Review: Dead Rising 2 (360)

Zombies with traffic cones stuck to their heads, others getting sliced in two, being burned alive, or just smashed in the face with a soft toy. Not so much of a surprise considering your proprietary aim throughout the whole of Dead Rising 2 is to kill, mame, and disfigure as many of the living dead as humanly possible whilst trawling through the Las Vega inspired Fortune City. It's a highly enjoyable experience at times, but not without elements of repetition, and some issues which make this sequel feel slightly hacked together at the last minute. But at least it's for the most part, still quite addictive.

Dead Rising 2 sticks firmly to the blueprint established by the first game. The missions are largely similar, the whole idea of picking up almost anything and using it as a weapon is almost the same, as is the never-ending onslaught of zombies, and familiar time-based structure, all which form an altogether familiar, but rather fun game.

However, with this sequel (or what feels like a retry of sorts) developer Blue Castle Games has improved on many of the flaws of the original. The save system has been slightly overhauled, the game’s use of time no longer penalises you for failing missions, and the ability to combine weapons together provides ample reason alone for mindlessly running around and bashing as many zombies as you can. It’s still not without some issues though, and the whole idea of levelling up and going back through the game can get decided boring, often pretty repetitive at times.


Now that isn’t always such a bad thing per-say, with the game’s sandbox nature giving you plenty of the same things to do. It’s just a question of whether you want to keep doing them. And that can be a pretty big ask. Though for the first few hours or so, you will definitely want to stay in Chuck Greene’s world turned upside down.

Roaming around the glamorously hellish paradise that is Fortune City, beating down loads of living rotting corpses with almost anything you can pick up is what you'll be doing most of the time. And there's plenty of items available at your disposal to do this. Nearly everything can be used; saw blades, baseball bats, axes, tables, chairs, plant pots, soft toys, etc. You name it and you can probably use it to deliver death to the undead. It can be a rather wildly enjoyable affair.

Of course you could do this before. But now you have the ability to combine various weapons together into making a custom death-delivering machine, or just a push broom with shotgun on the end of it. Did someone say ‘boomstick’ anyone? All objects that are identified with a wrench icon can be combined with another item. Usually this still has to make some kind of logical sense; such as a water pistol combined with a gasoline canister becoming a flamethrower, and so on. The fact that you have such a huge range (nearly unlimited claims Capcom) of items at your disposal keeps this whole idea from going stale. But also another reason for backtracking your way all over Fortune City.

You’ll be doing a lot of that too whilst in the world of Dead Rising. This sequel, like with the original, has a hard time limit in which to complete the game, and is backed up by a shallow, but mildly compelling storyline.


After being framed for the recent zombie outbreak in Fortune City, our new hero Chuck Green (bye bye Frank West) has only 72 hours in which to clear his name, and find enough Zombrex (an expensive medicine) to keep his daughter from turning into a zombie before the military arrive. To make matters worse, the whole place is quarantined off as well.

After initially escaping to safety from new zombie infestation, you find yourself holed up in a safehouse in the centre of another shopping complex, and it’s from here where you’ll be stepping out into the world, killing lots and lots of things, whilst running rescue missions and helping stranded survivors.

The story establishes the time limit, and throughout the game every mission you do is also timed, taking a chunk out of the whole 72 hours you have. Multiple missions are radioed to you from the save house, and usually run concurrently with each other, meaning that you’ll often have to decide which ones you have time to do, and which ones to let go. Even if you don’t choose a particular mission they still expire, so juggling between them is reasonably important.


However, it is impossible to complete every mission, every side-quest, and to see and do everything the first time around. Instead, the game has been designed for multiple playthroughs, with some challenges requiring you to be significantly levelled up in order to complete them. Also, some missions can only be successfully taken on with good time management. On subsequent re-plays you should have a greater understanding of where things are, and which missions can be done at the same time before returning to the safe house.

In DR2 it is also possible to fail missions, even major ones, without much in the way of punishment. You can even let Katey die if you want to. The result is that the game’s eventual ending changes, and you are left with a few shallow, but mildly perplexing moral dilemmas. In any case it’s a far better system than the one in the first Dead Rising, in which failure could often lead back to the beginning of the game. Now, you can choose when you want to start up from day one again, fully powered up and ready to go.


