Tech Report: Gears Of War 3 Teaser Trailer

With the Gears Of War 3 trailer finally unveiled yesterday, along with a splattering of pre-release information and interesting technical facts, we though it was time yet again to bring about another tech report. This time we’ll be focusing on this week’s teaser trailer and talking about the visual enhancements planned for the title, what they mean and how they could be included when it comes to the final game.

Currently there isn’t all that much to go on. Outside of the trailer - which we’ll be analysing in a moment - only a handful of new graphical features and visual effects were mentioned, and of course the intention to further optimise the title for the 360 architecture. However today’s IQGamer report will be just the first of many, and we shall be updating you every step of the way as new information surfaces. It will be interesting to see how the first in-game shots really stack up to Gears 1 & 2, and how many of the cut visual effects from the second game make it back in, if they in fact do so.


In terms of new graphical effects, Epic Games plan to include a global illumination system in Gears 3, along with indirect lighting, an intentional side effect of GI, and increased amounts of particle effects and specular highlighting. Other undisclosed improvements to the overall game engine are also being coded into the latest version of the Unreal Engine 3, mostly in the way of optimisations with regards to existing features found in the tech.

The first of these, a form of global illumination, is a technique in which a single light source reflects and bounces off every surface it comes in contact to. And whilst something that advanced isn’t going to be possible on the 360 in its entirety, a semi-real-time, pre-calculated approach is certainly on the cards.

The second is that as a result of the inclusion of GI, we can expect there to be a lot more in the way of indirect lighting, a side effect from the light bouncing off one source and providing lighting for another. This in turn will create better ambient lighting relying less on pre-baked shadow and light maps, more dynamic in nature, hopefully being done in real-time, of half real, half pre-baked for an effective but cost saving (resource wise) approach.

Both of these effects should go a long way to increasing the sense of depth and realism into the experience, at the same time complementing the use of baked ambient occlusion and shadow maps nicely.


Looking at the trailer itself it’s pretty clear that a few of the new effects, such as indirect lighting and improved specular highlighting are visible. Although there doesn’t appear to be any sign of the GI solution they mentioned.

The trailer seems to be rendered using in-game assets and the actual in-game engine, though it doesn’t appear to have been done in real time. Much like with the first Gears 2 trailer there appears to have a higher image quality compared to both of the first two games, with better texture filtering and less noticeable aliasing. However the trailer also shows off a few low resolution textures and still doesn’t feature a useable MSAA anti-aliasing solution, meaning that in all likelihood it is a genuine in-engine rendered, which could well be matched in the final game. The trailer looks like it’s being rendered in 1080p and downsampled for AA, rather than having actual MSAA for jaggies reduction.

You can also see much greater texture detail as well compared to before. Characters now have facial hair which has a sense of depth about it rather than being just a flat texture. This is done through the use of shader techniques in combination with normal mapping, which seems to also have been improved over Gears 2. Geometry counts looked to have been upped slightly too, which would explain, along with the shaders, how a lot of that extra detail has been included. I would imagine that whilst some elements have less geometry than in previous games, due to better shader usage, other areas of the game would have benefited from a slight increase in order to give more detail.

The use of shadow maps and baked ambient occlusion appears to be present, with the AO looking to be more prominent than before, and the shadow maps creating contrast to parts of the environment not being directly affected by the game’s lighting system.


The above screenshot shows off clearly most of the new graphical effects that were mentioned earlier on. For example there is an abundance of particle effects on screen being kicked up the giant Locust boss character, and everyone from the Gear’s themselves to the standard Locust enemies have more sheen and a smoother look generally provided by better specular and diffuse maps.

Like with Gears 2 the gunfire lights up the environment surrounding the characters, although this time its reach is greater than before, reacting with increased intensity with environmental specular and diffuse maps. In addition the lighting from above the clouds also creates subtle light and dark areas on the ground, encasing characters in shadows and light as the clouds move and pass over them.

Whilst it isn’t possible however, to see any of the indirect lighting that Epic has stated would go into the game, the overall basic lighting and shadowing model has seen noticeable improvement over the first two games. With GI and indirect lighting it should look even better, even though the implementation is likely to be a simple one in order to maintain engine performance.

