Oblivion looks great both PC, & XBox360. I think that they seem to have been running into some issues lately with how they expand the game play on sports games. I have Madden06 on the PC and one of the things that they have done to improve the game play involves automating some of the running back controls that were only manually activated in the past. It's impractical to have a game which perfectly models the real world because they need it to be playable by people in the real world. If you need to have NFL skills to play the game, then it's more of a training tool. It seems to me that the baseline for Madden06 on the XBox360 should be the PC version. After all, Microsoft has consistently sold the XBox to developers based on it's cross-platform development synergies with the PC. I would imagine the game will likely be a spiffed up version of the PC edition, the changes only being cosmetic in nature relating to optimizing the engine for the specific hardware of the Xbox360. Anything more would have necessitated the development of an entirely seperate game in parallell.
I'm not necessarily asking for realistic gameplay. I'm just wanting some nice lighting effects, realistic models, good animations (hopefully more physics-based than mo-cap), and other small things. Nothing that any next-gen game should have a problem accomplishing, IMO. I think it would be a BIG mistake to base the game on the PC version. The Xbox 360 is pretty much more powerful than anything you can put in a PC, so there's no way a PC can compete with it in power. And that issue becomes even more evident when you realize that EA would develop for the 1-2 year old graphics cards, and not the $500-$1000 versions. If anything, they should create a 360 version, and then downgrade that to the PC if they can. They have much more of an available userbase in the console world than they would in the PC world, so might as well cater to them. And of course, that's assuming EA can somehow easily port games between the two. In reality, I think it may be easier to actually just make two versions that trying to come up with basically one game that would run well on both (IOW, look great on both platforms). The 360 is not quite as PC-port friendly as the Xbox was. Depending on some developer preferences, it may be easier to come up with a PS3/Xbox 360 game than a PC/Xbox 360 game, and there are a lot of differences between the PS3 and Xbox 360.
No. Nothing. Unless there's a guy with a controller making the action happen, I put next to no stock in any 'tech demo', video, trailer, or any other crap. Too much hype. I only care about the real thing. Pretty much all companies/developers are guilty of this. Yes, but those really impressive games come down to the end of the system's span. That's what I meant by people are expecting too much of next gen. It takes a while for the developers to get it down. I they very few of the initial games next-gen are going to be quite as spectacular as all the hype out right now. (Though Oblivion looks like one that possibly could).
Those were just examples of games that shattered the tech demos. Tekken Tag, GT3, MGS2, RR, FFX, etc. were all early games that met or exceeded their tech demo counterpart, AFAIK. Probably the most impressive demo was the floating head demo showing just a head on a black screen. I'm not even sure if Sony actually planned on people surpassing it given that setup, but I know at least Silent Hill 3 did (had better detailed faces, as well a backgrounds, hats, clothes, etc., in realtime). The tech demos were good enough to show the PS2's power, but they weren't some high bar that only a few games could surpass in 5-6 years. If the PS2 wasn't so damn difficult to develop for, it would probably be even more evident. At least it looks like they changed their ways with the PS3. I'm not sure what you consider the "hype" though. Again, my expectations aren't sky high, especially for launch. Give me something that looks about as good as the Unreal Engine stuff, and I'll be more than happy. It shouldn't be too difficult to get something around that level of detail. If anyone has ever heard of the Offset Engine, it is just about as impressive as UE 3.0 and was created by only 3 people and a 6800 (can't remember if it was an Ultra or not). If they can do that, then EA and these other teams should easily be able to match their efforts, IMO. I don't expect these developers to get use all 3 cores of the Xbox 360 and find the best usage of unified shaders. However, just one core and a decent amount of knowledge of Xenos should allow for some impressive games, not high-res current-gen games.
Consider, though, how much research you've done on the subject. Consider then your average gamer, who's maybe seen the Killzone demo, maybe a shot of Gears of War in his latest Game Informer or something, or maybe visited a Houston Rockets messageboard and saw athread with what Madden 'next-gen' would look like. He's going to think, that's what next gen is, that's what the games are going to look like out of the gate. He's going to be disappointed. And you're talking about Unreal Engine 3.0? You do realize that's top of the line right now. There's nothing out there that's running with that level of detail on a shelf, anywhere. That is damn impressive stuff, and I think it's a major step.