Aiding with Dead Rising 2’s far more forgiving game design, comes a tweaked save system. In DR2 there a now a handful of bathrooms in which to save. And you can choose to use them, and thus save your game at any point in time, mid-mission or otherwise. Of course balancing out this increase in chances to savage your progress comes the cleaver design of positioning save points often at ends with where you have to go for your main missions. This means that you’ll have to make a choice to either: carry on until the next intended save point. Or: fight your way through more hordes of the undead to reach a bathroom.

Both choices are filled with similar dangers, and neither represents a truly easy option. Getting to a save point when having to stroll off the intended mission path also loses you valuable time, meaning that it’s more likely that you’ll have to play through the game again to make up for any missions you might have missed. But the idea, and implementation is sound. Still, the giving the player a firm choice makes for a fairer overall experience than in the original Dead Rising.


A fair amount of the game (read: most) simply sees you going from point A to point B, picking up stranded survivor and helping them back to the safe house, maybe follow up on a the next case objective in between, or at the same time, whilst killing, bludgeoning, and dealing as much punishment as possible to as many of the undead you can in the allotted time limit.

Along the way you will also encounter a few boss battles – usually either powered up super zombies, or crazed humans looking to stake their claim. But in what exactly, I’m not sure. They’re challenging to beat, to say the least. And you’ll often die initially, having comeback a little later on, levelled up and armed to the teeth in order to finally take them down.

Thankfully, as you should have spent at least a few hours roaming and killing plenty of what you see, accumulating more in the way of weaponry, and increasing your health and strength, then these encounters shouldn’t prevent you from progressing for too long. Instead they simply reaffirm the fact that the game wants to be played over and over again, and that you should have far more fun in completing it if you go about it this way.


Unfortunately, the game’s long loading times make constant backtracking and exploration a somewhat tiring experience. Fairly long loading screens occur when venturing into different areas of Fortune City, and in between cut-scenes, breaking up the action considerably. These are pretty lengthy and make each area feel disconnected from the last. In particular, it feels like you are simply going through a series of separate levels set in the same place while carrying over any weapons and items you happen to find along the way.

Although it is understandable why these occur from a technical perspective (especially when moving from area to area), one can’t help but wonder why Blue Castle Games could have used pre-recorded in-engine cinematics for the cut-scenes instead, thus reducing the amount of times the game needs to load. But as it stands, with all too frequent occurrences, they simply disrupt the flow of action and prevent you from really becoming immersed in the world that has been created.


At least its a world that you can share this time around.

For those of you who might somehow tire of the experience when going it alone, you’ll be pleased to find that the developers have also introduced a story mode co-op option for Dead Rising 2. This sees both players taking control as Chuck Greene, albeit in different outfits, battling hundreds of zombies, and performing all the same tasks as you would in the standard solo story. Although in cut-scenes only one version of Chuck is ever present - the host’s character always takes president.

The use of co-op works well for the most part, however is let down by some peculiar issues with the game’s save system in this mode. For example, when playing I found that only the host could actually save their story progress – the guest player only saves their level, which is extremely frustrating. Especially frustrating in fact, when you consider that your zombie kill counter is reset every time you choose to return. In addition when one player saves their progress, the other is unceremoniously booted from the game, thus having to rejoin with the host again.

A few annoying niggles aside, playing through the game in co-op is a great way for both players to level their characters up, whilst also exploring all Fortune City has to offer. In particular, picking up new items, customising weapons, and then trying them out on the nearest group of flesh eaters in lieu of completing the actual story is great fun, whilst also allowing you to learn the layout of the game and its many nuances before you do things proper on your own.


Taken as a variety of individual experiences, Dead Rising 2 can seem to be rather repetitive and rather mundane. However, combine the time spent mashing up zombies, whilst performing various escort missions, and investigating the shady goings on in Fortune City, it becomes strangely compelling.

The storyline even manages to deliver a few Romero-esque moments of political jousting, often criticising the sometimes selfish and voyeuristic nature of man. But at the same time it knows never to take itself too seriously. Protests against the mis-treatment of the undead is at odds with exactly what the game wants you to be doing – killing as many as possible. And definitely adds a comedic touch to the premise as it unfolds. That, along with the many colourful, and downright stereotypical characters you will meet along the way.


However, Dead Rising 2 isn’t for everyone. And while as many people are likely to be enthralled with the constant carnage on offer, equally as many will be turning away in boredom after only a few hours. What keeps things enjoyable though, is the unique mix of humour, likeable characters, and viscerally gory action.

