@Trezzer

Quote:

wasn't the best game of 2006. It was the second best. Viva Piñata was the best

It's official. Bill Gates: "Viva Pinata is for young girls"

http://www.gametrailers.com/umwatcher.php?id=39349

Quote:

but in most cases (such as Resistance: Fall of Man) you just need to stick to 720p to get all the effects you need

Rendering in 1080p instead of 720p requires an estimated 1.6 times amount of power. I am sure Resistance with the same level of effects can be done on the PS3 using a more PS3 optimized / mature engine, Resistance was a launch title.

IMO with regard to Final Night Round 3, it was good to concentrate on improving the player models on the foreground, instead of putting too much emphasis on the background scenery. IMO this makes sense, for instance in movies, background scenery is often less detailed than what the movie maker wants you to focuss your attention on. This can also be used for clever tricks, such as in Elfmania for the Amiga, when a lot of things are happening in the foreground, fighters doing insanely fast moves the background scenery such as the waterfalls animations comes to a halt. Due to the user's attention on the fighters, they ususally won't notice this at all.

With regard to overdoing games with effects, for instance Mario64 is IMO still one of the visually most pleasing games. I have seen screenshots and videos of Mario Galaxy for the Nintendo Wii and although it's clearly a more demanding game with Mario running around small planets, complex 3D boss models, I think it doesn't come close to the charm Mario64 offered by a long shot. Sometimes simplicity is good, Mario Galaxy looks like a disorientating game, personally I wish they wouldn't have changed the winning formula.

Last edited by MikeB on 06-Feb-2007 at 09:01 AM.

@MikeB

Quote:

t's official. Bill Gates: "Viva Pinata is for young girls"

Yeah, I'm sure it's great for those.

Luckily it's great for everyone else too.

But Mike, I think this campaign is for you.

@Trezzer

Depends on type of game and the atmospheric feeling the developers try to create. IMO cartoony graphics are often well suited for various fantasy games, like Mario, Zelda, Ape Escape, etc. Here too many visual effects can actually degrade the user experience of many games (although exaggerations of colors and shapes can add to a dreamworld atmosphere).

More realistic graphics are often best suited for thrilling / shocking game experiences, such graphics are usually far more demanding, detailed and difficult to generate. Of course there are huge areas of overlap and there are other games which cannot easily be classified in either of these two categories.

@MikeB

Dude, you don't have to take everything so seriously ;)

Btw. speaking of Viva Piñata that you just brought up. Considering that you enjoyed Kameo's visual style, you should really check out Viva Piñata for several reasons:

1. It's Rare (like Kameo)
2. The aesthetics are similar albeit much improved
3. It's a better game

Well, of course point 3 depends on whether you enjoy those kinds of games (Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon etc.)

@Trezzer

Quote:

Trezzer wrote: @MikeB Quote: t's official. Bill Gates: "Viva Pinata is for young girls" Yeah, I'm sure it's great for those. Luckily it's great for everyone else too. But Mike, I think this campaign is for you.

When i first read this phrase: ""Games need RED AND BLUE THINGS in them!""
I thinked it was related to Amiga and MorphOS (you know, red and blue wars)

_________________
No PowerPC, No Fun
Make Amiga Great Again

@Trezzer

I watched the tutorial videos, reminded me somewhat of Dungeon Keeper, but the super duper cute version. i didn't like Dungeon Keeper that much, I don't know maybe I'll buy Lost Planet instead someday. Wouldn't that sort of game be better played with a mouse?

@Lou

Quote:

Lou wrote: @MikeB Quote: Some more interesting Gof of War 2 - PS2 screenshots (1280 x 1024): I hate screenshots from developmental renders, because that's what they are, PC renders, and not what it will actually look like on the PS2. I saw lots of "screenshots" from Splinter Cell, Red Steel and LoZ:TP for the Wii done @ 1280x960 and that is not what was shipped. This goes for all marketing: show me a game running on actual hardware or atleast state that it's a PC render.

They could be from PS2 i.e. they are basic compared to Farcry PC, NWN2, Quake 4 PC, Oblivion PC and 'etc'.

_________________
Ryzen 9 7900X, DDR5-6000 64 GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB
Amiga 1200 (Rev 1D1, KS 3.2, PiStorm32lite/RPi 4B 4GB/Emu68)
Amiga 500 (Rev 6A, KS 3.2, PiStorm/RPi 3a/Emu68)

Blue Ray has a 2:1 lead over HD-DVD
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=22588

that's not insurmountable like the 4:1 lead the Wii enjoys over the PS3 in Japan
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=22595

@Lou

Quote:

that's not insurmountable like the 4:1 lead the Wii enjoys over the PS3 in Japan

I wouldn't worry so much with regard to the PS3 in Japan, Famitsu Top 10 Most anticipated games by Japanese gamers (Jan. 12-18):

1. Dragon Quest IX - NDS - Square Enix
2. Final Fantasy XIII - PS3 - Square Enix
3. Biohazard 5 - PS3 - Capcom
4. Metal Gear Solid 4 - PS3 - Konami
5. Gundam Musou - PS3 - Bandai Namco
6. Persona 3: Fes - PS2 - Atlus
7. Super Robot Taisen: Original Generations - PS2 - Banpresto
8. Super Smash Bros. Brawl - Wii - Nintendo
9. Monster Hunter Portable 2nd - PSP - Capcom
10. Gyakuten Saiban 4 - NDS - Capcom

PS3 - 4
PS2 - 2
NDS - 2
PSP - 1
Wii - 1

The Japanese are waiting for killer software, it makes sense as the price may well drop in time when all those games are released.

