PSX Extreme: Game Of The Year Awards 2007

Kleptic - 727 days 20 hours ago

pretty good write up imo...I agree with almost all of them...

I finally opened UT3 at 12:00 am exactly Christmas eve night/morning (right when the clock turned midnight christmas day)...and I was a little more impressed than I expected...I probably would give best graphics to either UT3 or Uncharted...definitely not to AC...

UT3 is funny at first...I didn't use the "install game" option...which chunks up about 3 gigs of the drive I think...and I was greeted with the same lame texture pop in that Gears, ME and Vegas had (although it was a little faster that Vegas or Gears from what I could tell)...I then installed the game...and it makes a very dramatic difference...on screen textures are rendered almost instantly after that (less than 1 second for the most part...)...and after that...holy crap...it looks incredible...not to mention map loading is cut in half...

all of my complaints with UE3 games were removed, exept sound...the environments are not static anymore...huge Japanese'ish tree have branches that sway realisticly, with leaves falling slowly and adjusting with wind effects...the water has incredible reflections (no uncharted in that department, but stands alone fps wise) and has excellent current effects as well...and the explosions, character, and vehicle animations are also really well done...my biggest question though is the cutsenes...if they are in fact truely real-time rendered...the UE3 engine is absolutely at the forefront technology wise, save only CryEngine 2...but I wouldn't be suprised if they were pre-rendered to look like gameplay...unlike Gears of War...there are no texture pop in issues, even without installing the game (somewhat of a big question mark imo)...and at times there is crazy ton amount of stuff going on at once (30 characters with vehicles exploding and cities crumbling)...and not a single hitch in the framerate...it has that creepy smooth feeling that the E305 Killzone 2 trailer had...somewhat of a dead giveaway...

if the cutsenes are pre-rendered, so be it...they are still fun to watch...I never heard Epic say one way or the other...so it doesn't matter...I would just like to know for sure...in either case it definitely is the UE3 flagship that Epic promised...it stands along visually I think right now...but sadly its plagued with the same bizarre sound glitches online that Gears and Vegas had also gun sounds from enemies will still be overly amplified for no reason at times...a guy down a hall way with a stinger will sound louder in your surround sound than you returning fire with a flak cannon...some tweeks to my reciever and in game setting have helped...but its no Warhawk, of which I think has some of the best sound of any game to date...projectile doppler effects in that are unmatched...plus the 7.1 leaves little question as to where attacks are coming from...

online wise though its very quickly edging me away from Warhawk...Warhawk is unstoppably fun, but I have to admit I am a little tired of the game...even with the new expansion, it can be very frustrating getting a team organized...and the deathmatch games (a sure bet for most online shooters to deal with frustrating team based games) are definitely the weakest aspect of Warhawk...its just too big for little 8 player matches...I love both games, and will continue to play warhawk a lot...but what I loved about warhawk was the onscreen carnage all going on at once...and UT3 offers that, with a couple chunks of crack thrown in for good measure...

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