Kinect Components Cost Just $56

Many people have indeed doubted Kinect’s initial launch price of £130, sighting that the core components – such as the cameras and depth sensor – barely featured costs that rose up into double digit figures. Now, that almost certainly appears to be the case according to an independent report by UBM TechInsights.

After performing a teardown on the hardware, the value of the indivudual components is said to total around $56 (£34), without taking into account production costs in order to make the unit. A bill of materials also lists parts made by PrimeSense Ltd., Marvell Technology Group Ltd., Texas Instruments Inc. and STMicroelectronics NV, as making up the technology found inside the device. Out of the BOS, the PrimeSense reference system (documented below) makes up just $17 of the total component cost, with the other 20 parts taking up the rest.

According to the teardown featured at UBM TechInsights, the core tech of Kinect is made up of four microphones which track the users position via the use of auditory feedback, while the PrimeSense reference system consists of one non-LED camera and two image sensors, which detect motion. The first is an RGB camera sporting 32bit colour and VGA (640x480) resolution, whilst the second uses a monochrome-based solution with 16-bit QVGA resolution.

Back to the $56 component costs - And while the decision to sell Kinect at what looks like a profit-mongering £130, considerations have to be made against additional production costs, along with the high levels of R&D invested into software and development of the actual tech. All of these are likely to eat into any profit which Microsoft could have been making on the device.

It is likely that overall margins are pretty small, although we won’t know until the production cost per unit is revealed – a prototype design apparently cost around $30,000, so that’s one chunk of the R&D budget right there.

Review: Time Crisis: Razing Storm

There was once a time when arcade lightgun games were some of the most popular gaming experiences around, and some of the most graphically impressive. You only have to go back seven or eight years with the likes of Time Crisis II and 3 to see the impact such titles had. And the latter even managed to showcase some decidedly lovely PS2 visuals. Obviously, these days things are a little different. In fact, they are very different indeed. The day of the lightgun blaster is long gone, and in its place a barrage of first and third-person shooters, and western-influenced Japanese arcade titles.

Time Crisis: Razing Storm does nothing to stop the decline, being stuck firmly into the past with regards to production values, voice acting, and repetitive mediocrity as the core shooting mechanic fails to sustain your attention. It’s not a case of gaming having moved on, but rather, that most lightgun games are pale imitations of their former selves – something that is apparent right away when you play this collection.

On the Blu-Ray Disc, Razing Storm contains not one, not two, but three separate arcade releases. You’ve obviously got the new Razing Storm Time Crisis game, alongside of which we find another recent arcade shooter, Deadstorm Pirates, and the older, previously released Time Crisis 4. Out of these three games, two are machinegun based titles, whilst the other (TC4) is more traditional affair, but with a few added gameplay changes.


Razing Storm isn’t so much a sequel to Time Crisis 4, but a spin-off from the series. Instead the game looks like a follow up to Namco’s Crisis Zone - a machinegun, play and spray instalment in the franchise. While keeping the series familiar duck and reload mechanics in hand, the game sees you with your finger almost constantly down on the trigger, blasting away at dozens of enemies at a time, and rarely using anything other than a weapon capable of firing hundreds of rounds per minute. That is to say, that Razing Storm is more OTT rather than presenting you with a skilful shooting gallery as found in Virtua Cop.

Balancing out the game’s approach of near-constant shooting, enemies all have small health bars that must be depleted, and subsequently lots of bullets are required to take them down. On the upside, you won’t be getting shot all of the time. Instead, enemies become surrounded by a red or blue cursor that bleeps when an attack is immanent. The result: that you’ll only have to duck and defend either to reload, or when those bleeping markets appear on screen.


Other than the enemies themselves, you can shoot at almost anything in Razing Storm, and most of it is completely destructible. Tables and chairs can be blasted into pieces; windows can be shattered; and even large chunks of buildings and other solid objects can be damaged - the range of destruction is pretty impressive. At one point I was able to blow up nearly an entire row of buildings in sea of trigger-happy melodrama. Although lacking the full scale devastation that Battlefield Bad Company and its sequel has to offer, it is far from being just superficial.

