An interesting quote from Kojima on MSG4:
Quote:

"Game-wise, it's pretty close to the original vision: you sneak into the battlefield and can choose whether to do a stealth game or interfere with the battle more directly. But the graphic, side things like motion-blending and the size of the map, totally was not accomplished to my original vision - to my satisfaction.

@Lou

Maybe his vision will be realized with MGS5 or MGS6, he was probably unrealistic with regard to what could be achieved in MGS4's development timeframe. A bit like if Insomniac would have envisioned Resistance 1 to be like what will be achieved with Resistance 2. He made similar statements with regard to the development of prior PS2 MGS games.


MGS4 GamePro preview:

The graphics: You thought Gears of War looked amazing? Think again. Metal Gear Solid 4 will blow you away with its ultra-detailed characters and intricate environments, painting some of the most gorgeous graphics seen this side of Crysis. In motion, the graphics look so realistic that your eyes begin to register the visuals as a movie rather than a game. From what we saw, MGS4 puts its 50GB Blu-ray disc to outstanding use.

The guns: The final game will feature over 70 weapons, from lethal assault rifles to silent tranquilizer guns, and you can outfit many of them with scopes, recoil grips, laser sights, flashlights, and more. Collecting enemy weapons will unlock new guns and "Drebin Points" for further customization. There are 70+ guns in all.

The sound: MGS4 has some of the crispest, clearest sound effects we've ever heard -- the booming gunshots will make your hair stand on end! The Hollywood-style soundtrack is also predictably fantastic, and Snake's raspy voice sounds more desiccated than ever. GamePro editor Sid Shuman went so far as to say that MGS4 has "the best sound I've ever heard in a game."

The story: MGS4 is the darkest Metal Gear game by far: Snake is in terrible physical shape, and the world seems to rest on the brink of self-inflicted annihilation. Though the mood is dark, it's not depressing: you'll find plenty of characters to care about in this war-torn world.

http://www.gamepro.com/sony/ps3/games/previews/173848.shtml

Sounds promising though.

Last edited by MikeB on 21-Apr-2008 at 11:06 PM.

MikeB wrote:

Quote:

BTW a new patch, including analog stick support is available for those who prefer this

I prefer the Sixaxis controls, feels far more organic to me.

BTW an English languaged demo is available on the Hong Kong Playstation store.

@MikeB

Quote:

MikeB wrote: @Lou Maybe his vision will be realized with MGS5 or MGS6, he was probably unrealistic with regard to what could be achieved in MGS4's development timeframe. A bit like if Insomniac would have envisioned Resistance 1 to be like what will be achieved with Resistance 2. He made similar statements with regard to the development of prior PS2 MGS games. MGS4 GamePro preview: The graphics: You thought Gears of War looked amazing? Think again. Metal Gear Solid 4 will blow you away with its ultra-detailed characters and intricate environments, painting some of the most gorgeous graphics seen this side of Crysis. In motion, the graphics look so realistic that your eyes begin to register the visuals as a movie rather than a game. From what we saw, MGS4 puts its 50GB Blu-ray disc to outstanding use. The guns: The final game will feature over 70 weapons, from lethal assault rifles to silent tranquilizer guns, and you can outfit many of them with scopes, recoil grips, laser sights, flashlights, and more. Collecting enemy weapons will unlock new guns and "Drebin Points" for further customization. There are 70+ guns in all. The sound: MGS4 has some of the crispest, clearest sound effects we've ever heard -- the booming gunshots will make your hair stand on end! The Hollywood-style soundtrack is also predictably fantastic, and Snake's raspy voice sounds more desiccated than ever. GamePro editor Sid Shuman went so far as to say that MGS4 has "the best sound I've ever heard in a game." The story: MGS4 is the darkest Metal Gear game by far: Snake is in terrible physical shape, and the world seems to rest on the brink of self-inflicted annihilation. Though the mood is dark, it's not depressing: you'll find plenty of characters to care about in this war-torn world. http://www.gamepro.com/sony/ps3/games/previews/173848.shtml Sounds promising though.

