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Killzone 2 deliberately set expectations high
Author: Joe MartinPublished: 11th July 2007
Guerilla Games has told journalists at E3 that the Blu-ray drive is essential in order to reach graphics this good.
Finished? Right.
Well, the trailer looked amazing (and still does! - Ed.), there's no doubt about that. Not just in the graphics and animation, but also in fluidity and sheer brilliance.
Developed by Guerilla Games, it was always insisted that the trailer was comprised of real, in-game footage, but nobody really believed that and controversy raged as more and more evidence amounted that it may be just a computer generated trailer.
A lot of people were angry at Sony and Guerilla Games about it, especially when the game promptly disappeared off the radar for two years.
Now though, the game has re-emerged with a fresh trailer which is again supposedly made of actual gameplay. More importantly, this new trailer actually looks like actual gameplay, if only because it looks worse than the 2005 trailer and a careful eye can pick up texture flaws and edges to the polygons.
What's more, in a recent statement to Eurogamer, Sony has said that it always intended to set the hopes high with Killzone 2, the sequel to what is largely considered to be a reasonably good, but not great game.
Sony also intends to exceed expectations formed from the 2005 trailer with the finished product:
"It's a very important game because the anticipation was set so high, which we were conscious of - it was not accidental," Harrison told Eurogamer following a presentation of the game in Santa Monica. "It was important to demonstrate clearly that we have a real-time playable game that exceeds the expectations that we set for it," continued Harrison.
When it does hit, Killzone 2 (which seems to have decreased in quality, albeit only slightly in the two year absence) will be a PlayStation 3 exclusive - something Sony damn well didn't pay for. Guerilla Games has told journalists that the PlayStation 3 is critical to Killzone 2 and that the Blu-ray drive is completely essential in order to render graphics of this quality.
Let us know your thoughts on the new Killzone 2 footage in the forums.
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and if ur really really anal on making FPS in console, then for godsake, dont make it EXCLUSIVELY to console...
dumb. pathetically dumb.
edit: ok that being said, i got 2 more points:
1. yeah, the newer one is definitely *uglier* (check out the fire trail lol), but still pretty darn impressive... id love to see what a high-end PC can render.. in Dx10 nonetheles... i'll play that for sure.
2. it looks like accuracy is not the most important thing in this game... a la Gears of War.... (try to) point, squeeze button, and rain leads.... the more u shoot the better u are. so maybe its not a bad idea to actually have it in a console. but still... like that review of that Dx10 games u guys just reviewed, it can be ridicolously easy with a PC.... so i dunno...
Also, I'm wondering how much of a roll the Cell processor plays in this game's realism -- along with proving the utility of the BluRay drive, it'd be interesting if this game also proved what code optimized for the Cell can really do. Could a similar game possibly be created for the 360, which lacks the BluRay drive and (at least according to Sony) has an inferior processor?
Sure, the 360 is touted to have a better graphics chip...but I'm hoping Sony can prove its advantage in these other two areas. And they're really only going to prove such benefits with "Exclusive" games that don't have to play to the "least common denominator" in one way or another.
For an HD version of the trailer go http://www.gametrailers.com/player/21504.html <there
um let me see......because a family with a family pc wont be up to the standards to play decent PC FSP games and can forget about 1080p. The kids are more likely to have a games console and your saying that its anal to make FSP games so that they cant enjoy the genre???]
Get real mate, not everyone can afford a £2K PC to play games at 1080P on Pc but maybe at only £250 -£350 for a 360 or PS3 to play at 1080P it looks more viable. FSP games are great on console and yes they are better on PC but still, just because they are rgeat to play with Mouse an keyboard its not fare to deny console gamers the fun of FSP games.
I play BF2, CCS etc on PC but I still love to sit down and play Rainbow six and Gears on Console to just sit back on the sofa and have fun. If I want something more serious I go on PC. But not everyone has the luxury to have both options.
Price.
A $300 360, you would have to spend at least $1000+ to get the same performance.
Next time you post, try using the word "you", and keep the comma count down.
To punctuate the issue: you don't have to be a strictly hardcore gamer to appreciate a game console; conversely, you don't need to hate one so much to be an intense gamer, either.
