IQGamer's Top 5 Tech Titles For 2010

Over the next couple of months this generation is set to witness another wave of technically proficient and defining titles, following on from last year’s Uncharted 2, this year’s God Of War 3, and Crysis, from a few years back. It’s for this reason that IQGamer has presented you with our top five titles to look out for on a technical level. Games which potentially, will not only push the barriers of what is possible on their respective platforms, but that will also showcase the perfect blend of art and technology fused together for outstanding graphical excellence. Some of these of course will transcend that notion, being as relevant for their gameplay as well as their graphics.

1: Alan Wake

Remedy Entertainment’s unique take of the survival horror genre has been in development for six long years, and in that time scarcely anything has been seen of the title. The recent trailers however, have shown that those six years could well be worth the wait, with an eerie, Stephen King meets Silent Hill style approach to the mood and atmosphere, and a action focused, episodic style of gameplay which looks set to bring freshness to a somewhat worn out genre. Visually, the game looks like being the poster boy for lighting for the 360, with some of the most impressive dynamic lighting seen outside of PS3’s God Of War 3, whilst also providing a range of post process filters, and some amazing texture work.



2: Halo Reach

Microsoft’s 360 exclusive sets to re-write the rulebook of just what is possible on their white box of tricks in the eyes of rabid PS3 fanboys. In reality the 360 has always been capable of such graphical feats, but having a title display them all at the same time is a welcome sign that developers are finally trying to seriously push the machine. ‘Reach’ is one of the first titles to be pushing up too 40 lights sources on-screen at once, from the glow given off from firing your Plasma rife, to the reflections shining off the surrounding lights. In addition, a healthy use of normal-mapping combined with improved texture detail, gives far more depth to the various surfaces found in the game, whilst a higher rendering resolution and trillinear filtering brings up the image quality significantly from Halo 3 and ODST.

There’s more of course, but for now why not check out the impressive gameplay video below, which showcases exactly what we mean.



3: The Last Guardian

More of an artistic inclusion that a purely technical one, but a game nevertheless that has the potential to truly blend artistic beauty with awe-inspiring technical brilliance. We’ve already seen the wonderfully smooth and completely natural looking animation from earlier trailers, which by far moved me in a way most games routinely fail to do, ‘feeling’ alive rather than just looking like it. A mixture of detailed texture work, painted textures, hand drawn inspired main character model, and lovely HDR lighting effects combined with ‘that’ animation make this one to look out for. More intriguing though, will be the bond between the boy and the creature, and the unique gamplay mechanics it could bring to the table. This is easily one of the most exciting titles for us at IQGamer, regardless of any technical merit that might be bestowed upon it.



4: Lost Planet 2

Capcom’s sequel to the 2006 hit is looking every bit as sweet as the first game, with bigger and badder enemies, huge screen-filling bosses, and some of the best particle effects we’ve seen so far on both PS3 and 360. More detailed texturing, improved lighting, better filtering and an overall higher image quality is just some of the things this sequel brings to the table. The first game however, introduced us to much of this anyway, so it will be far more interesting to see how the co-op campaign works out, and how the collecting of alien residue is still required for survival. Despite not being high on many people’s hype list it is right up there on our radar, and we’ll be sure to be taking a long hard look at the game upon its release.



5: Crisis 2

Maybe this one should be higher up on the list but you will find out why not in just a moment. The first game is still, by a long way, the most technically accomplished game ever made. If you have the PC to run it Crysis will push around on ‘enthusiast’ settings pretty much every graphical effect buzzword known to man. And at 1080p 60fps for a short while, if you’re lucky. ‘Crysis 2’ is attempting to do exactly the same thing but with a strong focus on consoles this time around.

The game already seems to be implementing ambient occlusion, along with simulated god-rays, dynamic lighting, volumetric effects and various specular and refraction techniques also. Not too mention particle effects and an impressive real-tie physics system. Sadly, it all currently looks rather poor when shown in high definition on the consoles, with low resolution textures, bilinear filtering, no anti-aliasing, and slightly sub 720p rendering res. These two screenshots here and here show what were talking about, whilst the vid below shows how impressive it can look in motion.



So there you have it, IQGamer’s top five technically advanced titles to look forward to. All of those are definitely no-brainers in terms of graphical might and technology, but some of them might also genuinely take their respective genre’s in altogether different directions, doing for gameplay what others have done for graphics. Or maybe, some will in fact do both, proving we have lots of power and imagination left to be gleamed from the current batch of consoles. Either way you can expect us to be providing our flagship tech analysis on at least three of those above five titles, and most likely full reviews for all of them too.

Lastly, you might be wondering why there aren’t any Wii titles on that list. Well, seeing as it IS a list of the most technically advanced titles coming to consoles, we didn’t think something that can push Nintendo’s little white slab to its limits quite justifies a place amongst titles running and competing on superior hardware. Artistically speaking, both Metroid Other M and Super Mario Galaxy 2 are certainly candidates for the race of ‘best visuals’, just not in the overall technical sense. Although, you cannot deny that both games are technically beautiful, working in and around the constraints of the aging Wii hardware.

Tech Anaysis: Splinter Cell Conviction Demo (360)

For a generation of consoles geared towards high definition content there has been many games which fail to hit this target, instead being rendered in sub-HD resolutions, or worse, in progressive scan standard definition.

