The only reason you have that backwards compatibility on Steam is because the x86 architecture and such hasn't changed much in the last decade or two. Go back even to Windows XP era games and things start to get dicey on support, and Win95/98 games or older just get downright hard to play without emulation and tricks to run against the CPU.
Personally? I still believe the NX is going to be a combo handheld/home unit. The Wii U and 3DS are already starting to converge, and it would make massive financial sense for Nintendo to develop a handheld with the power to do 1080p and transmit (wirelessly) to a TV. Now, I expect such a device to be really frakking expensive, but I also expect Nintendo to pull it off somehow... and it also marks the convergence point of cell phones.
But. The NX wasn't at E3, and this is a looong way off.
Two (or more) platforms. Identical architecture and OS. The one runs games at a graphical level and resolution which is consistent with reasonable handheld size and battery life. The other runs a lot of those same games at 1080p 60fps, or with more detailed worlds, larger draw distance, etc. 50% of Nintendo's titles are straight-up multiplat between the two forms, another 30% have "brother versions" where the console version gives the beefier experience and the handheld version goes out of its way to do something a little different to compensate. Only 1 in 5 Nintendo releases are exclusive to either platform. Except you have to go out of your way to make the game exclusive to the handheld (no doubt Pokemon will, just 'cuz). Third party games that go to the handheld will automatically run on the home version: upscaled. With a little extra work, third parties can make a substantively prettier home version. All digital titles can be stored on either device, and Nintendo will give you a discount on one version if you own the other: $250 for the handheld at launch, $350 for the console, $500 for both.
I like this plan. I'd like it to be real. I kind of worry that instead Nintendo may unveil something you get to wear on your nose, but...a framework you describe doesn't sound like it's asking too much, so it could happen.
I am wondering if Sony will try to make a proper PS3 emulator to combat Xbox BC or just stick with PS Now. Exclusives aside, it's the one thing Xbox Uno is doing right now that PS4 can't. Plus being able to freely redownload games I already bought is amazing. PS Now is almost universally panned at this point. I doubt Sony will give up the steaming stuff since they bought Gaikai for that express purpose. I am not sure if there's any good option for them in regards to backwards compatibility. Maybe they'll just ignore it?
I think of Playstation Now as something along the lines of Netflix for games, and just like Netflix, its future is original content. Eventually games streaming services will have to branch out of retro gaming. I imagine a future where services such as Playstation Now will offer experiences that can't be powered locally because of prohibitive cost. Experiences that are the equivalent of Netflix Originals, or what HBO shows are in comparison to basic cable shows. I don't know if you've ever seen the Shinra Tech Demo - but the potential of streaming technology goes far beyond rehashing old games.
In regards to Backwards Compatability, sure, it's nice, but do I personally use it? Hardly. I think I replayed one original Xbox game on my 360 (Jade Empire), and I never finished the playthrough either. I think if I ever want to play an old game, it's not one I already own, but one that I want to discover for myself, because I heard somebody raving about it. For discoverability purposes streaming services like Playstation Now are way more convenient than having to hunt down physical copies. Let's say Playstation Now's library keeps expanding and will one day include 90+% of all PS1 and PS2 and PS3 games (and why stop there, there's no technical reason why it couldn't do Dreamcast games and 16-bit era SEGA games and whatnot). The only reason why not every old game could show up on PS Now are legal and business reasons.
As far as I see it, backwards compatibility is a breeze. It may fill Microsoft's sails a bit and add some minute momentum. Streaming technology is a major flippin' hurricane building up out at sea. Nobody really knows how bad it will get, but it will make landfall one day, and only in its aftermath will we see how much of the *Old World of Gaming* will withstand its fury. The day of streaming games might not come tomorrow, or the day after that, but it will come someday, and I'd wager it'll come before this decade is out.
I am not sure what games would benefit from a streaming format really? Periodical games like Telltale stuff are already reasonably priced by season. Indie games flourish in the $5-20 range. And while video streaming is accessible, it's gonna be a long while before America/Europe even manage average speeds high enough to handle game streaming in HD. Most game streaming services have flubbed. While hunting for old physical titles can be tedious, I don't have to hunt for my 300+ game catalog from 360. It is all right there.
Just imagine games that could only run on a supercomputer, and gamedesign that doesn't have to account for the limitations of consumer grade hardware.
Streaming will be HUGE for any and all online multiplayer games. Imagine running an insanely interactive gameworld on a crazy powerful server, with dynamic physics simulations far beyond what any normal consumer hardware could ever compute, let alone handle all the shit it would have to synchronize in a networked environment - that's what it could do.