The fun that comes with finding, and indeed making new combinations of weapons, before then trying them out on the nearest walking corpse is actually just as good as it sounds, while at the same time most of the complaints surrounding the first game have been completely resolved. And although a few cuts have also been made; you can no longer take photos of your bloodiest work whilst running around Fortune City. Plus the game’s frame rate regularly takes a dive, resulting in quite laggy controls. These problems aren’t enough to tarnish what is a mostly entertaining, though rather samey experience.

VERDICT: 8/10

Call Of Duty: Black Ops Gets The 3D Experience

So, along side Gran Turismo 5 and Killzone 3 another large AAA title gets 3D support. Yesterday, in a rather unexpected twist, Activision announced that Call Of Duty: Black Ops will come with 3D enabled upon release. If of course you have the right TV or monitor that can handle it.

"Development of stereoscopic 3D began as an R&D project, but once we saw what the technology brought to the Call of Duty experience, what a great fit and how immersive it was, we knew that we had to develop it for Black Ops," said Mark Lamia, Treyarch studio head.”

"We made sure the experience is seamless for gamers to use with a simple menu option to enable stereoscopic 3D or disable it at any time whether playing in the single player campaign, multiplayer or Zombies."

To play in 3D PC gamers will need a monitor that is capable of handling a 120Hz refresh rate, be that LCD or even an aging CRT – but one that is still up to the task, along with a pair of NVIDIA 3D Vision active-shutter glasses, and a NVIDIA GPU.

Naturally, console owners will need a HDTV branded ‘3D Ready’ if you happen to live in the UK, or a similarly compatible monitor if you happen to have one of those to spare.

There’s obviously no word on what resolution the game renders at in 3D at this point, although I’m willing to bet that it will be even more sub-HD than the 1024x600 framebuffer makeup of the standard 2D build if they choose to render two separate frames (one for each eye). Another scenario is that the developers have chosen to use a depth buffer, plus pixel shift approach, ala Crysis 2 to achieve the effect, needing only a fraction of GPU power that otherwise would be required.

However, the first hands-on report of the game running in 3D seems to hint at the former. Although we should find out for sure soon enough.

Eurogamer Expo: The Kinect Report

When reading various forum posts by avid gamers you get the impression that many people seem to want Kinect to fail, whilst many industry journalists tend to brush over the obvious issues with the device in the hope that the final experience will be on par with what they have been promised.

Complaints usually centre on the high levels of latency and inaccurate pointer tracking, both of which make the whole experience a rather flawed one. And while this is in fact very true, I can’t hep but feel that at least some have forgotten about the fun factor - the reason we actually gather round and play these things in the first place. Because whether or not Kinect actually works technologically as it should – which it doesn’t at the moment, at least not consistently – there’s no denying that the software can be incredibly enjoyable to play, especially for the casual crowd, in which latency is just another tech buzzword being thrown around in another write-up of the device.

That’s not to say Kinect’s lack of precision and pin-point accuracy doesn’t put a downer on things, because it clearly does. It does affect the gameplay, and it does reduce the feeling of immersion you get from almost being in the game.


Some experiences fare better than others. Kinect Sports for example, does in most of its games provide decent, and reasonably accurate full body tracking. Sure, there is noticeable latency, and the game does make allowances to compensate for the users actions in accordance with its own somewhat limited physics system. But it also delivers a more in-depth experience than anything the Wii has to offer in terms of similar software.

Compared to the PlayStation Move however, it feels like a backwards step. Sony’s motion control solution has completely proven itself with regards to featuring 1:1 accuracy with low latency precision. Kinect on the other hand, even now just over a month away from release, still has much to prove. And a load of promises, and conceptual gameplay ideas to deliver on.

The likes of Volleyball and Table Tennis in Kinect Sports actually shows some of that promise in the device. They’re both very fun to play, and feature pretty accurate tracking of your movements.


Table Tennis stood out more in this regard being comparative to its PlayStation Move counterpart in Sony’s Sports Champions. Latency was clearly higher of course, and like for like precision definitely seemed paired back in comparison. However, it wasn’t as far off as I originally expected. And using your entire body in combination with just your arm for movement and positioning seemed slightly more natural for me. Reaction time and accuracy was clearly reduced compared to the Move, and a lot of the time the tracking wasn’t as smooth or quite as precise as it could have been. Controlling the paddle in Table Tennis on the Move showed how much better the tracking was in Sony’s solution.