**edit: anyone comparing PC and console platforms on the premise of performance deserves to my scrotum between your lips--that approach is some low, kiddie sh*t. Get a grip and look at them at a cost-to-entertainment value perspective.
http://gamevideos.com/video/id/8841
It's essential if you want the whole game on one disc, because each of the levels is ~2GB of data. If you were using DVD, that'd mean a max of four levels per disc.
edit:
either that or use another "Allegorithm" and transform the textures into procedural... and at the speed the BRD drive reads the disk i think i will wait a bit until i can play that 2Gb level.
Its no good having massive levels if your read speed is only 2x. Enjoy your massive load times.
yap, that's true :)
of what capacity?
Well sure, the RAMs fast, and sure it can send it to the CPU fast
but the time itll take 2GB to get into the RAM will be ridiculous, and also, its only 256MB, so enjoy, they might even be better putting it on a DVD, using compressed textures so that each level is more like 250-500MB, and actually loadable in a decent time.
Just for comparisons sake, a 2X BluRay drive is 9MBPS, thats nearly 4 minutes to load a level, nice
and also while im on the topic of reasons blu ray is not crucial (for these first gen ps3 games), the fact that its also 'crazy sweet' is not a valid reason for using it
haha - i could make a game that ran at 1080p on a floppy disk... wouldnt be good graphics, but it would run! OMG we need blu rayzz!
ok, so 9gb is not enough space to make a game that runs at 1920x1080, or 2 megapixels? 9gb is more than enough, i think the fact that there are a fair amount of 1080p games on the 360 proves this point,.. furthermore not every ps3 game is 1080p, is it not? if theyve got it on a blu ray disk, why not!
Oooo...careful there devdevil85! You're going to stir up all those HD-DVD fanboys who like to say "bluray is crap, they're using old codecs. HDDVD is the bomb! they use mpeg4! I saw a comparison and HDDVD won" -- it's always cute when people who don't keep up with the news use arguments that only held 6 months ago (it was only the first few bluray titles that used mpeg2 codecs....and, for the Fifth Element example, the studio will give you a free upgrade to the new mpeg4 version).
I also like all these folks saying "they totally could have fit this game on a dvd if they wanted to! just use compression!" -- do these people say the same thing about cramming dvd games onto a cd? do they have some knowledge proving that the bluray game textures aren't already compressed? why don't we just compress all our games to fit on floppies? clearly, it must be possible! Also, keep in mind, that if you're willing to admit that most games will *eventually* require the capacity of bluray, then Microsoft has screwed itself or its customers -- either their "cheaper" console will eventually require an add-on drive to play newer games, their games will mostly end up being on multiple disks (which is more expensive to produce), or they'll have to come out with an all new console sooner than Sony if they want to keep up.
Man...why do people have to whine about the bluray drive in the PS3? Clearly, it's being used for games, so it's not just for movies. But then people who don't have all the facts whine that the games couldn't *really* require that capacity?!? Even if the BluRay format dies for movies, there are plenty of consoles that use proprietary disks that don't work in other devices. So what's the problem here? Just Sony hating? Just hating the advancement of technology? Just not understanding history and how games have been moving to higher capacity media forever?
"Allegorithm" as in Allegorithmic and i would volunteer if i did not have other projects.
Jesus, that sentence alone says your a mature and valid source of insight!
Do you seriously expect Sony to launch an AAA title with level loads of 4 minutes?
The game is pretty, but nowhere near as pretty as some other console games I can think of in the near future. To be honest, I also prize innovation and such waaaay above just looks. I mean, "Rise of The Robots" was a pretty game for its time, but it played like week old monkey spunk and was very deriative.
There are some PS3 games upcoming which look crazy wicked and have the gameplay and invention to go with it. Like Haze, for example.
Also, since I've not been at E3 this year, I'm going to wait until I can get my own chance to play before I laud it so highly. From what I've seen, the thing that strikes me most is that quality has DECREASED in two years and theres no indication that the game has radically altered content. To me, that suggests that the 2005 trailer WAS CG and that Sony/Guerilla have spent the last two years trying to catch-up to that because of the controversy. It explains why nobody has heard anything about Killzone since 2005 and why Sony are only now coming out to say this.
i gladly accept your defeat and shake your hand. ;)
No.