So far, whilst it looks better than previous the early trailers and tech demos for Gears 2, this Gears 3 trailer only scratches the surface of the improved lighting, although both the particle effects and shaders have seen significant improvements. The GI solution that Epic are working on for the title should make all the difference, and as long as they keep the image quality increases shown in this trailer we should be expecting another technical showcase for the 360.

Well, that’s all we know for now, and everything we can establish from the very short and hardly revealing teaser trailer for the game. Some of the things we pointed out weren’t exactly new to the series, but simply refinements to an existing graphical base of the Unreal Engine 3. As development progresses we expect to see much more in the way of improvements, mainly in the form of the GI lighting, and hopefully a proper anti-aliasing solution as well.

Either way this short little demo already looks to have better tech than in Gears 2, and all that remains to be seen, is how well Epic will do in keeping all the features introduced in forthcoming trailers in the actual final release build of the game.

IQGamer will be following the progress and development of Gears Of War 3 closely, with more tech news and analysis as it breaks.

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.

Review: Castlevania Rondo Of Blood (Wii VC)

Most of you won’t be at all familiar with Castlevania Rondo Of Blood. The game was released overseas in Japan only, and was exclusive to NEC’s 16bit PC Engine, otherwise known as the TurboGrafx 16 in the USA, or just TurboGrafx for its unofficial and extremely limited release in Europe. A conversion of the game finally arrived in all territories in 1995 on the Super Nintendo. However it was a very different game than Rondo Of Blood despite sharing most of its aesthetics with that title. Levels had been redesigned, and many gameplay elements had been removed, due mainly because of the difficulty in Konami working with NEC in doing a direct conversion.

As a result the Super NES version, called Castlevania Vampire’s Kiss in Europe, had been cut down and simplified, featuring only two alternative routes to play through compared to the PC Engine’s four, as well as less frames of animation and simpler sprites for certain bosses and levels. Although the storyline and much of the graphics were in fact shared between the two games, making Castlevania VK an actual conversion as well as a reworking. Either way it was inferior in every way to the PC Engine CD-Rom original, which thankfully we have here in all its glory, available for the first time worldwide on Nintendo’s Virtual Console.

Rondo Of Blood is in many ways a traditional Castlevania game. It’s still the same side-scrolling action-adventure style platform game you’ve come to expect, which sees you running around as another Belmont, armed with his trusty whip, wading through various stages bringing death to the undead, all the while trying to save as many villagers and innocent citizens as you can. At one point in the game, saving a village maiden known as Maria allows her to become playable later on in the game, adding a slight change in gameplay for the title, which is pretty cool.


Though in Rondo there are no upgrades to your whip, various other weapons can be picked up and used through the game. These include axes, daggers and holy water, which are classed as sub-weapons and can be found by breaking open the torches and candelabra found through the levels whilst exploring. You can only carry one of these sub-weapons at a time, and have the ability to used them in something called an ‘Item Crash’, which basically allows a sub-weapon to be used in a super attack, either directing damage to all enemies on-screen or delivering concentrated blows to one specific area depending on which of the sub-weapons is used.

Like with previous Castlevania titles the game initially directs you down a linear path, allowing you to explore the route it has chosen for you at your leisure. However the middle of each stage is particularly open, allowing for plenty of exploration and some backtracking if need be, which is something not really seen in the series until later instalments. In fact, the overall style of gameplay to be found in Rondo is very similar to that of series favourite Symphony Of The Night, but featuring concentrated doses of multiple routes and branching paths, rather than a whole scrolling labyrinth full of them.

The levels generally start off in a linear fashion before opening up in the middle, and finally closing back up again near the end as you approach the obligatory boss battle. Somewhere in the middle of the stage, the route you go down dictates what the following stage will be. In Rondo there are eight stages in total, but you will only need to finish four of them in order to complete the game. In addition each of the stages also has more than one ‘end’ as it were, just to further expand upon the series growing beyond its original linearity.


In many ways Rondo acts as a bridge between the earlier Castlevania titles and the modern Symphony Of The Night with its non-linear progression and multiple paths. However the style apes Castlevania III on the NES the most, in which players also had a number of routes they could go down each being different linear path they could take. It’s quite interesting to see how the series progressed from straight up platform action, to a Metroid type platform adventure, later coming complete with RPG elements.

