Review: Dead Rising 2 (360)

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

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

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


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

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

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

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


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

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

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


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

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


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

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


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

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

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


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

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


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

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

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

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


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

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


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

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

VERDICT: 8/10

Review: Resident Evil 5 Gold Edition (Move Edition)

After a thorough playtesting of Sony’s Move controller over the launch weekend I delivered my final verdict on the device and most of its launch line-up last Monday. A few games were missing however. One of those was Capcom’s seminal survival shooter (come on now it’s hardly a horror game is it) Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition; an updated version of RE5 containing two extra single player chapters, and via a patch available from the PSN, full PlayStation Move support.

Seeing as RE4 on the GameCube still ranks up there with some of my favourite games of all time (it’s in my top ten), and that the Wii Edition remains in my opinion, the definitive version to play, I was more than a little interested to see how the Move enabled RE5 would turn out. After all, surely the precision tracking and lack of latency on Sony’s motion controller would make for an even better experience than on the Wii? Sadly, that isn’t completely the case, with the developers arguably just including Move support without really thinking too much about the end results.

Okay, perhaps that’s a slightly harsh statement, because while RE5: Gold Edition does feature a few glaring flaws with regards to its new motion control implementation, it’s also still a reasonably playable experience, just not as much so as when using the standard Dual Shock or Sixaxis controllers.


Part of the problem lies in both the button choices used for each configuration (there are two types) and how the Move’s pointer has been implemented in place of using the standard analogue sticks. Character movement is handled by the analogue stick on the Navigation Controller, whilst all aiming and menu selection is done via the Move. Holding down the T-Trigger brings up your aiming cursor, and pushing the Move button shoots you gun. A quick waggle of the Move also delivers a delayed slice of your knife.

When using the Move there is no dual control for both moving and aiming at the same time, as is possible with the standard PS3 controller. Instead, you can only choose to either move, or aim and look around when stationary. The analogue stick on the Navigation controller allows you to look around freely, whilst the Move is used to aim. This will be familiar to those who have played Resident Evil 4 on both the GameCube and the Wii, and may come as a hindrance if you are not used to such a system. Thankfully, I didn’t find it to be all that much of a problem, though the lack of a Move equivalent to the dual analogue solution is somewhat disappointing.

Using the Move button to fire, rather than the T-Trigger also feels a little odd. When pressing down on the trigger, your thumb immediately uses the top of the Move’s surface to hold it in a steady position, maintaining a strong grip in the process. However, when you let go, and then push down again to make each shot (whilst still holding down the trigger) your initially steady grip is reduced somewhat. Surely, it would make more sense to have the Move button being held down in order to bring up the aiming cursor, and then using the T-Trigger as the fire button. That would make the whole experience feel far more natural.

Thankfully the existing set-up works rather well, and when blasting away at fifteen, twenty enemies pushing the Move button to fire whilst holding down the trigger isn’t particularly uncomfortable, just maybe not the most thought out choice.


What IS an issue, and by far the biggest oversight in implementing Move support, is how the aiming cursor constantly reconfigures itself in accordance to the Move’s position, often with unwanted results.

For example, when you push down on the T-Trigger to bring up your aiming reticule, the Move’s position is immediately determined at that point. However, after you’ve finished shooting, and thus releasing the trigger, the calibration seems to get thrown off. If you bring up your reticule with the Move positioned a little lower down than before, then it will appear higher up on screen than it should, or if you are aiming a little too far to the left or right before pushing down on the T-Trigger, the reticule also appears too far on either side of the screen.

By contrast, in Resident Evil 4 the position of the Wii Remote and pointer was always tracked from a specific point (I certainly don’t remember it being like this), so when you go to aim the reticule would automatically be positioned accordingly. Not so with Move and RE5 – the cursor on screen simply doesn’t line-up unless you position the Move at its starting position each time before hitting the T-Trigger.

At least the Move does provide noticeably greater accuracy than the Wii remote when it comes to lining up your shots, and quickly moving from target to target. Initially the default settings feel rather slow, and are in fact pretty sluggish compared to Wii Resi 4. However, you can adjust both the pointer speed and sensitivity in the options menu, which tightens up the controls considerably. Perhaps the only fault when doing this, is that when the game slows down, dropping framerate, the additional latency present is far more noticeable than if you had the cursor sensitivity, and speed set at lower levels.