Tekken 6, on both platforms, Halo 3 and Final Fantasy XIII on 360, are all recent examples of high profile titles which for whatever reason are given the decision to forgo a true 720p framebuffer, thus not being able to meet the basic HD requirements advertised for two of the three competing consoles. Today, IQGamer can add Sam Fisher’s latest exploits to the list, as Splinter Cell: Conviction becomes the latest casualty in the sub-HD generation.

Splinter Cell: Conviction, exclusive to Microsoft’s Xbox 360, is rendered in 1024x576 with 2xMSAA (multisample anti-aliasing), and marks the first time the franchise on 360 has rendered in anything but a true HD resolution. Double Agent, for those of you who must know, was 720p with no AA, instead using an edge blur technique to recreate the effect.


However, this not so shocking revelation isn’t actually as bad at it seems, though still not particularly great. In fact Ubisoft Montreal has made a number of cleaver technical choices, which help negate the slightly burry, and rough around the edges look the upscaled 576p buffer usually results in.

For one, the game has very few high contrasting edges, being set mainly in the dark or at night time. This means that most of the noticeable upscaling artefacts aren’t really as visible as they could be, and the ones that are, can mostly be clearly seen in brighter areas of the game not completely covered in darkness. Although, in the night time sections outside, there is a slight pixelation effect to most of the sprite and polygon edges in the game, along with plenty of texture shimmering, which disappointingly shows off the upsacled nature without restraint. These parts make the game look far worse than FFXIII or Tekken 6 with regards to the upscale and 576p rendering resolution.


Conviction’s tightly controlled use of specular effects however, prevents any unwanted shader aliasing, as does the inclusion of good texture filtering, which means that there are no shimmering textures to be found, inside at least - another cause of bad aliasing in games. The game uses a combination of anisoptropic/trilinear filtering for it’s textures, resulting in this cleaner look, along with having high quality shadowmaps, which are soft looking rather than the basic hard edge type more commonly used.

In addition, the game features an nice depth of field effect, which blurs objects in close range of the camera, helping reduce any poorly upscaled edges from becoming too noticeable, though you can still see them. This smoothing effect works reasonably well with the 2xMSAA, hiding away some of the jaggies and other upscaling artefacts. However, in various scenes where objects are not shrouded in the darkness of the game’s shadows, and in the night time out side sections, the soft looking nature of the upscaled framebuffer is all too obvious, and reveals its 576p origins.


Despite this, Splinter Cell: Conviction deserves some technical merit. The game features a completely dynamic shadows and lighting system. Every light source in the game is fully reactive with the environment and all objects, including characters, and can be disabled or enabled by the player in various ways. In terms of shadows, all shadows change and react to the player, guards and light sources on screen. So when lights are shot out shadows become wider and less directed, or move when characters do so around the environment.

Backing up this shadows system is a fully custom, completely dynamic ambient occlusion solution, developed in house at Ubisoft Montreal. Whilst we don’t know the exact details on how it works, or the advantages over using traditional SSAO (screen-space ambient occlusion), we do know that according to Ubisoft, their system gives artists greater control and flexibility, whilst maintaining competitive performance wise.


Lastly, we can confirm that Conviction runs at 30fps with very little in the way of slow down. Instead, the game prefers to screen-tear whenever the engine comes under any kind of load. This happens fairly regularly, however it isn’t as bad as you might think, with much of the screen-tearing simply appearing for a brief split-second, and is very slight at best. At its worst, with lines splitting across the screen, it’s pretty harsh and a little distracting.

I’m not too sure that having a mostly solid 30fps is a good trade off for constant, subtle screen-tearing, although saying that, a drop in framerate is more detrimental to image quality than some slight lines appearing over the screen.


Overall, Splinter Cell: Conviction compares with most other upscaled 576p games in the image quality stakes, and exceeds them in certain scenarios. The use of dark environments and minimal contrasting edges helps hide the more obvious of artefacts when indoors, whilst the depth of field effects and MSAA smooth over others still noticeable in the shadows. The use of dynamic lighting and AO is pretty impressive, and combined with the soft shadowmapping, takes your vision away from the upscaled nature of the edges. However, despite this, there are times in which the game just can’t hide its sub-HD resolution, and it never looks particularly sharp as a result. Certainly, compared with true 720p titles, and the 600p Call Of Duty games, it looks somewhat poor in comparison, although it is one of the better upscaled 576p framebuffer games so far.

Ubisoft Montreal has shown, that with the right art design and technical choices, how 576p is not necessarily a no go area for developers, much like with Namco and their home conversions of Tekken 6. However, they still have a lot of work to do before we can say their 576p achievement matches PS3 Tekken 6 (with motion blur turned off) for clarity and sharpness. Saying that, Conviction looks better than Double Agent, a title which rendered in 720p, but used a heavy edge blur effect for an anti aliasing, and in turn better than a lot of other sub-HD games in general. Sadly, the game also has moments in which it looks truly awful, and it’s in these sections, mostly set outside during the night, which bring the whole image quality right down.

