Tech Analysis: Homefront (360 vs PS3)

THQ's ambitions as a publisher have been laid out on a plate for all to see. With Homefront they aim to compete on the same level as Activision and EA with their top-tier military shooters - namely Call Of Duty and Battlefield - thus making their own mark within a vastly overcrowded genre. But doing so is no easy task. And in order to achieve their lofty goal they need to deliver something as production-line polished as those titles, but with greater scope and a bigger bang.

Sadly Kaos Studios take on things leaves a lot to be desired. While the multiplayer modes are filled with plentiful options and neat touches which balance out the game for both the hardcore elitist and the casual player, the campaign mode of Homefront feels rough around the edges and tightly pre-scripted, let down by poor design choices and the unwillingness to let the player really take control in driving forward the action. It is rather atmospheric however.

On the other hand, Kaos' use of the Unreal Engine 3 commands at least some respect. The developer has taken a engine which is most suited for smaller, more enclosed spaces and customised it to handle much larger draw distances, and wider expanses of terrain which deliver an added sense of scale to the proceedings. It's not the first time that this has been done: Frontlines: Fuel of War used the engine as a building block for something bigger and better, whilst Epic's own Gears Of War 2 showed how the tech was capable of breaking free from its original constraints.

A fair amount of work has also been put into the multiplatform aspect of the game's development, tayloring certain graphical elements for each console. As a result we see some noticeable plus points for the PS3 over the 360, and vice-versa. However, both games are visually underwhelming, with a range of issues from sub-HD framebuffers to a few poorly implemented effects.

It's fair to say that neither version holds a candle to the very best shooters which utilise the very same engine, though not without some merit.



The game world itself provides much in the way of atmosphere, with the developer's impressive use of lighting, and the building up of a detailed, middle American town scape ravaged by war both helping to connect you with what's going on inside your TV screen. However, that sense of immersion is disrupted by the game's inconsistent visual nature.

The framebuffer for example, comes in at a lowly 1024x576 (basically PAL DVD resolution) on both formats. There's a distinct blur over the entire image which helps hide intricate texture details, along with plenty of noticeable edge shimmering. Pretty much everything looks hideously fuzzy, marred by the hefty upscale that's going on here.

Xbox 360 owners get the benefit of 2xMSAA helping in smoothing over some of the jaggies and reducing a few upscaling artefacts. Whilst on PS3, the game runs without any kind of anti-aliasing whatsoever, thus making it look even rougher as a result. Both are far from delivering anything close to native HD goodness, but its clear that the 360 version features slightly better IQ.



The drop in resolution may come as a shock to some, but in the context of producing a highly detailed and reasonably open landscape, there are significant costs involved - especially when you take into account the game's stellar HDR lighting implementation and real-time shadowing. The additional memory bandwidth and GPU cycles spared by rendering in a sub-HD resolution allow for longer draw distances and considerable more intricate environments. And therein lies the compromise.

Of course, in upping the amount of rendering you have to do for any given scene, this often means carefully implementing LOD set-up and object/texture steaming in order to maintain a high level of detail without impacting on the core graphical make-up of the game. Older titles that used the UE3 featured prominent texture streaming issues, whereby higher resolution textures would pop-in extremely close to the player. Although since then, this has become far less of an issue, with changes in the way transitions between textures are displayed.





In Homefront we see that these refinements aren't present at all, and the end result is that both versions feature some noticeable texture pop whist the engine loads in the higher quality assets. You can see this in the screenshots above. But in this case it is the PS3 game which suffers far less from these issues - sometimes higher quality assets never load in on the 360 either.

We can almost certainly say that this is a direct result from the game imposing a mandatory install onto the system's hard drive, thus allowing content to be streamed in much faster than directly of off the DVD on 360.



On the flip side we find that most of the game's art assets are basically identical, with only a few instances of less detailed textures gracing the 360 version (sometimes it appears that higher resolution assets never load in). Use of texture filtering on 360 also appears to be better too, with higher levels of AF (anisotropic filtering) being present. Although, this does very little to improve the look of the game.



