Digital Foundry (Official Thread)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118

I'm curious if TA really thinks this about Exhumed/Powerslave, or if he's just saying it as a distraction in hopes no one will remember him stating a while ago that Metroid Prime wasn't that impressive graphically and wasn't doing that much with Geometric detail, effects, etc. after this recent video proved him wrong...

---

Prime looked ok but compared to some of the better looking Xbox FPS it didn't really compare and it's wouldn't be like lots of Xbox FPS wouldn't have lots of polygon meshes . Kudos for the rock solid 60 fps though . And as for being wrong , that's a a matter of opinion. , But here a snippet from a interview from Lobomty founder Brain Mcneedly

Quote:

---

There were a few key areas where I saw lots of opportunity to expand the FPS genre on consoles. One of them was controls and mobility, and so we set out to speed up movement to feel more like a jog, and also allow the player to make soaring jumps. This allowed us to take a fresh approach with level design and factor in more dexterity and “3D FPS platforming” style of game play. Another area was the overall structure and progression of the game. I wanted to avoid a linear experience, and instead offer a feeling of exploration and accomplishment, so we designed the “artifact system” in which the player discovered artifact items to gain permanent new special abilities so that they could gain access to areas of the game previously impossible to reach. The world map was added to help reinforce the setting and game world and navigate the level structure. All of this was kind of a nod to Metroid and several other games, so it wasn’t a new concept by any means, but it was new to the FPS genre and seemed to fit well for console gamers

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118

I'm curious if TA really thinks this about Exhumed/Powerslave, or if he's just saying it as a distraction in hopes no one will remember him stating a while ago that Metroid Prime wasn't that impressive graphically and wasn't doing that much with Geometric detail, effects, etc. after this recent video proved him wrong...

---

Hey, i remember claiming that Metroid Prime had amazing geometry detail, in this very forum, and most disagreed with me. Glad DF proved me right :P

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

Prime looked ok but compared to some of the better looking Xbox FPS it didn't really compare and it's wouldn't be like lots of Xbox FPS wouldn't have lots of polygon meshes . Kudos for the rock solid 60 fps though . And as for being wrong , that's a a matter of opinion.

---

Metroid Prime looks too different to be able to compare technically but i do remember not being impressed by Halo that much. I liked the vehicles and some of the effects and textures but it was a big empty outdoors area after another and the indoors were boring looking boxy rooms and simple corridors with good texturing. It was pretty boring looking overall. Metroid Prime looked much better to me because each room, even the tiniest one, looked different. Also, the bigger areas/rooms use much more polygons than Halo and in the DF video you can see why. Just about every artistic detail in Metroid Prime is rendered using polygons instead of textures. While i can't be sure how many polys Halo uses, it certainly looks much more simple to me.

Oh and 60 fps is a big deal too. For me, the MP engine was the best one that came out during that generation.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Soulis

Metroid Prime looks too different to be able to compare technically but i do remember not being impressed by Halo that much. I liked the vehicles and some of the effects and textures but it was a big empty outdoors area after another and the indoors were boring looking boxy rooms and simple corridors with good texturing. It was pretty boring looking overall. Metroid Prime looked much better to me because each room, even the tiniest one, looked different. Also, the bigger areas/rooms use much more polygons than Halo and in the DF video you can see why. Just about every artistic detail in Metroid Prime is rendered using polygons instead of textures. While i can't be sure how many polys Halo uses, it certainly looks much more simple to me.

---

Halo was handling semi-open world gameplay it also had super advanced AI and really good psychics on the vehicles - The game was handling a lot under the hood but I agree it wasn't the best looking FPS . Prime is a nice looking game and you got to credit the 60 fps , but I think the likes of Half Life II and Riddick are handling more on the XBox . Not many FPS on the 360 featured dynamic lighting yet Riddick was handling all that and tons of other effects like Per-Pixel Shading, Mip Mapping true DD 5.1 ; But its not supprise since it was coming from Magnus Hogdahl who was a GOD on the Amiga demo sence and just produced amazing stuff and just did wonderful stuff on the XBox . You had the likes of Unreal Championship 2 that just looked stunning too

Wasn't it true that Activision dropped the planned PS2 and Cube versions of Doom III because the Hardware just wasn't up to it ? . Cube fans can cry all they want, when it came to graphics the Xbox was class above the Cube or PS . The system had a monster audio and GFX chips

Metroid Prime is brilliant but im gonna have to agree with Team Andromeda in that Exhumed i thought was the better game. Amazing atmosphere and level design. In fact i think only the original Tomb Raider (1996) had better level design overall.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SonicTheHedgehog

Metroid Prime is brilliant but im gonna have to agree with Team Andromeda in that Exhumed i thought was the better game. Amazing atmosphere and level design. In fact i think only the original Tomb Raider (1996) had better level design overall.