For example, imagine a Battlefield game where-in the entire environment is dynamically simulated, destructible and deformable, and the box running such code would cost tens of thousands of dollars. Affordable consumer hardware that powerful is decades away, and probably highly impractical. As a streaming service game, such a thing could happen within the decade.
Imagine a MMO with dynamic AI-factions waging intergalatic war, tens of thousands of highly detailed units on screen, and the game not ever buckling under the load. Imagine Blizzard brought to life the Starcraft universe in such a manner. Imagine it let you experience a Zerg-Rush, true to scale. Countless players on all factions, surrounded by tens of thousands of dynamic AI units, duking it out on the Battlefield. Building outposts, villages, metropolitan cities, all complete with dynamic economy and finite resources - and then razing them all to the ground in all out war. A persistent campaign, each server writes its own variation of Starcraft history.
Gaming with the limitations of consumer grade hardware is like getting your jollies riding a moped. Streaming technology gets rid of the moped and replaces it with Skynet-grade computing power. The sky's the limit for gamedesign now - at least for multiplayer stuff.
I'm going to have to side with UncleSporky on this one. Despite massive leaps in technology, the scope of games hasn't really improved all that much in the past 10 years. In fact, in some cases, the scope has actually diminished.
Not saying modern games suck (well, maybe the modern Spider-Man games do), just saying that there isn't a correlation between tech and scope nowadays. We have the tech to do all that awesome shit, yes. Problem is, no one's gonna do it.
The thing is that the expectations of an open world NYC now vs then have grown by a lot. And that "pretty tax" is mostly manifested in the form of gameplay and content reduction. For one thing we're still limited by the media we're putting games on. Even digital has the restriction of practicality (there are some people who still use dial-up and not by choice; a 60gb download is the worst for them). Not to mention the other bandwidth caps/overage fees and in the worst case, throttling that various major ISPs do with broadband.
Then there's performance. While they could sacrifice graphical quality--and before we delve into the septic logic of "but teh PC is moar powerful" realize that Johnny Average isn't rocking the latest bleeding edge rig at all so graphical concessions for the sake of performance is a universal thing; the only difference is with a PC you can just buy an upgrade to make it prettier--for the sake of performance/etc, the expectation is that they under no circumstances make such a sacrifice. I'd even venture to say that having to incorporate higher end PC specs and features actually serves to hurt innovation because more time and resources are spent paying the "pretty tax" and making sure everything works within that framework. But Witcher, you say? The cost of making games in Poland is significantly cheaper than in other places, and even importing or using resources from other countries still kept it down. It's an outlier, and Witcher 3 was still the most expensive game made Poland.
If they could cut back on all the shiny graphics and could dedicate more time for gameplay and generally expansive scopes instead of fancy graphics and tweaking engines to ensure that those shiny graphics will work out alright, they'd be able to do more with the games. Then there's the fan expectations. It would be very hard for someone to throw AAA money at a game, have it not look like what people expect a AAA game to look like in their heads despite the gameplay and wide scope it offers, and have it be successful. People whine over 30FPS ffs. It's pretty or bust.
TL;DR: We have the tech, but we spend most of it trying to make things pretty.
Exactly. It's just plain easier and cheaper to add more polygons to models than it is to create robust AI/physics engine and content.
Add to that the extremely timid nature of AAA publishers nowadays, who would be extremely unlikely to let developers spend the massive amount of time and manpower to create a new type of game not possible before when it's much safer to just do the same thing they've always done with tweaks.
Granted it's early in the generation, but so far the only game we've seen that's done anything new with this kind of power that I can think of (besides more shinies) is Knack, and Knack was pretty blah.
I am wondering if Sony will try to make a proper PS3 emulator to combat Xbox BC or just stick with PS Now. Exclusives aside, it's the one thing Xbox Uno is doing right now that PS4 can't. Plus being able to freely redownload games I already bought is amazing. PS Now is almost universally panned at this point. I doubt Sony will give up the steaming stuff since they bought Gaikai for that express purpose. I am not sure if there's any good option for them in regards to backwards compatibility. Maybe they'll just ignore it?
I think of Playstation Now as something along the lines of Netflix for games, and just like Netflix, its future is original content. Eventually games streaming services will have to branch out of retro gaming. I imagine a future where services such as Playstation Now will offer experiences that can't be powered locally because of prohibitive cost. Experiences that are the equivalent of Netflix Originals, or what HBO shows are in comparison to basic cable shows. I don't know if you've ever seen the Shinra Tech Demo - but the potential of streaming technology goes far beyond rehashing old games.