However, the suitably destructive scenery does come at a cost to the visuals, which are pretty basic to say the least. Static lighting, poor texturing, and blocky environments are hardly an adequate concoction for a current-gen game, least of all a full price one. Given the low popularity of such a title, and the ongoing decline of the arcade industry in general, such a lack of polish, and indeed production values, is all but guaranteed. I would say that what we have here is merely satisfactory, though bland and un-inspired at the same time – the bloom lighting, though overdone is rather nice. Loading up TC4 once again shows that some of the artistic vibrancy found in similar titles made just a few years prior, is largely absent here in Razing Storm.


On top of the standard lightgun shooting Arcade Mode, and Razing Storm also adds an additionally fleshed out Story Mode too. This is basically like a FPS of sorts, with you having to move around whilst aiming and shooting. The control set up using the Move works very similarly to that powering most Wii first-person shooters, but is worse in execution. Even more so than with the main Arcade Mode, you’ll find loads of poor voice acting, terrible AI, and some of the blandest gameplay in existence.

Moving and turning is rather awkward regardless of how much you have adjusted the controls, and the action is decidedly pedestrian. Suffice to say, I didn’t bother to even finish this mode. It isn’t what Time Crisis is all about, and quite frankly, it would have been far more beneficial to have some additional stages tacked onto the regular arcade mode instead.

So Razing Storm itself isn’t all that great, although it is backed up by two other rather average lightgun games. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is Time Crisis 4 that is still the best of the bunch. It features a reasonable blend of precision shooting, whilst taking the time to implement some of the more OTT concepts found in Crisis Zone, and other action titles. Deadstorm Pirates on the other hand, like with Razing Storm, is a far more mundane affair, which only serves to highlight the drop in quality games like this are facing.



Overall, it is Time Crisis 4 which is by far the best this collection has to offer. It balances out skilful shooting with a few spray and play machine gun sessions, and has by far the most replay value of the trio. Sadly, neither Deadstorm Pirates nor TC 4 features their original arcade intro sequences. In fact, there is no intros whatsoever.

Outside of the games themselves, it was the promise of Move support which had me most intrigued. Doing away with the painfully ugly set-up that was the G-Con seemed like a perfect idea, especially as the Move has the capability for even greater precision, but without the hassle. Sadly, even here Namco have missed the boat somewhat. In terms of actual aiming and shooting, the Move performs brilliantly - there’s no mis-firing in which to speak off, and latency was inline with the G-Con.


However, Time Crisis has always required the use of an additional button outside the trigger on the gun itself: the use of a duck/reload button. Now while this was always well catered for on all three versions of the G-Con (with the G-Con 2 being the best), using one of the available buttons on the Move itself feels distinctly clumsy, or really uncomfortable at worst. There’s no option to use a Move plus Navigation Controller set-up, thus allowing for comfortable aiming and easy reloading – something which is already available while using the standard G-Con 3.

Ultimately, the result is that Sony’s Shooting Attachment for the Move is completely redundant. It’s borderline useless for Time Crisis as you don’t have access to a more comfortable reload/ducking set-up. In any case, for pure comfort and overall performance reasons, using the archaic, ‘wires everywhere’ set-up of the G-Con 3 is by far the best option.


In the grand scheme of things, it’s hard to recommend Time Crisis Razing Storm to anyone, including hardcore fans of the series. At full price (it’s £39.99) it neither represents good value, nor a great retro themed experience. You would in effect, be better served by tracking down a copy of TC4 and the G-Con 3 - both of which are sure to cost less second hand – than invest in this poorly put together compilation of decidedly average lightgun games.

Perhaps Namco should provide a Time Crisis 1,2 and 3 HD collection instead. Or even have another stab at the main series with a Time Crisis 5. Either way, lord knows why they bothered with this when there are far, far better alternatives out there. Some people may well enjoy the overtly cheesy nature of Razing Storm and Deadside Pirates, and find them reason enough to dust off that ghastly orange monstrosity that is the G-Con 3, although even they, I think, will feel slightly short changed.

VERDICT: 5/10

Kinect Gets Hacked: More Hardware Info Surfaces

Getting console peripherals fully up and running on the PC has been pretty much commonplace over the last few years. In that time we have seen certain individuals getting both Wii Remote and Nunchuck compatibility in Half-Life 2, whilst others have plundered the PSEye, creating new drivers to exploit the device’s full functionality. Now someone has seen fit to do the same thing with Microsoft’s Kinect, albeit in just a few days.

