Editorial: Kinect - The Price Of Admission

The price of any new product is always hotly debated, especially when the item in question is being positioned for consumption by the mass market, the largely mainstream segment of gaming society. This is exactly what has been happening this past week with Microsoft’s Kinect. Ever since the estimated launch price for the US was revealed, people have speculated on how much the device would cost in the UK; how much it should, or would need to sell for in order to be successful, no more so than when ShopTo.net revealed what it believed would be the price for the unit here in the UK.


North American retailers have been pricing the Kinect at $150 for the last couple of weeks, which roughly translates to around £100 in direct conversion, and allowing for other market factors to effect overall cost. At the end of last week UK site ShopTo.net started taking preorders for the device set to cost £129.99 in the UK. Or so they are estimating. Many other retailers have also spoken out on how much they think Kinect will retail for when it hits the UK in November this year. A vast majority believe that anything from £100 to £150 is possible, squarely in the range of Nintendo’s Wii console, and firmly ahead of Sony’s PlayStation Move.

The price then, roughly equates to a direct, or near thereabouts conversion between US and UK, with the overall bracket set to ensure the best return for Microsoft but not the most value for money for consumers. Playstation Move on the other hand, is relatively cheap. It has a confirmed RRP of just £59.99 for both the Move controller and PlayStation Eye camera. The Navigation controller will go on sale separately for £24.99, taking the total cost of getting the complete Move experience to just £84.99, some fifteen pounds less than the £100 entry price so many retailers believe is necessary for the Kinect to have widespread success at launch, outside the standard core Xbox 360 user.

Speak to any retailer, or in turn most market analylists, and they will tell you that a sub-£100 price point is absolutely essential to drive forward sales aimed at the casual market - the Wii’s market. Many in that market won’t already have a 360 console, so in essence Microsoft would need to provide both to the consumer at an almost impulse buy price, something below £200 but confortably above the Wii. Though, for this to happen they need to have the base Kinect unit selling for somewhat lower than the £130 ShopTo.net seem to be suggesting.

£79.99 for the Kinect on its own, or maybe with one bundled set of mini-games is exactly the price tag most retailers in the UK, both on the high street and online want to see. A price tag that appears instantly more affordable to the casual user - something that isn’t going to break the bank, and that will tempt them in on there own accord. Suffice to say, that might not be happening, and might not actually be possible, as various sources have stated that the Kinect actually costs close to $150 dollars to make, meaning that Microsoft will be loosing money on every sale, or at least only just breaking even.

In that sense you can see why the company is being rather coy with UK pricing. Perhaps it is testing the waters, seeing how much interest there is for the device if it was to be priced up at over the £100 mark. And in this regard the low amount of preorders as reported by ShopTo.net seems to show that there is very little.

Of course it may not just be the price putting people off. At E3 most hands-on reports of software for the Kinect was poorly received, plagued by a high amount of lag, and a lack of any real precision when tracking player movements. Now, whilst this is unlikely to matter to the mainstream consumer – who is likely just to see the device and think ‘that looks like fun’ no matter the technical issues – it does create a negative buzz around the unit somewhat, especially when the PlayStation Move has already started to prove its worth in games like Socom, in which the response time and accuracy is said to be incredibly impressive - a substitute for the standard DualShock controller. You then begin to see just how important it is for Microsoft to get the launch price right. Too little, and they loose too much money for it to be viable as a way of propping up 360 sales, and too high, and they’ll fail to attract the mainstream consumer.

And that’s the point. Unlike PlayStation Move Kinect isn’t designed to be some kind of hardcore device that also plays up to the casual market. It IS designed and aimed at precisely that particular market, and in order to meet the needs of that market has to be priced accordingly. The Move can been seen as a premium product as such, tied in with the PlayStation 3 brand but at a fraction of the cost of what ‘premium’ means to most people. Microsoft on the other hand, seem to be aiming Kinect at everyone but at a higher more premium-like price tag, if ShopTo.net have in fact got their estimations right.

So, I think it’s clear that in order to guarantee the success that Microsoft would like it is essential that the price of Kinect stays low, around £100 would just be the clincher, though at £79.99 everyone can be tempted in for a go. And ‘guarantee’ they must, as Nintendo’s Wii can be picked up for as little as £149.99 in most places, and for £169.99 with a game in others. Move also looks very attractive in its £59.99 guise, and especially at around £85 for the whole set.

Microsoft definitely needs to consider these things in addition to their target audience – they don’t appear to have the sometimes fanboyistic nature of the core gamer behind Kinect – and perhaps should meet at some kind of compromise. After all, while the device sounds promising on paper it has failed to back up any of its initial fanfare with any revolutionary, must-have pieces of software, something that the Move is slowly heading towards with the likes of Killzone 3 and Socom.