Yeah, I was going by my personal experiences with this, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of the "average gamers" could have come up with a similar conclusion as I did. I don't think many people in this thread did exactly this same thing I did, but they seem to think the same way. Granted the screenshots/promises has a little to do with that, but I think everyone here noticed that this game is more of a beefed up PS2 title than a next-gen title (didn't need anything to figure that out). Given the leaps in graphics in past generations, I think most people were expecting a bigger jump (and rightfully so). Unreal Engine 3.0 is impressive stuff, but the consoles should have no problem running it (it is top of the line now...on readily available PC hardware). I believe UE 3.0 was originally shown running in realtime like early '04 or somewhere around there. I believe a 6800 Ultra (or maybe even NU) can run it around at least 30FPS with the same amount of quality shown. Since the consoles are MUCH more powerful than those setups, it is logical to expect UE3-type visuals IMO (maybe I'm too optimistic ) . Epic had no problems getting that level of detail on incomplete PS3 devkits (basically a high-end PC), using just the PPE and the "RSX-type GPU" (can't remember what it was, but probably SLI 6800 U's, or a 7800). And all that was done in less than 2 months. The same thing occurred with Square-Enix as well (impressive visuals accomplished in short amount of time w/o using much of the hardware). Bandai and Koei (2 graphical gods ) were able to get similar detail in pretty much the same process as well as the PS meeting a while back. Those Gundam and DW games were probably on the same level (or worse) as Madden graphically this past-gen, so I don't see why EA couldn't come up with something of similar quality. I guess the KZ demo and some other stuff could mislead gamers in some ways, but given the poor graphics of some games, PGR3, Oblivion, Kameo, and a bunch of other Xbox 360 launch games are misleading as well. Those titles may not quite be on the exact graphical level of KZ and GoW, but they at least appear to be in the same gen, IMO. I'm not sure how others think about it, but I don't really see a HUGE leap from say PGR3 or Oblivion to GoW/KZ (a much bigger gap occurs with these other games). I think someone who saw those visuals on a message board or in a magazine would be fine with the types of visuals some of the Xbox 360 games are putting up. If people just want to be happy with Tony Hawk: Wasteland, GUN, or these Madden '06 visuals, I guess that's fine; however, I would expect a pretty big gap in visuals by the time the generation is over. It would probably be like expecting DC visuals, getting them (or a little worse), and then getting Ninja Gaiden, Doom 3, HL2, Halo 2, etc. (although probably even bigger than that). Again, the power is there for developers to come up with some impressive games, even at launch. One thing I'm looking forward to is the realtime trailer of MGS4 at TGS. We've seen prerendered footage done to spec or realtime demos from devs who aren't the best with graphics. I want to see a developer that is able to get some great graphics from the PS3 hardware (even if it is incomplete). Hopefully, Kojima is able to do with MGS4 what he did with MGS2; I don't want to be playing a bunch of games that look like high-res PS2 games.
Two things: 1. It won't look any better on the PS3 or the Revolution. 2. EA sucks. They always do this ****. They have such a stranglehold on the NFL game market that they don't have to expend a ton of resources to get people to buy the game. They know it, we know it - yet still we buy it. Boycott EA
The last Madden game I played/saw, other than via commercials, was the first one for PS2/Gamecube. That said, I actually thought the video looked pretty cool. Granted, nothing like the screenshots, but I never believed it would.
Well, it's not like they are going to be able to put the best product out possible the first year on the new system. I remember getting the first Madden on the PS2 and it wasn't a big difference from the PS1 versions. It was a nice leap, but nothing THAT exciting. The second year is when we started seeing more graphical enhancements. That is what I see here for the 360 version. I'm going to wait until I see some real gameplay footage on IGN or some other reputable gaming site before I pass judgement.
Um...really? I don't know what you think is a big difference, but it looked like a big difference to me. Heck, Madden 2001 even had a pretty good leap compared to NFL2K1 on the DC as well. Here's some pics: PS1: DC: PS2 And I guess if you want to compare Madden 2001 to 2002, here's a Madden 2002 screen: The leap from Madden 2000 to Madden 2001 was pretty big, IMO. And it wasn't the only game, even from EA to do that. SSX, while not having a PS1 version, looked way better than any previous-gen snowboarding game, for example.
LOL! Actual screenshots do better than my memory. LOL!! You know though, I wonder how we would have all felt if we didn't see those artist rendered clips earlier in the year. The latest video of the 360 version still looks pretty damn good. It just doesn't touch what they advertised to us before hand.
