Volition: 'We deal with limitations on a daily basis' with PS3 | Xbox 360

GamingBolt: "We recently got an opportunity to talk with Jameson Durrall, Lead Level Designer at Volition Games. We talked a lot about the upcoming Red Faction Armageddon and what gamers can expect when it goes in to retail.

Its a well known fact that the technology in PC gaming is increasing as time goes and the current generation of consoles are way behind, hence kind of restricting as to what game developers can do. This is one of the topics that we discussed with Durrall."

[fluffydelusions]

I'm pretty sure everyone is aware of console limitations at this point.

[death2smoochie]

@TheTruth89

"Uncharted Tech says hi"

Yes "tech" that has no destructible environment. No real time lighting. Low floating point precession for HDR that dates back to 2003 for PC GPU's.
Low resolution textures because of 512 megs of memory.
Sorry to inform you but consoles ARE limited and more and more devs are not afraid to say this. Most of them are getting tired of having to do "workarounds" and other hacks to get results.

[Ducky]

He already got flagged for trolling, so just move on.

It's not like you'll be able to change his mind anyways.

[ComboBreaker]

"Yes "tech" that has no destructible environment."

Uncharted 3. Destructible environment.
http://i56.tinypic.com/dwe2...

"No real time lighting."
Even Unchated 2 already have radiosity lighting.

"Low resolution textures because of 512 megs of memory."

And yet, it looks better than most of the newest PC games.
http://i54.tinypic.com/2zr2...

"Volition: 'We deal with limitations on a daily basis' with PS3/Xbox 360."

The limitation is only in their skills. Compare their game to Uncharted 3 and you can clearly see it's Volition's skills that are lacking, not the PS3 or the 360.

[death2smoochie]

@combo

That destruction is SCRIPTED destruction. Gears 2 has this type of destruction. Uncharted 3 does not have destruction like BF3 or Red Faction.
And Uncharted 2 Has many scenes that are low resolution. ALL CONSOLE games suffer from this. From Gears, to Uncharted to KZ3 to Crysis 2 to God of War 3..All console games suffer from having low resolution textures. You showed me one area with good textures...there are MANY areas in Uncharted 2 like the rest of console games that have low res textures.
That's simply because of 512 megs of memory.

[Jacobster]

Don't you think if developers had more memory etc they would never finish their game? Or just make some sloppy mess of ideas? I think it's good to have limitations to work with so optimization can take place more efficiently and timely?

[KwietStorm_BLM]

Yea your point isn't something that hasn't been said by some developers already. I think I read Sony Santa Monica, David Jaffe, and Insomniac devs talking about developing for consoles either later in their lifetime or just after getting a hold on them, saying that it's almost a relief knowing exactly how big the box is, so you know how far you can push, rather than having no limits with no confines, which can make it tough to have a clear path in mind.

But of course at the same time, some of the perfectionists and super creative minds wouldn't mind more wiggle room either. I don't think Kojima and Yamauchi would ever actually be content with hardware at any given time.

[Godmars290]

Simply put, you don't make games good enough to be complaining about systems limitations - So shut your pie hole.

Edit@KwietStorm: No, good enough to buy, but if they're going to complain about limitations, then they need to make a PC title to show what they can actually do.

As far as I know they've only worked on console platforms, done games that at best were okay though they did a few tricks, so they have no real examples to show that they can do better. Especially in other terms of making games like plot, story and character development or portrayal.

[KwietStorm_BLM]

I was just about to say limitations, as in making a game worth my money?

[kancerkid]

RFG has some of the best emergent gameplay of this generation with their fully destructible environments.

Just because you don't like their games doesn't mean that they cannot express their opinion, which in all liklihood is more informed than yours, because, yah know, they actually program games and are not fanboys.

[thebudgetgamer]

i personally think it's more impressive for a dev to make something awesome on a closed off console than it is to make something awesome on a wide open pc.

[Falaut]

Oh Red Faction (PS2), what happened?

On a related note...Volition! chop chop, get cracking on a new Free Space, GTM-4 Hornet FTW.

[clrlite]

Developers have already blown my mind with the current gen console hardware. If you guys are having problems creating what you want to visually, try doing something innovative. All this focus on graphics, rather than substance and creativity is getting old.

[antauwnehart]

Most of these developers that speak thier mind tend to be overated like Hideo kojma,Cliff bleszinski, david cage, david jaffe,peter molyneux, Nathan Camarillo,Cevat Yerli,Dan Greenawalt just to name a few but I can agree with this guy for once!

[OMGitzThatGuy]

Last 3 names are unknown to me

[Dread]

yep these "overrated" developers are only responsible for mediocre games like Metal Gears, God of War, Gears of War, Fable, Unreal, ect..

lolz

[gunnerforlife]

so u just insulted some of the best developers out there loool

[cardgenius]

Limitations of the console? lol More like the limitations of your Programers!

[JOLLY1]

...or spelling limitations?

[Holeran]

When the programmers learn to use their current tools to the fullest then we will certainly see amazing things. Naughty Dog has gone so far to say our jaws will drop in the next couple years on the PS3 so to say that it can't produce even better games graphic wise is foolish. And when Volition shows me a game that comes to the same graphic level as Uncharted 2 then I will start listening to this nonsense.

[Ducky]

... but there's more to it than just visuals.

A game like GTA4 can be more hardware demanding than uncharted because it has to create a sandbox with multiple NPCs, dynamic weather, etc.

So it isn't just about the hardware limiting them from making their games look good visually.
Most of the times when devs are talking about limitations, they mean the hardware related to gameplay and level design (such as the limited amount of RAM)

[Holeran]

I agree with everything you say but we can't go and say that the consoles are done at this point. There is still plenty of life left in the consoles and the programmers need to learn to exploit that untapped power instead of saying that they are limited. If Volition really tried they could probably even surprise themselves. Until then they need to not complain about what they currently have.

[PS360PCROCKS]

Lol are you a developer? Do you really think they have all this untapped power left? Do you pay attention to the fact the when games look better visually they downgrade other areas? Their is ALWAYS a sacrifice for something looking better. Volition is saying this because they are creating open world and it's the most demanding kind of game to create. It's a give and take situation always and it's all about optimization. But wake up you're not going to see leaps and bounds difference from here on out. UC2 looked great and UC3 has some extra effects and better character models. But it's not a generational leap like you seem to think.

[QuantumWake]

I thought Red Faction: Guerrilla was a pretty hardware demanding game for consoles (judging from what I played from the demo with all of its destruction). I think I remember at one point one of the Volition programmers having memory constraints for the 360.

I guess every developer at one point runs into constraints, and while you may think "If it's maxed out, why doesn't it look like so and so" you got to remember that most game engines are not built the same way. That some techniques are probably more efficient than others.

Eh, I'm not a programmer so I'm just using my "two cents". So I'll leave now. D:

*flees*

[DAS692]

One that can be updated by software, AND by hardware. Maybe a component that has the latest in computer hardware integrated into, much like a PC, but with a focus on gaming... it's the only way Sony and MS can stop loosing this war against the PC on quality.And instead of buying a brand new game system, you'd only buy a brand new "graphics kit" or something like that... what do you think?

[starchild]

If the consoles become just like PCs then what would be the point of consoles? The whole point of consoles is that they are easy to use and don't require much thought or effort.

In some ways consoles have become a little more like PCs this generation with removable and upgradeable hard drives (especially the PS3). However, I think console makers will only take this so far.

For example, I could see them allowing for RAM upgrades on future consoles, where people have the option to buy more RAM and stick it in a user-accessible slot on the console.

On the other hand, I don't see them ever allowing for switching out power supplies, processors, graphics cards or other central components. It would become too complex for the average console user and defeat the whole purpose of consoles.

You see, nobody owns the PC. If I screw up when I upgrade my PC there is nobody I can call and demand to fix it. Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft, on the other hand, are responsible for their consoles and it is in their interest to make sure their consoles work the way they are supposed to.

If little Johnny fries his processor because he didn't hook up the CPU fan when he installed it he is going to be on the phone with Sony asking for help. This would become a big headache for the console makers.

So, yeah, it makes sense for hard drives and maybe RAM to be upgradeable in consoles, but any more than that I don't see happening.

[DAS692]

... when you mentioned the hassle with what you have to do when customising your PC "power supplies, processors, graphics cards or other central components." all of that would be inside of a custom component, that you could only buy for PS4 or Xbox 720. It's meant to be easy to install, so that you don't have to worry about your hardware overheating, AND it eliminates the need for launching a WHOLE NEW console every 6-10 years. It's more convenient to just buy a better custom component every 2-4 years, AND it competes with the PC without having to worry about usability issues. Just imagine it. You're talking to ur buddy about how you just bought the new X4 component for your PS4/Xbox 360 and the new Uncharted just looks SO AMAZING on it... while ur buddy is still on the X3 series...

[PS360PCROCKS]

Ya that's great and all and we'll all be paying $100 for a game so the developers can not only dev for PC, they can also dev for multiple sku's of consoles. 1 with 1GB, 1 with 2GB ram and so on. That's a huge headache and it will never ever happen. Because if someone installed it wrong, or fried it by touching the gold plating on the memory card (highly unlikely but can happen) micro and sony will be stuck fixing all these issues or alienating customers who messed up their console. Ya I'm sorry, in theory it's great, in actuality little Timmy needs to leave his box closed.

[TronEOL]

We can get more out of our current consoles, that is still a fact. But I do see the next generation of Sony/Microsoft consoles being announced at next years E3. Pretty much goes with my original speculation.

I've been saying the same thing for a while now. PS4 will be announced at E3 2012 (along with Microsoft's system. Unless they announce it this year, or wait a year above Sony) and will most likely have a Fall 2012 or early 2013 launch date.

[AtomicGerbil]

yes, there are limitations and there will always be limitations once a standard is set on any given platform.

What you need to do as a developer is adapt and innovate or you fall behind the pack. In short, deal with it.

[AtomicGerbil]

disagrees! Care to explain

[Holeran]

In here you get disagreed with if you so much as sneeze. Especially when you are telling the truth, shows the age of most of the people on this site.

[Guitardr85]

True!