At the end of the day both companies need to come out flying, and so far neither of them has done anywhere near enough to justify a massively successful, sell-out launch. Pricing aside, the quality of software for both Kinect and PlayStaion Move leaves a lot to be desired. You need more than just a bunch of Wii-too mini-games, or a singularly impressive, hardcore experience in order to make this work. You arguably need a bit of both, coupled with the right price tag to boot. Just look at the Wii as an example, it’s a perfect combination of brilliant marketing, and some solid, but overly sparse, high-quality software.

The price given for Kinect on ShopTo.net is just an estimate, and not the final RRP of the unit. Microsoft have yet to set a final retail price for the device, although most reports strongly place it in the £100-£150 price bracket.

Review: Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)

The original Super Mario Galaxy was unquestionably my 2007 game of the year. With it’s magical atmosphere, delightful art styles, stunning graphics, and exemplary level design it was one of the best games to come out of Nintendo since the N64 days, and Super Mario 64 itself. This is made even more impressive as during the GameCube generation, with the exception of Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, Nintendo failed to create anything quite as captivating, or as awe-inspiringly beautiful as their N64 masterpiece.

SMG displayed the kind of wondrous personality and gameplay mastery associated with the company for the last twenty years or so, providing all who ventured into its grasp with some of the most refined and downright amazing platforming on any videogame system to date. It was to many, myself included, beyond just being a sequel to one of the best games of all time, firmly stamping its own mark into a genre long since forgotten amongst today’s mainstream gaming crowd.

The use of gravity as a gameplay mechanic, throwing players around from planet to planet; and the use of switching perspectives, 3D to 2D, and back again, brought forward deviously fresh gameplay which had never been seen before. Not quite like this, and all the more refreshing as a result. Huge bosses, unique level designs and challenges, new and old characters, all contributed even more to the experience. And that’s not even mentioning the whimsical nature of the affair, steeped in a lovingly polished goodness of visual beauty and orchestrated audio delights, quite possibly the closest thing to perfection in a long while.


This sequel in many respects is more of the same, partially streamlined to be more accessible, but more hardcore at the same time, without compromising on the style and gameplay foundations which worked so well the last time around. But it’s more than just a rehash of what has gone before, and the concepts established in the first Super Mario Galaxy. It’s an attempt to bringing together something fresh and altogether familiar at the same time.

At first glance SMG2 is undeniably similar to the last game. The intro sequence in particular being a 2D homage to the opening of the original SMG, with Bowser once again invading Princess Peach’s castle and stealing her away from Mario once more, thus yet again introducing us to the use of space travel and the need to collect those delightful golden stars. From this point on, the mechanics are pretty much identical to the last game, and the use of gravity, the combination of traversing across large and tiny planets are all so familiar. The difference is, that this sequel mixes it up far more than seen in the original SMG.

It’s a testament to the minds at Nintendo’s EAD team that they’ve managed to plunge so much originality in what could be seen as a rehashed, homage title of sorts. Calling it a rehash though, simply doesn’t do SMG2 any justice, as the game is brimming with brand new ideas, excitingly tough and imaginative levels, and perhaps the best orchestral score used in a Mario game to date. It is definitely in many ways a homage title though, more so than the last game.


SMG2 also expands upon the gravitational ideas and shifting perspectives introduced to us in the first game, whilst adding practically a new gameplay mechanic almost in every level. Nintendo have taken onboard what worked, and ditched perhaps what didn’t, or rather what did, but just not as well as it could have. At the same time they have also reduced the number of stages which favour Mario 64’s brand of exploration, instead focusing on obstacle course style level layouts. These stages have a definitive beginning, but the end sometimes feels out of place and strangely positioned into what appears to be the most challenging to reach area in the stage, whether it makes sense of not.

Despite this the game still manages to be an awesome experience through and through - just not quite as amazingly perfect as I would have liked - and this is further upheld up by the inclusion of cool new power-ups, and the return of an old friend from Super Mario World. The finely crafted orchestrated sound track, and magical nature of the game also plays a large part in this too, with the usual Nintendo touch being applied without restraint.


The first thing that you’ll notice has changed in SMG2 is the use of a hub world to serve as entry to one of many galaxies to be found in the game. Instead of featuring a large and expansive hub in which to both explore and to act as a gateway to new stages, you now have Starship Mario, and the return of a traditional map system. This new map system is very much like the ones found in both New Super Mario Bros and Super Mario 3. Levels are clearly marked in order along with the amount of stars possible to collect in each one, and the amount required to unlock the next stage. There are also branching pathways which lead to bonus levels or other normal stages.