Another issue is with regards to the use of the four face buttons found on the DS3 and Sixaxis controllers for performing certain moves, and to access your inventory screen. Running is done by holding down the ‘cross’ button, whilst ‘triangle’ is used to bring up the inventory screen. Now this doesn’t sound too bad, and in actual fact using ‘cross’ to run is perfectly fine. However, seeing as both ‘square’ and ‘triangle’ can be a little uncomfortable to reach it would have made more sense to make ‘cross’ or ‘circle’ the inventory and map buttons, leaving running to be done using the L2 trigger on the Navigation controller.

Playing in a dark room with the buttons obscured by the lack of visibility can be somewhat annoying, especially as the face buttons are divided by some length with regards to the Move button’s placement in between. The problem lies in being able to quickly toggle in and out of your inventory in the heat of battle, swapping weapons and items around between both characters, or just reorganising some space to equip new ones found along the way. Navigating these screens using the pointer is fine, as is using both the Move button to select items, and swap with other players. It’s just the ability to bring them up quickly that can be troublesome.

Other than that Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition does work reasonably well with the Move. Aiming in particular is faster and more accurate than when using a normal controller, and losing the ability to move whilst looking around or aiming isn’t a major loss. You can also see the reduced latency the Move provides over the Wii remote in terms of basic response time, although the game’s erratic framerate does on many occasions diminish this greatly.


Slight to heavy annoyances with the button configurations, and accentuated controller lag due to slowdown aside, it maybe isn’t quite as bad as you initially might think, once you get used to it. Sadly, it is a little behind the Wii version of Resident Evil 4 where the overall nature of fluid and intuitive controls are concerned. The Move might offer lower latency in moving the cursor around on screen, but it is also hindered by a game designed for far quicker reactions with a standard control pad.

Despite this, the actual RE5 game itself is still as fun to play as ever, though lacking any real sense of horror. Instead, most of the time you find it regularly turning into a crowded shooting gallery of sorts, with you becoming involved in a juggling act of babysitting your AI partner, and navigating menus as fast as possible. The storyline is classic b-move Capcom fodder, the character, and enemy designs are solid though sometimes uninspired. And visually. Well, it’s still one of the best looking games this generation. Resident Evil 4 may clearly be a better game all round, but there is still much to like about Capcom’s aging survival horror, turned survival shooter series.


Those after a state of the art reason to own the Move, or even just a finely tuned experience may want to look elsewhere. That said, even if you already own the Gold Edition of RE5, been playing through it to death, finishing every chapter, unlocking every little morsel of extra content, then it is more than worth another look if you so happen to own Sony’s motion control combo. However, it is also definitely not worth buying both a Move and Navigation controller specifically for. Or the other way around if you’re looking for more compatible titles.

VERDICT: 6/10

The above score relates solely to the use of Move controls in RE5, and not as an assesment of the overall quality of the game.

Capcom Shows Off MT Framework Mobile Tech

We know that the 3DS is a potentially very powerful machine, and although its GPU is lacking any kind of programmable pixel-shader support, many of the effects done through this method can be recreated via its advanced fixed-function pipeline. The result is a range of visual effects that look surprisingly high-end and extremely close to what is possible on current home console hardware.

A glimpse of just what is possible on the system was briefly shown off with Capcom’s Resident Evil Revelations demo at E3 earlier this year, but now the company has shed even more light on the tech powering the game, and the results are not so surprisingly impressive.

In an interview with Zenji Nishikawa for Japanese site Impress Watch, Capcom’s Jun Takeuchi (head of production), Masaru Ijuuin (head of technical research and development), Satoshi Ishida (programmer) sat down to discuss the latest version of their MT Framework engine (called MT Framework Mobile), created specifically for the 3DS and incorporating many of the advanced visual effects usually found in the company’s PS3 and 360 titles.

Impressively, the trio revealed that the new engine is fully capable of delivering advanced features like normal mapping, depth of field, motion blur, gamma correction, anti-aliasing, surface shaders and self shadowing, whilst rendering in real-time at 30fps, and with most of the effects being enabled in 3D.

Some of these, like motion blur, and anti-aliasing are not available in this mode, perhaps down to both the way they are implemented and the additional processing load they require to work.

A few comparison shots were also revealed. They show the game with these features both enabled and disabled, demonstrating that the 3DS’ fixed-function graphics pipeline can still handle work carried out by the PS3 and 360’s pixel-shaders with relative ease.

The results are very impressive. And the screenshots in question can be found directly below.

Note: top shots are without these effects, bottom ones are with.

Motion Blur



The use of motion blur appears to be more than just a simple post-process effect added to the finished framebuffer image. Instead, all signs point to it being object based, calculated in real-time and processed only for the items which use it. This usually requires a large amount of processing power compared to the much cheaper ‘camera-based motion blur’ solutions, so seeing it up and running here is a pretty incredible feat.

