Sony talk a lot of rubbish

[Monkey]

**Deleted**

[Leslie Lee III]

I doubt they were presenting a thesis, just using terms the average person would understand to say that their system is hot. This needed it's own thread?

[Monkey]

I doubt they were presenting a thesis, just using terms the average person would understand to say that their system is hot. This needed it's own thread?

You know, I'm so board of your comments and ability to disagree with everyone in the gaming posts that I think I'm going to just delete my message, stop wasting mine time and everyone else's and take my gaming posts and fun somewhere else.

[Gargus]

You know, I'm so board of your comments and ability to disagree with everyone in the gaming posts that I think I'm going to just delete my message, stop wasting mine time and everyone else's and take my gaming posts and fun somewhere else.

If thats how you react to something like that then Im glad your going someplace else. We have enough cry babies as it is. You act like they personally attacked you or something.

[Donald M.]

You know, I'm so board of your comments and ability to disagree with everyone in the gaming posts that I think I'm going to just delete my message, stop wasting mine time and everyone else's and take my gaming posts and fun somewhere else.

Screw you guys, I'm goin' home!

[Monkey]

The post said it all, I saw his reply and decided I wasn't interested in arguing with with someone I've seen randomly arguing in just about every other gaming thread about things as small as someone's personal choice in gaming systems.

I'm here to post, discuss and have fun as soon as I saw a "This needed it's own thread?" reply I knew I just couldn't be bothered with it. My mistake was bothering to reply at all.

If I could have just deleted the thread I would have. I'd forgotten I'd even made the post until I clicked it in my new posts and saw it was one of mine.

[Donald M.]

There's nothing wrong with arguing when it's done civilly. It's called "debating".

I've come to admire Leslie a bit for the very posts that drive you so mad. He's not randomly arguing with people, he's calling them out on their nonsense and doing so intelligently and civilly for the most part. It's other posters with their inability to handle having their opinions called into question that turn things into an argument.

Whatever your intention, your response came across as whiny out of all proportion to what Leslie posted. I never got to read your original post, but I can safely assume it was something that could more profitably been posted in an existing thread.

If you can't be bothered, don't be. Don't keep coming back to post more about how fed up you are, because that's lame.

[BlairH]

The PS3 is similar in terms of practical power to the 360:

http://uk.gamespot.com/features/6162742/p-2.html

Theoretically, the PS3 has more powerful hardware than the 360, but it's actually a hard architecture to code for. Indeed, developers are finding it difficult to get the same quality of graphics that the 360 currently offers (It reminds me of the Saturn in this respect. The Saturn's dual processor architecture was "better" than the sincle processor architecture of the PS1, but the developers just couldn't take advantage of that extra power)

I'd like to see what both machines are capable of in a year's time. Maybe then we can start measuring them up against eachother.

Personally, I think the hardware arms race has got to the point where the in game art & design, rather than pure graphical "grunt" is the determining factor in how nice a game looks.

[Donald M.]

I agree, I think with this generation we'll reach the wall where graphical increases will be so incremental that game designers will have to find other areas in which to innovate in order to drive the medium forward.

Or they would, if most people cared. Shiny graphics rule all, sadly.

[BlairH]

Or they would, if most people cared. Shiny graphics rule all, sadly.

Emphasis on the "shiny". Although the new hardware makes it easy for developers to use mind-blowing graphical effects, most devs don't have the artistic talent to use said effects properly.

Features such as HDR (High Dynamic Range lighting) are nice, but most developers don't know how/where to use it properly. As a result, everything looks too bright and/or soft. Take a look at the sheep in ES: Oblivion for example. They look as if they're standing 1 mile away from a nuclear explosion. Either that, or their wool is made out of some kind of high-tech reflective material designed by a secret cabal of sheep bankers...

Another example would be Call of Duty 3. Look at the Lee Enfield rifle. I have one in real life and it simply does NOT look like that. WWII games are supposed to be gritty and realistic looking, but instead, this one is overly-bright/overly soft.

[Donald M.]

You're right of course, often the quality of the graphics isn't as important as the art design. WWII games being a good example you've raised, depending on the context giving things a dark and gritty look (or a cartoony look, or any number of other stylized looks) can work better than all that high res, high polygon, high definition stuff that I don't really care much about anyway.

It's always nice to see games that do something interesting that doesn't involve some new graphical tweak. The best graphics in the world don't make a game fun to play, after all.

[Captain Trips]

Interesting points, and I agree with them. Next-gen needs to be measured by more than just graphical prowess. A great example of this is what LucasArts has in store for the next Indiana Jones game:

Indiana Jones debuts the revolutionary new euphoria technology from NaturalMotion, which delivers never-before-seen lifelike action and awareness to every character in real time -- so you'll never see the same thing twice. For the first time ever, euphoria enables interactive characters to move, act and even think like actual human beings, adapting their behavior on the fly and resulting in a different payoff every single time. This next-gen technology imbues Indy and his opponents with unparalleled environmental awareness and survival instincts. They'll stumble, then attempt to maintain their balance; brace themselves for falls, then get back up; and reach for nearby ledges when falling. Each action results in an authentic, varied performance every time.

Complementing euphoria will be Pixelux Entertainment's Digital Molecular Matter (DMM) technology, which brings a level of realism to next-gen games never seen before by making completely interactive environments that react as they would in real life. From crumbling walls to shattering glass and even swaying organic plant life, in-game objects have material properties that behave realistically all in real time.

[Xero Kaiser]

Or they would, if most people cared. Shiny graphics rule all, sadly.

People like to throw things like this out there, but I'm really having trouble coming up with any really crappy game moving a lot of copies just because it had nice graphics. I can think of more games with bad-average graphics selling a lot

Unless GTA, Warcraft, Live Arcade and DS games have mind-blowing graphics and nobody told me

[Donald M.]

People like to throw things like this out there, but I'm really having trouble coming up with any really crappy game moving a lot of copies just because it had nice graphics.

Really crappy, no, but graphics have helped out a lot of overwhelmingly average games. Of course we get into a matter of opinion here, but to me, for example, Doom 3 was a slightly below-average FPS whose success is predicated largely on its overwhelmingly above-average graphics.

You're right though, every once in a while an innovative game design wins out in spite of graphics. Of course you've then got to navigate the minefield of "me-too" games. As the FPS genre shows, this problem doesn't necessarily diminish with time.

The obsession with graphics seems to be limited to a very specific sector of the gaming world of which neither the casual gamer nor the lifestyle gamer is a part. Typically, anyone who refers to themselves as a "hard-core" gamer falls into this category.