Moving on, there are a few other differences between the two games.
Starting with the foliage, and we can see above that certain plants and bushes are being rendered in a lower resolution in the PS3 game, whilst others are completely missing from the scene altogether. As only a few small objects have been cut back on, it's often hard to see any difference, which thankfully means that it has little to no impact on the look of the PS3 game in any meaningful way.

Secondly, there is the use of lower resolution alpha buffers on both formats. Effects have been filtered accordingly to look smooth, but some - like fire in particular - look very flat and unconvincing. Smoke other the other hand, has a reasonable amount of depth to it.

The main reason looks to be centered around the heavy bandwidth requirements of the customised UE3, and Kaos's use of a modified lighting system, both of which impacts on both system's available resources.



A look at Homefront's performance, and it's fair to say that most of these compromises are based around getting the game up and running at a relatively smooth frame-rate - at the usual target of 30fps.



As is now standard practice here at IQGamer, we've put together an analysis video showcasing performance across a range of scenes from both versions of the game.

The results are hardly complementary, revealing a slew of frame-rate and screen tearing issues pertaining to both builds. What's clear however, is that across the run of play the 360 game manages to maintain a smoother frame-rate, but tears far more often as a direct consequence. Whilst on PS3, the game drops under the 30fps mark slightly more frequently but features a still noticeable, although reduced amount of tearing.

Performance profiles differ across both platforms. The 360 game runs without v-sync and an uncapped frame-rate - thus we see near constant tearing as the engine delivers loads of unfinished frames to be displayed. But this results in the smoothest controller response possible outside of the game slowing down. By contrast, on the PS3 Homefront employs v-sync, but simply drops it when the game goes below the capped 30fps update. In fact, the game could well be soft v-synced (whereby tearing constantly occurs in the overscan area at the top of the screen), whilst doing the same thing.

Looking at the video it's pretty obvious that both versions constantly fail to meet the targeted 30fps without throwing out out scores of incomplete (torn) frames. Although the game does stay mostly around the intended level - on PS3 at least. The 360, with its uncapped frame-rate is the smoother of the two. But this comes at the expense of visibly more screen tearing throughout the entire experience. Whereas, on the other hand the PS3 game features more frame drops (particularly in heavy scenes), but with less intrusive tearing.

All in all, performance on both formats comes as a disappointment, especially given the trade-offs made in order to ensure as smooth an experience as possible. Unsurprisingly, the PS3 benefits from having slightly smoother controls given its more stable frame-rate. However, when things get busy the opposite is true, making it six of one, and half a dozen of the other in this case.



Far more impressive, is the game use of lighting and the amount of atmosphere it provides. When combined with the sense of scale, and detail of the surrounding environment, it goes along way to sucking you into a world swamped in turmoil. Lens flair is just the one of the initial focal point of the game's lighting implementation, whilst the range provided by the use of HDR delivers ample contrast to the scene in light or dark areas.





The 360 also benefits further in getting extra depth provided by what looks like additional light occlusion, which in turn seems to accentuate the game's use of SSAO. By contrast, while the PS3 game still features plenty of depth also, SSAO has less of an impact on the scene. This can be seen above - not only does the PS3 version appear brighter, but in corners where all three walls meet, there is significantly less in the way of ambient shadowing in some scenes.

In addition the game's use of SSAO on both platforms is distinctly buggy. A noticeable halo effect can be seen around characters as they stand near walls and other objects, along with various environmental objects too as you approach them from differing angles. Additionally, this haloing can also cause shadows on characters to flicker and glitch in and out of view on occasion.



Homefront is a pretty interesting idea, with a potentially engrossing premise and certainly the right artistic design, but one might indeed wonder whether or not Kaos have actually chosen the right tech to do the job properly.

Certainly, a few things stick out from the muddy-looking mess the game sometimes seems to resemble. The lighting for example, in combination with the detailed environmental construction and the game's musical score certainly creates a sense of immersion. And the motion blur/screen distortion effects add impact to the combat when pinned down and being fired upon. But this is continuously counter-balanced with a fuzzy, upscaled framebuffer and blurry looking low resolution effects.