Currently the effect has been fully implemented with the game is running in 3D, although Capcom are assessing its suitability for use in this mode.

Depth Of Field



When using a DOF effect objects in the foreground or background appear to stand out, and focus points are created. This accentuates cinematic realism when using certain camera angles.

HDR (top) and Colour Correction (bottom)





Capcom’s use of high-dynamic-range lighting here seems to create a larger contrast between light and dark areas of the scene, although it can also be used to show a larger spectrum of light points across the entire available range. The above shows a more realistic presentation of shadowed parts of the screen, creating a moody, more atmospheric look to the proceedings.

Normal Mapping



Seeing as polygon counts are vastly lower than in 360/PS3 Resident Evil 5, normal mapping has clearly been used to make both characters look smoother, their lower polygon origins slightly more concealed as a result. This technique allows for more detail to be included via texture mapping without the need for incredibly high levels of geometry, which is perfectly suited for the 3DS.

Surface Shaders and Self Shadowing



Like with HDR, the effect of self shadowing adds additional realism and depth to the scene, whilst additional shaders help maximise the amount of detail from the game’s texture maps.

Anti-Aliasing

Perhaps the most interesting feature is the inclusion of 2xAA when the game is running in 2D mode. While Capcom didn’t discuss the method of edge smoothing they were using, it is very likely that it is the very same supersampling technique as found in Nintendo’s Starfox 64 conversion.

Effectively the 3DS renders its final framebuffer output at 800x240 when running in 3D mode, with two 400x240 frames being created (one for each eye). These are then combined to form a single 2D image using jittered samples, thus basically equating to 2x supersampling, and it’s this image that is finally displayed on screen. Regardless of mode, the game is always rendering the full 800x240 resolution in order to apply AA in the final framebuffer output.

Tech Advantages

It’s pretty clear from what we’ve seen so far that the MT Framework Mobile engine is a force to be reckoned with for sure. From a mere graphical standpoint Resident Evil Revelations is easily the most complex 3DS title we’ve seen to date given the large range of effects displayed at any given time. However, it is the engine’s cost and time saving properties which are perhaps even more important than its flagship game’s visual splendour.

One of the main things to come out of the interview was that when making for the platform using MT Framework Mobile, you wouldn’t need to start the entire game creation process from scratch. It is possible for developers to carry over all of their existing art assets from the work done on PS3 and 360 titles, simply scaling back geometry counts and texture detail to match the lower spec hardware.

This is exactly what Capcom have done for Resident Evil Revelations and 3DS Super Street Fighter IV, in which most of the artwork and assets were taken directly from both Resident Evil 5 and the console version of Super SFIV, before being downgraded accordingly.

Effectively, by doing this overall development costs should be lower, thus allowing for software teams to target high-end levels of graphical performance that are usually expected from fully-featured AAA titles. Only this time in the handheld space. And all without breaking the bank.

Ultimately, Capcom’s mobile version of the highly proficient MT Framework engine bodes well for not only future handheld ports of PS3 and 360 games, but also original titles as well. More time spent on game design, and less on getting your art, assets, and tech up and running can only be a good thing. And it is precisely this approach which will be the driving force behind future development - a statement echoed by the fact that the company also confirmed the MT Framework Lite; a cross platform solution designed to get games ported from PS3 to Wii more quickly, but without the usual legwork.

An Updated Look At The Visuals Of SSFIV 3DS

More of a quick update than anything else today, but still a decent one at that, concerning the delightful port of Super Street Fighter IV for the 3DS.

A few days ago Capcom released a few new screenshots showing the game in action. These new screens revealed not only a few characters not seen in earlier shots of the 3DS version, but also significant graphical improvements finally putting the game over and above anything the PSP could possibly do. It’s rather impressive!


First on the agenda today is the observation that none of the new screens feature that ink-shading effect seen in the earlier shots released at E3. Previous screens only showed off the game using this effect, which in turn made things look rather flat, albeit also very stylish. It now appears that, like in the PC version of SFIV and in the PS3 and 360 update Super SFIV, that you can turn on and turn off the ink shading as you see fit.



Visually the new shots definitely look more in keeping with the console versions of the game. In particular with the ink shading off the characters display noticeably more in the way of subtle details, and an increase in bump-mapping giving them a greater sense of depth compared to before.


The backgrounds have also been given a subtle overhaul, with a greater use of geometry being visible making things seem even more impressive. But to really appreciate just how good it looks overall you have to see the game being displayed side-by-side with its bigger brother in order to gauge just how close it is.