In regards to Backwards Compatability, sure, it's nice, but do I personally use it? Hardly. I think I replayed one original Xbox game on my 360 (Jade Empire), and I never finished the playthrough either. I think if I ever want to play an old game, it's not one I already own, but one that I want to discover for myself, because I heard somebody raving about it. For discoverability purposes streaming services like Playstation Now are way more convenient than having to hunt down physical copies. Let's say Playstation Now's library keeps expanding and will one day include 90+% of all PS1 and PS2 and PS3 games (and why stop there, there's no technical reason why it couldn't do Dreamcast games and 16-bit era SEGA games and whatnot). The only reason why not every old game could show up on PS Now are legal and business reasons.
As far as I see it, backwards compatibility is a breeze. It may fill Microsoft's sails a bit and add some minute momentum. Streaming technology is a major flippin' hurricane building up out at sea. Nobody really knows how bad it will get, but it will make landfall one day, and only in its aftermath will we see how much of the *Old World of Gaming* will withstand its fury. The day of streaming games might not come tomorrow, or the day after that, but it will come someday, and I'd wager it'll come before this decade is out.
I am not sure what games would benefit from a streaming format really? Periodical games like Telltale stuff are already reasonably priced by season. Indie games flourish in the $5-20 range. And while video streaming is accessible, it's gonna be a long while before America/Europe even manage average speeds high enough to handle game streaming in HD. Most game streaming services have flubbed. While hunting for old physical titles can be tedious, I don't have to hunt for my 300+ game catalog from 360. It is all right there.
Just imagine games that could only run on a supercomputer, and gamedesign that doesn't have to account for the limitations of consumer grade hardware.
Streaming will be HUGE for any and all online multiplayer games. Imagine running an insanely interactive gameworld on a crazy powerful server, with dynamic physics simulations far beyond what any normal consumer hardware could ever compute, let alone handle all the shit it would have to synchronize in a networked environment - that's what it could do.
For example, imagine a Battlefield game where-in the entire environment is dynamically simulated, destructible and deformable, and the box running such code would cost tens of thousands of dollars. Affordable consumer hardware that powerful is decades away, and probably highly impractical. As a streaming service game, such a thing could happen within the decade.
Imagine a MMO with dynamic AI-factions waging intergalatic war, tens of thousands of highly detailed units on screen, and the game not ever buckling under the load. Imagine Blizzard brought to life the Starcraft universe in such a manner. Imagine it let you experience a Zerg-Rush, true to scale. Countless players on all factions, surrounded by tens of thousands of dynamic AI units, duking it out on the Battlefield. Building outposts, villages, metropolitan cities, all complete with dynamic economy and finite resources - and then razing them all to the ground in all out war. A persistent campaign, each server writes its own variation of Starcraft history.
Gaming with the limitations of consumer grade hardware is like getting your jollies riding a moped. Streaming technology gets rid of the moped and replaces it with Skynet-grade computing power. The sky's the limit for gamedesign now - at least for multiplayer stuff.
I'm going to have to side with UncleSporky on this one. Despite massive leaps in technology, the scope of games hasn't really improved all that much in the past 10 years. In fact, in some cases, the scope has actually diminished.
Not saying modern games suck (well, maybe the modern Spider-Man games do), just saying that there isn't a correlation between tech and scope nowadays. We have the tech to do all that awesome shit, yes. Problem is, no one's gonna do it.
The thing is that the expectations of an open world NYC now vs then have grown by a lot. And that "pretty tax" is mostly manifested in the form of gameplay and content reduction. For one thing we're still limited by the media we're putting games on. Even digital has the restriction of practicality (there are some people who still use dial-up and not by choice; a 60gb download is the worst for them). Not to mention the other bandwidth caps/overage fees and in the worst case, throttling that various major ISPs do with broadband.
Then there's performance. While they could sacrifice graphical quality--and before we delve into the septic logic of "but teh PC is moar powerful" realize that Johnny Average isn't rocking the latest bleeding edge rig at all so graphical concessions for the sake of performance is a universal thing; the only difference is with a PC you can just buy an upgrade to make it prettier--for the sake of performance/etc, the expectation is that they under no circumstances make such a sacrifice. I'd even venture to say that having to incorporate higher end PC specs and features actually serves to hurt innovation because more time and resources are spent paying the "pretty tax" and making sure everything works within that framework. But Witcher, you say? The cost of making games in Poland is significantly cheaper than in other places, and even importing or using resources from other countries still kept it down. It's an outlier, and Witcher 3 was still the most expensive game made Poland.
If they could cut back on all the shiny graphics and could dedicate more time for gameplay and generally expansive scopes instead of fancy graphics and tweaking engines to ensure that those shiny graphics will work out alright, they'd be able to do more with the games. Then there's the fan expectations. It would be very hard for someone to throw AAA money at a game, have it not look like what people expect a AAA game to look like in their heads despite the gameplay and wide scope it offers, and have it be successful. People whine over 30FPS ffs. It's pretty or bust.
