It’s no surprise to often hear about paired back PS3 ports of the latest new releases. In fact, although the gap has now closed somewhat, it was once a commonplace occurance.
Take the first two Bioshock games for example, rendered in a lower resolution complete with a blur filter and further reduced resolution effects, they where hardly the best advert for Sony’s regularly misunderstood console - our own tech analysis of Bioshock 2 strongly supports this. However, this has not gone un-noticed with series creator, and developer of the upcoming Bioshock Infinite, in which the company’s technical director, Chris Klein helped put forum users at ease.
"we're serious about making sure the PS3 version is great."
"We have no plans to hand off the PS3 version of BioShock Infinite to another studio. In fact, it's not a 'port' at all. We have a much larger team than we did on the original BioShock, so we're doing simultaneous in-house development on the PS3, 360, and PC versions of the game.”
Part of achieving this newfound focus on cross-platform parity comes from using a brand new engine, which has been customised in such a way that allows programmers to approach work on both versions similarly as you would when simply coding for the PS3. It has been said many times before that this approach would see tangible benefits for both platforms, and this certainly seems to be the case.
"We all know that the PS3 is powerful but unique console with its own strengths and challenges. But compared to the PC, the Xbox 360 is challenging too. So instead of declaring a 'lead platform' and porting the game to the others, we've instead changed the game engine so that all platforms look (to a programmer) more like a PS3. This means implementing a task-oriented task processor that assumes a NUMA (non-uniform memory access) design that mimics the PPU/SPU split of the PS3. Writing code this way is more difficult for us, but has a key advantage: it's both optimal for the PS3 *and* gives speed improvements on other platforms due to increased cache coherence and more efficient use of multiple processing units."
“We've built a whole new parallel processing framework (a "job architecture", in programmer lingo) that lets the engine take advantage of as many cores as you can throw at it. This will let us eke out all the power of the PS3 and 360, and also give hardcore PC gamers something to show off their rigs with.”
Chris also talks about how moving to a deferred lighting system was done to help reduce overall CPU overhead, particularly on the PS3’s rather limiting PPU, whilst also shifting certain tasks off of the RSX GPU and to the SPU’s further optimising the engine for increased efficiency.
“This decision (switching to a deferred lighting scheme) was made for many reasons but one important one is that, compared with a Unreal's traditional forward rendering scheme, deferred lighting reduces the amount of work we need to do on the slowest part of the PS3 (the PPU). It also allows us to move work from the GPU to the SPUs, which gives us many options for speeding up rendering on that platform.”
Furthermore, all programmers also have access to both 360 and PS3 dev kits, thus allowing them to test and optimise code as new features are implemented. This means that various graphical and performance issues can be worked on simultainiously throughout development, rather than porting to PS3 and then working out the kinks. Devs can see how things are progressing on a side-by-side basis.
"In terms of production, we're constantly testing our code on the PS3, as it is part of our QA team's daily test plan. All of our programmers have PS3 and 360 dev kits on their desks, and can test on the PS3 just as easily as on the 360. To make sure we find and fix problems as quickly as possible, we have a ‘continuous integration automated build system’ that rebuilds the PS3 version and runs basic tests on it every time a programmer or artist makes a change to the game. It even emails them right away if they break something. In addition, we've also built tools that allow artists and designers to instantly check whether or not their levels will fit in memory on all three platforms, without ever leaving the editor."
With this thoroughly insightful and incredibly revealing post, we can see that Irrational are not only taking the PS3 version of Bioshock Infinite seriously, but like with Criterion games and other such developers, understand that the key to delivering top performance one platform is often to optimise the core engine in a way that benefits all platforms. And by working around parallelising their code, they are doing exactly that.
Previous titles, such as Burnout Paradise, and most recently NFS: Hot Pursuit have shown that this way of approaching multiplatform development actually works, and very well too. So in that respect the next instalment in the Bioshock series looks to be in good hands.
Without a doubt we’ll definitely be keeping you updated on this one. The highly modified tech – based around UE3 – is both interesting as it is visually alluring, and should provide us with another captivating report as more details surface. Hopefully, we'll be able to declare both versions as being basically identical in an eventual, and extremely far off tech analysis of the game. That's certainly what Irrational hope to see.
Saturday, 20 November 2010
Thursday, 18 November 2010
Review: Call Of Duty: Black Ops (360)
Ignoring reality, Black Ops firmly has its feet solidly in the realms of fantasy: Busting through a set of doors before busting a cap in the head of Fidel Castro is clearly a world away from such endeavours black ops units actually get up to. But then again, we never know. Certainly not with a team designated to perform operations that no upstanding military commander would authorise - at least not officially, and that is what makes Treyarch’s latest an interesting tale. So this instalment in the award-winning Call Of Duty series once again further allows itself to be larger than life, with intense set pieces and non-stop gunfights for terrain supremacy, funnelling you along corridors in what looks like an FPS gallery shooter with firm homage’s to yet more Hollywood movies. Then again, this is exactly what Modern Warfare turned the series into. But even before, it was heavily branching down the path of arcade realism. Black Ops simply lives up to this premise. It’s here to please those grown accustom to the series trademark style, and unrelenting ballet of bullets.
It’s not that I particularly mind this forte of action. In fact I rather like it. The balance of near constant shooting, with brief pauses in between to regenerate health, commandeer a fixed-turret machine gun, or in order to quickly take a breather and assess the situation is exactly what makes this series tick. However, Black Ops also shows that the now well-worn formula works even better when combined with a more coherent storyline, and a focus on individual characters, however small, rather than being an all out mish-mash of convoluted James Bond-esque set pieces and mindless exposition.
Here, you spend most of your time in the shoes of John Mason, a Black Ops team member that now finds himself captured and being interrogated about events from past missions. Hidden behind a smoky glass window, an un-named spook attempts to extract vital parts of your service history, which are presented through various flashbacks as you succumb to the pain inflicted. These flashbacks comprise the game’s long sea of missions, taking you through Vietnam, Cuba, Russia, and back again in a heightened Cold War era tale of misinformation and distrust.
Essentially, through these flashbacks Black Ops tracks your progress taking part in everything from the apparent assassination of Castro, and discovery of a chemical weapon – the potent never gas, Nova 6 – right the way through to hunting down the Russia generals and Ex Nazi commander responsible for the new terrorist threat.
At first the story seems somewhat disjointed, almost feeling dazed and confused like John Mason in the chair he finds himself strapped down to. However, as more of Mason’s memories come flooding back to the surface, and as the elaborate tale unfolds as a whole, everything becomes clear as day, with Black Ops keeping you gripped with its focus on giving away brief snippets of information via short and snappy cut-scenes.
To that end the single player campaign is a more tightly reigned in affair compared to MW2, with emphasis on big budget Michael Bay style set pieces, and a near constant barrage of action. It is never quite as overdone as some of the things found in Infinity Ward’s last COD title, with the larger events feeling more realistic in a warped sense of the word. Plus, the game tries to keep a balance between the large explosive encounters and quieter missions that are based around stealth or a brief moment of tactical combat.
Outside of these ebb and flow elements to the action, the straight forward shooting is broken up even more with several vehicle sections whereby you take control of helicopters, boats, and a tank in bringing about some stylised destruction. What’s cool about these, is that some have been deliberately influenced, and dare I say, going as far as ripping off various Vietnam flicks of the past thirty years of so with the use of licensed soundtracks and iconic confrontations – it all makes the fictional story, and the combat more natural when compared to some of things the series has thrown at you before (the nuke in COD4 anyone?).
Black Ops also takes the time to stretch out the battlefield even further than before, providing players with larger, more open spaces in which to take part in elaborate battles that have to be handled a little differently. Like with the rest of the game, there are always a few carefully orchestrated set pieces to be found amongst the endless amounts of enemies to kill.
However polished most of the action is throughout – and it is a superb, well-constructed affair - Treyarch don’t always seem to get it right all the time. And in too many of these open battlefield sections the old case of respawning enemies rears its ugly head once again. Ultimately, there’s little you can do other than to shoot down a few them before making a run for it to the next checkpoint, thus stopping the endless flow of potential cannon fodder.
The first Vietnam stage is home to the most obvious, and easily the worse implementation of this in the entire game, whereby, as you are making your way down an embankment to the trenches below over the horizon literally dozens of enemies continuously head your way. Sure, you can push over a few barraels and set them alight to keep odds stacked in your favour. But if you don’t… its run and gun until you reach the next section.