3DS


PS3/360

It’s pretty clear from the above screenshot comparison that Capcom have managed to get the game looking incredibly similar whilst using only a fraction the polygon power available to them with both the PS3 and Xbox 360. The developers also appear to be using the exact same character models as the two console versions of the game, just scaled back in geometry counts, and using a greater amount of normal mapping to replicate a similar level of detail.

And against the iPhone version of SFIV:


3DS


iPhone

Moving on, in the latest shots of the 3DS game self-shadowing is also still visible, which is nice, along with what looks like some kind of soft shadow filtering giving a smoother appearance to shadow edges.



As to be expected there is no anti-aliasing of any kind to be found in the 3DS version so far, and to be fair it is unlikely that there will be in the future either. Certainly, with the reasonably high geometry counts we are seeing, along with some advanced shader effects, normal mapping, and soft shadowing, it’s going to be hard enough maintaining that essential 60fps update as it is without trying to implement an AA solution in on top of that.

But to the honest they don’t really need to. The sharpness of the visuals, the detail, and the impressive use of various visual effects is outstanding for a first-generation title. It’s also way ahead of the now meagre looking iPhone version of SFIV (which failed to even feature true polygon backgrounds). The only disappointing thing is that we may well have to wait a little longer for the game than expected - Capcom are now saying that it is unlikely that it will be out in time for the 3DS’ launch.

Either way, we’re definitely looking forward to seeing it in action.

Tech Analysis: Lost Planet 2 (PS3 vs 360)

The original Lost Planet represented exactly how not to not to do a PS3 conversion. Sticking to the basic approach of trying to port the overall engine in a like for like manner, despite clear architectural differences, resulted in one of the worst multi-platform PS3 conversions to come out of any studio at the time.

Missing a large amount of geometry and texture detail from its 360 counterpart, in addition to featuring low resolution effects, and only temporal 2xMSAA, the port suffered greatly losing a large chunk of image quality in the process. It also struggled to maintain a smooth framerate, thus accentuating the game’s poor use of anti-aliasing and lack of fine detail.

Lost Planet 2 on the other hand is nothing like that dreadful port of the first game. Instead Capcom have built upon the finely tuned refinements they made with the first MT Framework engine on Resident Evil 5, carrying over the optimisations to the new 2.0 version used here in Lost Planet 2. Many of the improvements that were to found in the PS3 version of that game are also found here too. However whereas Resi 5 demonstrated some significant differences in anti-aliasing, texture filtering and framerate, LP2 is a far closer affair, for the most part achieving platform parity throughout the game, minus a few issues here and there.

Like with Resi 5, Lost Planet 2 is rendered in 720p (1280x720) on both formats, with the 360 getting the standard application of 2xMSAA and the PS3 game getting no AA of any kind. The result is that both versions appear clean and very sharp, with jagged edges surprisingly manifesting themselves in almost equal amounts in certain scenes.

The differences are easily spotted in the shots below, where we can see that both versions look almost like for like, with only very subtle differences that are mainly caused be the two machines internally different gamma levels, and the PS3 version missing a few effects in places.

With regards to the 360 version displaying almost equal amounts of aliasing to the PS3 one, this can be explained away by how the game is rendering its lighting. LP2’s use of heavy HDR and high levels of strongly defined light sources all create high contrast edges, so when edge samples are taken by the MSAA they are so similar to the un-anti-aliased edges, that in the end some parts of the scene just don’t get any AA at all. This means that the screen can crawl with jaggies on both versions, though it is more apparent on the PS3 version as it has no AA to help control the problem.



In terms of texture detail and filtering both versions seem to be pretty much equal in most scenarios, which is particularly impressive given the scale of the environments and the amount of bandwidth stealing particle effects on screen at any given time.

Some subtle differences in texture quality are apparent between both platforms, but they aren’t really all that visible during actual gameplay. In some scenes textures appear more detailed on the 360 than on the PS3. You can also just about see that the 360 version edges it ever so slightly when it comes to fine detail, though you can only see this when scrutinising still screens, and not when the game is in action.


At some points however, there are noticeable cut backs in overall texture quality on PS3. Although this isn't apparent in all areas of the game, when it does happen it definitely takes away from the experience.

Some stages seem to be more affected than others, and below is a clear example.


What is surprising is that both PS3 and 360 versions of the game feature the use of anisotropic filtering (AF). Previously it was pretty much a given that games on the PS3 would benefit from the use of AF when the on 360 the same game would be using only a trilinear or bilinear solution.