That's all nice, here's more of what the man himself had to say:

Quote:

“When we first showed the game engine at Tokyo Game Show, the staff were really proud and happy. PS3 was a dream machine, y’know, and we were going to work on this and that – we had so many ideas. But when we actually started developing the game, we realized there were a lot of restrictions and so it turned out how you see it today. The original vision was to go ten steps further, the reality was just one step, which isn’t to say we didn’t progress. “I remember saying three years ago that we wanted to create something revolutionary, but in reality we couldn’t really do that because of the CPU. We’re using the Cell engine to its limit, actually. Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not criticizing the PS3 machine, it’s just that we weren’t really aware of what the full-spec PS3 offered – we were creating something we couldn’t entirely see.” Take that with a pinch of salt, perhaps. Kojima’s being particularly modest today, joking at one point that cutscenes are “all I know,” and for a second sounding wounded by the complexity of a task so very nearly behind him. MGS4 is, you feel, a compromised game, with pervasive aliasing and nagging low-res textures, but a stunning presentation nonetheless.

I wonder if anyone thinks Konami and Kojima's team are "lazy developers"...? I certainly don't, some people just have unrealistic expectations of what hardware can do the no amount of "skilled coding" can overcome. I guess this game is going to have alot of cutscenes...joy... Behold the power of BluRay...more cutscenes please. FF7 had great cutscenes, but the graphics during actual gameplay were a letdown. Let's move forward to Resident Evil 4, on the GC/Wii, the ingame engine was good enough to provide cutscenes, on the PS2, they had to resort to pre-rendered movies again...it seems the Playstation tradition continues with this game where as the developers admit to using low-res textures during gameplay.

Should a game's graphics be judged by the level of detail in it's cutscenes or actual gameplay. I'll take the quotes you posted above with a grain of salt given what I've read. And that's what's useless about your "re-advertisements" where as I'd much rather read an actual person's review such as Wegster's...

Here's the whole article:
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10090&Itemid=2
Another killer-app let-down?

As for MSG5/6, hasn't he already stated that he is done with MSG after 4? Regardless, if he couldn't achieve it now with the PS3, 5 and/or 6 would not be possible on the PS3, but some future console.

Last edited by Lou on 22-Apr-2008 at 02:23 PM.

@Lou

What do you think of The Conduit Nintendo Wii Trailer - High Voltage Quantum3 Tech Demo?
http://au.wii.ign.com/dor/objects/14248157/the-conduit/videos/hightechwii.html

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@Hammer

Hm, cool but it looks like yesteryear's technology. Might make good games though.

_________________

@Hammer

Quote:

Hammer wrote: @Lou What do you think of The Conduit Nintendo Wii Trailer - High Voltage Quantum3 Tech Demo? http://au.wii.ign.com/dor/objects/14248157/the-conduit/videos/hightechwii.html

I posted about that a page ago.
I am impressed that they achieved 30fps as every stage you use on the TEV tends to cut the framerate in half unless the TEV received improvements that are undocumented. Just like with GT5 Prologue, I'll wait to see the final game. The demo looks too impressive, if you ask me, and was running on actual Wii hardware. The only moving objects in the came were some flames, lights and a fish.

I have know that better graphics are possible on the Wii, I hope that High Octane and Factor 5 make engines that other developers can license and use to create great games on the Wii. Sadly the resolution of the Wii is restricted via the VI (Video Interface) Hardware...
These are the Maximum Values... Default is 640*480...
720*480 for NTSC, EURGB60, and M/PAL...
720*574 for PAL...
The VI handles rendering the FrameBuffer to the Display Device such as a Monitor or TV...

I guess what they are trying to achieve is the quality of 360/PS3 graphics when played in 480p....which is an achievement worth doing...

Here's what was possible on the lowly Gamecube on launch day in 2001:

Last edited by Lou on 22-Apr-2008 at 03:25 PM.

I see some people are still trying to debate MikeB... What a waste. :)

As for the actual progress made, I continue to applaud Sony for moves well made in gaining traction again with the price/feature reductions and nice games. Microsoft's failure to respond properly is their mistake and they will pay a price in the numbers. Another opportunity squandered. Interesting to see what the response is in the longer run, safe to say my guesstimate of the future isn't quite as black and white as some other people on this thread. :)

Now, on to more important things, where is my Dual Shock 3 so I can enjoy yesteryear's technology on my PS3! Local stores still report no supply.

@Lou

I've stated many times it will take many years for devs to tap the PS3 near max potential for such large projects. For Kojima's team it's no different. BTW, MGS4 sports realtime interactive cutscenes. Have you watched any of the gameplay videos?

Kojima isn't a programmer, maybe he thought it was far easier to put their PS2 engine on the PS3 and achieve massive gains. Like a 4 Ghz CPU being much faster than a 100 Mhz CPU of the same processor family, but that's not the case. Significant redesign is required like I stated a couple of years ago here at AmigaWorld.

Last edited by MikeB on 22-Apr-2008 at 04:37 PM.
Last edited by MikeB on 22-Apr-2008 at 04:36 PM.