TL;DR: We have the tech, but we spend most of it trying to make things pretty.
Exactly. It's just plain easier and cheaper to add more polygons to models than it is to create robust AI/physics engine and content.
Add to that the extremely timid nature of AAA publishers nowadays, who would be extremely unlikely to let developers spend the massive amount of time and manpower to create a new type of game not possible before when it's much safer to just do the same thing they've always done with tweaks.
Granted it's early in the generation, but so far the only game we've seen that's done anything new with this kind of power that I can think of (besides more shinies) is Knack, and Knack was pretty blah.
Aside from streaming games in a rental/flatrate capacity, which Sony is already doing, and hardly giving up on (it's a business that has to be built-up, after all), I'm sure someday soon a major publisher or first party will do an online multiplayer game that offloads major computation efforts to the cloud in order to realize gameworlds so densly interactive and simulated, it could not be done otherwise. Microsoft has hinted at that kind of stuff in the past, and given Sony's investment in streaming infrastructure, that's definitely something it's looking into as well.
Any enterprise loves steady income, and given how games that are powered by streaming technology are more easily marketed with a subscription model, getting such a thing up and running is definitely in the future. If the games engineered that way are killer apps, we won't be able to resist either. We want to play what we want to play, and many of us will be grateful we won't have to invest in high end gaming hardware to do so. It's alot cheaper plunking down 15$ a month for a streaming-empowered game, than building an extreme high end PC.
Practically nobody was able to run Crysis well when it came out - a major reason why we haven't had that kind of technical leap since then. I say streaming-empowered games will be the next instance of such a leap happening, and this time, every videogame enthusiast (with sufficiently powerful and economical broadband internet) is invited, not only the 1% craziest PC players.
well the new Crackdown is supposed to use the cloud to calculate the destructible environments so maybe we'll start seeing the first steps sooner than some think.
well the new Crackdown is supposed to use the cloud to calculate the destructible environments so maybe we'll start seeing the first steps sooner than some think.
Yeah. There's also whatever Titanfall did, probably more with its later horde mode.
tastydonuts on
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
Wait, didn't Microsoft go on and on about how my buttthe cloud would revolutionize racing with "drivatars" or somesuch? How did that go over?
I thought the Drivatars were really great. It was awesome to be in a race and have your AI buddy show up. Although most of my friends drive like dicks, so...less awesome, but yeah.
+1
Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
So I finally got around to watching the Last Guardian trailer from e3. Can I be "that guy" and say... it didn't really look very good? Like, I guess it's going to be like Ico, which is ok I suppose, but block pushing puzzles are super boring (that sort of thing was at least more novel 15 years ago :P).
Also the graphics seemed really bad for the PS4. I think they were applying some filter, so the boy was really washed out and I believe that was intentional. That's ok. But the gryphon just looked really rough, like "work in progress you wouldn't show this to the public" quality. It was weird.
I dunno, maybe it will be good. But I wasn't really sold on it from that.
So I finally got around to watching the Last Guardian trailer from e3. Can I be "that guy" and say... it didn't really look very good? Like, I guess it's going to be like Ico, which is ok I suppose, but block pushing puzzles are super boring (that sort of thing was at least more novel 15 years ago :P).
Also the graphics seemed really bad for the PS4. I think they were applying some filter, so the boy was really washed out and I believe that was intentional. That's ok. But the gryphon just looked really rough, like "work in progress you wouldn't show this to the public" quality. It was weird.
I dunno, maybe it will be good. But I wasn't really sold on it from that.
I thought the feathers on the gryphon were way too fluttery-kind of like the overly animated hair you sometimes get on people's heads in games these days.
Moreover, maybe this is just me, but...it seemed like all the puzzle/platform stuff the boy was doing turned out to be really bad ideas and the gryphon was constantly either wrecking shit on accident, or needing to do so in order to save the kid's life. Maybe it was supposed to be a in a similar vein to Shadow of the Colossus's 'fight boss monsters and feel bad about it' subtext...I'm kind not into it. But I am okay with a game maybe being fun for others that won't be fun for me-the play section just didn't look like a good time in my opinion.
So I finally got around to watching the Last Guardian trailer from e3. Can I be "that guy" and say... it didn't really look very good? Like, I guess it's going to be like Ico, which is ok I suppose, but block pushing puzzles are super boring (that sort of thing was at least more novel 15 years ago :P).
Also the graphics seemed really bad for the PS4. I think they were applying some filter, so the boy was really washed out and I believe that was intentional. That's ok. But the gryphon just looked really rough, like "work in progress you wouldn't show this to the public" quality. It was weird.