The map can also be zoomed in and out, to show either individual galaxies, or simply the stages to be found in each one. It is a far more convenient way of displaying all of the game’s levels, which are now easier to find and keep track of, than to have to hunt around for them in the old hub world. Sadly the map system lacks some of the same charm and magical quality compared to SMG1’s ‘observatory’, although Starship Mario certainly does not.

Starship Mario itself is a smaller version of the hub found in the original SMB, complete with hidden areas, and a cool reproduction of one of the last game’s observatories, which acts as a museum of sorts for displaying power-ups found and artefacts uncovered on your journey. The Starship looks like Mario’s face, and you can run all around it, venturing into unlocked rooms and talking to the inhabitants that arrive at certain points throughout the game. Jumping on the pressure pad in front of the steering wheel (yes, a wheel) takes you to the game’s map screen, in which you browse through, and select your levels.


Outside of the new hub world and map system, most of the changes and improvements are contained within the gameplay itself. The biggest addition to SMG2 is the inclusion of Yoshi, who has been missing in action for far to long in a Mario game. He hasn’t changed much from his debut in Super Mario World on the Super NES, keeping both his tongue grabbing and hovering abilities at the forefront of what he’s all about.

Yoshi is only used in certain stages, most of which have a new mechanic, which uses him in different ways from just running around and doing the usual platform jumping. For example, some stages will require you to keep Yoshi fed with fruits enabling him to walk on otherwise invisible platforms. At other times eating a blue coloured fruit will see him puff up like a balloon and enable him to float up in the air to areas out of reach using the standard Mario/Yoshi combination. Likewise, the game will also test your basic tongue-lashing capabilities by having you swing from objects suspended high up in the air before reaching a specific location.


After Yoshi comes the use of brand new power-ups, including Cloud Mario, Rock Mario, and a funky looking drill that Mario can carry above his head (Drill Mario?). These are awesome, especially Rock Mario, which sees the little fellow take the form of a rocky boulder when waggling the Wii Remote, causing him roll around on screen at speed, much like Morpthball Samus in Metroid Prime.

Cloud Mario has the ability to create a few temporary platforms in which to stand on, allowing you to reach previously out of the way areas. Simply by jumping up and then waggling the Wii Remote creates one of three clouds for Mario to stand on. These clouds can be created in jet streams allowing Mario to glide across the sky, or just to gain a little extra height. After using up all three clouds it simply a case of grabbing another power-up to refill your supply, and away you go.

Like with Yoshi levels are all specifically designed to use these abilities, and in many cases new mechanics are presented for the player to learn and master. The range on offer is pretty incredible, with an almost constant barrage of new, or quirky things coming your way, all of which are done extremely well.


If there is one complaint about an otherwise near perfect experience, it’s that a lot of the levels are very linear in nature, and with little exploration to be had. You never really get to ‘know’ the levels like in Mario 64, or even parts of the first SMG. Instead the levels feel like a design homage to the likes of Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels, or Super Mario World, created more in the way of testing your hardcore platforming skills rather than delivering the most intoxicating, and expansive Mario game yet.

However, the challenges set in nearly every world are as imaginative as the last, and a lot of effort has gone into making this one of the most inspired Mario titles yet. It also works beautifully as homage to the old 2D Mario titles, with redone orchestral music, and faithfully styled level designs. Approaching the sequel in this way, rather than putting it on a ten out of ten, revolutionary, and perfectionist pedestal, is perhaps the way to go.

And this is in itself the way that Nintendo views the game – as a hardcore instalment of the series designed for the most experienced, and dedicated Mario fans. In which case the game succeeds with flying colours, earning its Koopa wings, but maybe not in making it the ‘best’ Mario game of all time. Perhaps not quite as sublime as the first SMG either, though that will be debated for years, I’m sure.


Moving forward, there is plenty to do once you’ve finished the game. After getting 120 stars you unlock another 120 green stars to collect, taking the challenge up a notch, and giving you another chance to play through every level once again. Getting stars is only one part of the challenge though. Throughout every level is a hidden comet coin, and picking this up unlocks specific challenges in addition to the main task required to getting a star. So, for example you might have to do a timed run of a specific star challenge, or a race to the end of the stage.

Occasionally I thought that some of the challenges the game has to offer are just a little too frustrating, especially later on when the slightest mistake leads to a lost of life. In these situations it isn’t so much the level design or actual challenge itself that is the problem, but it’s these elements combined with what appears to be occasionally restrictive camera placement that impacts on the overall polished nature of the experience. It’s nothing overly bad, or even enough to tarnish the delights that Nintendo have managed to cram in here, but it does in my opinion make it less of an overall exemplary experience compared to the first game.

So, you could say that while this sequel does much to improve on the original, it doesn’t quite beat it outright, at best matching the original’s brilliance, and at worst not quite hitting the same highs. Either way, however you slice it, Super Mario Galaxy 2 is still one of the best games to be released in the last ten years or so, and well worth picking up, essentially so, even if it’s not as awe-inspiringly fantastical as SMG was.