While I was playing through the game I also noticed that many of the enemies are the same one found in SOTN, as is the main character for a certain part of the game before taking on the role of Alucard (in SOTN). The visual style, from the sprite work to the overall art design contained within also match up, and act as a continuation of what began right here with Rondo. Most impressively, and this is something I didn’t know, is that Rondo is a direct prequel to SOTN. And when you eventually reach the end of the game, it sets itself up for its sequel, which plays out the same final battle against Dracula found right here. Sadly, I haven’t quite got to the end yet, instead finding my self repeatedly dying somewhere along in the third stage.


Taking all this into account, except the last part about dying, Rondo is not only one of the best games in the castlevania series, but also one of the best side-scrollers of the 16bit generation. It also happens to be, in my opinion the best Castlevania game of that particular era, with some nice sprite artwork, filled with smooth animation and intricate little details, whilst combining the series early flagship gameplay with a taste of the open-worldness yet to come. The game even uses parallax scrolling in the background plane, something not found in too many PC Engine titles.

At four levels long, you might also be inclined to think that the game is relatively short, but don’t count on it. Stages whilst being large, aren’t massively huge in size. They are however, pretty damn tough to clear, with high levels of enemy AI showing no mercy, and with Ritcher himself highly prone to taking damage. Perhaps the biggest thorn in your side comes at the expense of the game’s rather stiff jumping mechanics, which feel more like a throwback to the NES games than later instalments. In addition your attack range is somewhat limited, making combat feel pretty restrictive at times and death that little bit easier to bring upon yourself.


To be honest, this is only to be expected for a game of this age being nearly seventeen years old, and it isn’t something which breaks the game in any way, just something which shows how much of a cakewalk this series has become, and how stiff the series used to feel compared with later instalments. Although I’d like to call it ‘a respectable challenge’ rather than a cakewalk, but hey, frustrating as it can be, the challenge works rather well by providing a much needed sense of achievement.

In terms of music and effects, the soundtrack has been compressed down from its original CD format, although I couldn’t honestly say if it was of a lower quality as a result not having the original version to hand. All the effects however are accurate, and sound exactly like they did on the PC Engine version. That is to say they come across as sounding a little too much towards the 8bit side of things, despite the system being capable of vastly superior audio. Like with the gameplay issues, much less to be honest, they don’t really take a lot away from the experience. And there’s a certain charm to it all, which if taken away wouldn’t represent the game faithfully as intended.


Castlevania Rondo Of Blood in many ways could almost be talked about in the same way that SOTN is fondly remembered. This game was arguably the first to really consider branching paths and open-ended level design in a way that none of the NES titles ever could, providing gamers everywhere with a challenging, but tightly designed and extremely well animated 16bit adventure.

For most of you, this Virtual Console release will be the first time any of you will have had a chance to play what is now a cult classic amongst fans, and one which I think is definitely well worth picking up. Fans of later games like SOTN and later games shall enjoy the combination of old and new elements, and although the difficulty is arguably a little too high, and the animations a little too stiff, that shouldn’t put anyone off from diving in and enjoying one of the most impressive forgotten games from the 16bit era.

VERDICT: 8/10

Like with most Virtual Console titles, Castlevania Rondo Of Blood can be played in its original 240p resolution via an RGB scart lead, or in 480i/480p via component.

Tech Report: Inside The iPad

I’ve been wanting to write a feature on the iPad for some time now, but I simply haven’t had the time to do so. What with so much to cover for the site already, in addition to working another job, well over a month has past since my initial thoughts on the subject. The other idea was to put together another a short tech feature for IQGamer revealing what makes Apple’s iPad work, and how this shiny handheld tablet compares graphically to the PSP and the last generation of home consoles. This also hasn’t been possible; as up until recently there has only been rumours and well-placed guesswork of just what is contained in Apple’s mysterious A4 chip in the heart of the device.

However, now that the machine is finally out, and has been stripped apart by everyone interested in doing so, I can finally bring you that hardware feature for IQGamer, revealing exactly what is the A4 chip, and how it makes the iPad compare to its siblings and Sony’s competent handheld.