@MikeB

Quote:

MikeB wrote: @Lou I've stated many times it will take many years for devs to tap the PS3 near max potential for such large projects. For Kojima's team it's no different. BTW, MGS4 sports realtime interactive cutscenes. Have you watched any of the gameplay videos? Kojima isn't a programmer, maybe he thought it was far easier to put their PS2 engine on the PS3 and achieve massive gains. Like a 4 Ghz CPU being much faster than a 100 Mhz CPU of the same processor family, but that's not the case. Significant redesign is required like I stated a couple of years ago here at AmigaWorld.

Please link me a video that shows actual gameplay footage and a "cut-scene" so that I can educate myself more on the game. To me a cut-scene is not interactive. So perhaps we are talking about 2 different things...

Edit:
I just saw an in-game cinematic and another with gameplay footage. I don't believe for one second that it was done with the in-game engine as during gameplay, Snake's movements are as stiff as any other pre-defined movement animation, whereas during the cinematic, he moved like a human would. No, everything I've read about this game has to do with Hollywood-like productions...and that usually means alot of pre-rendered footage.

Last edited by Lou on 22-Apr-2008 at 05:36 PM.

@Lou

Modern technology allows for interactive cutscenes (think in the Half-Life 1's intro direction), for instance one example of a realtime interactive cutscene would be a cutscene where you can manually change the camera angle.

An example of non-realtime cutscenes would be heavenly sword, basically it's a pre-rendered movie playing in between gameplay sections.

Insomniac for instance uses many realtime cutscenes using their game engine, this allows for seamless transitions between gameplay and cutscene and you can have dynamic changes within such scenes, like when Ratchet buys new cloths or one time I shot a nanoswarm just before entering a cutscene in the game and the nanoswarm was within the following cutscene.

Last edited by MikeB on 22-Apr-2008 at 06:09 PM.

@MikeB

Quote:

MikeB wrote: @Lou Modern technology allows for interactive cutscenes (think in the Half-Life 1's intro direction), for instance one example of a realtime interactive cutscene would be a cutscene where you can manually change the camera angle. An example of non-realtime interactive cutscenes would be heavenly sword, basically it's a pre-rendered movie playing in between gameplay sections. Insomniac for instance uses many realtime cutscenes using their game engine, this allows for seamless transitions between gameplay and cutscene and you can have dynamic changes within such scenes, like when Ratchet buys new cloths or one time I shot a nanoswarm just before entering a cutscene in the game and the nanoswarm was within the following cutscene.

I guess you can call Metroid Prime 3's first 20 minutes one hell of an interactive cut-scene then...

@Lou

I think this gameplay footage includes some interactive cutscenes:

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/32472.html

The second part of the Q&A with Mike Acton is now available (he states many similar things I've been stating many times here at AmigaWorld in the past):

Q&A: Insomniac's Mike Acton - Part 1
Q&A: Insomniac's Mike Acton - Part 2

"What I've always said is that bad code, and bad data design in particular, is bad on any architecture, but it's particularly bad on the PS3 because the Cell is a much more modern, much more heterogeneous design. It's much more parallel, and so requires good data design and good code. So if you're poorly designing your data and your code, then yeah, I can see why it'd be difficult to take something like that and try and manipulate it to work on the PS3, especially when people have invested a huge amount of money and time on something that basically doesn't fit a modern methodology. Yeah, it's going to be time-consuming to get that to work - if it's at all possible."

"It's interesting, because I think that probably the oldest programming methods are the most relevant today. It's the habits over the last five or eight years that are struggling, and it's interestingly the people that are more recently out of school that are going to have the most trouble, because the education system really hasn't caught up to how the real world is, how hardware is changing and how development is changing."

Some Resistance 2 related comment from another interview:

"For example, the physics, animation, glass, inverse kinetics, effects, and geometry database systems (just to start with) are now less complicated, thus offering more and significantly faster features than the versions found in Resistance 1.

We've also solidified some design patterns that are simplifying things. Take SPU Shaders, for example, which we discuss in detail on our newly established R&D site. SPU Shaders helped to make the big systems and all the little changes that come along during development a lot more practical to implement. They've also helped shed some light on programming the SPUs. Just having the ability to start putting high-level logic and AI on the SPUs was a major milestone that validated a lot of our ideas on how to distribute that type of work."

link

@Lou

According to jeux.video.fr all of MGS4's cutscenes are real time and some cutscenes are are controllable. For example: during the briefing in the second mission, you can choose different camera angles. (Note I removed a typo with regard to the Heavenly Sword comment above)

http://www.jeuxvideo.fr/jeux/metal-gear-solid-4-guns-of-the-patriots/article.html (French)

Last edited by MikeB on 22-Apr-2008 at 06:11 PM.
Last edited by MikeB on 22-Apr-2008 at 06:08 PM.