For a flagship AAA title, Splinter Cell: Conviction is rather disappointing in the IQ department, with the mixed success of having an upscaled 576p framebuffer combined with some well thought out graphical effects. Had the outdoor areas of the game fared better then it would have made a tangible difference, putting the title visually above most other 576p releases.

Review: Perfect Dark (XBLA)

I was pretty excited to find that Microsoft were releasing the original N64 version of Perfect Dark for XBLA. Having played Golden Eye relentlessly for the best part of a year back in 1999, the chance to finally have a playable version of its spiritual successor was too much to pass up, and an opportunity Rare should have taken advantage of a long time ago. Not least of all because the first Perfect Dark was a superior game to the 2005 sequel and 360 launch title - a game which felt barely like PD or Golden Eye at all - but also because it had so much potential, simply marred by an uncontrollable framerate held back by the constrains of the humble 64bit hardware it was running on.

You, know. I never actually played Perfect Dark when it first came out on the N64, instead sampling it’s flawed delights a few years later, after the Dreamcast had died and during a period in which I was hell bent on expanding my ‘retro’ collection, picking up titles I’d missed along the way. I first played PD around a friend’s house, and was left with distinct flavour of distaste in my mouth afterwards.

Although the game featured much larger level designs and more involving mission objectives, it was also almost completely unplayable for the most part. Slowdown seemed to occur within the slightest hint of more than two enemies appearing on screen, whilst at the same time, the developers though that it would be a great idea to include all kinds of nifty transparency and reflective effects, all to the determent of having a remotely smooth experience.

For the 2010 XBLA release, Perfect Dark has been given a full HD make over with a number of small graphical tweaks and upgrades. The game is rendered in 1080p and now runs at a solid 60fps, without incurring any slowdown or damaging framerate drops at all. It does this in all modes, including the rarely seen 4-player split-screen multiplayer mode lacking from most FPS’s of today.


Some of the game’s textures have seen a resolution upgrade, looking cleaner and clearer as a result, but not so much so as to take away from the slightly blurry look associated with N64 titles in general. The visual effects have also been given a small dose of polish, using more accurate shader effects for all the game’s reflective surfaces – real-time reflections and specualr highlights, rather than just the moving textures seen on the N64 game – whilst also adding in a few other subtle graphical touches. Like in the N64 original, lights can be shot out, gunfire and explosions illuminate areas dynamically, and lights can be shot out to create darkened areas.

What you have here is a fully authentic conversion of the original game, but with all the graphical improvements necessary to make it a completely playable experience – for the most part anyway. The framerate in particular, makes running around and gunning down baddies really good fun for the first time, whilst also bringing to your attention the sometimes dated game design, which has a real tendency to grate on you at various points through the game. This sometimes ruins all the hard work Rare have put into the title in creating a larger and more complex design, fearuring more thought provoking mission objectives, which require a greater degree of planning to overcome compared to those in their previous N64 FPS.


Perfect Dark’s gameplay is comfortably versed in the old-school nature of game design. There is a slightly open-end feel to the whole thing, leaving you free to roam around the levels making your own way to mission objectives, whilst at the same time, the game stubbornly refuses to tell you how they might be accomplished. You won’t find any hand-holding, instead often finding yourself meandering along various rooms and corridors either trying to find the item or person required to trigger the next objective, or just trying to actually find out how to complete said objective without mercilessly killing everyone who gets in your way – which leads to failure many a time I can assure you. Locked doors and dead ends are a plenty, which might leave anyone unfamiliar with the mechanics of decade old first-person-shooters rather lost and confused.

It’s not unusual for the game to require you to keep certain enemies alive in order to make progress through certain stages. However they are never pointed out to you, and in many cases you will probably kill one of the few people required to open a select door to progress, or who holds the item or information you might be after. Most of PD’s mission design is largely trial and error, requiring lots of repeat playthroughs in order to sometimes figure out what is going wrong, or how you should be approaching a certain situation. It is unforgiving and frustrating at the same time, but also slightly refreshing in the sense that it feels more realistic to be dropped inside a foreign complex without any sense of direction, having to track down you intended target based on pretty meagre intel.


Sometimes though, the game will fail your mission due to you accidentally blowing up an item needed to complete it, or because you failed to defend the right target from being assassinated, despite the fact that the target in question, nine times out of ten, is barely recognisable from all the other civilians.

It’s these things which frustrate, showing you how old and creaky the game’s tired and worn design has become. However when these sections are played through again, perhaps for the second or third times, it becomes a wholly more enjoyable experience. Like to a lesser extent with Golden Eye, once you know what to do, and how to do it, you can spend more time in having fun completing mission objectives than instead wondering around working out what they are and why you just failed them again for the third or forth time.

A lack of a directed nature hurts the game badly, but that doesn’t mean to say there isn’t a lot of fun to be had from it. It just means that you are going to need a much greater amount of perseverance to get to that point. At the same time the varied mission structure – which changes the level significantly depending on what difficulty setting you choose – keeps things interesting, especially when an empty room on the ‘Agent’ setting becomes a secret laboratory on ‘Perfect Agent’, which you are then tasked with destroying.