I dunno, maybe it will be good. But I wasn't really sold on it from that.
I thought the feathers on the gryphon were way too fluttery-kind of like the overly animated hair you sometimes get on people's heads in games these days.
Moreover, maybe this is just me, but...it seemed like all the puzzle/platform stuff the boy was doing turned out to be really bad ideas and the gryphon was constantly either wrecking shit on accident, or needing to do so in order to save the kid's life. Maybe it was supposed to be a in a similar vein to Shadow of the Colossus's 'fight boss monsters and feel bad about it' subtext...I'm kind not into it. But I am okay with a game maybe being fun for others that won't be fun for me-the play section just didn't look like a good time in my opinion.
Yeah the feathers were really bothering me. I still want to like the game, so I'll wait and see. Just, that trailer kind of put me to sleep :P
So I finally got around to watching the Last Guardian trailer from e3. Can I be "that guy" and say... it didn't really look very good? Like, I guess it's going to be like Ico, which is ok I suppose, but block pushing puzzles are super boring (that sort of thing was at least more novel 15 years ago :P).
Also the graphics seemed really bad for the PS4. I think they were applying some filter, so the boy was really washed out and I believe that was intentional. That's ok. But the gryphon just looked really rough, like "work in progress you wouldn't show this to the public" quality. It was weird.
I dunno, maybe it will be good. But I wasn't really sold on it from that.
It's tricky to judge the quality of a puzzle game by a trailer, because the core engagement happens inside the player's head, not on the screen. Personally, I really liked Ico, and am stoked that the game is still alive.
So I finally got around to watching the Last Guardian trailer from e3. Can I be "that guy" and say... it didn't really look very good? Like, I guess it's going to be like Ico, which is ok I suppose, but block pushing puzzles are super boring (that sort of thing was at least more novel 15 years ago :P).
Also the graphics seemed really bad for the PS4. I think they were applying some filter, so the boy was really washed out and I believe that was intentional. That's ok. But the gryphon just looked really rough, like "work in progress you wouldn't show this to the public" quality. It was weird.
I dunno, maybe it will be good. But I wasn't really sold on it from that.
It's tricky to judge the quality of a puzzle game by a trailer, because the core engagement happens inside the player's head, not on the screen. Personally, I really liked Ico, and am stoked that the game is still alive.
I think that the brunt of the excitement about the game did stem simply from the fact that it was still a thing in (active) development.
tastydonuts on
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
My impression for TLG is it still looked very Playstation 2-like. Not the fidelity, per se, but the environments and color palette. It felt like I was looking at environments that got cut from Ico.
It's cool that it still exists, but I also was struggling to see how it could work as a game. Having the guardian wreck random things in the environment to progress feels very 90's adventure game to me.
My impression for TLG is it still looked very Playstation 2-like. Not the fidelity, per se, but the environments and color palette. It felt like I was looking at environments that got cut from Ico.
It's cool that it still exists, but I also was struggling to see how it could work as a game. Having the guardian wreck random things in the environment to progress feels very 90's adventure game to me.
I saw a lot of comments elsewhere about how "shitty" TLG's visuals look, which comes across as another one of those "Guys, really? Stop and think about it for a second" moments from me, given that developer's history of touching up the graphics at the very last moment before launch.
I've also seen a lot of names tossed around for the creature, including Trico. Does that thing even have an official name?
My impression for TLG is it still looked very Playstation 2-like. Not the fidelity, per se, but the environments and color palette. It felt like I was looking at environments that got cut from Ico.
It's cool that it still exists, but I also was struggling to see how it could work as a game. Having the guardian wreck random things in the environment to progress feels very 90's adventure game to me.
I saw a lot of comments elsewhere about how "shitty" TLG's visuals look, which comes across as another one of those "Guys, really? Stop and think about it for a second" moments from me, given that developer's history of touching up the graphics at the very last moment before launch.
I've also seen a lot of names tossed around for the creature, including Trico. Does that thing even have an official name?
I am not a graphics whore by any means, but it did look pretty bad for a PS4 game. I think Dehumanized hit it - it looked more like a PS2 game. Granted, they have time to fix that. But it's odd to me they would show something that looked that rough when they refused to show anything at previous shows. *shrug* Like I said, I'll give it a chance for sure, but that trailer didn't really hype me for it. (Kingdom Hearts and FF7 on the other hand... I mean, I'm not even slobberingly in love with FF7 like a lot of people and that was still a pretty great trailer)
I am wondering if Sony will try to make a proper PS3 emulator to combat Xbox BC or just stick with PS Now. Exclusives aside, it's the one thing Xbox Uno is doing right now that PS4 can't. Plus being able to freely redownload games I already bought is amazing. PS Now is almost universally panned at this point. I doubt Sony will give up the steaming stuff since they bought Gaikai for that express purpose. I am not sure if there's any good option for them in regards to backwards compatibility. Maybe they'll just ignore it?