Yesterday it was reported over at gizmodo that the NUIGroup had successfully managed to hack Microsoft’s Kinect, and have, in just a short space of time, coded custom drivers for the hardware enabling it to work on PC’s. Whilst skeletal tracking currently isn’t available (this is done through MSs own software libraries) the person behind the hack has demonstrated both motor and accelerometer control, in addition to having full access to audio and visual feeds from the camera. Videos can be seen here and here.

Interestingly, control over both the both the motors is done by the host platform – either the PC or the Xbox 360, with no control over user tracking. Which begs the question of whether or not it is the Kinect itself is actually doing the tracking we originally though the 360 to be taking care of. At the moment this isn’t clear, although what is somewhat revealing, thanks to an iFixit teardown, is that the final retail version of Kinect does still have an onboard PrimeSense processor.

Could the device still be performing some of the tracking work? If so, then that would explain its presence, although not why the 360 has to perform the actual calculations for skeletal tracking, and not the simple user tracking as talked about here. Then again, some have alluded to an additional MS-based processing chip having been removed, which was said to have handled that particular task.

The inclusion the processor aside, we do know that while Microsoft’s own documentation lists the depth feed as 320x240, the actual hardware contained inside still has the capacity to record it in full 640x480 resolution. But why the apparent restriction? Again, we simply don’t know at this point, although more accurate tracking could be possible if developers have access to the full res feed.

Perhaps MS’s own API is what restricts this? We know for a fact that developers have openly stated in the past that it is the API that restricts exactly how Kinect can be used, and that future updates should expand functionality further. So this certainly wouldn’t be beyond the realm of possibility.

From what has been uncovered so far, it is pretty clear that whatever cutbacks have been made in getting Kinect out as a viable retail product, much of the original PrimeSense tech remains solidly intact, and perhaps even underused. The revelation of full 640x480 depth buffers for example, is reason enough to believe there is more developers could be doing with the hardware. And the discovery of a 3-axis accelerometer in the rotating camera itself, rather outworldly, allows the same tech to be adapted for use in robotics, with the accelerometer being used in orientation and depth-sensing for head movement.

One thing is for certain though, that NUIGroup’s reverse engineering of the Kinect, making it work on a PC, is just the beginning. We’re sure to find out far even more about the device in subsequent weeks after more tests have been done. Until then, this is just a mere taster of things to come.

Review: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II (360)

Star Wars is filled with some of the most familiarly emotive moments in mainstream cinema history: The scene when Luke first discovers his fathers true identity; the scene in which he learns that self-belief is as important a tool in using the force as is any physical training. It’s in these moments you can really see how much the series has truly impacted on our minds not only as children, but also as adults. Sure, the direction is somewhat cheesy, and the narrative decidedly cliché at times, but nevertheless serve to connect us to a world full of imagination and wonderment.

In that respect SWFU II misses the mark by some margin. While the game improves on its predecessor in many ways – the gameplay is noticeably polished beyond subtle touches here and there – the story and direction is a distinctly miss-matched affair lacking in overall focus and artistic flair. Technically, FUII does everything the first game should have done; it’s bigger, better looking, and far smoother with less in the way of bugs and glitches. However, it also cuts away some much-needed variety, with the reduction in enemies and stages making it a far shorter, less complete adventure.

Starting off, and you can see that the combat system, the basic staple of gameplay that makes up FUII is considerably polished over and above that of the first game. Animations are instantly smoother, as is the transition between lightsabre swipes and combined force plus force moves. Combos also flow into each other with much needed fluidity, and the core components which felt a little rough around the edges before, are nicely worked over into an enjoyable mix. This sequel is definitely better put together as a whole.


Starkiller, or should that be Clone Starkiller, has a much more fully-featured repertoire of moves from the get go. His force powers and lightsabre skills are noticeably varied by FUI standards. It is possible to perform force lighting, grab, and burst moves all from the start of the game. Plus combining force moves into light sabre combos is now a regular, and rather useful strategy for combat against a multitude of foes, and not just the ones immune to your electro-powered blade of doom.

Just running around hacking down strings of clueless Storm Troopers is a distinctly satisfying affair. As is blasting them with force lighting, or grabbing them before throwing them head-on into a wall, or a platoon of more unsuspecting troopers. This is now something that actually feels like it is equating to you using Jedi powers.