Overall SMG2 does so much right. The inclusion of new characters and power-ups are suitably inspired as they are superb, as is the streamlined map system and the extra challenges that keep you going after finishing the game, not to mention the beautiful visuals on offer – Nintendo have really pushed the Wii in this regard, shiny and beautifully lit graphics all at a lavish 60fps. That said, this sequel isn’t quite as groundbreaking as the first game, and not quite as finely balanced either. However, you do have to appreciate the fact that Nintendo very rarely makes a Mario sequel, and in this case it’s one of the best they’ve ever made, minor issues aside.

Perhaps, at the end of the day that’s all that matters, because whilst Super Mario Galaxy 2 might not be as revolutionary as the first, it’s still full of imagination, atmosphere, and some of the most impressively creative level designs to date. Sure it can be frustrating at times, and the reduction in larger level exploration is mildly disappointing. But by the same token it is complete celebration of what gaming used to be about, not what it is about now, and with this in mind it is an undeniable success.

VERDICT: 9/10

Tech Analysis: Crackdown 2 Demo

Most people picked up Crackdown not for the actual game itself (although there was interest in it) but for the upcoming Halo 3 beta, in which access would be granted directly from within the game's menu screen. On top of that they would find a highly enjoyable, and surprisingly different take on the free roaming, open world genre.

Crackdown wasn’t simply a ‘me too’ Grand Theft Auto type experience, but something altogether removed from Rockstar’s world of sandbox brilliance. Highly stylised, and bringing a cartoon vibe to the genre, it delivered flashy, superhero-turned-cop themed action to gamers in a way that completely embodied the spirit of GTA, but without the grime.

Crackdown 2 then has been born out of love for the original game, with the people at Ruffian Games committed to bringing gamers not only more of the same, but also a completely improved version of the game as a whole, with reworked graphics, larger, more intense gameplay segments, and expansion of the original’s much loved online multiplayer mode.

Initially, this sequel looks, and feels very much like the original. The cartoon-esque feel running throughout the game is back in full force, along with the cell shaded visuals which create that effect - those heavy black lines clearly defining characters from their environments – and a slight change to a more gritty visual style bringing about more naturality to the image, rather than the original’s full-blown, pastel-coloured and intensely lit environments.

Compared to the first game Crackdown 2 is grittier looking, with more realistic lighting which is distinctly controlled, and not simply blasted out on full like in the first game. The result, a slightly darker looking game with greater image balance making things more comfortable to look at, whilst also depicting the rundown nature of the city since events of the original Crackdown.


The framerate runs at a mostly solid 30 frames per-second, with initially very little in the way of slowdown. I was surprised at just how smooth the game was during hectic encounters with ten, even twenty enemies on screen all at once, explosions being set off and carnage ensuing in the aftermath. Slowdown it seems only occurs when there is a huge amount going on at the same time, and even then I didn’t find all that much in the way of sharp spikes in smoothness, either up or down. Instead the game manages its framerate extremely well, favouring smaller dips rather than the heavy drops of PS3 GTA IV or Red Dead.

Crackdown 2 also seems to be v-synced most of the time, although screen tearing is present and is pretty noticeable when it properly occurs, it only really happens in more intense situations when the screen is busy, and I mean really busy. For much of the time the game would show what looked like a judder enveloping the entire screen, very slight in nature and almost as if the game had caught up with any frames it was about to tear. Suffice to say, it isn’t an issue during normal play, and the game quickly regains control of the v-sync in spite of the occasional blip.

In terms of comparing these findings with that of the original Crackdown, I can’t really tell you in-depth how well it performed compared to this sequel because it’s been a while since I last played it. I can tell you however, that there seems to be less screen tear in Crackdown 2, and that the larger framerate drops only occur when the engine is put under greater pressure. In these situations there is clearly more happening on screen than in the first game, so you could say that the engine has seen increased stability to what we were seeing before.

What does appear the same as the first game is the sequel’s rendering resolution and use of anti-aliasing. Crackdown 2 renders at 1280x720 (720p) and uses 2xMSAA which comes as standard with most Xbox 360 titles.


Visually the game looks very clean and sharp, with character edges appearing rather striking due to both the cell shaded look, and highly stylised art direction. Jaggies are kept under control for both environments and characters - even with high contrasting edges which is pretty impressive - although with only 2x edge smoothing not completely eliminated. Some edges receive clear AA, and others less so. Pretty much standard fare 2xMSAA, but with what looks like a better AA sampling to coverage ratio.

The cartoon-esque look of the game also means that any jaggies present don’t always distract or intrude as much as they would in more realistic looking titles, and the game seems to apply AA more successfully here than compared to other titles using the same 2x solution.