They could at least try to compete with back compat by letting people play the PS3 games they own digitally for free on PSNow
I think this is all they really could do, the PS3 processor was so strange I doubt it would be very easy if it's even possible to emulate on the PS4.
My impression for TLG is it still looked very Playstation 2-like. Not the fidelity, per se, but the environments and color palette. It felt like I was looking at environments that got cut from Ico.
It's cool that it still exists, but I also was struggling to see how it could work as a game. Having the guardian wreck random things in the environment to progress feels very 90's adventure game to me.
I saw a lot of comments elsewhere about how "shitty" TLG's visuals look, which comes across as another one of those "Guys, really? Stop and think about it for a second" moments from me, given that developer's history of touching up the graphics at the very last moment before launch.
I've also seen a lot of names tossed around for the creature, including Trico. Does that thing even have an official name?
I am not a graphics whore by any means, but it did look pretty bad for a PS4 game. I think Dehumanized hit it - it looked more like a PS2 game. Granted, they have time to fix that. But it's odd to me they would show something that looked that rough when they refused to show anything at previous shows. *shrug* Like I said, I'll give it a chance for sure, but that trailer didn't really hype me for it. (Kingdom Hearts and FF7 on the other hand... I mean, I'm not even slobberingly in love with FF7 like a lot of people and that was still a pretty great trailer)
It's been a long while, but I believe that was also the case for Ico and Colossus? Barely any footage was shown whatsoever because the developer wanted to wait until the last possible moment to show off a finished, gorgeous game.
I think in TLG's case they had to show what they had to prove to people they had actual gameplay going instead of another doctored trailer.
Otherwise they would have gotten more snark with people thinking "that trailer is all they have", which they of course said about FFVII Remake (allegedly they do have working footage and assets, though it's undoubtedly too early for them to show off).
I don't think it's anything to be worried about, they probably have plenty of time to make it all gel, but I guess what I'm saying is it didn't really wow me on either gameplay or visuals and most of the impact was just on the game being confirmed as not canceled.
Yeah, I'm mostly just surprised TLG even has gameplay to demonstrate, since its development process - or what we know about it, which I'm sure isn't the whole story - had "vaporware" written all over it. The final release could still be good, but I'm not really impressed by the demonstration itself; emotionally charged linear setpiece puzzles aren't as rare as they used to be.
My impression for TLG is it still looked very Playstation 2-like. Not the fidelity, per se, but the environments and color palette. It felt like I was looking at environments that got cut from Ico.
It's cool that it still exists, but I also was struggling to see how it could work as a game. Having the guardian wreck random things in the environment to progress feels very 90's adventure game to me.
Yeah, I'm wondering if the game is going to consist of a long string of arbitrary setpieces, or if it's going to settle down into something more conventional where the creature doesn't really do anything interesting to justify all the effort that was put into it.
There's also the third option where they build the world around having a huge creature around and the power that that gives you, but they've shown no indication that they're going to do that from the trailers. Did Shadow of the Colossus have anything showing off the open world?
Looked it up, and yeah, the Shadow of the Colossus trailer that I saw showed a bit of roaming before letting you see a colossus, and gave an indication later that that was going to be an important aspect.
This latest trailer shows a bunch of gameplay, but it doesn't show the actual game. Was that covered anywhere else during the event?\
Edit: I suppose I can't rag on the trailer too much, since it isn't really a trailer at all, just a gameplay video with a title card. But that just means that there isn't a real trailer.
jothki on
0
Brainiac 8Don't call me Shirley...Registered Userregular
I'm happy that Last Guardian apparently exists in some form for those who have been waiting patiently for it.
I'm not excited at all about it myself because it just looks dull as sin.
And also seems to have sections in it that are in that gameplay demo. If it's like that original trailer, but in 'full' HD then I'll be pretty content.
I thought the beast looked incredible. But what we know of the gameplay doesn't seem too novel, especially considering how impressive Shadow of the Colossus's climbing was at the time.
My impression for TLG is it still looked very Playstation 2-like. Not the fidelity, per se, but the environments and color palette. It felt like I was looking at environments that got cut from Ico.
It's cool that it still exists, but I also was struggling to see how it could work as a game. Having the guardian wreck random things in the environment to progress feels very 90's adventure game to me.
I saw a lot of comments elsewhere about how "shitty" TLG's visuals look, which comes across as another one of those "Guys, really? Stop and think about it for a second" moments from me, given that developer's history of touching up the graphics at the very last moment before launch.