This is perhaps the main difference between Black Ops and Modern Warefare 2 – other than having a more succinct and character driven narrative – in which the game feels like its relying on an old, thoroughly worn out tactic to deliver a challenge that could’ve been handled far more intelligently. It’s no deal breaker. And other than a few short spells of frustration here and there, the campaign is handled with a lot more reserve and direction than expected.
Black Ops’ single player expedition through the cold war era is firmly solid and handled with minute precision. Cool touches like licensed music and the inclusion of real life figures such as president John F Kennedy add weight to the proceedings, whilst the gameplay is cut from the same cloth as previous Call Of Duty’s, almost feeling a little too comfortable in its own skin.
As you’ve probably guessed, progression isn’t a word Black Ops understands, nor heeds to at this point. But then again it doesn’t really need to, not when the overall game is as polished as it is. The gameplay, although tried and tested, perhaps even a little stale, is still as involving as ever, and the more focused nature of the campaign helps it shine through any excursions of monotony. As Modern Warfare 2 demonstrated: being bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better. And this is one cliché that Black Ops thankfully manages to avoid.
Like with all Call Of Duty titles though, the campaign is just for starters. It could be argued that the multiplayer – especially online – is firmly on the charge, delivering an automatic spray of replay value well after the cold war conflict of the single player outing has happily exhausted its supply of conscripts. Black Ops then, doesn’t disappoint. With a range of inspired new game modes, and a return of World At War’s fanatically popular ‘Zombies’ Treyarch again have shown command of a franchise they originally were criticised for taking the reins of.
It’s no surprise then to learn that online and multiplayer is exactly where the franchise has taken its biggest steps forward. New modes, and a currency system of sorts expands and complements COD’s trademark use of perks and the established procedure of ranking up as you play, with the ability for greater levels of customisation amongst players whilst adding variety in an increasingly familiar environment.
The use of the new COD points for one, allows you to purchase weapons, clothes, and abilities in the form of perks instead of simply ranking up to get such items. Interestingly this adds a lot more variety to the proceedings without the expense of making the experience feel un-balanced. It’s pretty coo to gain new things more quickly, rather than having to battle it out in endless online matches in order to rank up to do so.
You can even gamble away these points in a series of free-for-all modes called Wager Matches, in which a variety of game types are available. Highlights include One in the Chamber, whereby each player is only given a pistol with one bullet, a knife, and three lives, and Gun Game, in which players start off with a pistol and are given a new weapon with each kill. Getting knifed gives you back the previous weapon, while getting a new one means that you’ll have to quickly adapt to using weapons you may not be very adept at using.
Also as mentioned earlier the Zombies mode from COD: World At War makes its riumpant return, but this time is expanded upom with several maps, and the ability to play as either of John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Robert McNamara, and Fidel Castro while battling Zombies in The Pentagon, which is pretty cool to say the least. Four players can play online in co-op, whilst there is the legacy two-player split screen option for those who want to be in a room with ‘real’ people.
If there’s anything to complain about, it’s that the game’s matchmaking service is a little slow, and the online co-op campaign of WAW is strangely absent. Besides that Black Ops takes some large strides forward in delivering the deepest, most satisfying range of multiplayer modes to date. The combination of perks, rankings, with COD points and a range of excitingly geniuos new modes helps keep it right up there along with the awesomeness that was the original Modern Warfare online.
Unusual as it first may seem, it appears that Call Of Duty Black Ops well and truly does deliver. There is always a risk of creating an instalment that fails to differentiate itself enough from past games, or one which strays a little two far from the crows nest. However, Black Ops does neither. Instead, it balances a fine line with a single-player campaign that simply treads old ground in a more coherent manner, and a multiplayer in which it mixes up the familiar helping to keep it exciting.
And overall, as complete package there’s simply no doubt that Treyarch have done a reasonably stellar job here. The level of polish, and expertly crafted, fast-paced, visceral action takes a page right out of the Infinity Ward rulebook, but doing it better than MW2, and with even more style. It can be said with confidence that the studio should no longer be looked at under the cloud of IW’s past successes, but instead as a solid team on their own, with their own take of what Call Of Duty should be.
VERDICT: 8/10
Tuesday, 16 November 2010
Tech Report: A Look At The L.A Noire Trailer
Originally intended as simply a PS3 exclusive release, L.A Noire is now heading to both PS3 and Xbox 360 later next year. With Red Read Dedemption slowly fading out of gamers minds, and with another GTA not on the cards for over a year, attention has begun to turn to Rockstar’s barely talked about crime thriller, L.A Noire.
A few days ago a brand new trailer was released for the game. It appeared to be put together from in-game engine cut-scenes, running in real-time and presenting audiences with a firm impression of what’s to come. Well, it terms of the characters and atmosphere at least – the gameplay at this point, lurks away somewhere in Rockstar’s gritty 1930’s and 40’s inspired world, yet to be privy to a public spectacle.
Check out the HD trailer here
While the trailer hardly looks visually outstanding on first impressions – or on repeat viewing for that matter – one element does stand out above the rest: the game’s incredible facial animation system and use of some stellar motion capture work - the very reason for us taking the time out to deliver this short technical look.
Having convincing lip-syncing, backed up by decent voice acting are two such requirements for any title whose focus is on providing an intriguing and potentially gripping narrative tale. Though without adequate motion capturing, and considerably polished facial responses, all this goes to waste. Just look at the likes of Alan Wake, or Heavy Rain, both are titles that loose some of their emotional impact due to either poor voice acting, bad lip-syncing, or buggy motion capture work.
One or two of these elements may make for a compelling enough experience, but not an exceptional one. And it is exactly this which L.A Noire hops to rectify.
Looking at the trailer, and we can see that Rockstar have indeed taken the time in not only providing some rather excellent voice work, but also in meticulously crafting some of the most sophisticated facial animation tech we’ve seen in any game so far. The way facial muscles move as characters are speaking, and the subtle changes in normal mapping as muscles expand and then contract (around lips and mouth), at the most basic level, all go along way to adding a sense of believability to the proceedings, that you are in fact watching actual characters coming alive on screen, and not simply polygon models.
From a technical point of view, this singular element is by far the most advanced, though is the only one to really impress as a whole. The superb blend in normal mapping offsets the sometimes potentially stiff looking nature of pure geometry movement, thus allowing smoother animation as a result. More detail in the way in which individual elements of the face reacts are clearly shown, along with an impressive use of normal maps working in tandem with the motion capture animation.
Outside of the solid motion capture work and stand-out facial animation system, the rest of the tech powering the game appears to be far less impressive. Although, the washed out and reduced-contrast nature of the art direction seems to be the main cause of this. The style presented here in L.A Noire is faithful to the unique look of similarly themed movies of the 1930’s and 40’s; that is to say that contrast has been intentionally adjusted resulting in a slightly washed out look to the game in general.
However, we can also see that skin shaders and layered shader effects in general, aren’t terribly impressive. In fact they seem to be quite basic compared to more advanced implementations as seen in the recent Call Of Duty Black Ops. L.A Noire appears to be using only basic texturing, plus a normal map and colour map for its character faces, with noticeable levels of specular highlighting being distinctly absent - the matt, almost shiny look is being caused by the normal mapping in reaction with the game's lighting model.
Oddly, there is evidence of screen-space ambient occlusion in these screens, though the effect does little to bring a large amount of additional depth to the scene compared to most titles that use it. Usually SSAO is implemented in order to expand the impact shadowing has throughout a game, bringing more depth, and indeed detail to the scene. However, in L.A Noire it looks like the level of contrast defeats that slightly. Like in the 360 version of Kane & Lynch 2, its effects go partially un-noticed, other than some artefacting revealing its presence.
Perhaps implementation of SSAO is being used to balance out the low contrasted nature of the game as a whole, delivering more shadowing depth where there would otherwise be even less. This would certainly explain why we aren’t seeing more three-dimensionality in overall image composition. Or maybe, it’s that the effect is only being used subtly to complement the look the artists are going for.
Moving on, and the actual framebuffer itself looks to be native 720p, but contained in a 2.39:1 aspect ratio (1280x540), with black boarders at the top and bottom of the screen. It is these boarders which account for the 540 horizontal res that you are seeing – actual gameplay will of course be presented in full screen, so we expect that a full 1280x720 image will be available for the duration.
