, 2012 by greylord

[Gorth]

I think people are mixing up their terminology sometimes. CGI is pretty much everything your computer shows on screen. I suppose the discussion is about how it was rendered, using the game engine and renderer versus using the same or similar assets rendered in another application ("pre-rendered" or FMV sequences)?

[LadyCrimson]

It seems I'm the only one who liked MW's graphics back in the day. Oh sure, I'd see screens today and go "oh...that's not how I remembered it..." but at the time, I thought they looked great. Not uber, and certainly not "realistic", but I was fairly enthralled. Maybe my 1600x1200 huge CRT screen helped.

[Morgoth]

Gabe Newell sort of mentions (announces?) Source 2 Engine in development

[Drowsy Emperor]

 

Interesting thing, reader bias. I'm seeing defensiveness on the other side of the argument, not his. Never having considered myself a "tribal gamer", I find his views as a reformed one particularly intriguing and insightful.

 

I know for myself last gen I never had a particular idea what games where available for PS2, since I had my xbox for the kotors etc. and that's it. When I bought a PS3 for the blu-ray drive I suddenly got a much clearer picture about the games that I'd missed.

 

Both sides are being defensive.

 

That someone states there isn't enough motivation to pick up a console, however, they shouldn't have to riposte statements of the obvious that there are probably some games on the system that they would like.

 

It's like it's completely unfathomable for someone to have different tastes.

 

 

The difference here, is those defending themselves for being primarily PC gamers were demonstrating how they personally are not interested. He, on the other hand, is going around telling other people that they're wrong.

 

One of these perspectives is non-confrontational and even perfectly okay with other people having different preferences. The other less so, and by doing so keeps the discussion going when otherwise it should probably have just died some time ago.

 

 

I started out on the Apple II and the Mac, got myself a Nintendo, then a Super Nintendo, while also using the PC. Then focused heavily on the PSX and N64, until Half-Life converted me to full on PC gamer. I was indifferent to the PS2/XBox, and the only reason why I picked up a 360 was because my friends and I were on a Rock Band kick. Having owned the console, there are games I picked up that I definitely wouldn't have otherwise (since the 360 cost was sunk), I still preferred the games on the PC and in general found myself with absolutely no shortage of games to play in spite of this restriction. I have zero beef if people prefer to play on any of the consoles, and despite jokingly referring to myself as part of the "PC Master Race" you'll still see me commenting against PC gamers that talk down to console gamers too.

 

And you are looking too much into it. I was telling them that its possible they could be wrong without even knowing it.

 

Unfair comparison considering the difference in resolution and the camera limits. Tech demos have better graphics than games for the same reason, you don't have to use polygons on things that can't be seen. Native resolution for FFX was probably 512 x 416, Morrowind PC the max resolution was 1024 x 768, just on that basis Morrowind looks much much better than FFX.

 

 

From the perspective of the end user the technology and its limitations are irrelevant. FFX looks better on my TV than Morrowind on my PC (without even going into the world design comparison, effects, use of colors etc). ]

 

 

Incidentally, this is FFX, emulated on PC, released year 2001:

 

 

Morrowind 2003:

 

 

Yeah, it would be unreasonable to expect that an open world game would look better than a linear one filled with pre rendered scenes, and few on screen characters, but in the end,as a gamer - I shouldn't have to care about that.

 

I can play FFX today, and there's no way around the fact that Morrowind is ugly as hell, badly animated and well, brown.

 

That's highly delusional and dishonest of you. Here's what Final Fantasy X looks like close to its native resolution, without an emulator adding filters, AF, AA:

 

 

Also, holy ****, is that screenshot from an emulator a cut scene? That's even more dishonest.How is it that your FFX is double the resolution of what it would be on the PS2, but Morrowind is less than its max resolution?

 

Yeah, if Bethesda decided to take control away from a player I'm sure they could dedicate all the polygons to the characters (while still managing to look really bad in the background) Morrowind could have looked as good. In the end you should care how much freedom of movement and control you are given, because a game completely on rails consisting of quick time events will look better than any other game, but it will be a ****ty game to play. Yeah, Morrowind looks way better. What is even happening in FFX?