The physics and overall gameplay mechanics whilst dated are still pretty cool to look at for the most part. When shooting enemies in the leg, they will limp around the level until you decide to pop them off; shooting someone in their arm will make them drop their weapon, sometimes putting their arms up and allowing you to give them a good smack around the head; shoulder hits will disable enemies, whilst a shot to the head yields an instant kill. They can also get staggered from being hit, clutching their wounds, or simply kneeling over and dying right in front of you.

In terms of Multiplayer options. Perfect Dark is loaded with modes for both Online and local action. Every mode that supports more than one player is also fully playable online, making the deal so much sweeter. In total there are 6 different game modes, 16 maps, and 43 weapons, with the option to include bots to make up additional players if there aren’t any around. This can be done for both online and local matches keeping things interesting and upping the intensity by having more players on the scene. Split-screen makes a triumphant comeback in XBLA PD, with up to four players battling it out on a single console and TV screen, all the while the framerate doesn’t drop from it’s original 60fps update.


Now if that sounded good, PD also goes further than most FPS’s today with its range of multiplayer options. Along you the campaign and a competitive modes, you also have a Counter-Op mode, which sees one person take control of the enemy characters as the other player attempts to complete the game. You also can play through the standard Campaign mode in two players co-operatively, which can make working out what to do in the missions easier, but also thinks harder at the same time, as if one of you makes a mistake it’s mission over for both of you.

Disappointingly online play comes with a hitch. In all game modes and matches I played online there was noticeable lag. Sometimes this wasn’t particularly bad, and in these cases it worked really well for the most part. However, I was unable to find a single match that didn’t have some form of lag attached to it, which is a bit of a let down considering that it’s by far the biggest draw with this updated version of perfect Dark.

For the most part, Perfect Dark is an antiquated shooter with some particularly clever level design, hindered by the trial and error nature of many of its objectives. Having said that, it is still a highly playable fast and frenetic shooter, tense and particularly involving, it just requires you to adjust and adapt to its decade old gameplay to properly enjoy what it has to offer. Still, this is the first time that the game has been in any kind of playable state – outside of emulation of course – and whilst it isn’t as solidly constructed a game as Golden Eye, particularly with regards to the single player campaign, it is a pretty competent shooter which excels greatly in the multiplayer stakes.


If you’ve been longing for some repeat action in the same vain as that N64 classic, Golden Eye, than look no further. But be warned. Parts of the game have aged badly, and the confusing nature of the level design and mission structure will seem off-putting at first, certainly to those with a rose tinted view on what these games were like. Despite this, Perfect Dark manages to be a better all round package than its 2005 sequel, with original mechanics which feel like they should do with the reworked dual analogue controls, and a still fantastic multiplayer mode. Whilst not perfect, it is perhaps one of the last flagship titles, along with Banjo Tooie, in which Rare still showcases some glimmer of greatness, before sliding down into mediocrity.

Overall, Perfect Dark is worth picking up for fans of the original N64 outing and their other FPS success story Golden Eye. However anyone without prior experience of those titles and their stubbornly old-style method of trial and error progression, should probably avoid as they are unlikely to enjoy what they find. Multiplayer aside, which for a great offline experience, is worth every one of those 800 Microsoft points.

VERDICT: 7/10

Tech Analysis: Final Fantasy XIII (PS3 vs 360)

Final Fantasy XIII has been having a rough ride in the press recently, with both fans and journalists alike quick to critise the linear and almost on-rails nature of the majority of the game. And while we much of their criticism is well justified, we can’t hep but feel that the new Paradigm Shift mechanic, combined with a faster variant of the Active Timer Battle system, make up for the tightly controlled nature delivered in the first 25-30 hrs of gameplay.

One area in which we feel deserves all the criticism being flung towards it, is with regards to Square Enix’s pitiful attempt at cross platform development, simply quick porting across the PS3 code to the 360 without any optimisations, or consideration for the hardware. In that respect FFXIII is nothing short of a travesty, and a disservice to not only Xbox 360 owners everywhere, but also the development community as a whole. Given that the release date for both North America and Europe was pushed back significantly in order to allow for a 360 version to be available on the same day as the PS3, we have every right to expect a far better conversion than what we eventually got.


Also, for this latest Technical Analysis come Head-to-Head feature, we at IQGamer, have decided to cut the fat down just a little, feeling that our exemplary Bioshock 2 analysis was far too long winded for it’s own good. So in that respect, for our latest tech feature, we’re going to be far more concise and straight to the point. All the details of course will still be present and correct, picked over with the same fine toothcomb as before. But unlike in the past, it’s not going to be presented in the way of a 3000 plus word dissertation on the subject. More like our quick, clear, and thoroughly in depth Halo Reach analysis.

As always, we’ll start by stating the rendering resolutions used for both versions of FFXIII, before moving on to cover texture filtering, use of framebuffer effects, etc. You know the drill by now.

Final Fantasy XIII renders in full 720p (1280x720) on the PS3, using 2xMSAA (Multi-Sample Anti Aliasing), whilst on 360 it renders in a meagre 1024x576p, also using 2xMSAA. The outcome of this has a devastating effect on overall image quality and screen clarity, hiding away some of the more detailed textures used, whilst blurring the entire image.