Outside of performance and image quality crackdown 2 fares quite well, featuring some improvements and some cutbacks over the first game.

Water in this sequel look far better than before, featuring better use of shaders and texture based-effects, plus the overall lighting system has been given a few tweaks and subtle enhancements over what was present in the first game. The streetlights in particular are now rendered in a higher resolution compared to Crackdown 1, and without that strange bloom effect that seemed to afflict them.

The developers are also pushing more stuff around on screen with a greater amount of maximum enemies appearing at any one time, and environmental detail getting a noticeable increase in places. LOD has also been tweaked and is less aggressive than in the first game, showing off the extra details for further into the distance without cutting back on them too early on. This goes well with the upped levels of foliage, railings, and general details present throughout the game.


All this use of less aggressive LOD, more environment detail, and higher resolution transparency effects do come at a cost however, with the developers cutting back on both texture detail and the way the clouds are rendered compared to the first game.

There is less detail on environmental textures in Crackdown 2, which is quite noticeable in places compared to the original, although the more dense nature of the environment negates this somewhat, as does the improved lighting and increase in texture filtering.

The clouds on the other hand loose their volumetric look, and appear very flat compared to the ones displayed in the original. I can only guess that in order to increase overall performance that they had to scale back on certain things to make this happen, especially as they were building upon an engine which pre-dates the Xbox 360 in it’s development cycle. So asking for a complete re-write maybe would have been too much, and in any case hardly anyone is likely to care, or notice in the long run. Most people will just want to play more Crackdown.

Thing is, as a whole this sequel simply looks better than the first. Some flatter looking clouds and weaker texturing cannot take away from the many improvements that the engine has seen; least of all tarnish the overall graphical polish added to the experience. Granted, Crackdown 2 looks decidedly basic, and well, pretty flat, but at the same time is adhering to it’s own art style which is arguably one of the main differentiating points outside the outlandish open-world action the game provides.

Hardly impressive by today’s standards, but well suited all the same.


In conclusion then, Crackdown 2 represents a small improvement over the original game graphically, with some downgrades, but at the same time those changes were made for the benefit of the gameplay and not, as with many titles, just to visually allure the audience into more of the same.

What we should remember is that the engine is there to facilitate the gameplay, and not the other way around. So, in that respect Ruffian Games have achieved exactly that, delivering improvements which fit in with the style of the game, and the expanded gameplay integral to making this sequel more than just a rehash.

Tech Analysis: Killzone 3 E3 Demo - 2D VS 3D

Killzone 2 is still one of the technical benchmarks for Sony’s PS3. However you might dislike the dark and grainy art style, or the subdued colour palette on offer, the game showed developers (and gamers alike) just what was possible on the system when tightly using the CELL + RSX combo the way is was supposed to be used. And for E3 2010 Sony took Guerrilla Games’ Killzone 3 as their lead technical showcase for not only the PS3, but also for their newly affirmed focus on 3D gaming.

From all the screens and videos released there’s no doubt that Guerrilla’s latest is as visually striking as it is technically brilliant, but what about under the hood? What’s changed? And more importantly how well does the current engine hold up to rendering in 3D, especially with minimal compromises on what’s being pushed around on screen?

Well, in this feature that’s exactly what we’ll be taking a look at, analysing the E3 build of the game in both 3D and 2D, seeing exactly what improvements have been made and what has been paired back in order to get the game working (fully playable I might add) in 3D.

Anyway, before we talk about that in more detail, lets take a look at the game in 2D and see just how it fares at its current point in development.

Like with it’s predecessor Killzone 3 renders in 1280x720, but rather than use quincunx anti-aliasing again the developers have elected to use morphological anti-aliasing instead - a far superior technique for reducing jagged lines whilst maintaining overall image quality.

Looking at the screenshot below, the effect the MLAA has on image quality is obvious. The final image is much sharper and clearer, with fewer jagged lines being present than before, and without any additional blur caused by the use of QAA. The only blur you are seeing in the screens is caused by the various post process, and depth of field effects that Guerrilla are using throughout the game, all of which are artistic choices and not technical compromises. It’s all part of the dark and gritty look of the franchise.


Like with God Of War 3 some surfaces receive as much as 16xMSAA, whilst others more in the range of 4x, or occasionally less in areas with ultra small polygon edges. Ether way the use of MLAA is a marked improvement from the QAA of the first game.

However, unlike in certain games (I’m talking about you Red Dead) the use of QAA in Killzone 2 wasn’t at all detrimental to the overall image. Instead the slightly blurrier looked suited the art style the developers were aiming for, and the image still looked particularly clean and quite sharp. The same could also be said of Insomniac’s Resistance: Fall Of Man, and its sequel - both of which used the infamous QAA.