I've also seen a lot of names tossed around for the creature, including Trico. Does that thing even have an official name?
My impression for TLG is it still looked very Playstation 2-like. Not the fidelity, per se, but the environments and color palette. It felt like I was looking at environments that got cut from Ico.
It's cool that it still exists, but I also was struggling to see how it could work as a game. Having the guardian wreck random things in the environment to progress feels very 90's adventure game to me.
Yeah, I'm wondering if the game is going to consist of a long string of arbitrary setpieces, or if it's going to settle down into something more conventional where the creature doesn't really do anything interesting to justify all the effort that was put into it.
There's also the third option where they build the world around having a huge creature around and the power that that gives you, but they've shown no indication that they're going to do that from the trailers. Did Shadow of the Colossus have anything showing off the open world?
Have you played Ico or Shadow of the Colossus? Because I think it's pretty clear why they put all the effort into Trico and it's not just setpieces, they want you to think of it like it's a living animal, like Yorda or Agro before it. That is everything they need to justify it.
As far as graphics go, I've seen these complaints before and I'm not really sure what they were expecting. If you're comparing it to the 2009 footage and expecting a generational leap then you really shouldn't, seeing as the reason why it was moved to PS4 was because it couldn't run properly on the PS3. It's not being developed by a technical powerhouse like Naughty Dog or Guerrilla either, so expecting top of the line graphics is pretty absurd as well. And they obviously weren't going to change the art style. To me, it looks exactly how I expected it to look.
Man I think one of the games I'm most excited about of all things is Shadow Warrior 2, that story in the first one was fantastic fun. Makes me want more old school shooter reboots, where's my Blood game, or Redneck Rampage? Hehe.
I really, REALLY wish someone would just rip off the Doom formula wholesale and throw it up on digital stores.
Just three episodes of colorful, crazy levels, lots of neat monsters who infight, 7-10 weapons of increasing awesomeness, insane speed and super minimal story.
was gonna same the same thing. though i guess that series has died off too.
It's been a few years now since Croteam released Serious Sam 3, they just recently finished up and released The Talos Principle so it's possible they might do something else with it as their next project.
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I like this plan. I'd like it to be real. I kind of worry that instead Nintendo may unveil something you get to wear on your nose, but...a framework you describe doesn't sound like it's asking too much, so it could happen.
In terms of games unlocking their true potential, if you were to show me the games we have now 10 or 15 years ago my mind would've been blown so eh
Add to that the extremely timid nature of AAA publishers nowadays, who would be extremely unlikely to let developers spend the massive amount of time and manpower to create a new type of game not possible before when it's much safer to just do the same thing they've always done with tweaks.
Granted it's early in the generation, but so far the only game we've seen that's done anything new with this kind of power that I can think of (besides more shinies) is Knack, and Knack was pretty blah.
Aside from streaming games in a rental/flatrate capacity, which Sony is already doing, and hardly giving up on (it's a business that has to be built-up, after all), I'm sure someday soon a major publisher or first party will do an online multiplayer game that offloads major computation efforts to the cloud in order to realize gameworlds so densly interactive and simulated, it could not be done otherwise. Microsoft has hinted at that kind of stuff in the past, and given Sony's investment in streaming infrastructure, that's definitely something it's looking into as well.
Any enterprise loves steady income, and given how games that are powered by streaming technology are more easily marketed with a subscription model, getting such a thing up and running is definitely in the future. If the games engineered that way are killer apps, we won't be able to resist either. We want to play what we want to play, and many of us will be grateful we won't have to invest in high end gaming hardware to do so. It's alot cheaper plunking down 15$ a month for a streaming-empowered game, than building an extreme high end PC.
Practically nobody was able to run Crysis well when it came out - a major reason why we haven't had that kind of technical leap since then. I say streaming-empowered games will be the next instance of such a leap happening, and this time, every videogame enthusiast (with sufficiently powerful and economical broadband internet) is invited, not only the 1% craziest PC players.
Yeah. There's also whatever Titanfall did, probably more with its later horde mode.
it works pretty well, forza 5/horizon 2 are fun
I thought the Drivatars were really great. It was awesome to be in a race and have your AI buddy show up. Although most of my friends drive like dicks, so...less awesome, but yeah.
Also the graphics seemed really bad for the PS4. I think they were applying some filter, so the boy was really washed out and I believe that was intentional. That's ok. But the gryphon just looked really rough, like "work in progress you wouldn't show this to the public" quality. It was weird.
I dunno, maybe it will be good. But I wasn't really sold on it from that.
TBF, some tech is best left alone:
I thought the feathers on the gryphon were way too fluttery-kind of like the overly animated hair you sometimes get on people's heads in games these days.