There’s no scaling of any kind going on, despite the blurry nature of the screens on this page. Instead, the loss in IQ is caused by video compression artefacts, which not only affect edges but pixels across the entire scene.
Outside of the obvious technical murmurings, there’s no indication of platform the montage from the trailer is comprised from. Originally L.A Noire was conceived as a PS3 exclusive, with a 360 release announced only months ago, so it is pretty likely that the footage is indeed taken from the Sony version.
Depending on when development shifted from being solely a single platform affair to becoming a full multi-platform project, we could be looking at a game potentially leading on the PS3. This would mean that parity between both formats should, in theory be reasonably close, without noticeable cuts being made to the PS3 version in terms of resolution or even alpha buffers - which are likely to be used more sparingly in any case of PS3 leading. Uncharted 2 for example, displays relatively few heavy alpha-based scenarios in comparison to COD: Black Ops, and Killzone 2 and 3 both use lower res buffers with additional blending for better integration.
Again, this is pure speculation at this point - the trailer could well be using the 360 build for all we know. And in terms of leading on PS3, that sometimes can be used to boost performance of the 360 version as well, with a greater emphasis on optimising code and an increased use of parallelisation delivering a visually better looking game as a result.
Overall, L.A Noire is looking pretty interesting as a cinematic title, if not as a technical showcase for high-levels of decent motion-capture work, and impressive facial animation. While the rest of the graphical make up, from the very little we’ve seen, looks at this point to be distinctly under whelming, one can’t help but feel this was a stylistic choice more than anything else, in-keeping with the world and imagery the developers are trying to create.
And in that respect L.A Noire looks to be quite intriguing. We’ve seen many games that try, and indeed fail to pull off real cinematic brilliance – Alan Wake and Heavy Rain to name but two – although Rockstar’s track record remain distinctly un-blemished in this regard. Both Red Dead Redemption, and especially GTA IV previously showcased the skill and command the company has over delivering such experiences (different team, but still), and with L.A Noire they certainly look like they could be doing the same again.
Time will tell however, but we’ll definitely be keeping our eye on this one.
A few days ago a brand new trailer was released for the game. It appeared to be put together from in-game engine cut-scenes, running in real-time and presenting audiences with a firm impression of what’s to come. Well, it terms of the characters and atmosphere at least – the gameplay at this point, lurks away somewhere in Rockstar’s gritty 1930’s and 40’s inspired world, yet to be privy to a public spectacle.
Check out the HD trailer here
While the trailer hardly looks visually outstanding on first impressions – or on repeat viewing for that matter – one element does stand out above the rest: the game’s incredible facial animation system and use of some stellar motion capture work - the very reason for us taking the time out to deliver this short technical look.
Having convincing lip-syncing, backed up by decent voice acting are two such requirements for any title whose focus is on providing an intriguing and potentially gripping narrative tale. Though without adequate motion capturing, and considerably polished facial responses, all this goes to waste. Just look at the likes of Alan Wake, or Heavy Rain, both are titles that loose some of their emotional impact due to either poor voice acting, bad lip-syncing, or buggy motion capture work.
One or two of these elements may make for a compelling enough experience, but not an exceptional one. And it is exactly this which L.A Noire hops to rectify.
Looking at the trailer, and we can see that Rockstar have indeed taken the time in not only providing some rather excellent voice work, but also in meticulously crafting some of the most sophisticated facial animation tech we’ve seen in any game so far. The way facial muscles move as characters are speaking, and the subtle changes in normal mapping as muscles expand and then contract (around lips and mouth), at the most basic level, all go along way to adding a sense of believability to the proceedings, that you are in fact watching actual characters coming alive on screen, and not simply polygon models.
From a technical point of view, this singular element is by far the most advanced, though is the only one to really impress as a whole. The superb blend in normal mapping offsets the sometimes potentially stiff looking nature of pure geometry movement, thus allowing smoother animation as a result. More detail in the way in which individual elements of the face reacts are clearly shown, along with an impressive use of normal maps working in tandem with the motion capture animation.
Outside of the solid motion capture work and stand-out facial animation system, the rest of the tech powering the game appears to be far less impressive. Although, the washed out and reduced-contrast nature of the art direction seems to be the main cause of this. The style presented here in L.A Noire is faithful to the unique look of similarly themed movies of the 1930’s and 40’s; that is to say that contrast has been intentionally adjusted resulting in a slightly washed out look to the game in general.
However, we can also see that skin shaders and layered shader effects in general, aren’t terribly impressive. In fact they seem to be quite basic compared to more advanced implementations as seen in the recent Call Of Duty Black Ops. L.A Noire appears to be using only basic texturing, plus a normal map and colour map for its character faces, with noticeable levels of specular highlighting being distinctly absent - the matt, almost shiny look is being caused by the normal mapping in reaction with the game's lighting model.
Oddly, there is evidence of screen-space ambient occlusion in these screens, though the effect does little to bring a large amount of additional depth to the scene compared to most titles that use it. Usually SSAO is implemented in order to expand the impact shadowing has throughout a game, bringing more depth, and indeed detail to the scene. However, in L.A Noire it looks like the level of contrast defeats that slightly. Like in the 360 version of Kane & Lynch 2, its effects go partially un-noticed, other than some artefacting revealing its presence.
Perhaps implementation of SSAO is being used to balance out the low contrasted nature of the game as a whole, delivering more shadowing depth where there would otherwise be even less. This would certainly explain why we aren’t seeing more three-dimensionality in overall image composition. Or maybe, it’s that the effect is only being used subtly to complement the look the artists are going for.
Moving on, and the actual framebuffer itself looks to be native 720p, but contained in a 2.39:1 aspect ratio (1280x540), with black boarders at the top and bottom of the screen. It is these boarders which account for the 540 horizontal res that you are seeing – actual gameplay will of course be presented in full screen, so we expect that a full 1280x720 image will be available for the duration.
There’s no scaling of any kind going on, despite the blurry nature of the screens on this page. Instead, the loss in IQ is caused by video compression artefacts, which not only affect edges but pixels across the entire scene.
Outside of the obvious technical murmurings, there’s no indication of platform the montage from the trailer is comprised from. Originally L.A Noire was conceived as a PS3 exclusive, with a 360 release announced only months ago, so it is pretty likely that the footage is indeed taken from the Sony version.
Depending on when development shifted from being solely a single platform affair to becoming a full multi-platform project, we could be looking at a game potentially leading on the PS3. This would mean that parity between both formats should, in theory be reasonably close, without noticeable cuts being made to the PS3 version in terms of resolution or even alpha buffers - which are likely to be used more sparingly in any case of PS3 leading. Uncharted 2 for example, displays relatively few heavy alpha-based scenarios in comparison to COD: Black Ops, and Killzone 2 and 3 both use lower res buffers with additional blending for better integration.
Again, this is pure speculation at this point - the trailer could well be using the 360 build for all we know. And in terms of leading on PS3, that sometimes can be used to boost performance of the 360 version as well, with a greater emphasis on optimising code and an increased use of parallelisation delivering a visually better looking game as a result.
Overall, L.A Noire is looking pretty interesting as a cinematic title, if not as a technical showcase for high-levels of decent motion-capture work, and impressive facial animation. While the rest of the graphical make up, from the very little we’ve seen, looks at this point to be distinctly under whelming, one can’t help but feel this was a stylistic choice more than anything else, in-keeping with the world and imagery the developers are trying to create.
And in that respect L.A Noire looks to be quite intriguing. We’ve seen many games that try, and indeed fail to pull off real cinematic brilliance – Alan Wake and Heavy Rain to name but two – although Rockstar’s track record remain distinctly un-blemished in this regard. Both Red Dead Redemption, and especially GTA IV previously showcased the skill and command the company has over delivering such experiences (different team, but still), and with L.A Noire they certainly look like they could be doing the same again.
Time will tell however, but we’ll definitely be keeping our eye on this one.
Sunday, 14 November 2010
Tech Analysis: Call Of Duty: Black Ops (360 vs PS3)
It’s no surprise to hear that the Call Of Duty series currently leads the way in high-precision first-person shooters, with low latency controls and a framerate to die for, where near instant feedback and overall fluidity makes it one of the best gaming experiences around. And all of this comes with the decision to aim, and achieve a blistering sixty frames per-second. The sheer advantage that this bump in smoothness provides cannot be underestimated, and seeing this on primarily a console release is outstanding to say the least.
