i really don't have too much interest in what cut scenes will look like, but if one of thses systems gets a first person shooter to look like the first 10 or 15 seconds of that trailer before snake shows up, i'll be impressed. that looked awesome.
I do think the game will look great, there's no doubt about that. I'm just not going to assume that a tech demo is a fair representation of what the gameplay will look like. New consoles are always overhyped, maybe this game will live up to the hype and maybe it won't, I'm going to wait and see. And personally, I thought the FF7 movie looked just as good as this one so it's not like it's a great surprise that the PS3 is capable of that.
Gameplay doesn't mean 'will look as good'. (Speaking of which, I really should get a reply up for you in the other thread ) More than likely it will be pretty close to 'looking that good' - only because Kojima generally dislikes prerendered and it clearly looks much more realistic than Killzone, but it doesn't say anthing about how it will play. It's a movie. Yet, and only because it's Kojima, I have a lot of faith that the game will be great. It is Metal Gear Solid. Despite the fact he's said in the past he was ready to move on or distance himself from the series (IIRC), I love his creativity and ingenuity and look forward to his work. But a prescripted, perfectly detailed movie - with what may or may not be the graphic level of a currently incomplete system - still isn't 'gameplay'.
I should have worded my question better. The question wasn't whether the game would look that good (the cutscenes should have no problem meeting that detail). My question for you was would the gameplay look that good, and if you don't think so, what leads you to believe that? My fault for not specifying that. As for not believing it due to hype, that would be a good reason...if the game wasn't being made by Kojima. Had Guerilla studios done this, I could understand the skepticism. Had the Getaway team done this, I could understand the skepticism. But this was a game by Hideo Kojima. It is like a "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me" situation. The same things being said now were said ~5 years ago, and Kojima showed the skeptics what was possible on a next-gen system. Now he's doing it again, but still seeing the same skepticism. Although even if it wasn't Kojima, completely disregarding a trailer or tech demo would probably not be a good idea IMO. The PS2 tech demos were met early (by Ridge Racer and Tekken easily, off the top of my head). May have seemed like a bunch of hype at the time due to the substantial leap in visual quality, but it wasn't. As for the FF7 movie-MGS 4 comparison, while MGS 4 is approaching CGI level in realtime, they are far apart in overall detail. As Drexlerfan22 pointed out, there are still minor imperfections in MGS 4, which would be pretty hard to find in FF7:AC (if there's any at all). MGS 4 amazed me since it was all in realtime, but I was equally (if not more) amazed with the FF7:AC detail, even though I expected a high-level of quality from it. Maybe you could compare MGS 4 to PS1/PS2 CGI, or even some movie CGI, but there isn't really much of a comparison to the best looking CGI out there. I would be EXTREMELY surprised if the PS3 could do FF7:AC visuals in realtime. I'm not even sure if the PS4 could do it for sure, although it might have a shot. I don't think anyone was trying to get impressions of how the game would play based on the trailer. I've seen gameplay clips of tons of Xbox 360 games, and I still don't know for sure how some will play. However, I have pretty good guess of what those games will look like, just like MGS 4. BTW, don't know if you heard, but Kojima said he will move on after MGS 4 (3rd time he's said that, IIRC). He might mean it this time though, considering the situation in MGS 4. I would like to see a ZOE 3 on the PS3. Explain to me how the realtime cutscene wouldn't be a good indication of what the gameplay would look like. Again, with good LOD effects, 30 FPS instead of 60 FPS, more advanced hardware, and more development time, I don't see how the gameplay couldn't look as good as the trailer, at least to the human eye. While the animations were prescripted, I wouldn't be surprised if they were simulated in the game engine, not to mention that Kojima is focusing on great animation.
No,I don't think the gameplay will look that good. If gameplay and cutscenes are at the same level then the developer is either holding back on purpose to make them consistant or doesn't know how to take advantage of the situation. There's too much extra processor time used in gameplay for stuff like AI and lighting that can be put to other uses during a predetermined cutscene, therefore cutscenes are more likely to look better. And I don't put Kojima on any sort of pedistal, when gameplay footage is released then I'll accept that, until then it's just pretty graphics. In my FF7 comparison I was refering to the tech demo that was shown at E3 of the original FF7 being shown on the PS3.