The same could be said about Beach Volleyball, in which your actions don’t always translate well into real-world physics in the game environment. The downside: It felt like the game was slightly on rails, slightly more in control than it should be. And the upside: It was both easy to get into and pretty enjoyable to play. Though, it remains to be seen how much depth each experience provides. However, this is something we won’t find out until the device actually comes into homes, away from controlled demonstrations, and limited playtests.


The worst game I played at the event for sure was Joyride. There’s very little to the experience as a whole. You play the game standing up, like with other Kinect titles, so there is no way in which to accelerate or to brake – the game does both for you. Instead all you do is steer your car around the track using both hands held out like you would when holding a steering wheel. Hardly inspiring, and overly simplistic. Occasionally you get the opportunity to boost, in which case you hold both arms close to your chest, and then thrust them forward in unison to activate it. You can also grab bonus items by reaching out to the sides whilst racing, and that’s about it.

Latency was noticeably higher than in Kinect sports, with there being a unmistakable amount of delay between your actions, and seeing them represented on screen. Whilst this may be understandable given the complexity of the full body tracking involved, and the processing required to pull it off, it was clearly apparent that most of the software just didn’t do it all that well. Joyride being one of the worst offenders.


Of course, Kinect isn’t aimed at the core gaming market. It’s currently aimed at the casual audience. And for them I think that it will work quite nicely. There’s no question that the amount of latency may be quite frustrating for some – think Motion Plus enabled Tiger Woods on the Wii and you have some idea of what I’m talking about - and that will definitely spill over into the people MS is aiming Kinect at. Though it certainly won’t be the be all and end all of the discussion.

Saying that the software on test at the EG Expo was clearly work in progress. Whilst I was surprised that Kinect was quick to scan in additional players, I was also disappointed to see how slow and inaccurate using your arm as a pointer was. It’s downright buggy at this point. In game things were noticeably better in all the titles I tried, though at this point in time, polish definitely needs to be made with regards to the smoothness in the overall body tracking, with less in the way of pre-scripted movements representing your actions on screen.

Disappointingly, nothing has really changed on the software side in nearly two years since the Kinect was first unveiled, since it turned from being a cool design idea into a workable reality.

The overall latency is still the same, and the errors in tracking are still unresolved. The only real difference is that Microsoft seems to have lost much of its initial imagination with regards to planned software for the device. This appears to have happened in conjunction with the reduction of tech powering Kinect. The lack of internal processing capabilities in the device, and a lowering in camera resolution does seemed to have limited what is really possible, to the point that many of the originally extensive, and rather creative experiences once planned are just no longer viable.

Saying that, software is still rampantly being worked on, having last minute touches added before release. Plus what we have here is just the first batch of titles taking a stab at using the technology. If it is indeed true what developers have recently said; that it’s squarely down to the software, more so than the actually hardware (though a little at odds with what we know about how the Kinect actually works), then things should change for the better with second and third generation games. I wouldn’t expect hardcore types experiences like Gears Of War and Halo however, as they would need a Nunchuck or Navigation Controller style add-on to work. But certainly something more fully featured than what we are seeing now.

Ultimately, the very nature of how Kinect works limits its potential compared to the PlayStation Move, which is not only considerably more accurate, but is obviously more versatile as well. Though it will no doubt over time find its footing with specific genre types, and different kinds of experiences outside the traditional ones expected, it has much to prove before it lives up to expectation. That is, if more developers actually get creative when working on new software for the device. Rather than dishing out the same old stuff the Wii crowd is beginning to tire of.


The one area in which Kinect currently does succeed is fun. However you feel about the latency, or mixed results of early body tracking, you can’t argue that although bizarre, and at times rather pointless, it still brings something mildly enjoyable to the table. Maybe Kinect isn’t the deepest motion control experience around, being initially quite shallow. But some of the games are in fact very fun to play, and will no doubt bring both friends and family together for some loose and decidedly non-serious gaming sessions.

I’m willing to bet that this will be one of the most popular things in gaming this Christmas. It’s different enough from the Wii in order to make it interesting, and not bad enough to be utterly forgettable. Despite not living up to it’s initial claims of truly ‘making you the controller’, and delivering on the promise of having new innovative experiences, it is far from the disaster many people on forums are making out it out to be.