On the 360 version the game renders in little more than Standard Definition resolution, and then is upscaled by the internal game engine to 720p, with the HUD elements being added after the scene has been completed. The scaling on offer is slightly worse than found in upscaling original Xbox games via the 360, creating mildly fuzzy edges on geometry, and blurring many of the finer details clearly visible in the PS3 game. Why Square Enix (SQE) didn’t decide on using the internal scaler found on the Xenos GPU is beyond me, as it definitely does a better job of things. Maybe they were using that particular part of the GPU for something else, or found that it was simply easier to use their own engine for the task.


720p 2xMSAA


576p 2xMSAA

In the above two screenshots you can see those differences we’ve just mentioned and the effect it has on the final look of the game. The PS3 game remains pin sharp, as it’s native 720p with nothing else going on, whereas the 360 game is significantly blurrier as a result of upscaling from 576p. The only consolation is that the use of 2xMSAA on the 360 version allows it to be upscaled with fewer jaggies being visible than if no AA was present, giving cleaner looking edges with less artefacting.

It seems that SQE has resorted to using 576p on the 360 in order to fit the framebuffer into the 10mb EDRAM available whilst still using MSAA, and to avoid titling multiples of that 10mb into main system RAM. Having the game render in 720p with 2xMSAA would mean titling to system memory, whilst incurring additional performance hits with regards to objects present in both titles, so to speak.

With regards to texture filtering, both versions are identical. Neither one uses any kind of AF (Anisotropic Filtering) solution, instead going for the more common Trilinear approach. No doubt this was done to converse the memory footprint so precious when working with the PS3. Although since PS3 effectively features nearly double the amount of texture units on its GPU than compared to 360 – meaning that AF is almost a free commodity – it’s somewhat surprising to the a lack of AF being present on that build.


In addition, the PS3 version appears to not only have more detailed textures than the 360 game, it also features additional texturing not found anywhere in Microsoft’s butchered port. The next screenshot further down shows exactly what is missing in some scenes, and all signs point to it being more than just a case of poor upscaling of a lower resolution image. Although, we did find that many textures are also identical across both platforms, with the 360’s upscaled image hiding some of the detail.

To test out this theory of additional texturing, we actually played the same sections on the PS3 with the console’s video output set to 576p over HDMI, letting our Plasma do the upscaling work. The result was although we had a blurrier image than the 360 game – due to the 360 upscaling the game better than the TV – we also could see that the textures were still more detailed on the PS3 despite the poorer quality upscale.


One area however, which is like for like across both platforms, is the use of Alpha to Coverage (A2C) for transparency effects and particles. When using A2C in order to render transparencies, instead of rendering a whole transparent texture, the A2C produces an interlacing style effect, creating an almost dithered look to things. It’s kind of like a mild screen door type effect, used to half the amount of bandwidth needed for such effects. The advantage is that you can render full resolution transparencies with lower cost than if you were rendering them as a whole solid effect.

All of the transparent elements of characters facial hair, except eyebrows are rendered using A2C, including the hair on their heads, and even eyelashes too. Also, numerous particle, and smoke effects are rendered this way, though not all, to keep bandwidth under control.

The screenshot below shows the A2C at work on both version of the game.


Unfortunately, the 360 version not only uses A2C in order to fit the framebuffer into EDRAM, it also renders lower resolution transparencies as well, due to the reduced overall rendering resolution, making the effects look even worse on that build than they should. The PS3 has no such issues, other than the interlacing style look to anything see-through, because all these effects are rendered in 720p. Quite how SQE couldn’t take advantage of the 360’s near limitless amount of bandwidth to deliver full resolution transparent effects is unknown, but we feel it’s a case of why bother, rather than how, given the short conversion time and rushed approach to 360 development.

In terms of framerate, both versions manage to stay at a mostly stable 30fps. However, it is the 360 build which has a slight advantage here, with us noticing less drops than with the PS3 game. While both drop down to around 20fps at times – without any equipment to measure framerate, we can’t be any more specific – it’s the 360 version which seems to maintain 30fps in close-ups during the in-game engine cut-scenes, whereas the PS3 version tends to slow down slightly. Both versions seem to slow down at similar points in battle sequences, though again, the PS3 slows down slightly more.

Any differences we found between the two were very slight, certainly the PS3 game, when it drops, does so by only a few frames more at worst than the 360 game. This seems to be the only area in which I would say the 360 version hits parity with the PS3 one. Oh that, and the use of 2xMSAA.

Despite these issues, Final Fantasy XIII actually manages to be a very pretty game. In some situations it looks almost stunning to behold, with various HDR lighting effects, reflections, and particles being pushed around on screen. Plus at the same time, featuring some of the most detailed gigantic creatures we’ve ever seen in a game. Lost Planet aside, obviously. In this regard SQE have produced a visual wonderment in which art design is equally important as technical precision, and that goes a long way in constructing its visual impact. Naturally the 360 version also benefits from this too, as the post processing, lighting effects, and beautiful art style, helps in keeping the image clean whilst being upscaled to 720p.

Moving on from in game assets, and into the realm of CGI cinematics, I honestly didn’t expect the 360 version to fair as badly as it did against the PS3 game. After all, if you’re gonna be putting the game on multiple discs, then surely you’d have enough space for some high quality video sequences. Unfortunately not, and SQE have once again taken the quick and easy route in porting the meticulously produced, almost Blu-Ray quality CGI video sequences and transcoded them rather poorly.