Or at least initially, for the opening few minutes, after which a veil of uninterrupted similarity and boredom begin to creep in. You see, while the FUII happily smoothens over the original’s rough edges, featuring more fluid combat, and the eradication of a wide range of intrusive glitches, it also fails to amount to being anything more than a polished up version of that very same game. But without the visionary storyline, or interesting plot or character developments.


So, while at first it appears that SWFUII is plenty polished over its predecessor, it soon becomes apparent (pretty early on in fact) that the vast majority of complaints raised about the first game haven’t been addressed at all. Take for example the many QTE finishers throughout the game; the closing few hits against the various enemy druids, and planetary creatures – they all end in the same way. Each particular enemy has only one type of QTE finisher, and they get old really quick.

This is made even worse by the fact that there is only a handful or more of enemy types throughout FUII, and most of these you will have seen before even getting a quarter ways through the game. Repetition then sets in even faster than it did before in the first FU. With only a familiar few foes to dispose of over and over again, the whole notion of becoming a powerful Jedi warrior soon wares off.


Warning signs were of course echoed way back in the earlier stages of development - ever since the team at Lucas Arts stated that the overall range of enemies would be dropped for this sequel there have been concerns. The team said that they wanted fewer foes in exchange for more varied combat; better AI, a wider range of enemy attacks allowing for a more tactical approach. However in reality this boil down to some enemies needing to be disposed of using only certain force powers, whilst others need slicing up with your lightsabre. It’s hardly inspiring stuff.

Outside of the basic combat, the same old frustrating platforming sections return in full force, and began to hamper enjoyment of the game very early on. In just the second stage the game starts to draw up short but equally unappealing jumping sections, whereby judging the angle and distance of your leaps can be a tiresome process. Some even require a double jump, plus dash combo, which usually results in you dashing off the edge of the platform you are supposed to be landing on.


Being a Jedi obviously requires at least some acrobatic prowess, and sections like these should be included. But not like this. You only have to look at the likes of Ninja Gaiden and Prince Of Persia to see just how such acrobatic flair should be done. Traversing the environment, running over it, leaping and bouncing with utmost grace and fluidity is a prerequisite, and not an un-used afterthought like it is here.

This is evident that this should be the case in the game’s many cut-scenes, in which the choreographed battles, although not particular exemplary, display the kinds of things we only wish we could be doing.

Despite being a little hurriedly put together, they do at least bare resemblance to the groundbreaking, but slightly stiff direction work seen in the action scenes from original trilogy. And as a whole, the game’s cinematics do succeed in feeling like a proper Star Wars production. Sadly, they also gloss over the fact that the plot is simply a overlooked rehash of what has gone before, now simply being a series of scenes and environments which cut disjointedly into one another with no coherency, or ryme or reason why such stuff is really happening.


Starkiller’s story has already been told. There’s no need for a re-treading of history. In the first game we saw how the beginnings of the Rebel Alliance was put together, but here, we are given very little tangible expansion of that story. There’s nothing here which remotely engages you like with the last game, nothing which really needed to be told. Essentially, while the original FU provided a nice interlude in between Episodes III and IV, FUII does very little convince us of its place, other than being a short episode of a Star Wars TV show – one that is there to pad things out before Luke, Han, and co arrive to set things right.

You are in effect just a clone trying to find out just who you are in the word, and as the game rolls on you are simply confronted with more questions, and even more child-like rebuttals. Surely, it would have been better to set-up the story with another rouge Jedi warrior, one that hasn’t yet been hunted down, one that could still play a key role. Instead, the story here holds no water, and we never care about Starkiller, let alone what the story is trying to do.


In that respect it is clear that with FUII the developers weren’t really aiming to tell an engrossing story, but instead try to deliver on some of the technical promises they failed on the last time around. And although they have, on some levels at least, succeeded, they have also completely forgotten to take care of some of the major design and gameplay issues which almost broke the original FU, to the point where the latter half of the game (that Star Destroyer incident) was utterly un-redeemable.

FUII isn’t anywhere near that bad, though it isn’t anywhere near as good as it should have been for a sequel. The opening stage is fairly well done, but really, that is all the game has to offer, right there. Later on things just get more repetitive, and more frustrating, with poorly implemented platform segments being broken up with overly familiar combat. The overall graphical polish is superb (good use of AA, better shaders and facial details), and the animations and combat flow far more smoothly than before. Most of the game-breaking glitches and bugs have also been dealt with.