Eurogamer Expo: Hands-On Gran Turismo 5

Killzone 3 in 3D didn’t quite impressive as much as it perhaps should have done. Let down by some very fuzzy graphics, upscaled and artefact filled, much of the subtleties so obviously noticeable when viewing things in the third dimension were lost. Whilst depth perception still remained, its usage somewhat limited by your reduced line of sight, with enemies being made a little harder to pick out from a distance.

Thankfully Gran Turismo 5 doesn’t suffer from any of these problems; instead you could comfortably describe it as being Sony’s real flagship demonstration for the benefits of 3D gaming.


My first taste of GT5 came standing next to a player seated down next to me, right in the middle of a race. Putting on a second set of LCD shutter glasses provided for spectators to become acquainted with the 3D effect, I was initially a little disappointed. At an angle the 3D effect in GT5 looked rather strange. The car appeared to hover above the track whilst the scenery seemingly moved around it. However, when finally sitting down to go hands-on, positioned directly in front of the screen, things changed completely.

The 3D effect in GT5 is nothing short of superb. The vast levels of depth perception, and visual judgement of distance really come close to replicating the actual experiencre of being right there, hovering behind the car in the classic outside view, as I pelted around both the Tokyo and Rome circuits.

Not only can you accurately gauge distances between cars and the surrounding environment, you can also read with unparalleled precision the angle in which your car is situated in relation to others on the track in a real-world 3D space. Subtleties that previously had to be second-guessed from a 2D perspective in a 3D game are now opened right up allowing you to react and respond almost as you would in reality. I say almost, as the 3D version of the game was only controllable with a DS3 at the event. The 2D build was kitted out with a high-end Logitech GT Force wheel.

Also compared to seeing KZ3 in 3D, there is very little in the way of double image ghosting in GT5. The main reason for this is that Polyphony Digital’s driving sim runs mostly at a smooth 60 frame per-second, thus eliminating this unwanted effect. Some crosstalk was still present however. Although this is down to the nature of the LCD display it self not being able to provide a completely smear-free image, rather than the actual game, so it’s not really an issue.


Visually GT5 looked suitably stunning, in both 2D and 3D modes. The high levels of image quality gave way to a crisp and clean final image, both clinical in nature whilst appearing natural at the same time. Sharp, detailed textures are complemented with incredibly detailed car models, and lavish roadside scenery. A combination of real-time lighting, HDR, and pre-baked solutions also gave the game a bespoke sense of depth, whilst the overall quality of the rendering provides a photo realistic feel to the proceedings.

In terms of gameplay GT5 looks to have been given another massive change to its handling system. Compared to the Time Trial demo, the overall handling system feels far weightier, with under steer being as much of an issue as over steer. Not that this is a fault however, as you now have an even greater awareness of each vehicles weight and grip characteristics than before. In particular, racing at too high a speed can often lead to an excess of unwanted grip being produced, in which case careful braking and proper timing is required in order to quickly, but deliberately manuvere your way around sharp turns and constant changes around the track.

One thing I noticed is that it is actually a lot easier to not spin out of control this time around. More often than not going too fast leads you straight into a wall, or careering off the intended path, rather than having you car slide around in circles right in the middle of the road. Although that does happen when you try too hard to over compensate.


The balance is now even more determined by small incremental changes in weight, speed and grip than before, with much in the way to learn compared to GT5 Prologue – which now feels a little archaic in comparison. That said, I didn’t tinker too much with the few gameplay-based options that you have before each single race. And I believe that a variety of handling types may be available in what looked like an Arcade mode of sorts. I simply kept the ‘standard’ setting as that seemed like the most obvious choice in best representing the feel the developers had intended for the game.

Sadly I didn’t get a chance to sample all of the cars and tracks featured in the demo, and couldn’t compare how well the handling mechanics felt when using the GT Force wheel to the standard DS3 pad. However my short time with demo was more than enough to convince me that the game has gone through some serious upgrades over the last year or two alone, and that the 3D effect was one of the most promising I have ever seen.


Out of Sony’s line-up GT5 stood out by far as the most polished of all the first party games on display. It may not have delivered the high-level intensity of Killzone 3, or the same innovative talents as Little Big Planet 2, but it did provide a largely successful showcase for the 3D format, along with being one of the most accomplished driving games to be seen so far.

