Rod Fergusson Talks Gears of War, Insomniac

Eight player co-op and marked improvement in graphics with a Gears of War sequel endeavors as well as one hell of a mighty jab at Insomniac's co-op feature in Resistance: Fall of Man.

While not revealing much about a possible movie spin off he at least he did say they would be answering questions, not leaving the poor old fanboys in gasps desperately clinging together their own extensive theories to answer what will probably turn out to be simple problems.

It looks like were going to see Gears of War in 'books, comic books' which probably translates to graphic novel. It's interesting, apparently because the game was devoid of all information (early promotion material had more information about the storyline than the game itself) about the actual story Rod thinks as an IP Gears of Wars can expand heaps and heaps. He probably wants to do a Halo, like in the first a really awesome premise was set and in the sequel it was explained to a very satisfying degree.

On the graphics front Fergusson boasts that to Epic Gears of War is not a second generation title but a first generation title and that there is room to improve on the graphics for subsequent games. He made the claim after claiming that he's a producer and works with spreadsheets, way to kill the moment, mate.

Finally, the moment you've all been waiting for, on co-op Rod says how Epic wanted it to be an integral part of Gears of War, instead of having 'Master Chief 1, Master Chief 2' etc, etc. He believes that is the next natural evolution in multiplayer gaming to give it a social edge and he did not with-hold from criticizing Insomniac's co-op. In a copy-catish kind of tone read the following quote right out of Rod's mouth, Mr. Insomniac (being Impersonated by Rod): 'oh and the icing on the cake for us is co-op'. They had the splitscreen co-op as sort of their add-on and it was 'you're lucky we kind of threw this on'.

Ouch.


VIA IGN

New Halo 3 Multiplayer Details

And you thought the shield grenade was the coolest new feature for Halo 3, of course you didn't know about the slow mo and freeze time multiplayer replays, the modified assault rifle from Halo 1, the new 'teleporters' and of course the mystery X button function.

The X button was kind of an underwhelmer, I was hoping for something like cover amongst other things, turns out it is only good for deploying equipment, such as shield grenade (called the Bubble Grenade from here on in) and trip mines.

All images and information taken from the documentary, YouTube below,



The Assault rifle now has tighter aim, it has been brought on to replace the dual wielding SMG's as the preferred setup. Reasoning is here with dual wielding grenades and melee takes a back seat, hence the assault rifle is supposed to provide a more diverse gameplay experience by encouraging players to melee and throw grenades.


Bubble Grenade is a little ball, drop it with X and it surrounds you in a shield protecting you from incoming shots. Given it is spherical it will move around on the curved ground.



Replacing portals are 'cannons' which propel players through the map. The advantage of this (or disadvantage) over teleporting is that it gives other players from the opposing team the ability to kill opponents while they are in mid flight.



Definitely the coolest feature in Halo 3 and one that I'm sure the folks at Red VS Blue will be making much use of is the ability to freeze or go into bullet time and manipulate the camera in all manners. Snipe a guy, watch him getting sniped in slow motion, then watch him getting sniped from an action movie camera angle, etc, etc. If he's your friend rub it in, save it and send it to him, make a little movie out of it and put it on youtube, be your own movie director. No need to wait up for Peter Jackson.


Just for the love of it, some more Halo 3 screenshots. Bungie is emphasizing that all this is Alpha stuff and that the final game will look even better, heres hoping it will. Oh and Frankie, you promised the water will look absolutely stunning and have accurate physics (stuff about warthogs going through it and making waves), didn't see any water physics at all in the alpha, hope you weren't just pulling our legs.

A 'Sober' Look

Paul Thurrott really made an idiot out of himself when he claimed the Wii is a joke, nice one dude. Of course a person who works as a Microsoft apologist obviously has never really touched a games console for more than 20 minutes hence it is no wonder he finds himself qualified enough to discuss such matters and think people would take him seriously.

Of course we might have considered taking Mr. Thurrott seriously, if, and only if, he didn't lay this shell shocker on us,

If you absolutely must have the best pure gaming experience, the PS3 should ultimately win out, especially when developers begin to figure out how to unlock the console's most impressive capabilities. A year from now, I expect PS3 games to absolutely blow away anything available on the 360.

Oh really? 'Pure gaming experience'? Lets see what Sony has to say about how much of a 'pure gaming experience' the Playstation 3 is going to be.