However, despite this as the story draws to a close, and the inevitable final encounter looms, you can’t help but feel that things should have dramatically moved on. Instead, what we are left with is a technically impressive reminder of what the first game could have been, but chopped up, cut down, and delivered with a distinct lack of focus, or narrative care and attention. Combat is fun for a while, and being a Jedi is pretty cool for the most part, but the small and samey nature of the overall experience quickly breeds in boredom.

The Force Unleashed II could have been a thrilling, excitingly fun, and solidly diversive experience in its usage of the Euphoria engine, and cool Star Wars setting. Unfortunately, it is just a glorified tech demo, with some mildly enjoyable gameplay tacked on the end of it, lacking in focus and outstaying its welcome all too soon. It’s such a shame, as the franchise still has so much unused potential. Although we are unlikely to see that now.

VERDICT: 6/10

Review: Vanquish (PS3)

Vanquish is an awesome game, there’s no doubt about that. Platinum Games have created a masterpiece of a shooter that blows away any other modern day title that remotely tries to replicate the same blend of intense action and screen-filling chaos, of which there are next to none. Comparisons with Gears Of War may be drawn initially, as the game appears to be a more hectic variant of the duck & cover shooter. However, Vanquish is instead is more like a hardcore, three-dimensional homage to the 16bit run and gun shumps of old, and is as definitively thrilling as it is exemplary.

The best way to describe Platinum Games’ highly stylish, and overly intense homage to classic side-scrollers, is to say that it is like a warped version of Gears Of War on a speed trip. Though such limiting connotations just don’t really do it justice. Sure, you can play Vanquish like a simple Gears clone on easy mode, and the game does have plentiful spots of cover in which to park your backside against, though in doing so you’d be missing the point completely. And by a very large margin.

Perhaps with its use of high-powered, though grounded special abilities, and the instantly cool, but somewhat fiddly to implement weapon cancelling system, the game owes as much to classic, over the top beat’em up romps such as Marvel Vs Capcom as it does to any other contender to the third-person shooting crown. The sheer intensity of the combat; the amount of enemies, effects, and carnage on screen rip apart any misconceptions you might have taking you on a journey into one of the most satisfying action games that I’ve played in a long time.


Starting out initially, the game sees you taking on a few handfuls of enemies using the many walls and concrete cover points in order to take a few second breathers in between the more fierce battles for territory. This is pretty much like every other third-person shooter you’ve experience before. However, very soon after it finally starts to dawn on you that sticking in one place for any length of time isn’t a very good idea; you’re unlikely to stay alive for long doing this, especially as the game ramps up its foe count dramatically the further you push on.

Instead you have to keep moving, whether that be from point to point, or by trailblazing past scores of enemies using your jetpack. It doesn’t matter. The thing is, combat is meant to be fast, furious and often chaotic. The constant change-up between slower enclosed affairs, with wide-open faster paced sections is like the constant ebb and flow of pace in a fighting game.

However, unlike in those kinds of titles, you’ll be constantly facing a barrage of bullets, laser beams, artillery, and powerful rockets as the stage quickly turns into an all out battlefield. It’s hectic, but stylistically cool. And this is exemplified by Sam Giedeon’s use of a specially engineered suit giving him a small range of enhanced abilities.


Sam’s Augmented Reaction Suit (ARS) not only makes our futuristic American hero more agile – you can dodge, flip and cartwheel yourself past most heavy enemy fire, but also allows him to glide across the floor’s surface with the aid of a jetpack, plus conveniently upping his perceptive skills, delivering a slow-motion, bullet-time type effect to the action.

The jetpack, and in particular in combination with bullet-time is something that you’ll no doubt be needing to use throughout most of Vanquish, especially on the Normal and hard difficulty settings. Seeing as enemy fire usually comes from all directions, the game conveniently pushing you to move from place to place, and back again, using your suits impressive abilities in order to leverage any vantage point you can.

I found it distinctly refreshing running in head on, constantly repositioning myself the heat of battle, boosting around enemies before going in for the kill. The sensation you get is far more exciting than just by simply hiding behind various walls and other objects, occasionally popping up for a few quick shots before ducking back down again. Instead cover gives you a few quick seconds to grasp your bearings before you jump full-on back into combat, blazing past enemies, before spraying a mountain of bullets their way.