Update: looks like I should have switched to the 'professional' option for a more realistic, and less grounded approach to the games handling - the sources for the lack of oversteer almost certainly originates from this point. Although even the 'normal' option is considerably better than before. Going down the professional route will definitely be something I'll be doing in the final game. Shame I missed out on it at the Expo.

Eurogamer Expo: Hands-On Killzone 3

Killzone 3 was one of the most anticipated titles that I wanted to see at the EG Expo. It would not only be my first chance to gain some much-needed hands-on time with the title, but also get the full experience in 3D. Seeing as the game has been singled out time and time again as the reason not only to own a 3D TV, but also to feature the distinct tangible benefits of this latest picture format more so than any other title, I was intrigued to see on whether it could really live up to those promises.


Guerrilla Games latest begins with you on board the series trademark Intruder attack vessel, an open-top substitute for the traditional futuristic chopper. Equipped with a mini-gun at this point, the game takes you through a brief on-rails ride shooting down the various enemy energy rigs situated directly below you. Filled with pyrotechnics and tons of particle effects, the carefully orchestrated set pieces of destruction are immense. More, so in 3D in which various particles, such as snow, smoke and debris all coming flying out of the screen.

Moments later you are shot down, and then strung out across the cold icy ground, left for dead by the enemy. At this point the game ditches the mini-gun, and sees you taking on the Helghast forces on foot, standard guns in tow as you venture further into their territory for a spot of good old-fashioned tactical shooting. It’s here where Killzone 3 really comes into its own.

Initially not much appears to have changed; the same level of intensity found in Killzone 2 remains fully intact, and as brutally realistic as ever. Gunfights see the enemy troopers constantly going in and out of cover, flanking, moving between spots, and intelligently retreating when being pinned down by your fire. However, it is now even easier to go into cover than before. The system is more responsive, allowing you to use it quickly and decisively when needed. At the same time you can still go in all guns blazing. The environment is more open, and appears to allow a levelheaded mix of cover-point shooting, and head-to-head run and gun bloodbaths.


One of the things that I also noticed was that the game’s controls felt smoother and slightly more responsive this time around. In KZ2 there was a noticeably higher delay between performing a button press or stick movement on the controller before it actually registered on screen. Originally this added weight to the feel of the weapons, although it also made for a very slightly laggy experience at times - more noticeable than Halo 3’s 100ms of latency. For Killzone 3 this has been subtly improved. You can feel the distinct change on offer here instantly, while the weight of aiming and holding the game’s various weapons has not diminished. Instead it feels very responsive now.

Smacking someone in the face instead of shooting them in the head has also seen changes. Now the melee system looks to be context sensitive, with you performing different moves depending entirely on situation. No longer are you just pistol-whipping the Helghast into submission. Stabbing then with the knife is a common option, as is a brutally visceral stealth kill when creeping up from behind. I barely needed to do any of this though, with plenty of ammo and weapons around from fallen Helghast troopers, it was definitely more a case wanting to do it for pure satisfaction purposes.

KZ3 also features what looks like being the current HDR lighting of the time, but for gameplay. It has jetpacks. These are activated using the L1 button, and feel far more realistic than those found in Halo 3. Altitude is strictly controlled, as is flight time, so it definitely looks to be more of a realistic integration with the rest of the series grounded nature. Personally, I found the use of jetpacks slightly clumsy in KZ3, although only tried them out very briefly given the limited time I had with the demo.


Visually, there is no doubt that KZ3 looks to be a massive jump over the second game, despite the fact that the image quality of the 3D rendering mode leaves a lot to be desired. There’s far more in the way of particle effects filling up the screen; subtle snow effects are kicked up by both the enemies, and your soldiers feet, as well as being found flying through the air. Smoke and fire particles return with their volumetric look really adding to the sense of intensity when being on the battlefield, and the games lighting system seems to have had a nice expansion of the HDR styled bloom effect from the first game. Lots of nice real-time shadows, and small glimpses of SSAO are present.

All demo units of the game were fitted out with the latest Sony 3D ready HDTV’s, complete with LCD shutter glasses. And of course the game was fully playable in 3D. However, the experience in Killzone 3 was both a shining example of what was possible with the format, and a bitter disappointment given the game’s graphical quality in this mode. Props should be given to Guerrilla for not cutting back of any geometric detail, or pairing back the amount of stuff being displayed on screen at once. It’s incredible to think that in 3D that Killzone 3 is rendering everything twice with no reduction in art assets being used, which is no mean feat I can assure you.