 

I don't want this to turn into some sort of war, the whole point was to give some credit where its due, namely Japanese designers.

 

The fact that you're insisting on FFX native resolution as its supposed disadvantage is strange to say the least considering that its made for television sets which operate on those resolutions. Only when you take a screenshot directly from the PS2's signal and paste it on a PC screen (your screenshot) do those issues you describe show up. No one is going to do that anyway, you're either going to play it on the TV or with an emulator and in both cases its going to look far better than what you claim because:

a) TV smooths out all those errors, or

b)because the emulator features take care of them

 

It simply does not look like what you claim it does, (especially the contrast and the edges) and I should know because I had it in my PS2 yesterday to show my gf what the game looks like. I also played morrowind just last month.

 

Btw, the fact that you can upscale FFX's graphics 10 years later with appropriate software (but no mods) and the game still looks good is a testament to sound design choices during its making. It uses the resources at its disposal extremely well and that's an achievement in itself.

 

PS I don't know what quick time events you're talking about, there aren't any in FFX.

Edited November 12, 2012 by Drowsy Emperor

[AwesomeOcelot]

someone's trying to disguise what the cutscenes in FFX look like.

 

there's a difference between an ingame rendered cutscene and the ACTUAL CGI cutscenes...

 

Here's one on Youtube of an actual cutscene as opposed to the ingameplay graphics you've been posting....

 

in poor resolution even...and it kicks the crud out of anything you've been saying.

 

That's a lie, I only said that the screenshot posted was of a cutscene, it is an ingame rendered cutscene. I don't care about FMV CGI movies, they're not representative of a games graphics. All the Morrowind screenshots are of gameplay, I am deliberately posting gameplay screenshots of FFX.

 

 

 

 

Interesting thing, reader bias. I'm seeing defensiveness on the other side of the argument, not his. Never having considered myself a "tribal gamer", I find his views as a reformed one particularly intriguing and insightful.

 

I know for myself last gen I never had a particular idea what games where available for PS2, since I had my xbox for the kotors etc. and that's it. When I bought a PS3 for the blu-ray drive I suddenly got a much clearer picture about the games that I'd missed.

 

Both sides are being defensive.

 

That someone states there isn't enough motivation to pick up a console, however, they shouldn't have to riposte statements of the obvious that there are probably some games on the system that they would like.

 

It's like it's completely unfathomable for someone to have different tastes.

 

 

The difference here, is those defending themselves for being primarily PC gamers were demonstrating how they personally are not interested. He, on the other hand, is going around telling other people that they're wrong.

 

One of these perspectives is non-confrontational and even perfectly okay with other people having different preferences. The other less so, and by doing so keeps the discussion going when otherwise it should probably have just died some time ago.

 

 

I started out on the Apple II and the Mac, got myself a Nintendo, then a Super Nintendo, while also using the PC. Then focused heavily on the PSX and N64, until Half-Life converted me to full on PC gamer. I was indifferent to the PS2/XBox, and the only reason why I picked up a 360 was because my friends and I were on a Rock Band kick. Having owned the console, there are games I picked up that I definitely wouldn't have otherwise (since the 360 cost was sunk), I still preferred the games on the PC and in general found myself with absolutely no shortage of games to play in spite of this restriction. I have zero beef if people prefer to play on any of the consoles, and despite jokingly referring to myself as part of the "PC Master Race" you'll still see me commenting against PC gamers that talk down to console gamers too.

 

And you are looking too much into it. I was telling them that its possible they could be wrong without even knowing it.

 

Unfair comparison considering the difference in resolution and the camera limits. Tech demos have better graphics than games for the same reason, you don't have to use polygons on things that can't be seen. Native resolution for FFX was probably 512 x 416, Morrowind PC the max resolution was 1024 x 768, just on that basis Morrowind looks much much better than FFX.

 

 

From the perspective of the end user the technology and its limitations are irrelevant. FFX looks better on my TV than Morrowind on my PC (without even going into the world design comparison, effects, use of colors etc). ]

 

 

Incidentally, this is FFX, emulated on PC, released year 2001:

 

 

Morrowind 2003:

 

 

Yeah, it would be unreasonable to expect that an open world game would look better than a linear one filled with pre rendered scenes, and few on screen characters, but in the end,as a gamer - I shouldn't have to care about that.