---

Thank you !. I like Prime and thought it was utterly amazing but I liked Exhumed more , like I've always said its level design is just like Mario IV and sheer perfection and it also gets better when you finish the game and start all over again collecting the Team dolls and it then when you really see just how amazing and talented Lobotomy design team really were .

Powerslave is the better game. Don't care about graphics. My experience is with the ps1 game though. The Egyptian setting is much more interesting than generic scifi and aliens.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

Halo was handling semi-open world gameplay it also had super advanced AI and really good psychics on the vehicles - The game was handling a lot under the hood but I agree it wasn't the best looking FPS . Prime is a nice looking game and you got to credit the 60 fps , but I think the likes of Half Life II and Riddick are handling more on the XBox . Not many FPS on the 360 featured dynamic lighting yet Riddick was handling all that and tons of other effects like Per-Pixel Shading, Mip Mapping true DD 5.1 ; But its not supprise since it was coming from Magnus Hogdahl who was a GOD on the Amiga demo sence and just produced amazing stuff and just did wonderful stuff on the XBox . You had the likes of Unreal Championship 2 that just looked stunning too

Wasn't it true that Activision dropped the planned PS2 and Cube versions of Doom III because the Hardware just wasn't up to it ? . Cube fans can cry all they want, when it came to graphics the Xbox was class above the Cube or PS . The system had a monster audio and GFX chips

---

Riddick was definitely the most impressive FPS on XBOX. The lighting was amazing and the 3D models were top notch. Much better than the DOOM 3 port the console got. And yeah, i don't consider the XBOX being "up to it" judging from the botched up version it got.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

Halo was handling semi-open world gameplay it also had super advanced AI and really good psychics on the vehicles - The game was handling a lot under the hood but I agree it wasn't the best looking FPS . Prime is a nice looking game and you got to credit the 60 fps , but I think the likes of Half Life II and Riddick are handling more on the XBox . Not many FPS on the 360 featured dynamic lighting yet Riddick was handling all that and tons of other effects like Per-Pixel Shading, Mip Mapping true DD 5.1 ; But its not supprise since it was coming from Magnus Hogdahl who was a GOD on the Amiga demo sence and just produced amazing stuff and just did wonderful stuff on the XBox . You had the likes of Unreal Championship 2 that just looked stunning too

---

Halo had okay AI. Once you figured out how to manipulate the drones, it became much easier to destroy large groups of enemies.

You might want to check out Rogue Squadron 2 and Metroid Prime again. Both have specular lighting, source lighting, along with smoke and particle effects. Rogue Squadron 2 runs around 12 million polygons per second and Rogue Squadron 3 used even more with the 2 player split screen of Rogue Squadron 2 on the RS3 disk.

While Riddick and Doom 3's lighting is impressive, it's still DX8 levels of lighting and it has that very canned look to it. I dusted off the original Riddick last year and was pretty much meh about the poor textures and horrible frame-rate of the game.

Quote:

---

Wasn't it true that Activision dropped the planned PS2 and Cube versions of Doom III because the Hardware just wasn't up to it ? . Cube fans can cry all they want, when it came to graphics the Xbox was class above the Cube or PS . The system had a monster audio and GFX chips

---

MS wanted to keep it exclusive to the Xbox. I'd heard that DOOM 3 was designed around PC hardware specs that were on par with the Xbox.

http://www.geek.com/games/doom-3-an-...lusive-550907/

The only thing holding back the Cube was the system memory. I still think that the Rogue Squadron games, along with Metroid Prime, are miles ahead of the DX8 titles that are on the Xbox. I think that the games that use a custom engine (not based around DX8) on the Xbox are where that console really shines.

