You might have heard about it around a year or so ago, when it was unveiled at GDC. I think that video hit the net sometime around then (think a little later since it wasn’t meant to be put on the internet), and Spore has already received a lot of attention since then. I think it won an award at or shortly after E3 last year, not to mention a few others that I can't think of at the moment.
More pics from the PS3 demos: (for reference, a screen from the E3) A lot more here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sgda/with/117465171/ Granted, these still aren't the best representation of the demos, but I'm finding it harder and harder to believe some of the (negative) impressions that came from the event. Judging from some of their impressions, I was somewhat expecting Motorstorm to look like Tourist Trophy for the PS2 or something like that, yet I think it almost looks as good as the prerendered footage from E3 last year (well..from these pics anyway). Warhawk looks pretty nice as well, especially the water (see some foam) and the sky (mostly the clouds). R&C looks awesome, although I think almost everyone said that. I still want some videos from the event to get a better indication on the quality of these demos, but they look pretty nice to me (nothing looks "PS2 quality" IMO). Speaking of nice tech demos, check out this demo from the Project Offset team: http://media.pc.ign.com/media/752/752218/vids_1.html Now, compared to that, maybe some of the demos were a little lacking in the graphics department.
Those first three are the only real impressive ones, imo (though they are still 'tech demos' I guess...I only really care about something like gameplay), while the rest look good, but nothing mind blowing.
It looks like the Warhawk and Resistance demos were gameplay (HUD showing anyway), which wouldn't be so surprising since they've been shown in gameplay form before (BTW, here is the Warhawk showing at TGS). Some of the other demos sounded like they were taken directly from game code (specifically Heavenly Sword). But I guess all this doesn't matter much anymore since it sounds like most, if not all, of those games will be playable (on the PS3 controller?) at E3. The truth shall be let free...or something like that. Again, I'd like to wait until we get a better grasp of these demos via videos or something, but if these pics are any indication, I'd say we could expect impressive visuals come November (and not "PS2 quality" visuals), maybe even approaching some of the prerendered stuff shown at E3 last year (uh-oh, I said it!). I think I read that the Resistance and Warhawk (and maybe more?) demos were based off of old code from December, prior to the lastest devkits. Combine that with 7+ months until launch (5+ with final kits), and it would be interesting to see what they could cook up. We haven't even seen much from the Japanese developers in a while, and some of those studios tend to excel at visuals (Konami, Capcom, Team Ico, Namco, Square-Enix, etc.). While not offering mind blowing visuals, it is nice to see games far from completion already matching (or exceeding) the visuals in say GRAW and Oblivion, two of the most visually impressive next-gen titles so far. BTW, some are speculating that the R&C demo was based off a new engine, co-developed by Insomniac, Naughty Dog, and Sony Santa Monica. I've read that Naughty Dog are furthest along in developing for multi-core CPUs, so perhaps that could explain why that demo looked so impressive. If Bandai can make something that looks somewhat impressive, I can only imagine what those developers could come up with.
Finally, some videos (kind of) of the demos: http://s48.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2AK7XUQRM6B8Y0FHS3Q62NG889 (bunch of demos together, including the R&C clip) http://s48.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=01TNXWIXHD7KM0263J78JE4S24 (Motorstorm Buggy) http://s48.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0YCAX4UZT4M160KVMZNQAJQX4A (Motorstorm motorcycle) Actually, some site has videos of these and posted tons of images from that (all in succession), so people were able to put the individual images together to make those videos. I think those vids are like 8-10 FPS or so. Again, I have a hard time believing why anyone would come away disappointed from watching these demos. That same site has the original videos up for download, but only to paying subscribers. If they become available to non-subscribers, I'll post links to them.
Here are the videos that I was talking about in my earlier post: http://www.shinyidol.com/downloads/warhawk_GDC.zip (Warhawk) down http://studentweb.uwstout.edu/kapszukiewiczs/files/warhawk_GDC.zip (mirror for the link above) http://www.shinyidol.com/downloads/lair_GDC.zip (Lair)down http://studentweb.uwstout.edu/kapszukiewiczs/files/LairGDC_split.zip (mirror) edit: The original host is down. The mirrors only work right now. BTW, the Lair mirror isn't the whole clip; it cuts out some of the things that have been shown before I think. Some torrents (Warhawk, Lair, Motorstorm, R&C): http://www.mininova.org/tor/268977 http://www.mininova.org/tor/268971 http://www.mininova.org/tor/268972 http://www.mininova.org/tor/268974 R&C mirrors: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5m6n1U-pTM http://studentweb.uwstout.edu/kapszukiewiczs/files/ratchet_clank_GDC.zip Motorstorm Mirrors: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6V0TC6kaks http://www.megaupload.com/?d=04FAF0Y1 http://studentweb.uwstout.edu/kapszukiewiczs/files/motorstorm_GDC.zip I'll edit some more in later as the rest get put online. I think R&C will be up next. BTW, I just realized that I never posted this image of Lair in the thread:
