Major Nelson recently interviewed Mark Terrano, a video game programmer and Design Director for Hidden Path Entertainment on the progress of the industry from a technological point view, and specifically his evaluation of the current generations technical achievements and limitations for the Xbox 360 XBLA games.
Listen from the 43rd minute on the podcast.
GB: "We take a look at 15 amazing games that had the perfect length."
Pretty good list. Botany Manor would be the newest addition that encapsulates that title.
GL: "Staff writer Shaz reflects on his small library of physical games he's kept throughout the decades, and how a recent move made him nostalgic."
I lost my drive for collecting physical games due to many discs lacking the whole complete game. Instead, of collecting games I started collected figurines.
I am a collector have a room dedicated with a couple original arcade cabinets, physical game library, old and new consoles and controllers backlit with LED lighting. It’s very cool to have but with emulation being so strong and prevalent, I sometimes feel foolish because the hobby is expensive and like another said, the full game is not always on the disc. Could probably spend more wisely but I enjoy it.
Most games are usually on disc still. Of course you got you publishers that are hit and miss, Activision, ubisoft, ea, Microsoft, where the rest of the game needs downloaded.
Talal writes: "I'm talking about having that rush of excitement - that feeling you get when you know you've just made a memory for a lifetime."
There are different games. Some have gamplay at it highest priority, some have the story, some have the replay value and choices... There are a lot of different game experiences.
It is laughable that just now graphics does not have anything to do with that experiene. We have had many games of that type over time. This is just the one that have come closest to feel like playing an actual movie. Just look the the Digital foundry walkthrough it is a masterpiece in that perspective and hence wrth trying. But yes do not do it for the gameplay - but that was never the goal of this experience.
It's because it's on Xbox. When Xbox has amazing graphics, they don't matter. When PlayStation does, it's a game changer!
Pretty much my thoughts. They were technical marvel's on PS and still are. The moment Xbox puts out a graphically intense game is doesn't matter suddenly.
4 years ago this month would the UE5 tech demo debut with the girl flying (tech demo said it was only possible on PS5 because of the SSD. Glad to finally see it in its glory.
FFS, gaming journalism has really gone downhill. At least hire people with a basic grasp of grammar... "Me neither" means the exact opposite of what the "author" is trying to say. That's like saying "I could care less"... lol.
Maybe because the gameplay being dull allowed it to have the amazing graphics and people are not as impressed by graphics alone anymore? I mean there is a lot of sites saying the story and the gameplay are lackluster. So what are we supposed to enjoy then? Cgi graphics are beautiful but since they arent interactive, they dont impress me as much as they used to. Thats an extreme example, but you get my drift.
When Playstation (Sony) does it..its usually a great game and not a cinematic experience..or at least something new at the time..like Until Dawn back in 2015.
@gamer:” It's because it's on Xbox. When Xbox has amazing graphics, they don't matter. When PlayStation does, it's a game changer!”
The game looks as good as any other PlayStation game in my eyes why can’t you and the other hardcore Xbox be happy about it and drag PlayStation into every conversation and force PlayStation hardcore to look into the game and find flaw that most games have in one way or another.
@light: “ 4 years ago this month would the UE5 tech demo debut with the girl flying (tech demo said it was only possible on PS5 because of the SSD. ”
Yes at that time it was only possible on PlayStation SSD how ignorant of you to think that after 4 years the technology wouldn’t evolved and move to a industry standard 🤦🏿I wish your mentality wasn’t so naive and narrow to post stuff like that 😩 in a year or 2 a new game will come out that might look better, it’s the nature of the industry.
Now that the distraction is gone I feel that is a good thing that the graphics in games are starting to hit the rooftop and hopefully the developers will put more thoughts into story and gameplay mechanics than just the next shiny oily skin of old.
So true. Not surprised by all the negativity. It's a really good game and looks better than any game I've ever seen. GOTY nominee for sure. Like I said before, sony screwed up big time by not purchasing Ninja Theory.
Pretty much. It's like how the Switch and Steam controller using haptic feedback in their controllers wasn't a big deal but then Sony did it and it was then a "game changer".
The game runs at as low as 21fps... That isn't much to brag about no matter how good it looks.
We've had graphical gamechangers before, such as Crysis but those games still had gameplay to compliment it. Hellblade pretty much has none, and only achieved such graphics through being incredibly linear and having very small, closed off environments where very little is happening.
GFX does not mean anything if the game is boring. It is simple like that and these major companies need to understand this simple concept.
Games are like your lady, she may be beautiful to look at for a while but then it gets boring if her character isn't interesting and fun to be with.
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So until dawn, too human, or whatever those series of games were... Graphic masterpieces it garbage with no gameplay?
I agree and I actually think Forbidden West looks better than Hellblade 2. I easily prefer looking at it at least.
It does look better in my opinion as well. I don't know why it looks better but there's something about the Decima engine or that guerrilla games is using tricks that we don't know of
Can you fly a mount under water in Hellblade 2? I think not! One of the best moments this Gen
Not really what you want to hear.
Especially in this day and age when visuals are the first and main talking point of any "next-gen" game.
I have to stress that it is his professional opinion and doesn't necessarily mean that the Xbox 360 has hit its graphical limitations - it really is based on largely the expertise and skill of a studio as well as it is on the hardware itself. Personally I feel titles like KillZone 2 will be the limit of what we'll see this generation graphically. I'm not some sort of delusional fanboy but I haven't yet seen any 360 title that looks better than Uncharted or GT5 or even Ratchet & Clank; those titles really impressed me visually so it suggests that at the end of this generation, within the next 2-3 years, the PlayStation 3 will be the console with generally the better looking graphics although I would not be surprised if the two performed equally in that regard anyway. I just have this inkling that Sony's console is able to push that extra more onto our screens.
I remember reading somewhere in an interview with Epic's some guy said that Gears of War uses 90% of 360 power and bla bla, and I know it was there first game so they must have optimized a lot to reduce that number this time around. But yeah we aren't seeing any breakthrough graphics on 360, like we are seeing at ps3. Look at R1 then Ratchet and Uncharted and then MGS4 and R2 and Killzone 2 and just imagine for one sec. how will God Of War 3 will look like;)
They need to ban the open zone for this article.