The Apple A4 is a package on Package (POP), system-on-a-chip (SOC), designed by engineers at Apple and manufactured for them by Samsung. It is a combination of a CPU, GPU and video decoder all on a single chip. The design of the A4 is based partially on the ARM Processor architecture, and runs at 1GHz, containing a Cortex-A8 CPU core. The CPU is faster than the one used inside previous iPod Touch and iPhone models, thus giving the iPad a higher pixel fill-rate than its siblings, along with greater vertex processing power if developers perform this on the CPU instead of the GPU.

In terms of the GPU, which previously was speculated to be an Img Tech SGX core, but slightly higher up in the family, turns out to be pretty much bang on the money. The iPad uses an Imagination Technologies Power VR SGX535 GPU located on the SOC, and is the very same one found inside both the third-gen iPhone and iPod Touch. The iPhone 3GS still has the most available GPU power per pixel however, using a slightly more advanced version of the same part.

The SGX535 inside the iPad is clocked at 200MHz, and has a pixel fill-rate of 500 million pixels per-second, with a maximum memory bandwidth of 4.2 Gigabytes per-second. It can move up to 28 million polygons per-second, although that number is clearly a theoretical maximum, at best being only possibly obtainable in a direct to hardware customised approach with regards to software development. I don’t for one minute expect the iPad to perform anywhere near close to those numbers, especially with Apple’s software abstraction layer heavily covering direct access to the GPU architecture. Instead, something more along the lines of 6 million polygons per-second, perhaps matching the PSP but with extra visual effects is what is likely to be possible.

Impressively the SGX535 supports Shader Model 4 and Open GL 2.0 for the iPad, so it is capable of performing various graphical effects far above that of Sony’s PSP and the entire range of last-generation consoles. Memory size and bandwidth, along with a closed box development environment, and close to direct to metal access, is required for all these advanced graphical effects to be viable in high-end games. Certainly, with Apple’s incredibly restrictive heavy layer of API used to program and control the GPU, we don’t expect any Xbox 1 style visuals, or performance which exceeds that of last-gen machines. Although things like better bump-mapping and specular highlighting should be present, as we’ve already seen them on the existing iPhone, and iPod Touch software in limited quantities.

Also on board the A4 we find an enhanced/customised version of the VXD370 IMG video decoder chip, called the VXD375 (according to the video driver), and which is used for all video encoding and processing on the iPad. Though it isn’t known whether the GPU or CPU itself also helps out with such duties, I imagine that they would in certain instances. The chip sits right between the VXD370 and 380 in terms of capability, obviously customised by IMG Tech for the iPad, and is part of the VXD video encoder chip family consisting of the 370, 380 and 390, which are all public versions of the chip.

Lastly, the iPad features two 128 MB DDR2 SDRAM chips, and is connected to the processor using a 64bit wide data bus, compared to a 32bit bus used inside both the iPhone and iPod Touch, meaning that more memory bandwidth is available for the SGX535, which could lead to better performance over the other third-gen devices.

This was confirmed from the K4X2G643GE RAM part number on the A4. Although the RAM itself isn’t actually on the A4 chip, but rather sits on the top package of the POP.

Surprisingly the iPad itself isn’t really that much more powerful, if at all, than the current top end iPhone or iPod Touch, with simply an increase in memory bandwidth providing any potential graphical acceleration over the current models. Smoother framerates and an obvious increase in particle and shader effects is one benefit such an upgrade would provide. But it remains to be seen how much optimisation Apple’s latest OS for the task in hand, as better hardware can only go so far.


So how does the iPad compare to Sony’s PSP, a machine which has proven itself to be a little powerhouse in the handheld world despite lacking numerous hard-wired visual effects, and no programmable shaders to speak of?