The very same thing applies to both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 games. While 360 owners benefit from having higher levels of AF and additional lighting, plus anti-aliasing, on the PS3 we see better texture steaming and what amounts to a more consistent frame-rate - despite larger drops when the engine is put under load. In which case it's pretty hard to recommend one over the other, or either version in general.

In conclusion, I'd perhaps say that the PS3 delivers the most consistent experience overall. The lack of AA doesn't harm the game as much as it would in other titles - due to the heavy upscale making things look rough on both - and the missing lighting doesn't always dramatically change every scene. But in terms of performance, the steadier frame-rate and lesser amount of screen tearing is a bonus, even if performance under load suffers.

Perhaps, rather than fighting over which version is 'the' one to go for (when neither are great), you should instead think about which version your friends will be playing online. The campaign in Homefront is definitely a second-tier experience - multiplayer online is exactly what this game was made for. And in that respect therein is where your final decision should rest.

Once again, thanks go out to Richard Leadbetter for use of Digital Foundry analysis tools.

Kinect: Now On PS3?

A few months ago we reported on how homebrew developers had created software that would allow Kinect to work on PC’s - in addition to unlocking the full 640x480 resolution depth buffer for increased accuracy, but now another ‘hacker’ going by the name of shantzg001 has come up with his own solution. But for Sony’s PlayStation 3.



In the above YouTube video ‘Shantzg001’ uses Microsoft’s Kinect in order to navigate the XMB menu screen using various hand gestures to do so, before finally booting up his copy of Killzone 3. It’s hardly impressive stuff, but more importantly, leads the way for others to expand on his work.

Then again, creating something awe-inspiring using the Kinect on the PS3 wasn’t the goal here at all. Instead, everything undertaken so far was simply done to show that it was possible to use the device on the console. As such, the hacker has posted the code used in the process on his website.

Rather than running homebrew code on the PS3, the hacker actually seems to be using some king of controller hub allowing you to connect a mouse and keyboard to the console in order for the Kinect to work. He then runs the device on his laptop, in which custom software remaps Kinect-based actions onto keyboard and mouse buttons, before finally being sent to his PS3. It's not a full blown hack whereby custom drivers are written specifically for the PS3. That would require a jailbroken console in order to do so.

As you might already be aware, Microsoft recently stated that their plan with Kinect was to eventually make the device open to both commercial and homebrew coders, and to that end, are releasing official PC SDK’s for the device for those purposes later this year.

The fact that Kinect can work on the PS3 makes things even more interesting, although, perhaps far less so if it does purely in the same capacity as button presses using a Dual Shock controller. And by all indications, that definitely seems to be the case here.

Tech Analysis: Mortal Kombat Demo (PS3)

In terms of whether or not this latest installment of Mortal Kombat succeeds, this mostly depends on how well the game resembles those classic first three entries in the series in terms of gameplay. And while its far too early to come to any conclusions from playing the demo, the early code does indeed show some promise. But it also falls short of the mark in certain areas. The hit detection for example, doesn't feel quite right.

Released last week exclusively to PlayStation Plus subscribers, NetherRealm Studios latest, the self-titled Mortal Kombat, is now available for everyone to download. The current demo is a Sony exclusive for now. So while multiplatform comparisons will have to come later, we can at least get a good look at how the PS3 version fares on its own merits - word is that the release of the Xbox 360 demo is still undecided at this point.


Like with MK vs DC Universe, 'Mortal Kombat' uses the Unreal Engine 3. But unlike most titles that utilise the tech, the game operates at sixty frames per-second, requiring some heavy customisation in order to get the game up and running within a 16ms per frame budget. To do this much of underlying rendering elements have been paired or cleverly streamlined in order to give the engine some leeway in meeting this target - MK vs DC had roughly 9ms per-frame, leaving a 7ms gap just in case rendering went over budget.

As a compromise, elements such as, self-shadowing have been disabled, the lighting system simplified (using a combination of per-pixel lit floors and per-vertex lit backgrounds, both static and dynamic), and various components of the game's code made to run asynchronously for maximum efficiency. In addition, the time spent sorting and rendering alpha-based objects has also been reduced.