2D


3D

Sadly the use of 3D in KZ3 is no work of a miracle. Instead massive cuts have been made to the game’s framebuffer resolution. Rendering in a mere 640x716 with MLAA, the game is extremely rough around the edges. Harsh jagged lines and bouts of pixelation littered the screen, as did the additional softness caused by some heavy upscaling. In fact at various points the game looked to suffer from as many artefacts as Wii games do when being upscaled. Not so great to be fair, and all these blemishes completely ruin the added depth perception and sense of immersion that the actual 3D effect provides.

The lower resolution effects in the standard 720p 2D mode also looked noticeably worse, suffering from all the same issues as the rest of the game. Now halved down to 320x360, smoke and particles appear heavily artefacted and really messy, distracting from the rest of the scene although still aiding in keeping you immersed in the experience.

That said the 3D mode in Killzone 3 still gives the feeling of bringing the player closer to the action. No matter how rough and poor looking most of the game appears in 3D, distance and depth are far easier to judge. And the impact of this can clearly be felt during play. It is easier to both accurately throw a grenade, and more natural to perform a close quarters melee attack knowing that they are pretty likely to hit as you expect them to. The use of 3D doesn’t improve poor judgement, but it does make things easier, when of course you can properly see what’s going on.


The build I played was the same Pre-Alpha code that featured at this year’s E3 - the very same one that I performed a tech analysis of some screens on earlier in June. Most of what I said back then still stands today. Other than perhaps when I mentioned that upscaling might well be less noticeable in 3D given the various reactions sighted by the gaming press in general. While this may be true for some, for me it was mostly the exact opposite, with the 3D separation limiting the rawness of the upscaling, but certainly amplifying its softness and the overall lack of image quality caused by it.

Of course there is still some six months to go before the game gets released, leaving plenty of time for last-minute optimisations, and a small but still slightly beneficial increase in overall framebuffer resolution. There’s also the exceptionally stunning looking 2D build, in which none of these aforementioned issues apply, and all the gameplay enhancements remain. So, either way you’re going to have a choice in the matter.


Overall, Killzone 3 is looking like a superb follow up to arguably one of the most technically accomplished titles this generation. The basic game plays even better than before, with larger set pieces and more responsive controls. And despite the extremely poor image quality, the use of 3D has obvious benefits amongst the heavy downsides required for its inclusion. Sure enough, in it’s currently messy state 3D isn’t going to blow you away visually, but it does take a vital stepping stone into showing what’s in store for the future.

Tech Report: Updated 3DS Software Analysis

Yesterday Nintendo announced the worldwide launch details of the 3DS, revealing that the machine would be released in Japan on 26th February, and sometime in March 2011 for both North America and Europe. The system will go on sale in Japan for at 25,000 yen, roughly equating to 200 of our GBP, or 300 dollars for those folks over the pond.

But rather than repeating countless details that you can read pretty much everywhere else, instead we’ll be taking an tech-focused look at some of the direct-feed trailers released by Nintendo and select third-parties of first batch 3DS software.

Nintendo themselves displayed a multi-title show reel of games currently in development for the system, although heavy-hitters like Resident Evil Revelations and Dead Or Alive Dimensions managed to get their own individual trailers. Seeing these two titles in motion alone, along with Metal Gear Solid 3, I was left distinctly impressed with the kind of quality on offer from these early, first-gen experiences.

Clearly these titles are already beyond anything seen on the last generation of consoles. Whilst polygon counts may be lower, and in some regards noticeable so, the impressive quality and precision of the effects on offer more than make up for this. In fact, they prove that despite the low paper specs of the console, that it can still deliver some graphically accomplished titles whilst touting all the benefits of stereo 3D along with them.

Taking a look at the individual titles themselves, and we can see the various strengths and weaknesses of the system in their entirety.

Metal Gear Solid in particular seems to show a perfect balance between low geometry and use of advanced visual effects. Whilst the game’s poly counts are noticeable lower than the PS2 version, the level of detail on offer is also visibly superior. You can easily see in the trailer that most of the game is normal mapped, and not just the characters.


The environments in particular benefit hugely from this, in some cases looking smoother than in the original PS2 game. The flower scene particularly demonstrates the 3DS’s ability to throw around lots of normal-mapped geometry on screen, along with having enough power left over to handle all the physics calculations needed for so many moving objects.