Switching to MLAA simply allows texture detail to come through unscathed (no blur) with greater levels of edge smoothing at a lower cost. You’re getting a smoother look without making any of the same compromises as before, and potentially saving on memory as well.

So like with God Of War 3 the use of MLAA does much to improve image quality whilst having less of a performance hit than you might think. Although are times in which this new form of anti-aliasing isn’t so effective at dealing with jagged lines, particularly when coming up against sub pixel aliasing - something which does crop up noticeably in parts of Killzone 3. Areas of the game which features loads of thin polygon lines; fences, railings, power cables etc, are all prone to displaying jaggies, and this is something that MLAA can’t really help with.

Below is a clear example of what I mean. In the screenshot it is evident that sub pixel (a triangle smaller in size than a pixel of the rendering resolution) edges receive no AA of any kind, something which would either require a change in how these objects were rendered or a switch to supersampling in order to resolve the problem.


Essentially MLAA works by detecting edges in a scene on a pixel level, finding them and smoothing them over resulting in a highly effective way of dealing with jaggies. This is perfect for high contrast scenes (unlike with MSAA) as edges are clearly detectable thus being easily smoothed over. The problem comes in when the edges you have to deal with are smaller than one pixel of the rendering resolution, and as MLAA works only on pixel size edges anything smaller simply gets no anti-aliasing. Or that is how I understand it. The result is some edge shimmering and noticeable aliasing on objects with lots of sub pixel edges.

Moving on to smoke and particle effects, it is obvious that they are again rendered in a lower resolution than the rest of the game.

Like in Killzone 2 all alpha effect buffers are rendered in 640 x 360 (quarter of the resolution of 720p), a common practice for most PS3 developers due to the system’s lack of available memory bandwidth compared to Microsoft’s 360 with its 10MB EDRAM.

Basically PS3’s GPU, the RSX, features a fairly low pixel fill rate, and this effects how many transparencies can be drawn on screen at any given time. 360 on the other hand through its use of EDRAM provides the GPU with a much higher fill rate enabling not only more transparent objects to be drawn at once, but also to feature transparencies at a matching screen resolution en masse.

In motion the lower resolution of the alpha buffers is hardly visible with the various post processing effects going on – such as depth of field - and they do look rather smooth and well defined. Although, as we can see below in still screens these effects still appear to look softer than the objects around them.


Impressively, it looks like the developers are using volumetric effects for all the smoke in the game (like with Killzone 2), although in reality this is somewhat misleading. Instead of actually rendering 3D volumetric particles, they are using layers of 2D sprites which have been blended together and combined with geometry using something called ‘alpha test’ in order to re-create that volumetric look without the added processing cost of doing it for real.

This blending is also one of the reasons why the smoke and particle effects all look somewhat soft and smoothened, in addition to the AA that they seem to be getting on top of that, and of course the upscaling taking place. It is also noticeable that the higher contrast nature of the stage demoed at E3 seemed to lessen the volumetric look associated with the effects, whilst also diluting the dynamic lighting being used somewhat.


Despite this Killzone 3 still looks visually stunning though, losing nothing along the way from the last game, and the developers may have also seen fit to upgrade the use of ambient occlusion for this latest instalment.

Previously for Killzone 2 Guerrilla were in the process of adding real-time SSAO (screen-space ambient occlusion) to the game but didn’t have time to properly implement the effect, instead using baked AO as a substitute. Now it looks like this could have been changed, and for the first time we are seeing what appears to be proper use of SSAO for Killzone 3.

Although officially unconfirmed at this point, the screenshot below clearly shows some evidence of the effect being present. Just check out the shadows on the floor below the Helgast’s feet, in which we can see that something different is definitely going on. SSAO? Maybe. And it wouldn’t be a surprise to see it given the fact that it was being worked on long before development on KZ3 started.

You can also see the improvements made to texture quality compared to KZ2. Textures are clearer, crisper, and generally more detailed than before, perhaps as a result of no blurring being present from using QAA, but also because texture resolution seems to have been upped for certain objects in the game.


From what we’ve seen so far KZ3 is shaping up to be a clear visual improvement over the last game in 2D, with the MLAA being a particular standout, and the cleaner, sharper look appearing giving the game a more polished feel overall. The sense of scale has been noticeably upped, and the sheer amount of stuff going on at once is undoubtedly impressive.

But how does this compare with the game running in 3D?

Surprisingly, Guerrilla Games have also managed to achieve some of these feats when rendering the game in this mode, like keeping in all the complex smoke and particle effects without cutting back on the amount of stuff on screen at any time. However, the game’s rendering resolution in this mode leaves a lot to be desired.