However, this means that the UE3 can now support a stable 60fps update whilst still featuring a wide range of suitable visual effects. Characters and environments are reasonably detailed without looking spectacularly so, and the lighting - a mix of a few small dynamic lights, and a large degree of pre-baking - works within the context of NetherRealm's art design, without bringing in much depth to the action.



Seeing as the entire engine has been crafted around meeting that 16ms, 60fps target update, a starting look at performance is in order. Above we've put together a a short analysis vid showcasing some of our initial fights in the game's Ladder Mode (Arcade Mode basically).

The game hits its target 60fps refresh rate and never drops a single frame during regular play. V-sync is also permanently enabled, so that there is no screen tearing to be found whatsoever. The only time we see a drop in smoothness, is during execution of the characters X-Ray moves. However, this has no impact on controller response times as control is taken away from the player as soon as these are activated.

We also find that the game's use of slow motion in these sequences helps in making these drops go unnoticed.


The game's consistently smooth refresh is good news indeed. Although, in terms of its graphical make-up, first impressions are decidedly mixed. While the art design reasonably reflects a re-envisioning of the classic 2D MK games - brought up to date with an additionally 'edgy' styling - the game appears quite blurry, with edges looking soft and fuzzy. It's hard to belive that MK is presented in anything but sub-HD.

Well, as it turns out this isn't the case. Mortal Kombat is in actual fact rendering a full-fat, 720p framebuffer. The reason for the noticeably poor image quality comes down to the game's anti-aliasing solution - there simply isn't one. Instead, a cheap, 1x1 pixel blur has been employed, and that is the root cause of the upscaled look.

The blur deals with any potential 'jaggies' rather well - despite noticeably reducing overall IQ. And this further is enhanced by the way in which the human eye blends frames together during motion at 60fps.




We can also see that the game's alpha buffers are rendered out in half-resolution before being upscaled to match the native 720p framebuffer. The lack of filtering (not even a bilinear solution) also gives them a heavily pixelated look, with 2x2 pixel wide blocking artefacts being obviously visible in the screenshots above and during play when situated close to the TV screen.

Most PS3 titles, be that exclusives or third-party offerings usually use either lower res, or quater-res alpha buffers. Although, filtering is almost always extensively employed, making sure that effects feature a very smooth, blended appearance.

As this is the opposite in MK, we can only assume that either; it's early code and that the lack of filtering is simply a rendering issue that hasn't been corrected, or, that the bandwidth requirements of filtered alpha effects is simply too much for the UE3 to handle in a 60fps environment.

It will be interesting to see how both the Xbox 360 version, and the final retail PS3 game fares in this regard.


So far, Mortal Kombat hardly looks incredible. But it does look nice enough (bar the obvious edge blurring and low res effects), with the documented trade-offs in order to run in 60fps being worth it for the increased fluidity and smoother controller response. Although one can't quite feel that a custom, in-house designed engine, rather than a highly customised UE3, would have been more preferable.

On the other hand, the gameplay currently feels like an uneasy mix of both the old 2D installments and the newer, Soul Calibur-esque PS2 games. When compared up against Mortal Kombat 4 - the first of the series' 3D installments, but also an almost purely 2D game - it appears to be quite far away from delivering a suitably faithful representation of those first three, fondly remembered titles.

With just over a month to go, NetherRealm Studios still have some time left to polish up some of the visuals and make a few much-needed gameplay tweaks. The demo code, is according to the team around nine weeks old, with some people speculating that it could be even older. In which case, we shall see when the finished product hits.

Thanks go out to AlStrong for the pixel counting and Richard Leadbetter for the use of Digital Foundry's analysis tools.

Tech Analysis: Motorstorm: Apocalypse Demo

The Motorstorm series has been there since the inception of Sony's PlayStation 3, and should no doubt be there right at the very end of its life cycle. With each successive installment the game design has constantly evolved, the sense of scale upped, and the level of intensity taken beyond that of a traditional off-road racer. Motorstorm: Apocalypse doesn't buck this trend, instead pushing things further into the realm of fantasy.