I hooked up the GameCube to my 52" 1080p display for the 1st time earlier this week. Metroid Prime displayed at 720 x 480 in progressive scan and looked very good.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gamevet

The only thing holding back the Cube was the system memory. I think that the games that use a custom engine (not based around DX8) on the Xbox are where that console really shines.

---

I think a lot of western games could have looked far better on the GC if it had been successful in US. The PS2 got most of the development push and the Xbox some of it thanks to big M$ push.
I also think PS2-to-GC ports or shared development between the two platforms really hurt the GC beyond belief; PS2's architecture was vastly different in all key aspects. Had the DC being there instead of the PS2, the ports and cross-developed games would have suffered a lot less IMO.

Regarding the XBox, not only the regular DX8-targeted games were a problem but also its unified memory system. Many PC games ported to it weren't developed with that kind of memory architecture in mind and so they underperformed on the Xbox.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Barone

I think a lot of western games could have looked far better on the GC if it had been successful in US. The PS2 got most of the development push and the Xbox some of it thanks to big M$ push.
I also think PS2-to-GC ports or shared development between the two platforms really hurt the GC beyond belief; PS2's architecture was vastly different in all key aspects. Had the DC being there instead of the PS2, the ports and cross-developed games would have suffered a lot less IMO.

Regarding the XBox, not only the regular DX8-targeted games were a problem but also its unified memory system. Many PC games ported to it weren't developed with that kind of memory architecture in mind and so they underperformed on the Xbox.

---

The PS2 hurt both the GC and Xbox, because it was the lead platform for development. Resident Evil 4 (GC lead platform) looks better on the GC, because it has better textures and bump mapping over the PS2 port. The PS3 Resident Evil 4 HD update (upgrade of the PS2 title) doesn't look much better, because of the lack of bump mapping and the toned down texture colors. Sega's Xbox games looked really good, when they were developed on the Xbox 1st. Panzer Dragoon Orta, NFL2K5 and MLB2K5 looked really good and performed very well on the Xbox. It's a shame that we didn't see more titles on the console that were not using DX8 and had developers tweeking the hardware with custom game engines.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gamevet

Halo had okay AI. Once you figured out how to manipulate the drones, it became much easier to destroy large groups of enemies.

You might want to check out Rogue Squadron 2 and Metroid Prime again. Both have specular lighting, source lighting, along with smoke and particle effects. Rogue Squadron 2 runs around 12 million polygons per second and Rogue Squadron 3 used even more with the 2 player split screen of Rogue Squadron 2 on the RS3 disk.

---

Star Wars RS 2 was the game I bought with my US Cube on the USA launch of the system and it was (and still is) imo the most impressive Cube game for graphics and it blew away the likes of Halo and any other console game at that time . Halo AI for a console shooter was a big step up as was the size of the enviroments . I didn't like Doom 3 much on the XBox not even in the Gfx dept , but Riddick was just increabile back inthe day on the Xbox and Half Life II was really imressive that it was so decent on the Xbox just like Splinter Cell Chaos Theory and Far cry

Xbox had just a monster of a GFX chip . Conckers Bad Fur day looked like a 360 Platform game it looked so good, Ninja Gaiden Black took the mic with its graphics at 60 fps at all times , Oddworld Stranger was just stunning to look at as was O.TO.GI II.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

Star Wars RS 2 was the game I bought with my US Cube on the USA launch of the system and it was (and still is) imo the most impressive Cube game for graphics and it blew away the likes of Halo and any other console game at that time . Halo AI for a console shooter was a big step up as was the size of the enviroments . I didn't like Doom 3 much on the XBox not even in the Gfx dept , but Riddick was just increabile back inthe day on the Xbox and Half Life II was really imressive that it was so decent on the Xbox just like Splinter Cell Chaos Theory and Far cry

Xbox had just a monster of a GFX chip . Conckers Bad Fur day looked like a 360 Platform game it looked so good, Ninja Gaiden Black took the mic with its graphics at 60 fps at all times , Oddworld Stranger was just stunning to look at as was O.TO.GI II.

---

Riddick had good looking character models (some were too shiny though), but the textures of the surrounding area were just okay. It had a choppy frame-rate, much like Half-Life 2 and Splinter Cell. I think that gamers were too enamored with the light source shadows in those games, and didn't look at all of the short-comings that those games had. Still, everything looked pretty low-res, even though it was being displayed at 480p.