Often boosting past multiple targets, before turning around in full bullet-time action, whilst cartwheeling past an incoming barrage of projectiles is a common way of not only staying alive, but also positioning yourself for the perfect assault. Once in full slow mo you then can unleash your own sneaky counter attack. This is unmistakably what Vanquish is all about, and is something that you should frequently be doing all the way through the game. Sometimes though, the action becomes just a tad too overwhelming to handle, and the end result is being on the receiving end of some near-fatal impact damage.

Your suit may make you fast whilst being incredibly durable, but strong and built to withstand epic bombardments it is not. In order to give you that fighting edge, when you are mere seconds away from death the game automatically slows down into bullet-time, whilst your health quickly recovers. This then allows you to easily take out the most offending foes from halting your progress safely in the knowledge that a short represeve is only a few seconds away. It’s a nice touch, one that frequently helps you out just when you think you might be near the end.

Of course, your ARS abilities can be used independently from each another; activating the bullet-time mechanic to gain a better shot when needing to hit a crucial weak point for example, or boosting away to get out of tough situations in which there is no time to sensibly avoid conflict by more normal means. Chaining these abilities together however, is really where the game’s skill and subsequent depth really lies.


Take for example the weapon system. You have four weapon slots in Vanquish, and these can be toggled through via the d-pad (one for each direction) – you usually start with the assault rife, heavy machine gun, shotgun, and some grenades. However, weapons can be cancelled out mid-fire by simply pushing down on the d-pad to select another. This means that it is possible to lunge toward an enemy in slow-motion whilst emptying a whole assault rife clip into them, before cancelling into a shotgun for a decisively final, close-range blast to the head. It’s moments like these which really, really deliver that “oh yeah” factor, but without the need for any cheesy Americanised comments found in a certain other shooter.

It is up against the bosses in which these feats of brilliance are best served, although due to the sometimes fiddly nature of the controls, such events rarely go quite as planned. And this is perhaps the biggest issue that can be laid out against the game; that with so many button combinations to remember, and the d-pad to consider in higher-level play, Vanquish sometimes feels like it’s more inaccessible than it perhaps should be.

I really like the idea of weapon cancelling – it brings much dept to the table. But when it is so finicky to use, it can feel redundantly absent. You can of course still manage to utilise most of your acrobatic, Matrix influenced arsenal despite some minor qualms with the controls. And the range of impressive bosses, and sub-bosses - which become normal foes once you’ve encountered them for the first time – is exactly where this tatic is best reserved. Imaginatively designed, screen-filling, and scenery destroying in nature, these awesome encounters are some of the best parts of the game.


Forget the blazing gunfire found right in the regular battlefield, because when up against one or even several bosses at once, you’ll be bombarded with scores of incendiary projectiles, and numerous other tools of war. And as if taking these behemoths down wasn’t difficult enough, every one features its own signature one-hit-kill attack, giving out an instant death sentence if you’re not quick enough to move out of the way.

Such moves are rarely of continued annoyance. And although later bosses use this quick kill manoeuvre far more frequently, the game does give you adequate toolage in order to deal with them successfully. It’s just a case of memorising each boss’s specific attack patterns, avoiding the lethal blows, and constantly boosting, dodging and countering all the way through to the conclusion, in which you should witness a lovely cataclysmic explosion, filled with layered smoke and loads, and loads of awesome particle effects.

Spectacle isn’t just contained in these encounters however, Vanquish features a fair few dramatic set pieces and lavishly scripted events. One of which is a very, very cool train section, which sees you situated on one train while firing on another that twists and circles your carriage on a intertwining track way. Another segment will see you taking on several mini-bosses at once, up against a range of powerful fixed weaponry amongst some stunningly lavish visual carnage.


Elements like these, and the many large-scale battles to be found through the game all flow nicely into each other. There’s never a moment where Vaquish feels disjointed, or where certain sections come out of nowhere. Perhaps the only thing which occasionally tends to intrude, is the game’s use of brief cinematic interludes during gameplay, which break up some very short shooting sections just as they are getting started. Quite why this was done I’m not sure – the plot isn’t expanded in any meaningful way that’s for sure, and they simply break up the feel of the game.

The rest of the cinematics though are a very welcome inclusion. They are a blend of the same OTT action as found in the gameplay segments, complete with the same electronic, trippy music that encompasses the entire game. And whilst these cut-scenes don’t really flesh out the story, they are amazingly well directed, and act as an impressive companion piece to the highly-stylished gameplay.