And how do we know that the cutscenes and gameplay would be at the same level? If the game was done and ready to be shipped tomorrow, I'd agree with what you said. But again, make the game 30 FPS and give Kojima more time and better hardware and the gameplay could look as good as the trailer (at least, as good as any of us could tell). And of course, the cutscenes could look even better as well. I just don't understand why some of you would be so skeptical of such an impressive demo. That is about as far as you go without getting gameplay footage, so I don't understand why you would completely disregard it. If nothing else, a few moments in the trailer were gameplay-esque (first 10-15 seconds of FPS, and a few zoomed out shots). Sorry about that. When I see "FF7 movie" I don't often think of the tech demo first, especially since the movie was just "released." Although in that case, I still disagree with you, although in the favor of MGS 4. The FF7 tech demo was one of the better demos IMO, but I don't really see any comparison between the two. I mean: to this And that's not even mentioning that MGS 4 looks WAY better in motion than in screen shots. edit: I think noize also brings up some good points about the MGS series in particular below.
If you ever played any of the MGS series especially part 2 and 3, you know just by your own eyes that the cut-scene are directly composed from the gameplay-graphics. The only diffrences as I stated previously, is that the cutscene, besides the preset camera angle, just adds certain special effects such as motions blur,scaling to make it look like a movie so of course its gonna look a little better. The main polygon and texture details is the same and thats the most important part. You want proof? Just put in MGS2/3 and watch the beganning cutscene and monitor the texture details carefully and then once gameplay starts, switch to FPS mode and look around your surrounding textures. Unless you have a very bad eyes, you can't tell me that you don't see how both the in gameplay and cutscene are identical as far as poygonal count and textures detail. What make you think Kojima goin to break this trend in MGS4? I believe the reason why they didn't show in-gameplay simply b/c of time constraint as they only had 3 months to come up with the footage. AI and lighting processing takes a freakin long time to implement in gameplay especially on an alpha/beta kit that they had no choice but to come up with a pre-scripted cutscene. You probally be asking, then why they didn't come up with a scripted in game-play? Well, for the simple reason I stated above and that the cutscene just looks better overall and its a good representation of the power of the PS3 and i think he succeeded with its smooth 60fps animation.
RC, are you sure that the FF7 tech demo is not cgi/prerendered? If so then I don't its a fair comparison to the real time footage of MGS4, and even that, MGS4 looks pretty good goin up against a pre-rendered game.
No, it was realtime. edit: If you want something more, here's a quick search at IGN that indirectly says it is real-time: http://ps3.ign.com/articles/637/637948p1.html I could find a better link with the words coming straight from SE, but if you could just take my word for it, it will be a lot easier.
Sorry to bring this back, but I saw some good comparison pics of some cutscenes/gameplay in MGS2 and MGS3. They seem to support what noize was saying, IMO: MGS 3 Cutscene MGS 3 Ingame MGS 2 Cutscene MGS 2 Ingame Going along with what noize was saying, I read elsewhere that they used the same models for the cutscenes and the gameplay. So again, unless Kojima is doing something he has never done before, I don't see why you wouldn't get at least REALLY close to the detail of the trailer. BTW, until we get a REAL direct-feed, the following is probably the best quality out there: http://www.bromagames.com/stuff/mgs4.avi The picture has been tweaked a bit to show off the detail a little more. I didn't even see the airplanes in the others, not to mention the dust particles and the trash flying around. In fact, I don't even think I noticed Snake sneaking around in the others. Gamespot and IGN also have some articles about the trailer (Kojima is funny and crazy): http://ps3.ign.com/articles/651/651960p1.html http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/adventure/metalgearsolid4/news_6133820.html Apparently, one of the reasons Snake is old is because old people have wrinkles, which can be used to show off the rendering techniques of the PS3.
Good example there RC, even though there're better ones. The perfect example is when in part 3, right after you cross the bridge the camera switches to a cut-scene of Snake viewing the abandoned warehouse. Once the gameplay start, I moved snake to the exact location to where he was in the cutscene and view the warehouse(fps), and it looks identical to the cut-scene. Like you said, the models(polygon) are identical along with the textures in the environment. I don't know why its soo hards to see this for some people. My only guess is that the added special effect like motion blurs and such makes it look better naturally...also the pre-set camera angle makes it look better to which Kojima is really good at, trying to make it look like a movie. The bottom line here, in a technical stand point, there's no diffrent between cut scene and in-game play graphics other then the added special effect(not all the time) and pre-set camera angle. IF your're a MGS fan, you should already know this and also know that Kojima hates pre-rendered stuff and his goals is to to try make his game as realistic as possible which means making the transition from cut-scene to game play and vice versa as natural as it can be. I see know reason why he would break this trend in MGS4...I'd be shocked if he did.
Bingo! With so much cut scenes and dialogue in MGS, this consistency is important to sustain immersion throughout the game. Kojima said so as much himself back in 1997.