Seeing as the both the 360 and the PS3 have full support for allowing for HQ video encoding, it’s a complete mystery to me as to why they didn’t take advantage of that fact. Instead they’ve gone down the route of using much lower bit-rate compression, resulting in a rather poor image. During quick pans, and overall fast motion, the 360’s CGI sequences are filled with macro-blocking and other artefacts, dissolving any fine details to be found.

At least the CGI cut-scenes are rendered in 720p on the 360, which is more than could be said for the actual game itself, although they don’t feel that way.

By contrast the PS3 version features what looks like full 1080p (1920x1080) cinematics, all encoded using far better compression schemes. And whilst they aren’t quite BR quality, due to the lower bit-rate used, they don’t suffer from any of the issues facing the same footage on 360. In fact, on PS3 detail is superbly clean and sharp, with no artefacting.

Arguably, it’s such a shame to see such a disrespect taking place with regards to keeping FFXIII’s trademark cinematics at a high quality. If nothing else, all those long-winded CGI cut-scenes are as much the lifeblood of the franchise, as are the actual turn-based battles, or resilient level grinding seen throughout much of the series. And to see them here, butchered up to make way for a quick and easy multiplatform port, isn’t really fair to the fans, which are ultimately the ones who allow the series to carry on flourishing.


In the end, it’s the PS3 version of Final Fantasy XIII that shines in every area, losing absolutely nothing over the badly butchered 360 port. Not so surprisingly, I’d put 360 FFXIII alongside Tekken 6 and Bayonetta on the PS3, as one of the worst multiplatform developments released by a Japanese software house to date.

However, despite all the technical shortcomings, Final Fantasy XIII is still the same game on 360 as it is on PS3. You’ve still got the lovingly crafted, and utterly captivating storyline to get your teeth into. The battle system, whilst being geared towards newcomers to the RPG genre, also contains numerous depth, making up for the faster pace, and linearity of much of the game. In addition, you also have what could be considered the most polished of all the JRPG’s released so far this generation, especially on the 360, which has seen it’s fair share of failed attempts to reinvigorate the genre.

Even if you only have the option in picking up the 360 version, it is definitely worth doing so, as all those graphical shortcomings won’t tarnish the overall experience for most people, and there’s a whole lot more to Final Fantasy XIII than just how it looks.

Given the choice though, the PS3 version is the one to get, any day of the week. Its full resolution, 720p output, makes it a far more accomplished animal graphically, allowing its art to shine far brighter than on Microsoft’s console. Also, when you are talking about a game that relies so much on visual presentation to carry everything else that goes along with it, you don’t really want to be making any compromises with that on a visual level.

Hopefully, Square Enix will be able to move on from this debacle, putting a greater emphasis on future cross-platform development, whilst taking their time to creating decent multiplatform tools and a versatile engine to go along with them. Because by the looks of it, this is where the industry is heading, and you either keep up or get left behind.

For a rather unorthodox look at Final Fantasy XIII, head over to Beames on Games. It's not quite what you'd expect, making for an entertaining read.

Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing: Demo Impressions

With the recent announcement of Sonic 4, we thought things were starting to look up for Sega’s flagship mascot. That was up until we played through the recently released demo of Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, both on the Xbox 360 and PS3.

The stupidly named game (did they really need the “Sonic?”) sees Sega’s biggest franchises come together in a Mario Kart style racing game, complete with various weapons, traps and character specific power moves. The game also features Sega’s famous drift mechanic to make navigating the courses a faster, more enjoyable experience.

The demos available on the Xbox 360 and PS3 are console specific, with the 360 version taking a Sonic Heroes inspired course, and the PS3 opting for a rather drab Billy Hatcher inspired course. The 360 version also features Banjo and Kazooie as an exclusive racing duo. Other courses seen on the selection screen, but unavailable on the demo, take their inspiration from such Sega gems as Samba De Amigo, The House of The Dead, Super Monkey Ball, Jet Set Radio, Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg and various Sonic titles.

After booting up the demo, you’re presented with a mildly enjoyable, fully rendered opening sequence, after which you can choose your character and course. Waiting on the starting line, I expected to shoot off at 60fps, but that definitely didn’t happen. The opening few seconds of the 360 version suffers from some disappointing slow-down, as does the rest of the demo. The 360 demo never rises above 30fps either, but things are a bit smoother on the PS3. Much like the PS3 version of Sonic Unleashed, the game actually manages a few moments at 60fps, but quickly drops back down to a regular 30fps.

For a racing game, this is disappointing news. The speed of the vehicles and the fast paced nature of the courses and action would have really benefited from a faster frame rate. It’s even more disappointing when you consider that overall, the graphics aren’t really that much more impressive than Sonic Heroes on the original XBox.

Lighting throughout the courses is all pretty standard and the character/vehicle models feel too small to have any kind of visual impact. The various powers up feel very similar and flash by too quickly to leave an impression, as do the character specific power moves.