Of course, with such a high level of fluidity to maintain (something that is utterly essential for the whole experience to work) some compromises have obviously been made. And to that end, sacrifices in overall rendering resolution have taken place in order to accommodate this, along with reduced lighting and shader effects compared to other comparable games.
But despite this, the series is still home to lavish visual spectacle: a myriad of particle effects often don the screen, and a whole lot of work has gone into creating a highly detailed, albeit often closed off world in which to best demonstrate the trade-off between all out graphical exposition and a blindingly smooth framerate.
And with Call Of Duty: Black Ops, the action is even more intense, the effects are even more spic in scale, so parity between platforms then isn’t quite on the same level as with MW2 - compromises have definitely been made in getting the game up and running on the PS3 without cutting back on the core assets used. Though when you consider the additional graphical upgrades the engine has seen, the differences, compromises, whatever you want to call them, are completely understandable, if not unavoidable.
Like with previous instalments, the engine powering Black Ops is clearly engineered around reaching and maintaining regular 60fps performance. And like with those titles, it is no surprise to find that the game is presented in sub-HD on both platforms, with the drop in resolution offset with good scaling and use of anti-aliasing, following the same blueprint as every other COD title.
Black Ops renders in the familiar 1040x608 resolution on the 360, while the PS3 build gets a further downgrade to the even more lowly 960x544. Both versions benefit from having 2x multisampling anti-aliasing (MSAA) help smooth over the upscaling process, reducing jagged edges at the same time.
The change in rendering resolution on the PS3 may at first seem a little surprising. But Black Ops has also had some noticeable upgrades in shader effects and in its use of alpha-based particles, both of which put a heavier strain on the engine than ever before. In essence, getting better performance with more in the way of effects means sacrificing the overall pixel workload - something PS3 owners aren’t exactly unfamiliar too.
Looking at the screenshot above, you can easily see that the 360 game commands a slight, but noticeable lead in sharpness. The reduction in both horizontal and vertical resolution clearly impacts on overall image quality, resulting in a slightly blurrier look, and fuzzy edges being present on far-away objects. However, in motion the two look far more alike, and from some 5 feet away on a 32” screen, the PS3 game only looks slightly softer. The quality of the scaling is still incredibly good, and compared to the PC version you can see that both PS3 and 360 builds are fairly close to each other.
Despite the sub-HD nature of the framebuffer, Black Ops still looks relatively clean and reasonably sharp as a whole in motion. While many have stated that the game looks worse in this regard than MW2, this is actually down to Treyarch’s dark and gritty art style more than the technical make-up of the game itself. The clinical nature of Inifinity Ward’s own art is replaced with something partially more organic, rougher in appearance. On the 360 build the actual resolution, and most of the underlying tech is presented in the same way, bar the obvious improvements.
As already mentioned, the use of MSAA helps in mitigating intrusive upsclaing artefacts, whilst the edge smoothing it provides deals with most jaggies fairly effectively. There is still some shimmering that occurs in the trees and surrounding foliage in many environments - naturally thin stripes of geometry, such as fences and powerlines are affected, suffering from sub-pixel aliasing. Although, this is nothing to be overly concerned about.
Thankfully, much of the game remains almost like for like in most areas. As with MW2, texture detail for example, is pretty much identical across the board, with only a few genuinely lower res textures appearing on the PS3.
Most of the differences apparent in screenshots actually stem from a texture streaming issue on the PS3, whereby mip-map transitions are a little behind. The actual assets used are for the most part, identical, with only a few lower res textures to be found here and there in places. You can clearly see this when both versions are running side by side, where these texture transitions are also visible on the 360, but not quite so often.
On the other hand, in terms of texture filtering, we can see that the 360 build features slightly better AF (anisontropic filtering) at all times, in keeping with the change introduced in MW2.
Previously, on past COD titles it was the PS3 versions that always had a filtering advantage owing to the RSX GPU having more texturing units than 360’s Xenos. Effectively, this meant that high levels of AF were virtually free on Sony’s system. Whereas on 360 similar quality was only obtainable by using a combination of AF plus a bilinear or trilinear solution. This is now reversed in Black Ops, as it was in MW2. And as a result detail is indeed visible for further into the distance on the 360.
The use of sub-HD framebuffers has always been a staple for the COD series on consoles, and the new texture streaming tech introduced in MW2 clearly helps both versions maintain a similar level of high quality artwork throughout. However, in terms of particle and alpha effects the 360 usually sees a near continuous advantage. The exception of course was with Modern Warfare 2, which was the first game in the series to even things up with equal size buffers across both platforms.
Looking at Black Ops, and things seem to have taken a step back. The increase in smoke, particles, and fire effects all eat into each systems available bandwidth, and with the PS3 having less of that particular resource available, it means that a few cut backs have been made in order to sustain overall performance.
On the PS3 all these effects are rendered in a lower resolution to the rest of the frame. Whereas on the other hand, 360 owners get the same level of graphical fidelity on these objects as seen in past COD titles – full res buffers. The differences can be seen above for those interested: you can clearly see that the effects look softer and less defined in the PS3 game due their resolution being reduced.
Of course this is a common trade-off for owners of many AAA PS3 titles. Rather than sacrificing the amount of objects being rendered on-screen, developers usually choose to either: render certain objects in a lower resolution to the rest of the frame, or to render them in a half-resolution of sorts using A2C for blending, introducing shimmery screen-door artefacts into the mix.
For Black Ops it is the former we are seeing, and the choice made in terms of preserving quality was definitely the right one. The developers have taken the time to carefully blend all alpha effects in the PS3 game order to ensure that as little shimmering or aliasing takes place as possible. Aside from the odd bit of pixelation, in motion (at regular viewing distances) these differences are likely to go un-noticed for many people.
Looking at performance, when it comes to a Call Of Duty game, maintaining 60fps is absolutely paramount, and the sacrifices made with regards to both the overall framebuffer, and the use of lower res alpha effects are an essential part of trying to achieve that goal.
In effect, without that 60fps update COD would be just another arcadey military shooter with large set pieces, and the tendency to rip-off various action movies/famous war flicks. So, it goes without saying that the reduced resolution on both platforms, and lower res effects on the PS3 are a worthy trade-off in meeting that goal.
To that end, on the 360 Black Ops manages to largely hit its target 60fps for much of the time, but with frequent drops throughout the entire single-player campaign. Most of these drops are so subtle in nature, that you may not notice them. And even when the game noticeably approaches framerates in the 30-40fps mark, the action always seems smooth and incredibly fluid.
Controller latency does indeed increase slightly, but not to detrimental levels – the action always feels smooth even when the framerate is noticeably running below the desired 60fps.
In terms of the larger framerate drops, they tend to occur in scenes with high levels of environmental detail, or when there is heavy use of alpha going on. In these kinds of scenarios the game regularly drops down well below the 60fps mark, though it maintains for the most part, an update above that of the more common 30fps.
Moving on to the PS3, and we can see the same trend occurring through the first few levels. Black Ops starts off confidently, running at the targeted 60fps with relative ease, although this begins to drop considerably in areas with more detail putting a greater load on system resources. In almost like for like scenarios the PS3 game perhaps lingers behind by around 10 to 20fps or so, in a rough estimation of what I am seeing.
Outside of the gameplay, and things are even more pronounced - during cut-scenes the 360 game runs at a near constant 60fps, with very little slowdown whatsoever. On PS3 however, the framerate has a tendency to drop regularly, but not always in a smooth fashion – the cut scenes often stutter, almost like the game’s framerate was bouncing up and down in small increments.
Despite the differences in performance during gameplay, both versions end up feeling smooth and extremely fluid, just with the 360 game commanding a noticeable lead on many occasions. The PS3 version, even during times of slow down, still feels very responsive, and the drops down to 30fps aren’t quite as bad as they sound. However, neither version manages to lock down a constant 60fps, with regular dips happening according to the action on screen. In this respect MW2 is clearly superior in this regard.
On the plus side both versions are solidly v-synced and exhibit no screen tearing of any kind, which is in itself impressive, if not another trademark of the series highly optimised 60fps game engine.