So they will shrink the textures to less than 2GB, so it loads in a reasonable time. By which time they might even be able to squeeze it onto a DVD, which, well cancels out the quote of 'Blu-ray drive is essential in order to reach graphics this good.' which I was originally getting at.
I dunno, i can't believe they released Motorstorm with that shocking load time for machine models, especially when every PS3 has a hard drive, there was just no excuse for it
Great game though :)
I didn't expect them to charge £500 quid for the PS3, lol.
You're installing to your machine's hard drive though, not playing off the disc.
When you say controversy do you mean this ?
Wel i got news for Sony: Ever looked at "Krieger" ? its a whole damn fps in full galore in 96kb. And you can download an play it for free!
And while your at it, also checkout the incredible debris demo in just 177kb
Damn lazy noob gameprogrammers...
Yep, exactly that, though i hadn't seen that before. LOLZ!
All you need is a reasonable portion, and then as the people are playing the game you have even more time to load more data from the disc, not forgetting that if its a console title the data on the disc can be sorted in such a way that it aids console play
Although, there is one point no-one seems to have picked up on which i was thinking, now Sony came out and said "we don't pay for exclusive games", however, they did say they would help developers to make games for the PS3
Now consider this, the PS3 is so specialised, if you make a game for it, your pretty much stuck, i mean your making a game which can spread over 6 or 7 cores (whatever the PS3 now has available to games) and optimising it for the PS3, now if you try and go to the 360 for example, you have a problem, all your code has been made to run well on the PS3 (and in the case of killzone for example - its so demanding it needs all the power it can get)
So by Sony offering you support and getting your game on the PS3, they may have almost paid you to put the title on their console, by offering you hours of work for free, and by optimising it for the PS3, you have actually locked yourself into 1 console
And then Sony get to come out and say "we don't pay for exclusives" which is publicity (probably good)
Pretty smart campaign in my eyes (if true)
As for killzone1, that was IMO a pretty good game, OK it wasn't zomg wtfbbq awesome, but it was good fun, and certainly entertained me for some hours, and the trailer for Killzone2 almost makes a PS3 seem worth while
As to why it was all faked, or whether the message of 'it's real!' was a dilberate lie or simply a marketing mixup we don't know, and I'd feel wrong instantly accusing Sony of underhandedness. Either way, them spending the last 2 years playing catchup certainly sounds like a realistic situation, and would explain the drop in quality. As for the whole 2gb level but bluray has slow read time debate: someone mentioned a level load time of 4 minutes. Well, to be fair, all that means is that each level has to last over 4 minutes to avoid lengthy loading times. In reality, the game probably only needs to load maybe 20% of the content to render the first room, and can stream it after that. And besides, there might be a load of compression on the textures, Quake Wars boasts multi-gigabyte megatextures, but Splash Damage also don't pretend in reality they don't compress them down to about 500 megs, a similar thing may well happen with Killzone 2, and it's not something to get at the game for, it's totally normal.
Besides, for all we know, that 2Gb could be the sum total of all the content used in the first level, but the second level uses 90% of the same content (same textures, models, sounds etc.), so in reality the whole game could be only a few gigs in size. Although we all know that what developers intend to deliver now is rarely, if ever, what they actually manage to deliver. I think we just won't know till the game ships. Clearly the level load times won't be 4 minutes, but how they avoid this problem (and it is a genuine problem) remains to be seen, we'll just have to wait and see.
What is for sure though is regardless of the final game, there's no way on earth it's going to look nearly as good as that original 2005 trailer.
Thats it, thats all.
The original Killzone was a truely awful first person shooter, and from looking at the AI in the new gameplay footage I don't hold much hope for the sequel...
Have I missed something??? When was it £500, do you mean £400 or are you shopping with one of those credit catalogues that charge 100% more on all products so you can buy it at £1 a week
JAT
60GB PS3 since Feb 07
IBM T60p