Effectively, the plot is only a sallow device used to set up the next elaborate action sequence, where by there is lots of shooting, lots of cool set-pieces, even more shooting, and then more short cinematics, followed by even more of the same. And since it is this rinse and repeat nature of play which makes Vanquish feel like a modern-day re-envisioning of classic 90’s shooters like Contra and Metal Slug, rather than just a Japanese take on Epic’s GOW, that is exactly how you should view it.


Vanquish blends tried and tested old-school arcade methodology with modern day, western sensibilities into a ride of highly intoxicating, choreographed chaos, complete with large scale intense action, and short little cinematic interludes - Quantum Theory this is not. The game then is a stellar example of Japanese madness meeting crazy over the top gunplay, delivered in a familiar form, though strikingly fresh and original at the same time.

If there are any complaints to be had, then it’s the somewhat stiff animations, and slightly complicated controls which mostly come to mind. Although neither really put a dampner on the experience, and you’ll be hard-pressed not to forgive such issues considering the level of polish to be found throughout.

Vanquish may well be a little too hectic for some, with the near constant bombardment of multi-directional action threatening to disengage anyone unaware of the sheer apocalyptic mix contained within, but it also provides some of best slices of arcade style gaming in recent years. The fact that it does this so well, means that Platinum Games latest is quite possibly one of the best games I've played this generation, and is in my view, utterly essential.


VERDICT: 9/10

Tech Analysis: NFS: Hot Pursuit Demo (PS3 vs 360)

Some studios simply understand the foundations that make for good multi-platform development, and Criterion is at the forefront of those. With an engine custom built to take advantage of both consoles specific strengths, and leveraging near flawless workarounds against their weaknesses, it is no surprise to see that once again they have delivered another exceptional example of high-level PS3 and 360 development.

The tech powering Burnout Paradise showed that one of the key factors in achieving parity across both formats was parallelisation; whereby off loading multiple tasks across multiple CPU threads and processors allowed for nearly every small bit of CPU/GPU time to be used effectively. Scalability was at the core, with the level of overall processing time constantly shifting accordingly between tasks that needed it as and when required.

Criterion understands that spreading the workload and keeping all parts of the rendering engine busy is the main factor in obtaining constantly high performance across the board, and on both platforms. But it’s more than that; optimising the engine so that the core components that make up the graphical look of the game are suited to both platforms, and not just one, plays an equally massive role too.

For Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit Criterion have done exactly that. Like with Burnout Paradise the team have been able to balance out the underlying tech behind the game, with an impressive feature set; including real-time image-based lighting on the cars, beautiful specular highlights, and large, open environments, with cross platform performance that is shockingly soild.



And performance is indeed the first thing that you’ll notice: NFS:HP is clocked at a constant 30fps with absolutely no screen tearing. It goes without saying that both formats are like for like in this regard, and if anything proves that Criterion’s engine delivers on what it set out to do.

The game almost never deviates from its initial 30fps update, only taking a quick drop during some of the more intensive takedown scenes, but never during normal racing/driving. The same thing is true for both PS3 and 360; even when driving around like a lunatic, crashing into scenery and smashing into the sides of your rivals, the game preserves its smoothness with ease.

Along with barely any slowdown, I have to say that it is definitely something of a surprise to see a distinct lack of screen tearing being present during gameplay. NFS:HP seems to continuously maintain v-sync on both PS3 and 360 without needing to drop it in order to preserve framerate. This in contrast to the likes of Split Second in which v-sync is temporarily disengaged in order to ensure more steady performance as a result. But here, there doesn’t seem to be a problem.

However, I must also state that it is incredibly hard to detect extremely minor events of screen tearing in such dark and low contrast areas, so maybe it is possible that the odd frame could be being torn on very brief occasions, though that is not obvious during regular gameplay. Without equipment to measure such things, I can only go by what I’m seeing.



Running at half the framerate of Burnout Paradise (that was 60fps) NFS feels distinctly different to Criterion’s last title, and not just because of the framerate. The handling model has been completely reworked and built up into what feels and looks like a new game, and not a simple re-hash of what has gone before. Though the use of a lower framerate, and this new, slower drifting mechanic has a dramatic effect on the action.