Outside of performance, and we can see that the overall rendering engine has seen some considerable upgrades for Black Ops. Most noticeably there is an increase in use of dynamic lighting and shadowing, first expanded upon greatly in MW2, and the use of better surface shaders on the characters. Normal mapping also looks to have been refined slightly as well.
Dynamic lighting and shadowing is now more abundant on both versions. Gunfire, explosions, and fire etc, light up the surrounding environment to a larger degree than before, whilst use of dynamic, and self-shadowing creates a greater level of depth to the scene. Examples can be found all through the game - the fan in the bar at the beginning, and the rotating emergency lights on the ceiling in another mission showcase these improvements early on, whilst the second Vietnam stage (set in the jungle and caves) demonstrates this effortlessly.
In terms of shadowing, the 360 build benefits from not only high-resolution shadows, but also better shadow filtering as well. By contrast shadows are rendered in a lower resolution on the PS3, often looking rather blurry, and occasionally quite pixelated. Like with the use of lower resolution particle and alpha effects, the reduction in shadow quality has been done to save on memory bandwidth, thus allowing the full range of graphical improvements to be included without cutting back on their scope and visual range.
The only exception to this appears to be with the amount of bloom lighting on screen. Bloom has been paired back on both versions from earlier COD titles, and in Black Ops the effect has been even more reduced on the PS3. However, this appears to be more down to gamma and contrast differences between both versions. Although, even when adjusting the in-game brightness slider, and the brightness control on my calibrated HDTV, I still wasn’t able to get a complete like for like match.
This gamma/brightness issue made the PS3 version of the game appear slightly more washed out than the 360 version. It seems that even when calibrtation to both the game's brightness and the HDTV settings have taken place, overall contrast is still reduced on the PS3.
Other than that, both versions are largely like for like in pretty much every other area. Resolution aside there’s very little that has been actively cut back on, instead the developers have preferred to render in a lower resolution on PS3 and maintain the amount of visual spectacle seen in the 360 build.
In terms of multi-platform development, achieving parity on both platforms whilst pushing the tech forwards even further on, Treyarch’s effort here is indeed commendable despite not reaching IW’s high point with MW2. The engine itself has seen a number of carefully implemented, and thoroughly skilled deployments, from an obvious increase in the use of dynamic lighting and shadowing, to the presence of more advanced skin shaders and overall character modelling. The tech is solid, as it is impressive.
Perhaps the only thing which doesn’t have the same level of impact, is with regards to the overall quality of the PS3 version of the game, which does indeed suffer from the traditional lowering of FB resolution and alpha effects buffers. That said, ‘suffering’ is maybe too strong a word to use, as whatever such improvements were implemented, every one of those are stretching memory requirements on both systems – it just so happens that overall memory constraints (especially bandwidth) is simply more of an issue for PS3 development in general.
But for a game that is so doggedly built around 360’s high bandwidth, fast EDRAM, to see pretty much all of the improvements on the PS3, even if they are in a lower resolution is an impressive feat nonetheless. The reduced screen resolution is one thing that does disappoint – it is indeed noticeable. And the framerate, which has taken a bigger hit than before, could be substantially better.
That said, Black Ops is still well worth picking up on the PS3, and for many, most of the graphical differences will absolutely fail to register. If you have access to both platforms however, then there is no contest: the 360 version, with its higher resolution FB and effects, smoother framerate and sharper image is the one to get.
In conclusion, Call of Duty: Black Ops is a worthy combination of graphical compromises interwoven with impressive underlying tech, that which, for the most part comes out shining incredibly well as a whole. Given the make-up of the engine, and the load being pushed on screen, I couldn’t have seen it going any other way with regards to platform parity. But at least the end result is overly solid and well balanced - the baseline tech and assets haven’t been cut back on.
As ever thanks go out to AlStrong for counting those pixels, and to Cynamite.de for the screens.
Of course, with such a high level of fluidity to maintain (something that is utterly essential for the whole experience to work) some compromises have obviously been made. And to that end, sacrifices in overall rendering resolution have taken place in order to accommodate this, along with reduced lighting and shader effects compared to other comparable games.
But despite this, the series is still home to lavish visual spectacle: a myriad of particle effects often don the screen, and a whole lot of work has gone into creating a highly detailed, albeit often closed off world in which to best demonstrate the trade-off between all out graphical exposition and a blindingly smooth framerate.
And with Call Of Duty: Black Ops, the action is even more intense, the effects are even more spic in scale, so parity between platforms then isn’t quite on the same level as with MW2 - compromises have definitely been made in getting the game up and running on the PS3 without cutting back on the core assets used. Though when you consider the additional graphical upgrades the engine has seen, the differences, compromises, whatever you want to call them, are completely understandable, if not unavoidable.
Like with previous instalments, the engine powering Black Ops is clearly engineered around reaching and maintaining regular 60fps performance. And like with those titles, it is no surprise to find that the game is presented in sub-HD on both platforms, with the drop in resolution offset with good scaling and use of anti-aliasing, following the same blueprint as every other COD title.
Black Ops renders in the familiar 1040x608 resolution on the 360, while the PS3 build gets a further downgrade to the even more lowly 960x544. Both versions benefit from having 2x multisampling anti-aliasing (MSAA) help smooth over the upscaling process, reducing jagged edges at the same time.
The change in rendering resolution on the PS3 may at first seem a little surprising. But Black Ops has also had some noticeable upgrades in shader effects and in its use of alpha-based particles, both of which put a heavier strain on the engine than ever before. In essence, getting better performance with more in the way of effects means sacrificing the overall pixel workload - something PS3 owners aren’t exactly unfamiliar too.
Looking at the screenshot above, you can easily see that the 360 game commands a slight, but noticeable lead in sharpness. The reduction in both horizontal and vertical resolution clearly impacts on overall image quality, resulting in a slightly blurrier look, and fuzzy edges being present on far-away objects. However, in motion the two look far more alike, and from some 5 feet away on a 32” screen, the PS3 game only looks slightly softer. The quality of the scaling is still incredibly good, and compared to the PC version you can see that both PS3 and 360 builds are fairly close to each other.
Despite the sub-HD nature of the framebuffer, Black Ops still looks relatively clean and reasonably sharp as a whole in motion. While many have stated that the game looks worse in this regard than MW2, this is actually down to Treyarch’s dark and gritty art style more than the technical make-up of the game itself. The clinical nature of Inifinity Ward’s own art is replaced with something partially more organic, rougher in appearance. On the 360 build the actual resolution, and most of the underlying tech is presented in the same way, bar the obvious improvements.
As already mentioned, the use of MSAA helps in mitigating intrusive upsclaing artefacts, whilst the edge smoothing it provides deals with most jaggies fairly effectively. There is still some shimmering that occurs in the trees and surrounding foliage in many environments - naturally thin stripes of geometry, such as fences and powerlines are affected, suffering from sub-pixel aliasing. Although, this is nothing to be overly concerned about.
Thankfully, much of the game remains almost like for like in most areas. As with MW2, texture detail for example, is pretty much identical across the board, with only a few genuinely lower res textures appearing on the PS3.
Most of the differences apparent in screenshots actually stem from a texture streaming issue on the PS3, whereby mip-map transitions are a little behind. The actual assets used are for the most part, identical, with only a few lower res textures to be found here and there in places. You can clearly see this when both versions are running side by side, where these texture transitions are also visible on the 360, but not quite so often.
On the other hand, in terms of texture filtering, we can see that the 360 build features slightly better AF (anisontropic filtering) at all times, in keeping with the change introduced in MW2.
Previously, on past COD titles it was the PS3 versions that always had a filtering advantage owing to the RSX GPU having more texturing units than 360’s Xenos. Effectively, this meant that high levels of AF were virtually free on Sony’s system. Whereas on 360 similar quality was only obtainable by using a combination of AF plus a bilinear or trilinear solution. This is now reversed in Black Ops, as it was in MW2. And as a result detail is indeed visible for further into the distance on the 360.
The use of sub-HD framebuffers has always been a staple for the COD series on consoles, and the new texture streaming tech introduced in MW2 clearly helps both versions maintain a similar level of high quality artwork throughout. However, in terms of particle and alpha effects the 360 usually sees a near continuous advantage. The exception of course was with Modern Warfare 2, which was the first game in the series to even things up with equal size buffers across both platforms.