 

I can play FFX today, and there's no way around the fact that Morrowind is ugly as hell, badly animated and well, brown.

 

That's highly delusional and dishonest of you. Here's what Final Fantasy X looks like close to its native resolution, without an emulator adding filters, AF, AA:

 

 

Also, holy ****, is that screenshot from an emulator a cut scene? That's even more dishonest.How is it that your FFX is double the resolution of what it would be on the PS2, but Morrowind is less than its max resolution?

 

Yeah, if Bethesda decided to take control away from a player I'm sure they could dedicate all the polygons to the characters (while still managing to look really bad in the background) Morrowind could have looked as good. In the end you should care how much freedom of movement and control you are given, because a game completely on rails consisting of quick time events will look better than any other game, but it will be a ****ty game to play. Yeah, Morrowind looks way better. What is even happening in FFX?

 

 

I don't want this to turn into some sort of war, the whole point was to give some credit where its due, namely Japanese designers.

 

The fact that you're insisting on FFX native resolution as its supposed disadvantage is strange to say the least considering that its made for television sets which operate on those resolutions. Only when you take a screenshot directly from the PS2's signal and paste it on a PC screen (your screenshot) do those issues you describe show up. No one is going to do that anyway, you're either going to play it on the TV or with an emulator and in both cases its going to look far better than what you claim because:

a) TV smooths out all those errors, or

b)because the emulator features take care of them

 

It simply does not look like what you claim it does, (especially the contrast and the edges) and I should know because I had it in my PS2 yesterday to show my gf what the game looks like. I also played morrowind just last month.

 

Btw, the fact that you can upscale FFX's graphics 10 years later with appropriate software (but no mods) and the game still looks good is a testament to sound design choices during its making. It uses the resources at its disposal extremely well and that's an achievement in itself.

 

PS I don't know what quick time events you're talking about, there aren't any in FFX.

 

Of course that's a disadvantage that it's made for television sets, that it was made for PS2 that had a GPU that wasn't great. You are obviously delusional, the TV blurs the image which gets rid of the jagged edges, but again it blurs it, because this screenshot is on a PC it doesn't look as blurry, and what you're complaining about is I'm not making the screenshots look less detailed as they would on a TV.

 

An emulator is not appropriate software to judge a games graphics, especially when you were talking about both games on release, and the emulator isn't upscaling the graphics, it renders them at a higher resolution. Emulators are a mod, if you did the same things they do to a PC game you'd call it a mod, when you update the shader to DirectX 10 on Unreal or Deus Ex it's a mod, emulators are like using a different engine for a game.

 

It does use the resources at its disposal extremely well, but then it didn't have many resources, and that's why apples to apples comparisons make Morrowind the clear winner if you don't have rose tinted JRPG fanboy specs on. I don't particularly like either game, I'm certainly not a Bethesda fan.

Edited November 12, 2012 by AwesomeOcelot

[Drowsy Emperor]

Okay, I'm delusional then.

[HoonDing]

Squeenix production values are second to none, what's there to discuss exactly?

[Drowsy Emperor]

I think I'll take ugly over gay.

I think you're very insecure in your orientation.

 

Not really, I just can't find a better word to describe anime or anything resembling it.

 

Man I don't like anime either, but all it does is trade in one set of issues for another.

 

Btw there are some rather good shows, films etc. Give Vision of Escaflowne a go, you won't regret it.

[Drowsy Emperor]

Squeenix production values are second to none, what's there to discuss exactly?

 

NO, MORROWIND IS BETTER FFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Edited November 12, 2012 by Drowsy Emperor

[AwesomeOcelot]

So lets be clear, compare these screenshots, which looks better:

 

 

[HoonDing]

I'd rather kiss Tidus Yuna than that Imperial trooper tbh.

[Guest Slinky]

Gabe Newell sort of mentions (announces?) Source 2 Engine in development

 

That was to be expected, I don't think even Valve would take this long with EP3/HL3 with a ready engine.

 

Besides, I've been replaying HL2 and the age of the engine is starting to kinda show.

[Fighter]

HL2 aged very well IMHO. Still looks good.

Edited November 12, 2012 by Fighter