Because the PS3 has more texture units in its RSX GPU than 360’s Xenos, AF basically comes for free on Sony’s machine. Whereas on Microsoft’s system there is normally some sort of memory or performance hit for using it, much like in the way that 2xMSAA is usually commonplace for the 360 but not for PS3.

Either way, both versions benefit from having clean and clear texturing that is visible for several feet into the distance. This was also apparent in Super Street Fighter IV, which first showed Capcom’s improved multiplatform use of AF.



Shadowing looks to be identical between both versions, with any differences being down to the gamma levels of each system. What is noticeable is that in really dark areas of the screen some shadow detail is mildly crushed in the 360 game, with the darkest parts appearing almost completely black instead of clearly showing the faintest of details. The PS3 game with the console’s higher gamma manages to achieve greater amounts of shadow detail, which show up a lot more clearly in dark sections and in character and object shadows.

There are of course downsides caused by the lighter shadows on the PS3 version despite the welcomed increase in noticeable detail. The sense of depth is slightly lessened leaving an overall image with less three-dimensionality compared to the 360 game, although the like for like quality of the actual shadows means this is more of an observation than a complaint.



Visual effects in general have also seen major improvements in Lost Planet 2, with the vast majority of effects looking the same on both platforms. Again, like with the texturing, certain scenes do take a noticeable hit, while others are practically identical. Smoke and particles are once again slightly lower res on the PS3 game - although not the extent of the first Lost Planet - and are less noticeable here than they were in Resi 5, particulary with the larger effects which I believe are the same in both versions.

This shot below shows off the worse case scenario of the PS3 game missing various effects found in the 360 build. Water and some shiny surfaces seem to be the main area in which certain effects have been cut back on.


Despite these differences in some scenes, it’s pretty impressive seeing how close Capcom have managed to create near-identical copies of the game visually on both systems, for the most part at least. In motion it’s only the PS3’s lack of AA which consistently shows up crawling jagged edges and a very slight drop in IQ in these areas.

Sadly, there are times when the game looks noticeably worse, though thankfully this doesn't happen all that often, especially nowhere near to the level of the first game on PS3. When it does happen however, it manages to undermine some of the hard work Capcom have done on the conversion. Which is a shame, because at times the two versions really do look identical.



So, you could say that it’s mostly par the course for parity then? Well, not quite, as whilst both versions maintain similar levels of graphical fidelity, with some exceptions in certain areas, the same cannot be said when in motion.

Like with Resident Evil 5, both PS3 and 360 versions of LP2 deal with framerate and screen tear differently. The PS3 game tends to hold v-sync in order to prevent any untoward screen tearing, along with what looks like the return of double-buffering – a process of generating a spare frame just in case the one about to be used gets torn – but in the process at the expense of obtaining a stable framerate.

This means that screen tear is pretty much non-existant in the Sony game, but the framerate instead constantly takes a dive from the targeted 30fps update in busy scenes. In large boss battle and parts of the game filled with large enemies the framerate hits between 10 to 20fps, creating what can only be described as a brief slideshow of movement.

I also noticed that the controls seemed to be a little more laggy on the PS3, which aroused my suspicions to the inclusion of the double-buffering. Although this isn’t a 100% conformation, but a solid assumption based on both this controller lag and Capcom’s previous use of the technique.

The 360 game on the other hand, instead allows the screen to tear more frequently but consequently maintains that 30fps update far more often. Interestingly, LP2 actually seems to be v-synced on 360, at least partially – something that was absent completely from Resi 5, and this on occasion can lead to terrible drops in fluidity which are pretty unsightly to say the least.

However, this only really happens during certain boss battles, and usually manifests itself in the cut-scenes rather than in actual gameplay, so although it isn’t too impacting, you can’t help but notice it.

Perhaps this is the most substantial issue between either version of the game, which is a shame as Capcom have really excelled at making Lost Planet 2 at times, a near identical experience regardless of which version you own. Everything but the use of AA, and the lower-res, paired down effects are basically the same between both versions - occasional texture issues aside - and it’s only the frequent drops in framerate that really set them apart the majority of the time.


In the end Capcom have pulled off a pretty successful multiplatform title in Lost Planet 2. It may be too much to expect a complete identikit release graphically, but most of the glaring flaws and visual differences have been addressed to some degree. Sadly the same cannot be said for the game itself, in which we awarded a rather disappointing 6/10 in our review.

For all the technical achievements the developers have managed to weave together, the underlying gameplay issues and fundamentals almost break the game at times. So much so, that for the most part Lost Planet 2 is a partially polished but unsatisfactory experience.

Tech analysis updated: extra screens and further details representing the more severe differences.