Well, given the restrictions imposed by Apple’s dominating OS and API layer, actually very well. The PSP at best can be seen regularly pushing upwards of 4 to 6 million polys per-second, whilst from existing iPhone and iPad games like Resi 4 and Doom 3, you could roughly guess that Apple’s hardware is capable of pushing a good 8 million or so in a best case scenario, between 4 and 6 in others much like the PSP. In most cases the hardware is largely in the same bracket as the PSP, with only more advanced shader effects being demonstrated. However, this is likely as much to do with the iPad, iPhone, etc, not being overtly suitable for serious traditional games with it’s lack of regular control inputs, games which would require such a power increase, meaning that there isn’t much of a reason for developers to try and extract maximum performance from the hardware. Also there’s no direct access to the graphics chip, yet another bottleneck in the chain.


The PSP however, has two great advantages over the iPad. One being the ability to code directly to metal itself, extracting and optimising every last ounce of performance out of the machine; and the other, a greater amount of bandwidth available granted by the system’s 2MB of EDRAM.

Sony’s handheld can move up to 5.3 Gigabytes per-second over its 256bit bus, whilst the iPad moves 4.2 Gigabytes per-second over a 64bit bus. What this means is that even though the Apple’s system can push more geometry around, featuring some basic shader effects, the PSP can throw around far more transparency and particle effects, along with better lighting and dynamic shadowing.

In terms of having traditional games pumping out a good few million polygons per-second at 60fps, with reasonable lighting and texturing, the PSP wins outright. However the iPad’s strengths consists of having the ability of feature more accurate texturing with greater texture detail and image fidelity, whilst also providing developers with the option of using bump-mapping, specular, and other such effects by using the SGX’s shader capabilities. In essence it’s easier for Apple developers to push around more fancy texture effects than the PSP with potentially more geometry, but at the expense of performance, or framebuffer intensive effects.


Overall, on paper the iPad is a pretty impressive technical beast, in handheld terms at least, while in reality the software restrictions provided by Apple take away much of the real world potential locked inside the hardware. For developers it means that, like with Direct X and a Windows PC, or Mac, that anyone with knowledge of programming and the Apple API can create software without meticulously learning all the ins and outs of the hardware. At the same time Capcom and id software have shown that it is still possible to extract some impressive performance from the device, matching quite closely what we were seeing on the PS2, and to an extent the GameCube, exceeding both systems in some areas.

Ultimately, the iPad, along with the iPhone and iPod Touch is housing some serious handheld potential under the hood. And if unlocked, would more than certainly blow the PSP out of the water in the graphics department and provide us with some impressive Xbox 1 style visuals effects. Of course for a handheld in which playing games is just another feature amongst many, that isn’t really required, and perhaps that’s the point. It needs to be competitive, but it doesn’t need to really walk all over the competition.

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: BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger (PS3)

Can you believe that it’s been nearly six months since BlazBlue first hit stores in the United States? And in that time we’ve had a string of high profile, hardcore fighting game releases. On the list is a failed attempt to recapture the pure hand-drawn 2D market; a haggard old 3D fighter trying to carve out a new path in a ever increasing landscape of FPS’s and Western RPG’s; and lastly, a 2D fighter with authentic gameplay, wrapped up in lavish polygon graphics in a 3D visualised return to greatness.

I imagine any connoisseurs familiar with the genre will be able to name all three, but only one of which was worthy of your unrivalled attention. The rest you could leave bleeding out on the side of the street, or better still, decline the challenge altogether, as they represented a failure to not only capture, but also understand their audience. A shame if you ask me, since the genre needs more one-two-punch strikes of greatness to really bring it back solidly into the limelight. BlazBlue is one of those titles, and despite the fact that it lacks any recognised characters or fighting styles, does well to prop up the rising one-on-one beat’em up once again.

BlazBlue (BB) for the uninitiated is the latest glossy, hand-drawn 2D fighting extravaganza by ARC System Works, the creators of the Guilty Gear franchise and its long line of sequels (I’m looking at you X2). It feels very much like a spiritual successor to that franchise, with over-the-top combos, fast-paced aerial strikes, and a range of impressive counter moves, supers, and no less than three ways of guarding against attack. In short, BlazBlue has pretty much everything that Guilty Gear had, topped off with an increased simplicity whilst actually being deeper at the same time. There’s no doubt in my mind that giving Guilty Gear a rest, and instead starting a whole new saga with BlazBlue was the right thing to do.