I was more impressed with the indoor environments of Halo. The outdoor stuff wasn't all that impressive, though driving around the Warthog was a nice departure from the on foot shooting. It was refreshing to have a shooter that wasn't confined to closed environments, like all of the shooters before it, but everything was toned down when the areas were opened up. I think that the huge open areas in Metroid Prime's Chozo Ruins center area did a whole lot more, with better textures, better frame-rate and a very far FOV distance.


O.TO.GI II looked horrible to me. The textures were just a big mess and the characters were too blocky looking. Yeah O.To.GI II had some nice looking explosions and lighting, but the rest was very average. I was more impressed with the other titles that Sega released on the console, with titles like Outrun 2 and the others that I had mentioned.

Ninja Gaiden Black had its moments, but it was no God of War 2.

XBOX Conker remake looked amazing to me (literally like a CGI cartoon) but they messed up Conker's face. He looks like a puppet while N64 Conker looks more expressive and cynical.

Otogi looked like crap to me though. Such a weird artistic direction with lots of details but the image quality is low res and blurry. I couldn't make out what i was looking at.

Riddick looks great but again, the environments are too boxy and flat. After Metroid Prime these things became too obvious to me. I realized that having geometry define details makes games look more natural than the ones that try to define details using high-res textures on flat surfaces. Because of bricks sticking out of walls (or other decorative objects) and other things like 3D cracks and holes, pipes, roots covering large walls etc, Metroid looks more natural despite being an alien, sci-fi environment. So basically it comes down to this:

Smaller flat surfaces covered with many different, smaller, low res textures >>> Big flat surfaces covered with one big high-res texture + bump mapping.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Soulis

Smaller flat surfaces covered with many different, smaller, low res textures >>> Big flat surfaces covered with one big high-res texture + bump mapping.

---

This is why I hated the PS2 era look so much. And why I way prefer Dragon Age Origin graphics over DA2.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gamevet

Riddick had good looking character models (some were too shiny though), but the textures of the surrounding area were just okay. It had a choppy frame-rate, much like Half-Life 2 and Splinter Cell. I think that gamers were too enamored with the light source shadows in those games, and didn't look at all of the short-comings that those games had. Still, everything looked pretty low-res, even though it was being displayed at 480p.

I was more impressed with the indoor environments of Halo. The outdoor stuff wasn't all that impressive, though driving around the Warthog was a nice departure from the on foot shooting. It was refreshing to have a shooter that wasn't confined to closed environments, like all of the shooters before it, but everything was toned down when the areas were opened up. I think that the huge open areas in Metroid Prime's Chozo Ruins center area did a whole lot more, with better textures, better frame-rate and a very far FOV distance.


O.TO.GI II looked horrible to me. The textures were just a big mess and the characters were too blocky looking. Yeah O.To.GI II had some nice looking explosions and lighting, but the rest was very average. I was more impressed with the other titles that Sega released on the console, with titles like Outrun 2 and the others that I had mentioned.

Ninja Gaiden Black had its moments, but it was no God of War 2.

---

Riddck for me was the best looking FPS around at the time, it was offering Doom III like visuals on a 2001 console without the need for a GFX card upgrade (like for the PC Doom 3) It was amazing but yeah the low res textures hurt the game a little and just to get Hal Life 2 running on a console was like a miciral . Prime I was impressed by it, but for me it couldn't match the best of the XBox and I might be on my own but thought Star Wars RS II was and still is the real showcase for the system I also thought Moneyball II on the Cube looked simply stunning . O.GI II just blew my socks off with stunning art design and just amazing destruction all around you and well I have to disagree with you on GOW II - don't get me wrong that's a showstopper of a game, but Ninja Gaiden and Black are just subllm and SEGA stuff on the XBox was just utterly stunning what with Orta, Sega GT, House of the Dead III , JSRF and GV .

Also people will laugh but there's a game called Kung Fu Choas and that features some stunning Gfx with lovely textures great use of fillers and stunning depth of field effects - I think its a better game that Power Stone II tbh too , and stuff like Phantom Dust, Strangers Wrath Murakumo: Renegade Mech Pursuit, FSW, RalliSport Challenge 2. Just impressed the hell out of me