@MikeB
Quote:

The main design goal for the Cell was to produce around a tenfold increase in performance for nearly all applications. (Source: IBM) This of course includes multi-media and games purposes and is the main interest of Sony. The only way to achieve such exponential results was to break away from legacy approaches and such new technology results in new challenges (especially porting legacy software

Interesting statement. Not sure what they're comparing the Cell to. Is it processors in 2007? The Cell is faster then the Xenon in floating point. But I believe the Xenon wins out the integer. So likely they didn't mean processors in the same year did they?

Do they mean from PS2 to PS3? I'd expect a 300Mhz PS2 to be trumped nearly 10 fold by a 3.2Ghz PS3 processor -- that's just a clock thingie. Also with Moore's law this would come pretty close to making this predicted growth between those 2 generations. So likely they didn't meant generations?

What do you think IBM's frame of reference was that was being lapped 10 fold? I recall some talk about processing 2 Teraflops but it would seem they hit about half of that. Do you believe their 10 fold improvement was acheived?

@MikeB

Quote:

MikeB wrote: @Lou I think this gameplay footage includes some interactive cutscenes: http://www.gametrailers.com/player/32472.html

I saw some scripted sequences, but that's not different than what I've seen done in other games. Still towards the end there was a scene where he loses his cloak to reveal his armor that looked pre-rendered... Is it so hard to believe that the game will have both?

The in-game engine here looks quite good, yes, but it should, shouldn't it? However, I see what Kojima means about not having bigger enviroments. The streets are narrow and perhaps the area you can explore is more linear in nature than he would have liked in order to keep the detail level up. He probably wanted a more wide open battlefield with more action going on that the player could directly affect. I just see alot of scripted sequences here which makes me feel more along for the ride rather than an active participant who can make a difference.

@BrianK

"Cell MD is currently 16 time faster than this reference machine [Opteron 2 GHz] on the PS3 [6 SPEs and PPE], therefore we will credit 155.9 Cobblestone/hour on the PS3 for Cell MD."

http://www.ps3grid.net/technology.php

Do note however the OS uses a 7th SPE (also used for security), for example decoding high quality music while folding should not effect Folding results. Further optimisations may increase performance as well.

The Cell's SPEs have the same peak performance in int and float. Microsoft probably wanted to creatively point out triple core Xenon CPU can do some general purpose stuff in theory 3 times faster than one PPE. However like we know nearly every bit of game engine code can be redesigned and optimised for the Cell's SPEs resulting in huge performance gains compared to when these parts were running on the PPE.

@MikeB

Quote:

"Cell MD is currently 16 time faster than this reference machine [Opteron 2 GHz] on the PS3 [6 SPEs and PPE], therefore we will credit 155.9 Cobblestone/hour on the PS3 for Cell MD."

Nice comparison, a Cell, using all its available SPEs versus a 2005 low-end single-core Opteron 146 running a scalar version of the software (none of its vector execution hardware). I'd be surprised if it wasn't 16 times faster.

Quote:

The Cell's SPEs have the same peak performance in int and float.

Yes but most other processors are one hell of a lot faster at ints than they are at floats, typically because they have more integer execution hardware.

Results from one 2.4GHz Kentsfield Stepping G0 core (Core 2 Quad Q6600, the cheapest and lowest end Intel Quad at about £140):

4/22/2008 7:55:20 PM|| 2335 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU
4/22/2008 7:55:20 PM|| 5303 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU

This is already almost twice as fast as the Opteron and it's still a scalar computation, not utilising any of the vector execution hardware. Plus there are 4 more cores on the die to use if you so fancy.

Point? Be careful when you say x times faster that y, as y moves extremely quickly.

Last edited by Zardoz on 22-Apr-2008 at 08:02 PM.
Last edited by Zardoz on 22-Apr-2008 at 08:01 PM.

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@Lou

Wouldn´t be hard to imagine if this was stated. But the claims of all cutscenes being realtime in MGS4 wouldn´t be hard to believe neither. The realtime cutscenes in Ratchet look well polished already, the realtime replays in Gran Turismo 5p look outstandingly realistic.

Realtime cutscenes can make sense in a game just like prerendered stuff. Depends on the game engine and design goals.