The sedate desert canyons of the original Motorstorm, and the sprawling volcanic island of the second game have both been replaced with a cityscape in the midst's of chaos being caused by a raging natural disaster. While on the other hand, the gameplay has seen some subtle but wholly beneficial tweaks.

This change brings about a serious refinement in tech, with the game boasting larger, more destructible environments, reworked particle and physics effects, and additionally, both 3D and 1080p support.

There's no doubt that Evolution Studios have pushed the boundaries of what is possible on the PS3 even further in the context of a driving game. And although the demo is rather conservative compared to what we've seen of the finished product, it gives us an initially positive look at just what has changed.


As always a look at the framebuffer reveals that the game is rendering in 720p and uses an implementation of Sony's morphological anti-aliasing (MLAA) solution instead of the 2x multi-sampling (MSAA) technique found in past titles.

As we are finding out evermore frequently, MLAA is vast becoming a magic bullet of sorts with regards to getting a cheap, but effective way of suppressing jagged edges on most PS3 titles. According to Little Big Planet developer, Media Molecule, it can be dropped into a game engine with just a day's worth of coding.

The MLAA implementation in MS: Apocalypse looks to do a great job too. It appears to be very similar to the one used in Killzone 3 - perhaps another custom variant of it - and deals with regular aliasing artefacts extremely well. High contrast edges are handled with ease, with only some sub-pixel issues and mild instances of shader-based aliasing that go unresolved - neither of which can be dealt with by using this current implementations alone.

But on the whole its hard to believe that a regular MSAA solution under the 4x mark would fair any better.




Moving on, and Evolution Studios has dramatically upgraded the game as a whole. Lighting stands out for being high-contrasty and exaggerated as a whole, bringing depth to the scene, while the level of environmental destruction has been raised considerably, with collapsing buildings, explosions, fire, smoke and particle effects constantly bombarding the track in one way or another as you race.

The dust and dirt trails that emanate from vehicles, along with smoke effects especially, have been given a noticeable boost in particular. Some of these effects now cast shadows on the ground in certain circumstances and have a lot more depth - they look like they have more 'volume' but without actually being volumetric.

In order to achieve this, all alpha buffers are rendering in quarter resolution - like in Killzone 3 - as to prevent reaching the system's peak bandwidth limit too early on. As a result, we can see that water and fire effects look particularly soft up close, as does smoke in some situations.

Shadows too, also see some compromises for the same reasons. Dithering artefacts are noticeably present on edges, additionally affecting some parts of the environment blanketed in shade. It's likely that the use of both low quality filtering, and perhaps blending techniques, is what's causing this.

But ultimately, when concentrating on racing non of this really has any impact on the game at all. If anything, without the increased use of alpha effects, some of the immersion would have been lost. Keeping the screen busy, filled with distractions is part of what makes this series stand out from competing titles.



Seeing as the demo features so much going at various points, and that the use of alpha plays a significant part in crafting the overall experience - the feeling of immersion, you'd be forgiven from expecting the engine to have trouble with maintaining its targeted 30fps update.

But this isn't so. And as our analysis video above points out, the developers at Evolution have successfully achieved this near solidly, with only a few scant dips to be found throughout; non of which impact on the gameplay in any way.

Some screen tearing is also apparent, as true v-sync hasn't been employed. Instead, we see that soft v-sync has been used, whereby tearing is allowed to occur at the very top of the screen (in the overscan area normally cut off on most HDTVs). Looking at this area in our video reveals that the game is constantly tearing - a result of the engine attempting to deliver frames for display as quickly as possible.

With this in mind we've clipped the top fifteen lines from analysis in order to give you an idea on how often the game actually produces torn frames that you can see. And as we expected, most of the visible tearing goes largely unnoticed, bar from the odd occasion where the engine struggles to render out a near complete frame in time for the next screen refresh.