MGS Trailer

Dead Or Alive seems to feature excellent use of per-pixel lighting and normal mapping, both effects looking far superior to anything seen on the original Xbox. Texture detail is reasonable, filtering is pretty good maintaining relatively moderate levels of image quality, and the characters also seem to have dynamic shadow maps applied to them, which works well with the rest of the lighting solution. One downside however, is the lack of any self-shadowing. This makes the game look slightly flat compared to SSFIV and RE Revelations. Although seeing as it should be running at 60fps, this is a worthy compromise.

DOA Trailer – Our previous look

We’ve already taken a look a Resident Evil Revelations extensively here, and dare I say seeing it in motion is an incredible experience, comfortably showing off just what the 3DS can do. The quality of the normal-mapping is superb, the per-pixel, HDR infused lighting solution creates an incredible sense of depth, and texturing is quite possibly the most detailed on the platform.



Obvious issues stand out with the game running in 3D mode however. Texture shimmering and aliasing is apparent, as is edge aliasing due to the lack of any AA being present. These issues can be seen in the majority of PSP titles - a clear graphical downside of the Sony system - and in most of the 3DS games revealed so far.

RE: Revelations footage can be found this in line-up trailer

Super Street Fighter IV we’ve already covered here, so to be fair there’s very little we can add on to our original report. The game’s downgraded use of assets from the PS3/360 versions makes the title look remarkably close to the high-end console game. Self-shadowing if evident, and is backed up with a slew of impressive shader effects.

SSFIV Trailer

Perhaps one title that didn’t impress as much as the others was Capcom’s Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, a separate game from RE: Revelations. As you can see from the screenshots below, the game suffers from terrible aliasing from both a lack of AA, and from some pretty bad texture shimmering. This is made worse than in RE: Revelations due to greater amounts of small geomretry being present on screen, along with what looks like a lower level of texture filtering, and poorer mip-mapping.

Detail levels are incredibly high though, and it is clear that despite the low image quality that the game looks considerably more impressive than RE4 on the iPhone.



A general trailer showing off a wide range of 3DS games in development can be found below:

Nintendo 3DS Games Line-Up Trailer

Judging from the various videos released yesterday, it is pretty apparent that in many ways the 3DS easily outclasses every last-gen system with regards to visuals effects, and in fact pretty much everything seen on the iPhone so far. Epic citadel may have higher res texture maps and art assets, along with higher precision normal mapping, but it is also lacking some, if not most of the high-end, per-pixel effects that so many top-tier 3DS titles are showing off.

Case in point; there is nothing running in real-time on the iPhone that I’ve seen matching RE: Revelations, or MGS3 with half as many effects, whether that be an actual game, demo, or otherwise. Maybe that is simply because there is very little incentive to produce titles with such high quality visuals on the platform. And when most high-end titles sell for just £6.99, that is completely understandable, though it is precisely this difference which could make the 3DS stand out. That, and of course the fact that every game will be playable in 3D on the console with most of its visual integrity intact.

However, despite the polished visual mastery on offer with high-end 3DS titles, we can also see that the machine struggles with maintaining overall texture fidelity in some cases, with various issues from poor mip-mapping, to aliasing being present, very much like with what we are seeing on the majority of PSPgames. This is one downside that I perhaps didn’t quite expect to see so obviously given the nature of the hardware.

When you look at how even early Dreamcast titles manage to feature correct mip-mapping on textures with better filtering, and a lack of texture aliasing (even in titles which feature no AA), then we can begin to see the compromises Nintendo has had to make in order to get a reasonably powerful, albeit low spec handheld with 3D support out the door at a relatively low cost.

Saying that the 3DS isn’t the iPhone, nor is it the PSP2. Plus battery life, and a reasonable entry cost are far more important than having the absolute bleeding edge in visual fidelity at your disposal. It’s these factors, along with the desire to innovate, which usually separate Nintendo from the competition.

Even when taking into account some of the graphcal cut-backs sighted, the trailers released thus far show that for the most part, in real-world terms that the 3DS handles top end visuals extremely well for a handheld device, with a slew of shader effects balancing out the few negatives. Coupled with the fact that developers also have the option of enhancing their games with 2D only extras (AA and per-object motion blur) then what you have here is still a mightily impressive showing, just not quite as flawless as some may have hoped.