Looking at Black Ops, and things seem to have taken a step back. The increase in smoke, particles, and fire effects all eat into each systems available bandwidth, and with the PS3 having less of that particular resource available, it means that a few cut backs have been made in order to sustain overall performance.
On the PS3 all these effects are rendered in a lower resolution to the rest of the frame. Whereas on the other hand, 360 owners get the same level of graphical fidelity on these objects as seen in past COD titles – full res buffers. The differences can be seen above for those interested: you can clearly see that the effects look softer and less defined in the PS3 game due their resolution being reduced.
Of course this is a common trade-off for owners of many AAA PS3 titles. Rather than sacrificing the amount of objects being rendered on-screen, developers usually choose to either: render certain objects in a lower resolution to the rest of the frame, or to render them in a half-resolution of sorts using A2C for blending, introducing shimmery screen-door artefacts into the mix.
For Black Ops it is the former we are seeing, and the choice made in terms of preserving quality was definitely the right one. The developers have taken the time to carefully blend all alpha effects in the PS3 game order to ensure that as little shimmering or aliasing takes place as possible. Aside from the odd bit of pixelation, in motion (at regular viewing distances) these differences are likely to go un-noticed for many people.
Looking at performance, when it comes to a Call Of Duty game, maintaining 60fps is absolutely paramount, and the sacrifices made with regards to both the overall framebuffer, and the use of lower res alpha effects are an essential part of trying to achieve that goal.
In effect, without that 60fps update COD would be just another arcadey military shooter with large set pieces, and the tendency to rip-off various action movies/famous war flicks. So, it goes without saying that the reduced resolution on both platforms, and lower res effects on the PS3 are a worthy trade-off in meeting that goal.
To that end, on the 360 Black Ops manages to largely hit its target 60fps for much of the time, but with frequent drops throughout the entire single-player campaign. Most of these drops are so subtle in nature, that you may not notice them. And even when the game noticeably approaches framerates in the 30-40fps mark, the action always seems smooth and incredibly fluid.
Controller latency does indeed increase slightly, but not to detrimental levels – the action always feels smooth even when the framerate is noticeably running below the desired 60fps.
In terms of the larger framerate drops, they tend to occur in scenes with high levels of environmental detail, or when there is heavy use of alpha going on. In these kinds of scenarios the game regularly drops down well below the 60fps mark, though it maintains for the most part, an update above that of the more common 30fps.
Moving on to the PS3, and we can see the same trend occurring through the first few levels. Black Ops starts off confidently, running at the targeted 60fps with relative ease, although this begins to drop considerably in areas with more detail putting a greater load on system resources. In almost like for like scenarios the PS3 game perhaps lingers behind by around 10 to 20fps or so, in a rough estimation of what I am seeing.
Outside of the gameplay, and things are even more pronounced - during cut-scenes the 360 game runs at a near constant 60fps, with very little slowdown whatsoever. On PS3 however, the framerate has a tendency to drop regularly, but not always in a smooth fashion – the cut scenes often stutter, almost like the game’s framerate was bouncing up and down in small increments.
Despite the differences in performance during gameplay, both versions end up feeling smooth and extremely fluid, just with the 360 game commanding a noticeable lead on many occasions. The PS3 version, even during times of slow down, still feels very responsive, and the drops down to 30fps aren’t quite as bad as they sound. However, neither version manages to lock down a constant 60fps, with regular dips happening according to the action on screen. In this respect MW2 is clearly superior in this regard.
On the plus side both versions are solidly v-synced and exhibit no screen tearing of any kind, which is in itself impressive, if not another trademark of the series highly optimised 60fps game engine.
Outside of performance, and we can see that the overall rendering engine has seen some considerable upgrades for Black Ops. Most noticeably there is an increase in use of dynamic lighting and shadowing, first expanded upon greatly in MW2, and the use of better surface shaders on the characters. Normal mapping also looks to have been refined slightly as well.
Dynamic lighting and shadowing is now more abundant on both versions. Gunfire, explosions, and fire etc, light up the surrounding environment to a larger degree than before, whilst use of dynamic, and self-shadowing creates a greater level of depth to the scene. Examples can be found all through the game - the fan in the bar at the beginning, and the rotating emergency lights on the ceiling in another mission showcase these improvements early on, whilst the second Vietnam stage (set in the jungle and caves) demonstrates this effortlessly.
In terms of shadowing, the 360 build benefits from not only high-resolution shadows, but also better shadow filtering as well. By contrast shadows are rendered in a lower resolution on the PS3, often looking rather blurry, and occasionally quite pixelated. Like with the use of lower resolution particle and alpha effects, the reduction in shadow quality has been done to save on memory bandwidth, thus allowing the full range of graphical improvements to be included without cutting back on their scope and visual range.
The only exception to this appears to be with the amount of bloom lighting on screen. Bloom has been paired back on both versions from earlier COD titles, and in Black Ops the effect has been even more reduced on the PS3. However, this appears to be more down to gamma and contrast differences between both versions. Although, even when adjusting the in-game brightness slider, and the brightness control on my calibrated HDTV, I still wasn’t able to get a complete like for like match.
This gamma/brightness issue made the PS3 version of the game appear slightly more washed out than the 360 version. It seems that even when calibrtation to both the game's brightness and the HDTV settings have taken place, overall contrast is still reduced on the PS3.
Other than that, both versions are largely like for like in pretty much every other area. Resolution aside there’s very little that has been actively cut back on, instead the developers have preferred to render in a lower resolution on PS3 and maintain the amount of visual spectacle seen in the 360 build.
In terms of multi-platform development, achieving parity on both platforms whilst pushing the tech forwards even further on, Treyarch’s effort here is indeed commendable despite not reaching IW’s high point with MW2. The engine itself has seen a number of carefully implemented, and thoroughly skilled deployments, from an obvious increase in the use of dynamic lighting and shadowing, to the presence of more advanced skin shaders and overall character modelling. The tech is solid, as it is impressive.
Perhaps the only thing which doesn’t have the same level of impact, is with regards to the overall quality of the PS3 version of the game, which does indeed suffer from the traditional lowering of FB resolution and alpha effects buffers. That said, ‘suffering’ is maybe too strong a word to use, as whatever such improvements were implemented, every one of those are stretching memory requirements on both systems – it just so happens that overall memory constraints (especially bandwidth) is simply more of an issue for PS3 development in general.
But for a game that is so doggedly built around 360’s high bandwidth, fast EDRAM, to see pretty much all of the improvements on the PS3, even if they are in a lower resolution is an impressive feat nonetheless. The reduced screen resolution is one thing that does disappoint – it is indeed noticeable. And the framerate, which has taken a bigger hit than before, could be substantially better.
That said, Black Ops is still well worth picking up on the PS3, and for many, most of the graphical differences will absolutely fail to register. If you have access to both platforms however, then there is no contest: the 360 version, with its higher resolution FB and effects, smoother framerate and sharper image is the one to get.
In conclusion, Call of Duty: Black Ops is a worthy combination of graphical compromises interwoven with impressive underlying tech, that which, for the most part comes out shining incredibly well as a whole. Given the make-up of the engine, and the load being pushed on screen, I couldn’t have seen it going any other way with regards to platform parity. But at least the end result is overly solid and well balanced - the baseline tech and assets haven’t been cut back on.
As ever thanks go out to AlStrong for counting those pixels, and to Cynamite.de for the screens.
Saturday, 13 November 2010
Editorial: Having Space To Kinect
Given the nature of how Sony's Move operates in small, enclosed environments so admirably, I never had any large concerns about having enough suitable space in your living room, bedroom etc, in order to comfortably use Kinect. However, it appears that there is indeed some truth in the initial rumours that the device would require nearly 8ft of floor clearance in which to perform without issue.
Most sites have already delivered their verdicts on MS’s supposed Wii stomping trumps card, and although the vast majority of final press has been rather positive, there is one issue that could seemingly affect the vast majority of people looking to jump into controllerless gaming – the issue of making enough room to get Kinect up and running successfully.
Most complaints about the Kinect will no doubt fall onto deaf ears, especially where the mainstream are concerned – they’re not exactly going to notice the sometimes heavy amount of input lag whilst having fun with the kids or the girlfriend. These are, by their very nature, hardcore concerns, concerns in which the core gaming audience are likely to take offence. However, when questions are raised about the space in which Kinect needs to operate optimally, or in any case, to operate at all, then this question about space becomes a very broad concern indeed.