Ultimately, the core racing gameplay experience doesn’t live up to much either. The game races along at a fast pace, and staying in the lead proves quite tricky for such a simple game. Power sliding has been simplified and watered down in comparison to the likes of OutRun, and lacks any skill to give you a sense of accomplishment when navigating the courses, though the speed boost gained from a successful slide is a welcome addition. Tricks can be performed in the air with a simple tap of a shoulder button, and if successful, you’ll once again be rewarded with a handy speed boost. Traps are laden throughout the courses and in the demo, these included badniks from Sonic’s world, wooden boxes as well as seawater and snow patches to slow you down. These obstacles are easy to avoid and rarely get in the way of racing.

A certain amount of enjoyment can be gleamed from the appearance of Sega's most popular characters, even if they don't all fit into the roster successfully. As expected, Sonic and his companions take up a lot of the slots, but some less well-exploited characters are also thrown into the mix. Shenmue's Ryo Hazuki joins the cast, complete with his borrowed motorcycle. Successfully triggering Ryo's power move will enable you to take his trusty forklift truck for spin and flip the opposition out of the way. Other Sega favourites making an appearance include Ulala, Alex Kidd, Jacky and Akira from Virtua Fighter, AiAi, and Billy Hatcher. It's an impressive line up and certain to please most Sega fans out there.

For such a simple and proven concept, as well as being able to choose from such a rich selection of franchises, Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing should be a nostalgic trip through the history of Sega, but instead, the demo has left us feeling like we'll be presented with yet another messy, technically flawed and unenjoyable experience. The demo never rises above mediocre, leading us to believe that the final game is destined to join the ranks off all the other Mario Kart pretenders that have come and gone over the years.

Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing is released on February 26, and is available on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS and PC.

Tech Analysis: Bioshock 2 (PS3 - 360)

Earlier this week we brought you our in-depth analysis on the technically proficient Dante’s Inferno, a game that impressed us with its startlingly solid approach to achieving almost 100% parity across both PS3 and 360, and if it weren’t for a slight horizontal blur on the 360 version, it would have been absolutely identical. Now at IQGamer we roll out the same treatment for Bioshock 2, going over every detail with a fine toothcomb seeing just how close both PS3 and 360 versions are, and of course take a look at the reasons behind any technical differences we find.

First impressions of Bioshock 2 are rather good, there initially seemed to be very little in the way of differences between both versions of the game, with texture detail being very similar and sharpness being pretty much equal. Lighting looked also to be on par for both PS3 and 360, with the only difference I noticed were with regards to the gamma levels being lower on 360, making for some loss of shadow detail in dark areas. However just a few minutes into the game things began to change, and it was extremely clear than something was going on with regards to how the effects were rendered in both versions, and the impact it was having on overall image quality.

Before I go into detail about those changes I’ll start by saying that Bioshock 2 renders in 720p (1280x720) for both platforms, with the 360 gaining an image quality advantage from having 2xMSAA (multi-sample anti-aliasing) and the PS3 version once again having no AA solution whatsoever, though a slight edge blur is present without affecting edge sharpness to any detriment. The level of sharpness with regards to the actual geometry is identical across both platforms, and this only changes when certain visual effects are present, in which case the PS3 game seems to blur noticeably over the 360 one.



In terms of texture detail and filtering, there are advantages and disadvantages on both versions to consider. These are the same ones we find on most cross platform PS3/360 ports or conversions. The 360 game seems to have a very slight edge in texture quality and detail, though not always in all circumstances. In most areas textures are actually identical across both platforms, and in other areas in which some textures seem blurrier on PS3, they are in fact the same as on 360, with the blurring caused by the lower resolution alpha and transparency effects being rendered.

In terms of texture filtering, anisotropic is present on the PS3 with 360 instead using the older trilinear method, meaning that texture detail is clearer from further away on PS3, which can lead to some of that version’s less detailed textures actually looking more detailed from a distance.

The PS3 also sees a small advantage in the area of texture streaming and with the LOD system present in the game. When playing through both versions one thing that did strike out at me was that texture pop-in was a semi-regular occurrence on 360, with on some occasions in which the higher quality mipmap would load in only a few feet away from the object you were approaching. This issue was quite infrequent and by and large didn’t affect the most prominent areas of scenery. By contrast when playing the PS3 game I noticed hardly any texture pop-in whatsoever, despite the fact that the extra level of filtering made it easier to spot any potential issues with this problem.

The reason behind this seems to stem from the fact that the PS3 game is streaming textures directly from the Hard Drive, in which there is a 5GB mandatory install, whereas the 360 is having to load them in directly from DVD. Essentially the PS3 has greater available bandwidth to do this via the HDD compared to 360’s DVD drive, which allows it to push through more higher quality textures at faster speeds, though not necessarily displaying more texture detail, as this is still limited by the system’s internal RAM.

Earlier we mentioned that there was a noticeable difference on how each version renders its transparency and alpha effects. Basically on PS3 all effects are rendered in as little as a quarter of HD resolution, whilst they are of full resolution on the 360. As we have pointed out before in our Dante’s Inferno comparison, this is done on the PS3 to save bandwidth as there is much less available than on Microsoft’s console. The PS3 only has around 21.6GBs per-second worth of bandwidth available for framebuffer effects compared to a huge 250GBs that the 360 can draw upon. This means that in order to render all the same visual details they have to be displayed at a lower resolution in order to fit into the bandwidth requirements of the PS3.