When rendering in 3D you are essentially doubling up most of your graphics work rendering every frame twice, one for each eye. Now, certain things can be carried over between frames to save on performance, but many things can’t, and this why cutbacks have to be made. And for Killzone 3 there are sizable cutbacks with regards to the games rendering resolution, and the resolution of alpha channel visual effects.

Below are two screenshots showing the game in action. The top one shows the game running in 3D mode, and the bottom the same scene but running in 2D. As you can tell the difference is night and day, with the 3D version looking rather unsightly.


Killzone 3 in 3D


Killzone 3 in 2D

Looking at the above screenshots you can see that image quality has taken a massive hit as a result of the steep drop in both rendering resolution of the main framebuffer, and the alpha channel effects buffers.

For its 3D mode Killzone 3 renders in 640x716 with MLAA, and the effects buffers (which were already rendering in quarter resolution) are again halved down to 320x360 creating an unsightly scene of jagged lines and upscaling artefacts.

The alpha effects in particular seem to suffer the most with this, as when they overlap with opaque geometry they cause aliasing atifacts to appear heightening the games increased jagged appearance. In addition shader and sub pixel aliasing are also magnified as a result.

Having to render twice the amount of geometry on screen at once also causes problems, and various reports of seeing the game running in 3D state that there is noticeably greater levels of pop up compared to running in 2D mode. Even though you are running at half resolution, you still have to render the geometry twice so there is still an impact with performance despite cutbacks in the number of pixels being worked on compared to rendering in full 720p for 2D.

So far it isn’t looking too good for Killzone 3 in 3D, with the current build definitely being a poor representation of how the game should look, although in that respect you simply cannot expect standard 2D levels of performance with current generation console hardware. There just isn’t enough power to handle it, and with optimisations only so much can be done. However seeing the game being displayed with all the intricate particle effects and multiple light sources in 3D is pretty impressive, even if the result isn’t as clean or as smooth as we’d like. I would say that it not only shows promise, but also is a key indication of just how much untapped potential is still left inside the PS3 hardware for games in general.

There is also the opinion that increased levels of jagged edges and upscaling artefacts are less visible when viewing them in 3D compared to seeing the same thing in 2D. How true or accurate this is I don’t know, not actually seeing Killzone 3 running in actual 3D in the flesh – only a 2D version of the game’s 3D rendering mode. But the argument for even having a cut down, lower-res 3D mode is unsurprisingly strong, especially given the marketing potential for this new format.

Either way Guerrilla Games have stated that they are targeting 720p (1280x720) for Killzone 3 in 3D, and it’s likely that they’ll do whatever it takes to reach that milestone without overly compromising the look of the game, optimising where necessary, and cutting back on post processing effects that don’t work so well in 3D (motion blur, depth of field). Full 720p looks to be pretty much out of the equation, realistically. But you know, maybe something like 852x720, which would still provide better image quality than 640x716, but without having to cutback as much on the core graphics make up of the game.

With Killzone 3’s release not until February next year the developers have plenty of time to improve and optimise their engine for both 2D and 3D, so it will be rather interesting to see just how well the game fares a few months down the line. As new videos surface, and information gets drip-fed out we shall no doubt be taking another look at the game and the tech behind it.

BBC iPlayer 3 On The Way To PS3?

The PS3 may already have a version of the BBC iPlayer, but according to site Tech Radar, and the BBC’s web developer Simon Cross, a new version of the popular video streaming service may be making an appearance on Sony’s system sometime later this year.


BBC’s iPlayer 3 is currently doing the rounds as a beta test on PCs for various web browsers and is set to include social networking features, and possible Facebook support further on down the line. Other upgrades include a new ‘For You’ section that essentially recommends you new programmes based on what you’ve been watching.

Cross also told the site that they were in the process of working out how to allow access to the iPlayer for users without them having to sign in before be able to view content, making the new experience as user friendly as possible.

"We don't know whether to integrate it with the PSN signing in process or do something new," he said.

With regards to 360 owners however, nothing was really said about a version of the application for Microsoft's console. And seeing as there are still issues with the company wanting to make the service only available to Gold Xbox Live subscribers - which is against the BBC’s policy as everyone already pays for the service via the TV licence - it could take a while for the matter to be resolved.

"It's great what has been done with Facebook on Xbox Live, so I hope something similar can be done with the iPlayer."

At the moment there’s no date set for the PS3 version of the iPlayer 3, although it will definitely arrive at some point later in the year. While 360 owners on the other hand are obviously left completely in the dark until things are sorted out between Microsoft and the BBC.

Nintendo 3DS GPU Revealed

Yesterday Japanese firm DMP revealed the graphics processor contained within the Nintendo 3DS ending speculation as to where the GPU would come from, and how powerful it really is.