Seeing as the GPU isn't stalling when trying to keep up with the next screen refresh, the framerate is effectively smooth throughout, meaning that MS: Apocalypse has nothing in the way of impacting controller latency issues. While aside from some minor tearing, image fidelity is also preserved. And this is further backed up with a tweaked, more responsive handling mechanic.

Cars still have that 'loose' feeling that encompasses the series trademark style, although turning feels sharper and the sluggishness seems to have been toned down a notch. Personally, I think the mechanics do feel a little bit too loose on the whole. But this is a stylistically engineered choice. So in that respect, it's business as usual.


Overall, our time with the demo barely represents what the full game has in store for us. It's pretty clear that this short taster is just a very small, and pretty pedestrian sample of what is yet to come. Either way, the same technical show-points are there (just not in as greater numbers) and the improvement over and above the first two games is obviously apparent.

Tech Analysis: Fight Night Champion (360 vs PS3)

We first looked at Fight Night Champion in our back to 30fps feature, discussing the actual benefits that the use of a lower frame-rate had on the overall experience. Both the look and feel of the game was transformed, with a style that made pulling punches and their impacts feel more intense. The action felt faster and more furious than before.

Since then it has come to light that some of the additional upgrades with regards to FN Champion's graphical look are completely separate from the decision to target a 30fps refresh rate. The lighting for example has been built around working in both 30fps and 60fps environments, whilst the controls (according to the developer) still operate at the higher frame-rate independently of rendering update.

At the same time, it's also hard to believe that there hasn't been some tangible benefits with regards to the additional increase in rendering time per-frame in other areas. But either way EA's latest looks far more spectacular than their last boxing release, and the final game continues to show what we found out during our time with the demo - that 60fps isn't the be all and end all when it comes to graphics.

But what about the PS3 and 360 releases. How do they match up? Well, the good news is that they are basically on a par with each other. In this respect the outcome is exactly like that of Fight Night Round 4.



Fight Night Champion renders in 720p on both platforms with the Xbox 360 game featuring use of 4xMSAA, while on PS3 the alternative quincunx solution (QAA) is used instead. As we've seen many times before, the use of QAA provides a similar amount of edge-smoothing compared to the more traditional MSAA, but this comes at the cost of blurring texture details as well as edges.

However, like in past Fight Night titles this overall effect does little to spoil the final image. The game looks clean and smooth on both formats with the blur only really standing out when flicking between the two on the HDTV, or in still screenshots. There's still plenty of intricate detailing visible, but not quite as much at certain points.



A difference in gamma curve can also be seen when putting the two games up against each other. As per usual we see that the 360 version is a little darker than the PS3 one, with subtle shadow details standing out more as a result of this, but without crushing black levels. However, this can easily be adjusted so that both games look identical without anything other than the very minimal of fuss.

In addition there is a variance in how each version renders the scenery outside of the ring in pre-fight introductions from a distance - different LOD parameters for both. The 360 game features spectators which are constructed of less geometry than their PS3 counterparts but at the expense of having more detailed textures. This only appears to be when the scene is viewed from afar. Move in closer and the two are brought back up to a similar standard. You can see this in the shots below.





But outside of this the game looks basically the same across both platforms. Art assets are identical, and the variances in lighting that can sometimes be seen is simply down to the lightsources being in different places at slightly different times. Albeit, ever so slightly.

In motion, these graphical subtleties are barely noticeable unless you've played both versions back to back, and considering that this is something you'd never do in regular play it's safe to say that nothing is lost as a result.



So far, EA's latest boxing smash is following in the footsteps of its predecessor extremely closely. But perhaps the main talking point, and indeed the most substantial difference between the two games is with regards to the frame-rate. While FN RD4 saw the game being upgraded to take advantage of all the benefits provided by the jump to a 60fps refresh (more responsive controls, smoother visual update etc), FN Champion on the other hand favours the drop back down to 30fps, instead choosing to back this up with a highly advanced and very convincing motion blur effect.

The combination of a 30fps update and motion blur has the effect on not only making the action look smoother than the normal 30fps game, but also far more brutal. FN Champion looks like a moody Hollywood blockbuster, whereby the impact of each blow carries a greater weight and appearance than before. By comparison, in FN RD4 the presentation alluded to that of a televised presentation.