Moreover, maybe this is just me, but...it seemed like all the puzzle/platform stuff the boy was doing turned out to be really bad ideas and the gryphon was constantly either wrecking shit on accident, or needing to do so in order to save the kid's life. Maybe it was supposed to be a in a similar vein to Shadow of the Colossus's 'fight boss monsters and feel bad about it' subtext...I'm kind not into it. But I am okay with a game maybe being fun for others that won't be fun for me-the play section just didn't look like a good time in my opinion.
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Yeah the feathers were really bothering me. I still want to like the game, so I'll wait and see. Just, that trailer kind of put me to sleep :P
It's tricky to judge the quality of a puzzle game by a trailer, because the core engagement happens inside the player's head, not on the screen. Personally, I really liked Ico, and am stoked that the game is still alive.
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I think that the brunt of the excitement about the game did stem simply from the fact that it was still a thing in (active) development.
It's cool that it still exists, but I also was struggling to see how it could work as a game. Having the guardian wreck random things in the environment to progress feels very 90's adventure game to me.
I saw a lot of comments elsewhere about how "shitty" TLG's visuals look, which comes across as another one of those "Guys, really? Stop and think about it for a second" moments from me, given that developer's history of touching up the graphics at the very last moment before launch.
I've also seen a lot of names tossed around for the creature, including Trico. Does that thing even have an official name?
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I am not a graphics whore by any means, but it did look pretty bad for a PS4 game. I think Dehumanized hit it - it looked more like a PS2 game. Granted, they have time to fix that. But it's odd to me they would show something that looked that rough when they refused to show anything at previous shows. *shrug* Like I said, I'll give it a chance for sure, but that trailer didn't really hype me for it. (Kingdom Hearts and FF7 on the other hand... I mean, I'm not even slobberingly in love with FF7 like a lot of people and that was still a pretty great trailer)
I think this is all they really could do, the PS3 processor was so strange I doubt it would be very easy if it's even possible to emulate on the PS4.
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It's been a long while, but I believe that was also the case for Ico and Colossus? Barely any footage was shown whatsoever because the developer wanted to wait until the last possible moment to show off a finished, gorgeous game.
I think in TLG's case they had to show what they had to prove to people they had actual gameplay going instead of another doctored trailer.
Otherwise they would have gotten more snark with people thinking "that trailer is all they have", which they of course said about FFVII Remake (allegedly they do have working footage and assets, though it's undoubtedly too early for them to show off).
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Yeah, I'm wondering if the game is going to consist of a long string of arbitrary setpieces, or if it's going to settle down into something more conventional where the creature doesn't really do anything interesting to justify all the effort that was put into it.
There's also the third option where they build the world around having a huge creature around and the power that that gives you, but they've shown no indication that they're going to do that from the trailers. Did Shadow of the Colossus have anything showing off the open world?
Looked it up, and yeah, the Shadow of the Colossus trailer that I saw showed a bit of roaming before letting you see a colossus, and gave an indication later that that was going to be an important aspect.
This latest trailer shows a bunch of gameplay, but it doesn't show the actual game. Was that covered anywhere else during the event?\
Edit: I suppose I can't rag on the trailer too much, since it isn't really a trailer at all, just a gameplay video with a title card. But that just means that there isn't a real trailer.
I'm not excited at all about it myself because it just looks dull as sin.
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And also seems to have sections in it that are in that gameplay demo. If it's like that original trailer, but in 'full' HD then I'll be pretty content.
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Tekken's been doing that for like a decade, that was just PR speak.
Trico is its official name.
Have you played Ico or Shadow of the Colossus? Because I think it's pretty clear why they put all the effort into Trico and it's not just setpieces, they want you to think of it like it's a living animal, like Yorda or Agro before it. That is everything they need to justify it.
As far as graphics go, I've seen these complaints before and I'm not really sure what they were expecting. If you're comparing it to the 2009 footage and expecting a generational leap then you really shouldn't, seeing as the reason why it was moved to PS4 was because it couldn't run properly on the PS3. It's not being developed by a technical powerhouse like Naughty Dog or Guerrilla either, so expecting top of the line graphics is pretty absurd as well. And they obviously weren't going to change the art style. To me, it looks exactly how I expected it to look.
Just three episodes of colorful, crazy levels, lots of neat monsters who infight, 7-10 weapons of increasing awesomeness, insane speed and super minimal story.
was gonna same the same thing. though i guess that series has died off too.
Serious Sam is a good start, but there's a feel to Doom that even SS can't match.
Also, I don't think monsters infight in that game.
It's been a few years now since Croteam released Serious Sam 3, they just recently finished up and released The Talos Principle so it's possible they might do something else with it as their next project.