The basic fighting engine is pretty straightforward, easy to learn but with loads to master and sink your teeth into. Essentially there are only four basic attacks to learn, A B C and D, which are light medium and heavy respectively, with D standing for a ‘Drive’ attack, which is specific to whoever character you are playing as. Most of the light and medium attacks correspond to either a punch or kick for most characters, whilst heavy is usually reserved for weapons, and drive, for a combination of all three – depending on the character - in a form of special move.

Basic moves can all be used to chain into combination attacks, or combos if you will. Done by pushing a series of light, medium and heavy attacks, along with the drive attack to build up a long and impressive offensive of moves. However, the larger the combo, the lesser the damage it will do, giving the opponent a fair chance at retaliation. Holds can be integrated into combos by pressing the B and C buttons together, then followed up, or finished off with either normal attacks, specials or even Distortion Drives, BlazBlue’s equivalent of Supers.

Using a combination of these moves, along with the obligatory SFII-esque quarter-circle special moves will only get you so far though. You would be missing a whole part of the game without at least stumbling into some of the advanced techniques that ARC have based the game around. The various Cancels, Drives and Finishers all use something called the Heat Gauge, which is basically the BB version of SF’s Super bar. Each of the different techniques use different amounts of the bar, labelled in percentages to make things easier, but also to allow a greater range of option.

Hitting A, B and C together during a move unleashes a Rapid Cancel, which stops the animation of your current attack returning your character to his or her neutral stance, and allows them to immediately execute another move to integrate into an existing combo. Useful if you know that the move you were doing would effectively end a combo. Alternatively, whilst the heat Gauge is filled to certain levels it is also possible to perform Distortion Drives (character specific Super moves) or something called an Astral Finisher, which is move that results in a single one hit kill if it connects.

Pushing back on the d-pad whilst holding A + B together performs a Barrier, a stronger version of your regular guard. A Barrier cannot be broken, but can only be held for a limited amount of time indicated by the Barrier gauge. If it empties whilst blocking the player will receive 150% damage until the gauge becomes at least half full during regeneration. You might also consider performing a Barrier burst if you’re being hammered constantly by your opponent in a corner of the screen. It’s a move which repels the opposing player across the screen, giving you some room to compose yourself and then retaliate. However the penalty for such a bail out is pretty severe, requiring you to not only forego the use of your Barrier Block, but also making you take 150% damage for the rest of the round. So you’d better know what you are doing when you use it.


Lastly, it is also possible to counter your opponent’s attacks by striking them at the same time as they attack, cancelling them out and opening them up for a combo.

Of course, you don’t actually have to use any of these techniques, instead sticking to basic attacks and specials. However the game is more difficult as a result, especially online, in which the rather niche nature of such a title quickly breeds experienced players. Thankfully the inclusion of the character specific Drive attacks negates this to some extent. Drive attacks are basically one button special moves which can be factored into any basic combo, or used on their own, giving inexperienced players or button mashers a chance to have fun with the game.

There are a total of 12 unique characters in BlazBlue, each with their own strange design and set of moves. Everyone of the fighters in BB is pretty different to most of the fighting games I’ve played before, being more off the wall, or bizarre than even the ones in Guilty Gear. Some of the characters even have specific attacks or functions, which are completely absent for others, and fit outside the standard range of moves. For example, Rachel has a separate gauge which controls how many times she can control the blowing wind in each stage, which is pretty cool, but also provides a greater level of depth than most fighters. Many of these individual nuances are tied into character specific Drive attacks, but not all, giving players much to learn.


Each of the character designs are typical ARC System Works creations. From silver haired, gothic-inspired ‘Ragna The Blood Edge’, to the giant red Hellboy look-alike ‘Iron Tager’. The style can be described as post-apocalyptic neo-punk, meets Victorian-gothic, steam-punk influences. It’s pretty weird to say the least, but will be familiar to anyone whose played Guilty Gear before. The mixture of darkly, eclectic character designs, cute and psychotic personalities are incredibly well designed, and bring an altogether different feel to most recently released 2D beat’em ups. Though Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom is the exception to that rule.