Microsoft have specified that for a single player Kinect requires around 6ft of clear floor space, and for two players a rather large 8ft of space. Note that I mentioned clear floor space – any large objects in the room can, and will on occasions provide problems for the device. It never fails to recognise actual players from background objects, but issues come into play as soon as those objects are actively brought into the foreground.
So, does mean that Kinect won’t work in a small room with less than the recommended space? Well, not really – you can still get the device to work in more cramped conditions, though just not quite as well as you might have expected. In these sorts of situations its operation is far from ideal, and in effect the closer you are to creating an ideal scenario for Kinect to work, the better it is going to function.
The thing is, this really is a problem for homes in the UK, and indeed in many parts of the word outside the United States, where the average room size is no where near likely to provide such floor clearance in a best case scenario, let alone an average one. In my both mine, and my friends bedroom alone you can barely get more than 4ft of clearance without walking into an object of some kind. Be that a coffee table, the Xbox 360, the PS3, or even the HDTV itself. Moving on to my living room, and although things are indeed more than just a tad better, the set-up is far from ideal.
I’m looking at just about getting 6ft away from the TV to the two arm chairs and coffee table situated behind me when standing in front of the telly. It’s just about enough to get Kinect up and running, perhaps working mostly without issue. That is, until perhaps you make a jump forward a little too far, or move just one or two steps closer to the TV when playing. Now, when doing so the distance of available free space is noticeably going to decrease fast, and in turn the Kinect is going to start telling me exactly that, with its plainly descriptive “please step back” message.
The result is that some reorganisation is required in order to prep things out for Kinect. In such a room, it is relatively easy: move back the armchairs and table, push back the TV slightly to the right, thus allowing you to open up more space on all four sides, and bingo, you’ve got a room that is Kinect ready. If of course you are willing to make such accommodations.
Then again you may not even have to in order to get the device set-up to work, even if somewhat haphazardly for brief moments of full-body, motion tracked fun.
As a test case I set up the Kincet at work, in a very cramped staff room. There is just about 5ft between the sofa and the large projection screen TV, with the Kinect situated on top of the telly. In front, and on the floor there is an Xbox 360 and an electrical heater, plus two boxes stacked just beside and in front the sofa. On the right-hand side of the TV there is a fairly large rack standing several feet high, full of bags, clothes and more consoles. And to the left, a solid wall with the odd bits and bobs lying about on a shelf of sorts.
Cramped is a mild way of describing it, and although the area could be cleared, it was being used at that point in time. Ultimately, it made for a rather good initial testing ground.
Even with all this clutter about, Kinect still managed to work as it should do for small, extended periods of the time. The downside is that frequent-ish distconections are none too rare, and during an initial twenty-minute session, I had to allow Kinect to rescan me mid-game on three separate occasions. Each time this happened I was presented with a message telling me to stand back, or move closer to the screen, waving my hand to get the device's attention. Suffice to say, doing none of the aforementioned actually worked. Instead Kinect simply rescanned me, putting me back into the game within half a minute or so, allowing me to continue where I had left off.
Certainly, reports of household furnature being in the playing area interfering with Kinect’s body tracking definitely seem to be true, and all too obvious a problem. The main issue however, isn’t the lack of space, but in being almost utterly helpless when the device loses track of you completely. You simply have to wait for it to re-scan and re-track you again, almost as if it is bringing itself up to speed. Annoyingly, this will both confuse and irritate all those who don’t know, understand, or even care how Kinect works. It’s simply a trial by fire, with you having to move stuff around until the sensor is happy with your set-up.
Interestingly, when I first set-up Kinect, it did detect that I had a space suitable for which a single player could actively play. There was no warning that its performance would be hindered by the various objects dotted around the room, other than a generic one indicating that the space should be clear and free of any obstacles. Basically, it only seems to give you feedback when there is a serious lack of space available.
Saying that, after moving a few boxes out of the way, and moving forward slightly, I did manage to prevent any more unusually frequent dropouts from occuring during gameplay, although not all – enclosed spaces still confuse Kinect. Thankfully, the experience was more than just marginally improved. Just don’t even try to have more than one player on the go at the same time – it simply won’t work. At least, not without being completely broken.
Now, to put things into perspective, it is highly unlikely that MS hasn’t tested Kinect working in a variety of different environments; some small, some large, and some which don’t quite fit the bill of either. However, that is not to say that the nature of the games, the device, and how they work, will still dictate the amount of space required regardless of how much testing is done.
It’s self-evident in just how the technology works in giving you control over what is happening on screen, that it requires a fair amount of space to do this. Unlike the PS Move, Kinect is doing full body tracking for most of its games, or at the very least an approximation of that facility. The result is that the device needs to see your whole body at all times, whilst also assessing your position in a 3D space. It also needs to work out how far away you are from itself, and from other objects in the room. This is the key to getting proper 1:1 tracking working correctly. It actively needs to be able to track you at all times cleanly and fairly precisely. There’s no additional LED marked to help with this.
Adding in two people into the mix (you will want to play with someone else – that’s the whole point) and these problems are magnified slightly, sometimes considerably. Now Kinect requires both players to have their own starting space, a place in which both people can be scanned into the device for use in-game, and of course play without colliding with the other person. Although, it is possible for both players to stray into each other’s space – the Kinect occasionally glitches when this happens, but soon finds its feet and recovers admirably. The problem lies in making nearly a third of extra clear space in which to accommodate two players, whilst maybe allowing other family members to watch from the background.
And with something like Kinect, you’ll definitely want to. Kinect is designed as a multiplayer device. It’s something that the whole family will want to be around. Or at least that’s the general idea. And it’s one that is seemingly backed up by the competitive nature of some of the games, in which human competition far outweighs the meagre excitement of going up against the CPU.
In that respect then, you’ll more than likely need to re-organise your room in order to get Kinect working without issue. One of my work collegues had to do exactly that in order to accommodate him and his missus in what he describes as a ‘fairly large living room’. That 8ft certainly doesn’t magically present itself, that’s for sure. And, I can certaily see many people pulling the “I don’t have the extra two feet required” in order to return what MS are billing as the most user-friendly gaming experience yet.
This definitely isn’t something that you’d want to be happening, especially with an unsuspecting punter that simply doesn’t read IGN, or any one of the mainstream gaming sites. So, in that respect, this issue of space isn’t exactly the kind of coverage MS will want. And the whole notion of having difficulty getting Kinect up and running smoothly; surely that goes against the very naturte of what they are trying to achieve – a gaming platform so ingrained into generating mainstream play, that traditional core gaming titles may not even be possible on the device.
That said, there is much of the Kinect experience that isn’t particularly user friendly at the moment. The uncomfortably limited control of the Xbox dashboard, and accessing the Kinect menu via a gesture system in-game to name but two. However, these and other such teething problems are likely to be well ironed out as time goes by, and the core software improves. What will be an ongoing concern is the actual environment in which Kinect will be used. And in that case, it’s simply down to the user to make sure they can
All I can say is that Kinect works - it is the real deal, when of course giving it the optimal environment in which to do so. The motion tracking isn’t always 1:1, and the amount of latency is noticeably large on some titles. But that doesn’t take away from the software delivering a sense of emersion absent in so many Wii and PlayStation Move titles.
If you have the room for it, MS’s take on controllerless gaming (the only one in fact) is a mixture of intriguing potential and missed opportunity. It isn’t perfect... far from it in fact. And concerns given its operation in even a slightly cramped, but minimum specified 6ft of space is likely to be an ongoing issue. But beyond all that, it is still a lot of fun to play.
Ultimately, when it comes down to it, Kinect will work in a wide range of environments, rooms of most shapes and sizes, with even the most strangely unappealing of layouts. Unfortunately, how well it will work is another matter. And all that will clearly depend on how close you actually come in meeting the requirements on the box. There’s only so much the technology can do, for the rest you need to give it a little helping hand. Though for some, that might be easier said than done.
Most sites have already delivered their verdicts on MS’s supposed Wii stomping trumps card, and although the vast majority of final press has been rather positive, there is one issue that could seemingly affect the vast majority of people looking to jump into controllerless gaming – the issue of making enough room to get Kinect up and running successfully.