A few days ago we assessed the capabilities of Nintendo’s new handheld based on seeing a handful of high-performance games and comparing them to titles on other platforms. It was a rough guestimate on how powerful we thought the machine to be, with a potential re-assessment upon having concrete new information. That re-assessment this is not, instead what follows is a look at the actual GPU that is powering the hardware and how the specs released ties into what we’ve seen of the 3DS’s capabilities so far.


First things first. The GPU powering the 3DS is the DMP PICA200 graphics core, a 2006 chip designed solely for portable device applications – everything from mobile phones to games consoles is mentioned in the specs document – and which actually packs quite a reasonable punch for cheap and efficient graphics rendering in a handheld device. With the design of the chip being complete in 2005 and released into market the following year, it isn’t in the same league as the GPU powering the iPhone, although it does fit squarely in between the GameCube and the Xbox in terms of overall ability.

According to DMP the chip is rated at 15.3 million polygons per-second (pps), with a pixel fill-rate of 800 million pixels per-second (more than the GCN but less than XB and Wii), all running at relatively fast 200mhz. Interestingly the numbers here are actually real-world figures in terms of the chip being used as a GPU solution in custom hardware. However, the demos and games shown for the 3DS don’t add up visually with the numbers given above, with the most complex titles pushing no more than 4, maybe 5 million polygons per-second at best.

So how can this be explained? Could it simply be a case of early development hardware, or a lack of optimisation with first-generation games? Well, this is particularly unlikely seeing as some of the software shown at Nintendo’s press event was highly polished and running at a brisk 60fps – not something un-optimised titles tend to do this early on in the hardware life cycle.

You could also argue then that the use of 3D, and having to render each frame twice could be having a considerable impact on the system’s graphics performance, if only were not for the fact that the 3DS renders one 800x240 image and splits the horizontal resolution down to 400 for each eye. At this low resolution, such a heavy performance hit isn’t very plausible seeing as you are basically rendering 800x240 as a total single screen resolution with 60fps equating to 60fps, and not 30fps as it would be for rendering for display using regular stereoscopic 3D images.

This resolution is hardly GPU busting compared to what the iPhone is doing – its basically little more than a expanded version of the Saturn or PSone’s low resolution mode.

Instead all signs point to Nintendo downgrading the chip in some way. The most likely scenario is the same one Sony took when launching the PSP, downcloking the GPU in order to save on battery life at the expense on overall performance. This lowering of the clock speed would indeed have the undesired effect of lower polygon throughput, thus resulting in the lower geometry counts we are seeing in the first batch of 3DS games.

The other area is memory. Even if the chip is capable of delivering somewhere in the region of 15.3 million polys per-second, the 3DS might not have enough graphics RAM in order to hold more than 4-6 million textured, lit and fully shaded polygons on screen, in which case the full power of the GPU is largely irrelevant with the exception of the extra grunt being used to obtain a stable 60fps in ‘most case’ scenarios.

Either way, without actually seeing the entire specification set of the machine we can’t really make any more assessments on how powerful it is, or how much of the above GPU performance is obtainable in real-world scenarios in 3DS games.

More interesting though, is the GPU’s lack of any programmable pixel shaders. We estimated that the 3DS might in fact have pixel and vertex shaders in our initial assessment of its capabilities last week due to seeing what looked blatantly like shader-based effects being visible. As it turns out this is only half the story.

The 3DS is basically an Open OpenGL ES 1.1 compatible chip with some customised fixed-function effects and vertex shading capabilities, but no pixel shader support of any kind. It has the ability to perform advanced effects such as per-pixel lighting, refraction mapping, procedural texturing, soft shadows, and gaseous object rendering. All of which are carried out using fixed hardware routines, and not as hinted at by Nintendo, shaders themselves. However, like we mentioned in our original article many of the effects created through the use of shaders can also be duplicated using fixed-function hardware. And in this case DMP have bumped things up considerably, with more advanced extensions than most previous fixed-function T&L GPU’s tended to have.

The fact that many, myself included, saw evidence of pixel shaders at work proves that using a cheaper, older fixed-function design was the correct way to go. Many of the custom extensions are much more powerful than the ones available on either the Wii or the GCN, and in most cases perfectly replicate the look of programmable pixel effects.

For such a low-resolution screen, and the kind of handheld Nintendo makes, the above solution seems like a good fit. For one we can expect the 3DS to be much cheaper than competing platforms with similar 3D LCD screen technology, and at the same time still have some pretty impressive visuals for the price.

Once again it has to be said that Nintendo definitely have been very thoughtful, and indeed economical in its part selection for the 3DS, using old and outdated hardware to good effect. It’s something that seems to have worked for them in the past with both the NDS and the Wii, and will no doubt work for them again with the 3DS as well.