Visually, BlazBlue is a lavishly designed mixture of hand drawn 2D sprite work and 3D backgrounds, with painted textures. All the game’s sprites are drawn in 720p, unlike in KOFXII, and have been intricately detailed. Shadows are cast on characters when moves are performed; clothing sways to and fro during battle; and lots of subtle details are visible on all aspects of the characters, from facial animation, to the small pins located on a character’s belt buckle. The backgrounds are proper 3D creations, complete with dynamic lighting effects and painted textures, which match the art style used for the characters and interlude artwork.

There’s no doubt that BB is the best looking 2D sprite-based fighting game available. It’s a truly beautiful game to behold. Sure it doesn’t feature the Disney quality animation of KOFXII, or the precision mapped, pixel perfect shadowing and shading on its characters. But then again, it doesn’t really need them, showcasing a lovely mixture of both 2D and 3D graphics; all polished in high definition with a finished and succinct art style. If anything, SNK could learn a thing or two from theses guys.

In terms of modes, BlazBlue provides you with the usual, Arcade, Versus, Training, Replay, Gallery and Online. There is also a ‘Story Mode’, which fleshes out each of the characters, and contains quite a well thought out, albeit confusing narrative. Playing through this mode with all the characters unlocks more of each character’s story, and slowly fills in all the gaps, explaining what the hell is going on. Short animated cut-scenes, and hand-drawn stills, break up the battles, complete with voice acting and text dialogue.

The Online Mode, touted on the back of the box as being ‘lag free’, comes dangerously close to doing just that. Even on my 1 Meg broadband connection (I still haven’t been upgraded yet) there was virtually no lag in most of the matches I played. Quite often I would encounter some slight lag at the beginning of a match, for only the game to seem to catch up with itself providing a responsive environment in which to fight. Occasionally I did encounter some laggy matches, but nothing to the extent of what I’m getting in SFIV at the moment, in which there is hardly any players with a good connection available. BlazBlue seems different in this regard, and is a welcome proposition considering the disappointments with other profile fighters in this area (yes, I’m talking about you Tekken 6).

One thing that is disappointing about the game though, is that after waiting for the best part of half a year for it to arrive on UK shores, we haven’t received any of the extra characters than we were promised. Instead ARC SW is including them in a sequel of sorts with the release of BlazBlue: Continuum Shift, which I guess is the updated game we were expecting to get in the first place. Continuum Shift will be available on import this summer in Japan and the United States. Expect us Brits to be waiting a lot longer for it to arrive over here.


As you can tell, I rather liked BlazBlue. The mixture of gothic, neo-punk art styles, the in-depth combo-based gameplay, steeped in simplicity, and beautifully created 2D/3D combination of visuals. Really, it is one of the most refreshing beat’em ups I have played in a while, adding TvC to that list from back in February, and one which any self respecting hardcore fighting fan should at least check out.

Granted the game isn’t quite as accessible as the likes of Guilty Gear, featuring more bizarre fighting styles, and unusual characters. However there is plenty to play through and master, and once you get acquainted with a character you like, then your enjoyment of the title will really pick up. Getting to that point however, will take a few hours of well-versed gameplay. Learning some of the advanced techniques - which aren’t that hard to pick up at all - whilst coming to terms with the fact that with BB ARC have purposely created designs and play styles which are meant to be different from those of regular weapon-based 2D fighters.


BlazBlue is a great addition to the 2D fighting game roster, and despite its initially unfamiliarity and somewhat bizarre nature, is well worth picking up for any hardcore fighting fan. Not everyone will like the off-the-wall fighting styles, and I for one, found it much harder to get into than Guilty Gear, Last Blade or TvC. However that shouldn’t deter the die-hards out there, who like to get lost in learning the ins and outs of whichever character they choose. Certainly, as a hardcore player myself, I did enjoy what the game had to offer, especially online against a range of players, both ones mediocre in their delivery, and some which are arguably so much higher in their game than me.

VERDICT: 8/10

A Limited Edition of BlazBlue is available in small quantities at launch for the same price as the standard edition. It contains a two-hour long combo training DVD, with character specific strategies, showcasing many high level moves and specials; a 96 page full colour booklet, with art and illustrations from the designers at ARC System Works; and the regular version of the game. This is the version we picked up at IQGamer, however our review and score is based solely on the standard game, and not the extra content contained within the Limited Edition.