Most complaints about the Kinect will no doubt fall onto deaf ears, especially where the mainstream are concerned – they’re not exactly going to notice the sometimes heavy amount of input lag whilst having fun with the kids or the girlfriend. These are, by their very nature, hardcore concerns, concerns in which the core gaming audience are likely to take offence. However, when questions are raised about the space in which Kinect needs to operate optimally, or in any case, to operate at all, then this question about space becomes a very broad concern indeed.
Microsoft have specified that for a single player Kinect requires around 6ft of clear floor space, and for two players a rather large 8ft of space. Note that I mentioned clear floor space – any large objects in the room can, and will on occasions provide problems for the device. It never fails to recognise actual players from background objects, but issues come into play as soon as those objects are actively brought into the foreground.
So, does mean that Kinect won’t work in a small room with less than the recommended space? Well, not really – you can still get the device to work in more cramped conditions, though just not quite as well as you might have expected. In these sorts of situations its operation is far from ideal, and in effect the closer you are to creating an ideal scenario for Kinect to work, the better it is going to function.
The thing is, this really is a problem for homes in the UK, and indeed in many parts of the word outside the United States, where the average room size is no where near likely to provide such floor clearance in a best case scenario, let alone an average one. In my both mine, and my friends bedroom alone you can barely get more than 4ft of clearance without walking into an object of some kind. Be that a coffee table, the Xbox 360, the PS3, or even the HDTV itself. Moving on to my living room, and although things are indeed more than just a tad better, the set-up is far from ideal.
I’m looking at just about getting 6ft away from the TV to the two arm chairs and coffee table situated behind me when standing in front of the telly. It’s just about enough to get Kinect up and running, perhaps working mostly without issue. That is, until perhaps you make a jump forward a little too far, or move just one or two steps closer to the TV when playing. Now, when doing so the distance of available free space is noticeably going to decrease fast, and in turn the Kinect is going to start telling me exactly that, with its plainly descriptive “please step back” message.
The result is that some reorganisation is required in order to prep things out for Kinect. In such a room, it is relatively easy: move back the armchairs and table, push back the TV slightly to the right, thus allowing you to open up more space on all four sides, and bingo, you’ve got a room that is Kinect ready. If of course you are willing to make such accommodations.
Then again you may not even have to in order to get the device set-up to work, even if somewhat haphazardly for brief moments of full-body, motion tracked fun.
As a test case I set up the Kincet at work, in a very cramped staff room. There is just about 5ft between the sofa and the large projection screen TV, with the Kinect situated on top of the telly. In front, and on the floor there is an Xbox 360 and an electrical heater, plus two boxes stacked just beside and in front the sofa. On the right-hand side of the TV there is a fairly large rack standing several feet high, full of bags, clothes and more consoles. And to the left, a solid wall with the odd bits and bobs lying about on a shelf of sorts.
Cramped is a mild way of describing it, and although the area could be cleared, it was being used at that point in time. Ultimately, it made for a rather good initial testing ground.
Even with all this clutter about, Kinect still managed to work as it should do for small, extended periods of the time. The downside is that frequent-ish distconections are none too rare, and during an initial twenty-minute session, I had to allow Kinect to rescan me mid-game on three separate occasions. Each time this happened I was presented with a message telling me to stand back, or move closer to the screen, waving my hand to get the device's attention. Suffice to say, doing none of the aforementioned actually worked. Instead Kinect simply rescanned me, putting me back into the game within half a minute or so, allowing me to continue where I had left off.
Certainly, reports of household furnature being in the playing area interfering with Kinect’s body tracking definitely seem to be true, and all too obvious a problem. The main issue however, isn’t the lack of space, but in being almost utterly helpless when the device loses track of you completely. You simply have to wait for it to re-scan and re-track you again, almost as if it is bringing itself up to speed. Annoyingly, this will both confuse and irritate all those who don’t know, understand, or even care how Kinect works. It’s simply a trial by fire, with you having to move stuff around until the sensor is happy with your set-up.
Interestingly, when I first set-up Kinect, it did detect that I had a space suitable for which a single player could actively play. There was no warning that its performance would be hindered by the various objects dotted around the room, other than a generic one indicating that the space should be clear and free of any obstacles. Basically, it only seems to give you feedback when there is a serious lack of space available.
Saying that, after moving a few boxes out of the way, and moving forward slightly, I did manage to prevent any more unusually frequent dropouts from occuring during gameplay, although not all – enclosed spaces still confuse Kinect. Thankfully, the experience was more than just marginally improved. Just don’t even try to have more than one player on the go at the same time – it simply won’t work. At least, not without being completely broken.
Now, to put things into perspective, it is highly unlikely that MS hasn’t tested Kinect working in a variety of different environments; some small, some large, and some which don’t quite fit the bill of either. However, that is not to say that the nature of the games, the device, and how they work, will still dictate the amount of space required regardless of how much testing is done.
It’s self-evident in just how the technology works in giving you control over what is happening on screen, that it requires a fair amount of space to do this. Unlike the PS Move, Kinect is doing full body tracking for most of its games, or at the very least an approximation of that facility. The result is that the device needs to see your whole body at all times, whilst also assessing your position in a 3D space. It also needs to work out how far away you are from itself, and from other objects in the room. This is the key to getting proper 1:1 tracking working correctly. It actively needs to be able to track you at all times cleanly and fairly precisely. There’s no additional LED marked to help with this.
Adding in two people into the mix (you will want to play with someone else – that’s the whole point) and these problems are magnified slightly, sometimes considerably. Now Kinect requires both players to have their own starting space, a place in which both people can be scanned into the device for use in-game, and of course play without colliding with the other person. Although, it is possible for both players to stray into each other’s space – the Kinect occasionally glitches when this happens, but soon finds its feet and recovers admirably. The problem lies in making nearly a third of extra clear space in which to accommodate two players, whilst maybe allowing other family members to watch from the background.
And with something like Kinect, you’ll definitely want to. Kinect is designed as a multiplayer device. It’s something that the whole family will want to be around. Or at least that’s the general idea. And it’s one that is seemingly backed up by the competitive nature of some of the games, in which human competition far outweighs the meagre excitement of going up against the CPU.
In that respect then, you’ll more than likely need to re-organise your room in order to get Kinect working without issue. One of my work collegues had to do exactly that in order to accommodate him and his missus in what he describes as a ‘fairly large living room’. That 8ft certainly doesn’t magically present itself, that’s for sure. And, I can certaily see many people pulling the “I don’t have the extra two feet required” in order to return what MS are billing as the most user-friendly gaming experience yet.
This definitely isn’t something that you’d want to be happening, especially with an unsuspecting punter that simply doesn’t read IGN, or any one of the mainstream gaming sites. So, in that respect, this issue of space isn’t exactly the kind of coverage MS will want. And the whole notion of having difficulty getting Kinect up and running smoothly; surely that goes against the very naturte of what they are trying to achieve – a gaming platform so ingrained into generating mainstream play, that traditional core gaming titles may not even be possible on the device.
That said, there is much of the Kinect experience that isn’t particularly user friendly at the moment. The uncomfortably limited control of the Xbox dashboard, and accessing the Kinect menu via a gesture system in-game to name but two. However, these and other such teething problems are likely to be well ironed out as time goes by, and the core software improves. What will be an ongoing concern is the actual environment in which Kinect will be used. And in that case, it’s simply down to the user to make sure they can
All I can say is that Kinect works - it is the real deal, when of course giving it the optimal environment in which to do so. The motion tracking isn’t always 1:1, and the amount of latency is noticeably large on some titles. But that doesn’t take away from the software delivering a sense of emersion absent in so many Wii and PlayStation Move titles.
If you have the room for it, MS’s take on controllerless gaming (the only one in fact) is a mixture of intriguing potential and missed opportunity. It isn’t perfect... far from it in fact. And concerns given its operation in even a slightly cramped, but minimum specified 6ft of space is likely to be an ongoing issue. But beyond all that, it is still a lot of fun to play.
Ultimately, when it comes down to it, Kinect will work in a wide range of environments, rooms of most shapes and sizes, with even the most strangely unappealing of layouts. Unfortunately, how well it will work is another matter. And all that will clearly depend on how close you actually come in meeting the requirements on the box. There’s only so much the technology can do, for the rest you need to give it a little helping hand. Though for some, that might be easier said than done.
Friday, 12 November 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
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
Monday, 8 November 2010
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.
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.
Saturday, 6 November 2010
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
Wednesday, 3 November 2010
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
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