If you take into account time of availability, the Nintendo Wii has a lead of: 32: 1, against the XBox 360.

@MikeB

Quote:

MikeB wrote: @Lou Quote: that's not insurmountable like the 4:1 lead the Wii enjoys over the PS3 in Japan I wouldn't worry so much with regard to the PS3 in Japan, Famitsu Top 10 Most anticipated games by Japanese gamers (Jan. 12-18): 1. Dragon Quest IX - NDS - Square Enix 2. Final Fantasy XIII - PS3 - Square Enix 3. Biohazard 5 - PS3 - Capcom 4. Metal Gear Solid 4 - PS3 - Konami 5. Gundam Musou - PS3 - Bandai Namco 6. Persona 3: Fes - PS2 - Atlus 7. Super Robot Taisen: Original Generations - PS2 - Banpresto 8. Super Smash Bros. Brawl - Wii - Nintendo 9. Monster Hunter Portable 2nd - PSP - Capcom 10. Gyakuten Saiban 4 - NDS - Capcom PS3 - 4 PS2 - 2 NDS - 2 PSP - 1 Wii - 1 The Japanese are waiting for killer software, it makes sense as the price may well drop in time when all those games are released. If you take into account time of availability, the Nintendo Wii has a lead of: 32: 1, against the XBox 360.

Blue Dragon was atop that list for months but it only sold 40k.
Most wanted != most successful.

@Lou

Quote:

Blue Dragon was atop that list for months but it only sold 40k

The game is nearing 140,000 copies sold, Gears of War sold little over 40,000 copies. I am sure Japanese gamers rather have had Final Fantasy done at the time of Blue Dragon's release, if this would've been possible.

@MikeB

Blue Dragon in Japan sold 32k copies in it's first week. It was atop the list of Most Wanted in Japan for months before it's release. The "Most Wanted" list is based on a Famitsu magazine survey if consumers send it in.

It means nothing.

@Lou

Blue Dragon sold 83,750 copies during its first week of sales, making 4th place with only 1 top selling NDS game and 2 PS2 games topping Blue Dragon. With regard to the PS2 and NDS, note their market shares dwarfs the XBox 360's market share in Japan (and anywhere around the world).

Blue Dragon is by far the most successful XBox 360 game to date, the game sold many thousands of copies more than Lost Planet, Gears of War and last week's best selling XBox 360 game 'The Idolmaster' have sold combined!

@MikeB

The most wanted list is somewhat indicative of demand, but it's not solid enough to rely on it.

The PSP was also very high on the sought after list, yet for a very long time it performed extremely poorly (and to some extent still does). At the same time titles for DS that didn't even appear on the most wanted list turned out to be multi million sellers.

@MikeB

EA has some interesting launch numbers for PS3.

@Trezzer

Quote:

Dude, you don't have to take everything so seriously ;)

lol

_________________
AmigaOne XE G3/933/VIA/FM801/R200 (fixed),
G3SE/600/Voodoo3/Sil680/RTL8139/SBLive! (noiseless!)
µA1-MK2/G3/933/R200/CMI8738
XE/G4 (broken 7450/800)

@Trezzer

EA... oh yes, that's the company which doesn't pay overtime and got sued for it ? And doing just quick ports of their games instead of putting some efforts into it (oops, rant mode off).

Well, whatever makes the shareholders happy.

_________________
AmigaOne XE G3/933/VIA/FM801/R200 (fixed),
G3SE/600/Voodoo3/Sil680/RTL8139/SBLive! (noiseless!)
µA1-MK2/G3/933/R200/CMI8738
XE/G4 (broken 7450/800)

@Jorge

What EA does or does not do to employees etc. doesn't really mean much.

As for their titles... well, they've done a lot of sucky titles over the years. They've also put out some good stuff though... Burnout Revenge, Call of Duty 2+3, Fight Night Round 3. In fact they're responsible for most of the PS3's better titles.

And hey, at least they did an entirely new engine for FIFA '07 while Pro Evo still uses the same ol' same ol'.

So that's probably the perspective you should see it from when looking at their statement - as well as that they're the biggest third party developer in the world today.

Last edited by Trezzer on 06-Feb-2007 at 04:45 PM.

@Tigger

Quote:

First of all your above arguement was real popular in 2001 when the DVD-R started hitting the market, why would you use them for backup, CDs are cheaper and plenty big

Great! It seems that you understand the point I'm making and have reflected into an occurance in the past. 2001 for the average Joe DVD-R wasn't a great option due to various factors. Later as prices dropped it became competitive against CDs and users slowly switched to DVD-Rs intead. The same sort of thing is likely to occur. The costs today for the average user to use Blu-Ray are prohibitive versus other options . Once those costs decrease and users upgrade their systems invariably people will switch to the newer technology.

** Thread ***
Recently in Japan a HD-DVD burner was announced. US price is $338. Currently no US or Europe ship date. But 1/2 the price of Blu-Ray is nice. Since these products compete they may actually end up forcing Blu-Ray burners to drop in price quicker then what they would if they had no competition.

@MikeB

Even 140k copies for a game that topped that barometer is not that good and just goes to show that it's useless. It only means that for instance, I'm a Wii owner and I want that game. It clearly didn't mean that 600k Japanese 360 owners were going to run out and buy it.

Just like developmental target renders, it's useless.