But what does this change mean in terms of how the game plays?

To put it mildly, not as much as you might think. Past Fight Night titles always has a delayed feel with regards to controller response times (less so with RD4) compared to the likes of Tekken or Street Fighter, and FN Champion is no different. There is a slight, but noticeable all the same, increase in latency overall compared to FN RD 4, but control feels good on the whole. Moves can still be performed quickly and accurately, for example.

It also has to be said that the weighty feel of past games - designed to deliver the sensation of actually pulling punches - still comes across very well considering you no longer have to pull off various motions using the right analogue stick anymore. The additional delay I suspect, similar to how this is used to add weight to weapon aiming in Killzone 2, is the perhaps the main reason for this.



A look at performance then, and FN Champion is solid on both formats with very little in the way to separate them. While I thought that I experienced a few more frame-rate drops during play than what is registered in our video, it looks like the output on my Intensity Pro capture card (second output to HDTV) was affecting this. When playing both back just connected to my HDTV alone, they are exactly like-for-like in this regard.

As you can see in our performance vid, the game both targets and almost fully sustains a constant 30fps update. Outside of a few small instances (and one or two detection errors - 12.0fps and such like), it never drops from that point. That said, we do see a few scenes whereby the game is slightly smoother on the 360. The game drops slightly more frames during the cut-scenes on the PS3, although both games feature dips at roughly the same points and at similar levels.

Beyond this FN Champion strongly sticks to its 30fps baseline update, and it never deviates from it during actual gameplay. In addition, v-sync is employed on both platforms which means that there are never any torn frames throughout the whole experience. The entire presentation is both clean and smooth on both formats.

You can also see clearly the impact the use of motion blur has on the visuals, and how it augments the very look the developers were trying to recreate.





Moving on and there's very little left to discuss. The game's use of per-object motion blur is by far the most advanced implementation we've seen so far. It appears very natural when things are in motion, and the varying degrees of distortion it occupies at different points ensure that the results are subtle and noticeable at the same time, adding to the immersion.



Also, as we've talked about before, the lighting and shading on both the characters and the environments have also been improved over the last game. Better use of multiple dynamic lightsources in combination with more intricate shading means that there's plenty of depth on offer, and this is further expanded upon with the return of SSAO.

There have also been other improvements too, which you can see below. The body deformation system looks even more complex this time around. Here we see some really nice blending of normal maps in combination with what looks like some kind of simulation, maybe using real-time dynamics based on the bone structure to simulate skin and muscle movement.

Perhaps the only thing to add, is that all these upgrades are represented equally on both Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3.



Elsewhere, and away from graphical prowess, we found that loading times are also slightly longer on the PS3. Although, thanfully this is circumvented by a complete lack of the usual 'mandatory install' we sometimes have to deal with on the platform. In any case it isn't something worth complaining about.

So, the conclusion then. Like with Fight Night Round 4, FN Champion comes equally recommended on both platforms with the slightly blurrier look of the PS3 game really doing nothing to take away from the graphical splendor that EA have achieved. The game looks stunning, with realistic body movement and deformation, accomplished lighting and shading, plus use of motion blur, and all at a flawless thirty frames per-second.

For owners of both formats, and for the people who want the very best image quality available, then the 360 version is the best bet - just about, by the very tiniest of margins. But if all your mates are playing it online via the PS3, then I'd have no qualms about recommending it on that format instead. Both are visually spectacular regardless.

As for the game itself, it's fair to say that FN Champion still delivers a cracking round of the sport for anyone wanting to go in fists first. 'Legacy Mode' and its frustrating mini-games is a continued annoyance, but the new - albeit short - 'Champion Mode' definitely presents us with an interesting take on things. It gives you another reason to play outside of simply taking your chosen fighter to the top, with every Hollywood cliche you care to mention in tow.

Special thanks go out to Richard Leadbetter this time around, for all his help and support, plus allowing me to contribute on the latest Digital Foundry Article.