Obviously running at 30fps introduces higher controller latency into the mix, whereby button presses and turns of the analogue stick are ever so slightly less instant than if the game was running at a higher framerate. This latency is definitely apparent over and above the 60fps Burnout Paradise, although it is actually the new handling mechanics, and the use of demo specific cars that make the control seem to have a little more lag than it does.

In fact, when gently moving the left stick to turn you can see that small, almost instant movements are possible, and that it is the way the game plays that brings about this feeling – it is intentional, and reminiscent of the handling found in Black Rock’s Split Second.



So in terms of performance both versions appear pretty much like for like, and we can also see the same thing being applied to the rest of the demo. Looking at screens, and by playing both versions almost side-by-side (flicking back and forth between HDMI inputs) we can see that texture detail, filtering, lighting, and the vast majority of effects are exactly the same on both platforms. It’s basically a solid match, with next to no discernable differences.

However, there was one really small difference that I was able to spot, though you will really have to go looking for it. Some of the specular maps on the game’s road surfaces are rendered in a slightly higher resolution on the 360. You can see this in the screenshot below. Notice how the bump-mapping appears slightly clearer on the 360 build, and slightly more blurred on the PS3.

It’s a very minor observation, one which rears its head on only some surfaces. But to be fair this isn’t something you are ever likely to notice when playing the game. And even if you do, it certainly isn't something that intrudes on the overall experience.



Moving on to the general make up of the game and image quality analysis, and we can see that NFS:HP is rendered in 720p (1280x720) on both platforms, with the standard 2xMSAA (multi-sampling anti-aliasing) delivering ample edge smoothing.

Interestingly, there seems to be more than just MSAA going on in regards to this; many areas of the game (small pieces of geometry, objects in the distance, and most noticeably, power lines and thin wires) feature a surprising amount of jaggies reduction, more than what is possible with just regular MSAA. Both versions are exactly the same in this regard.

In the night-time police chase section – the only part of the demo we had access to – we can see that despite the low contrast nature of the scene aiding things slightly, that there is far less in the way of overall aliasing than expected on thin surfaces and polygon edges. Looking at still screen shots it is clear than parts of the environment are being smoothed out using another method of image smoothing. Which one, and how, we don’t really know, though the effect is solidly welcome.

However, the sub-pixel issue still appears in areas across the scene, with some objects in the distance still having noticeably shimmering edges, and some undesired shader aliasing. It’s definitely an improvement over what traditional anti-aliasing techniques would have provided, but not quite the clean, artifact free look that it can initially appear to be.

Either way, the use of MSAA plus additional edge smoothing is definitely beneficial, and delivers a tangible improvement over what we expected. It’s not anywhere near as impressive as God Of War 3’s use of MLAA (morphological anti-aliasing), but a nice inclusion nevertheless - many surfaces get great use of smoothing not otherwise obtainable by regular means.



Lastly, the way the lighting has been implemented is another nice plus point in this latest Criterion exploit. The whole game uses something called image-based lighting, whereby the cars are accurately lit by their surrounding environments at all times, meaning that the clouds and other numerous light sources all have an impact on how the cars look throughout the game.

This is done by rendering the environment first, using the more traditional forward rendering method, whilst the cars are done afterwards in a differed rendering pass. The environments have to be done first in order to accurately light and shade the cars; the result being a mightily impressive use of lighting with a level of realism not often seen outside high-end tech demos.



In the end the demo for Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit clearly showcases some of Criterion’s new tech rather nicely, and also manages to prove that their way of thinking when it comes to multi-platform development is in fact the right one. There’s barely any difference between the PS3 and 360 versions of the game, and aside from one small factor they look exactly the same.

The game may not always impressive on an artistic level – I personally don’t really like the night-time demo track all that much, but technically it definitely raises the bar in some respects. Some remaining sub-pixel aliasing isses aside (you need to use supersmapling, which isn’t feasible on consoles), it would be nice to see more developers taking this approach to game development.

Sadly, I wasn’t able to analyse the supposedly more impressive daytime track - it’s locked until one of your friends on both PSN and XBLA has downloaded and played the demo. And rather annoyingly, none of mine have, so a further look will be required when the final game comes out to really see just how well Criterion’s engine, and the overall game it self turns out. While the demo is a nice, intriguing starting point, it is only a tiny chunk of what the final release will have to offer.

As always thanks go out to AlStrong for the pixel counting, and Cynamite.de for most of our comparison screens. Mr Deap for the others. A full gallery can be found here.