Again, I don't know about everybody else, but I would have been disappointed with or without the screenshots/prerendered clips. Let's check out some of the other launch, or near launch games: (in link form due to the # of screens) COD2: http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/638/638905/call-of-duty-2-20050803042433419.jpg http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/638/638905/call-of-duty-2-20050803042434341.jpg TESIV Oblivion: http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/art...der-scrolls-iv-oblivion-20050826030758985.jpg http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360...der-scrolls-iv-oblivion-20050722033701999.jpg http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360...der-scrolls-iv-oblivion-20050722033703295.jpg Kameo: http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360...kameo-elements-of-power-20050517092424350.jpg http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360...kameo-elements-of-power-20050517092425256.jpg http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360...kameo-elements-of-power-20050517092428162.jpg http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360...kameo-elements-of-power-20050517092429146.jpg Ghost Recon AW: http://www.sme.sk/datahry/1058/ghost_recon3_xbox360_10_s_b.jpg http://www.sme.sk/datahry/1058/ghost_recon3_xbox360_07_s_b.jpg You could probably find better screens from these games, or other games (I intentionally left out Gears of War since it is a 06 title). But the point remains that Madden on the 360, at this point, is very underwhelming (or a bunch of launch games are going to be getting 11's out of 10 for graphics).
I have to say that is shocking - shocking - that as a newfound monopolist in the football game genre, EA Sports last effort (and potentially their future effort) has been or will be disappointing to consumers. Honestly, nobody could have predicted that.
Yeah, they're definitely underwhelming. Out of those screenshots though, the only ones I can sorta trust are the Ghost Recon ones. None of the others seem to be actual gameplay. (HUD, life bar, etc....anything to prove it's a shot of a game in action and not a prettied up hype shot). Though I've seen pics of Oblivion that look more gameplay. Really looking forward to that.
I think the Oblivion ones could basically be gameplay. I think you could turn of the HUD in some of the other TES games, and since it is a FPS type view, it would look just like those screenshots unless you had your weapon out. Like you said, there are other pics that look more like gameplay (sword raised, monster in front, maybe 3rd person view, etc)...in fact, I think I may have seen scans of pics that showed off the HUD in a screen shot, but obviously those wouldn't be at IGN. I can't remember where they were though. Kameo is real, AFAIK. You can check out some gameplay clips of those screens at the following link (the best ones are one of the first 2 since they're newer): http://www.xboxyde.com/game_273_en.html That site might also have a clip of GR3 as well, which looks much better in motion than the screens, which is saying a lot. COD2 is probably the only one that I don't know for sure is gameplay, although I'm pretty sure it is. COD2 media has been really hard to get a hold of. You basically just have the E3 stuff and those 2 screens and that's it (for the Xbox 360 version anyways). Given the look of GR3 though, I wouldn't doubt the visuals. BTW, here's another impressive screen, but I don't think it is a gameplay shot, so we probably won't get to see those types of visuals anytime soon:
2 new screens: http://tinypic.com/dqocaq.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v137/CanadianFonz/Games/Madden360_2.jpg This is EA's attempt to make up for the bad screens/clip from the beginning of the thread. Still not at the level of the teaser clip, but it does look better...maybe even close to acceptable IMO. Let's just hope the animation made the same, or hopefully better, improvement. I think we're supposed to get some more screens and maybe another gameplay clip during the next few days, but not sure. BTW, these screens were resized. The originals were 9.5MB each...you know, since we'd be playing the game on 2880p HDTVs.
Still.......I don't know. I never get my hopes up for an EA Sports product, at least visually, but after hearing that the devs thought that they could make a better looking product, plus the fact that lots of other PS3 titles were shaping up very nicely, I actually thought, "Hey, maybe we could see something along the lines of the demo." Come to think of it though, for the devs to have wanted the old video not to be shown because they thought thier product was going to look better, just does not make sense. If anything, they would have loved for the inferior video to have been shown, only to really blow us away as we get closer to the release. It seems to me that they didn't want the video shown because they didn't was us disappointed in what was really coming out, which is fine. I can take the final product as long as I'm not thinking I'm getting something better at first. I guess the most disappointing thing is, other PS3 games (real-time demonstrations) look better than something that WAS a pre-rendered in the old Madden artist interpretation. Maybe because it's multi-platformed, but even then you'd make it for the most powerful console and then port it down to the others, like they have been doing.
AFAIK, EA uses the PS2 as the lead platform for their games and then upgrades them to the GC, Xbox, and PC. Not all studios do it the same way though. 2K sports bases their games on the Xbox, IIRC, and then ports them to the other consoles. Studios will either pick the console that came out first, the console with most power, or the console with the biggest userbase. Not sure what EA will be doing next-gen. As for the whole trailer thing, that was bizarre. Like you said, it would have been much better had EA never showed or said anything. Actually, these screens are not too far away from the prerendered video. It desperately needs some better lighting and it wouldn't hurt to improve the quality of the grass (not too hard to do), but it has a shot of getting there. Oh yeah, and if the animation is still the same, that needs a lot of work as well. Disregarding everything shown/said prior to these screens, I probably wouldn't be that disappointed with the final product at all; I may even like the visuals.