The effects of this can be seen above. Notice how the water running down the stairs is much blurrier than the surrounding stairwell and the stairs themselves. The same thing can be seen with almost all water, fire and particle effects in the game. It does mean that although textures are almost the same in both versions, the lower resolution effects tend to blur out those very same textures on the PS3. Basically the high res bump mapping and texture detail is effectively being displayed at a lower resolution and upscaled every time a transparency or alpha-based effect is rendered on top of them. With this happening frequently - as Rapture is an underwater city, leaking and slowing decaying with age - you find that the entire scene has a tendency to blur when all these visual effects are present, thus negating any advantage the PS3 version might have had with its use of better filtering and superior LOD system.

These lower res effects also feature less animation than those of the 360 game, with most of the water effects being affected, along with some rather strange errors when it came to rendering certain flame effects, and seemingly random objects in Rapture’s various rooms. Some pixallation occurs when viewing these at various angles and at long distances, and although this isn’t as apparent up close, you can still see that something doesn’t look quite right. In addition it seems that there is less, or more subtle use of bump mapping on the PS3 when compared to the 360. Sometimes it appears that the levels used are the same, at other times it seems like the PS3 is lacking in that department. Perhaps the reduced resolution alpha effects are to blame, as in areas in which there is very few of them, the bump mapping appears to be much better and can reach parity with the 360.

However there are many times when the use of lower res buffers hardly impacts upon image quality at all, looking nigh on indistinguishable from the 360 version. From what I’ve observed, this mainly applies to pools of water located on the floor in small dark corridors, or areas with low light levels. In these cases texture detail, bump mapping and IQ of the effects looked only slightly worse, and sometimes pretty much identical, showing that you don’t always need the technical advantage to produce similar results. Unfortunately this is the exception rather than the rule when talking about Bioshock 2.

You see, another issue is that these reduced resolution effects, and strangely rendered texture anomalies on the PS3 also give the game a slightly more washed out look than the 360 one. Differences in gamma between both versions we also believe attributes to this as well. The 360 game has lower gamma levels than the PS3 which means any details in really dark areas suffer from a slight black crush. Even after calibrating both consoles and the TV, the two versions couldn’t be matched up in a way that didn’t reduce the black levels of the 360 version, whilst still failing to reveal shadow detail. It’s not a massive difference, and doesn’t impact in the enjoyment of the game in any serious way, although people playing the PS3 version first will certainly notice.



Performance wise there are similar trade-offs but between smoothness and screen tearing. The PS3 version suffers from next to no screen tearing whatsoever when compared to the 360, though it does slow down more frequently in heavy battle scenes with lots going on.

Bioshock 2 runs at a near constant 30fps for most of the time, with only occasional screen tear and slow down only really occuring when lots of stuff is happening on screen at once. Occasionally I’ve noticed that the game will tear for a split second just randomly as you are venturing along Rapture’s many corridors and communal areas. Not sure why this happens, and it doesn’t seem to be performance related. The most likely candidate is triple buffering, in which the game renders several frames as a back up in case one or more of the frames are torn. It appears that occasionally the game loses one or two of its frames to tearing, and the triple buffering system accidentally displays one of those instead of a clean frame.

This however comes as a cost to the framerate, and when the PS3 game slows down it does so more frequently than the 360 one and for longer. The controls tend to suffer slightly as a result, loosing responsiveness for a brief second or two on top of the slight lag caused by the use of triple-buffering.

With the 360 game the framerate is a much steadier affair, although in response you get a greater amount of tearing. What looks to be happening isn’t always a case of a greater volume of tearing, though this does happen, and much more than you might think, but rather when the tearing occurs, it simply stays on screen a little longer than when the same thing happens on PS3. On the 360 the game also tears frequently in the overscan area of the picture, something that never occurs on PS3. Now this is an area that you simply cannot see unless you turn off the overscan option on your TV. So for 99% of people it won’t be seen at all, and naturally because of this, won’t impact in any way on your experience of the game.

In terms of performance there is no clear winner here. The PS3 drops framerate more often but has virtually no screen tear, and the 360 one doing the opposite; suffering from a greater amount of tearing but having much less in the way of slow down, making the game a smoother more responsive experience. Either way both versions present the gamer with a smooth enough engrossing experience, and the slow down on PS3 doesn’t prevent you from really enjoying the game, as it doesn’t happen very often.

In the end whilst both versions of Bioshock 2 are excellent in their own right, it is the 360 version which takes the lead, with it’s higher resolutions effects, better bump-mapping and smoother framerate, making for an all round more immersive experience. The PS3 game with its low resolution effects, although still a great game and one which looks pretty damn good at times, ventures into a slightly blurry mess on occasions when lots of water, transparencies and particles are on screen. Sadly that can be pretty often, which is a real shame as these effects are integral to helping create Bioshock’s wondrous and foreboding atmosphere.

Either way if you only have a PS3 don’t be discouraged, as many of the issues seen here are not always apparent, plus you get next to no screen tearing and a still very good looking game (in many places at least), just not as technically accomplished one.

Overall if you have both systems and given the choice, I’d say that the 360 game is the one to get.

If of course you've had enough of reading about all this tech stuff, or simply looked at those pictures instead, head on over to Beames on Games for the full review of Bioshock 2.