From the horses mouth (or should we just say Kutaragi's mouth? Don't want to disrespect said horse): I "promise" an AV-centric PS3. Wait, did he say 'gaming centric' or did he say 'av centric'? So much for pure.

When Kutaragi was asked about the CELL processor, and if it was concieved for gaming he replied

No, it is for computing-but I wanted to change the concept of computers. The name of our company is Sony Computer Entertainment; I wanted to merge computer technology and entertainment. It may be regarded as game applications for the time being, but I wanted to realize the day when "computer entertainment" would mean all such entertainment applications, including games.

I guess thats just the final nail in your coffin.

Back to Mr. Thurrot,

As for the Wii, I'm going to have to disagree with the consensus and call it as I see it: Unless you have very young kids with no video game experience at all, skip out on this console. The Wii is a joke, a novelty console that doesn't offer much staying power. Either the 360 or PS3 would be a better choice for almost anyone.

A novelty console without much staying power, again? You know when the Wii was first announced people like you said the same thing, when it blew everyone away at E3 peoplel ike you said the same thing, when the launch numbers blew everyone away people like you said the same thing, and now, all this time after launch as the Wii continually sells by the bucket loads, people like you are still saying the same thing. Getting repetitive some?

The fact of the matter is the Wii is a good console, it doesn't have the best graphics but it has a novelty everyone loves and can't get enough of. Put simply, the Wii is for anyone who isn't a graphics whore and can appreciate doing something new.

Splinter Cell Double Agent - Xbox 360/Playstation 3 Comparison Shots

Scroll down to find out which side is on which platform













The right hand side is Xbox 360, left hand side is Playstation 3, but you probably already knew that, didn't ya?

The key difference between the two platforms seems to be in the lighting, amazing how much of a difference a little bit of dynamic lighting will affect the visual quality of a game.

GT: HD Has Force Feedback

With the recent update to GT: HD which brings it up to version 1.2 support has been added for force feedback with Logitech's Driving Force, Driving Force Pro and Driving Force EX.

It looks like Polyphony Digital really knows what players want, a top ten ranking list has also been added and if this continues we should be seeing a 'Gotham TV' like feature in the near future.

GT: HD is a weird devil, it's a tech demo but at the same time it could possibly be what GT5 will look like, no telling though, the addition of other vehicles, AI and more complex physics spread over an entire track may kill off the graphics that are shown in the demo. Either way, GT: HD looks great.

Why Do They Look Like Ghosts?

Seems like every generation we are supposed to be 'wowed' by how 'good' Final Fantasy looks, and I have to admit up until now it sure has wowed everyone. But the first trailer of Final Fantasy XIII released, the one that apparently no one was sure was real time or not until the menu screens popped up, what a disappointment.

Just like with 'Spirits Within' Final Fantasy XIII has this ghost-like look to the characters, theres an insane amount of polygons in them no doubt, but they lack detail, like the modelers just got Playstation 2 Final Fantasy models and clicked on 'mesh smooth' and slapped some higher resolution textures onto them.

There is nothing astounding about the character models, they look like extremely smooth clay models... of ghosts. The faces are too perfect, sure this kind of perfection is what takes hours and hours to achieve on Leonardo Di Caprio's face hence should be inherently a good thing here, it is just too perfect.

Flawless in every way, smooth skin texture and what really irks me, basically a mirrored face. No ones face is the exact same on both sides, seems like thats something that didn't click with the modelers here. Two halves of the face should look at least slightly different and the fact they don't here just adds to the eery ghost-like effect the characters visage seems to portray.

Perhaps the reason why the mirror technique is showing off so spectacularly here is because the graphics are just so damn good, almost all other games have mirrored characters, it saves time. But when the character models have this many polygons, special FX wizwaz and whatever else, the mirroring and lack of finer details really shows.

Still have doubts? Compare Half-Life 2 to Final Fantasy XIII,


As you can see with the model taken out of Half-Life 2 Alyx definitely has far fewer polygons, lower resolution textures amongst other things. But she looks more life like, her skin has an actual human like texture, it isn't perfectly mirrored in on itself, it just looks more human.

With the FF XIII model it is quite obvious the image is sharper, no jagged edges anywhere, but still, she doesn't look nearly as real, her skin texture is too perfect, her face is mirrored and no amount of graphical horsepower could change that, thats the way the character has been modeled.

Resident Evil Wii Trailer

Did you expect more or did you expect less? Lighting has improved as has the character models though the zombies could use some work, looks better than almost all current Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 titles, minus the HD of course.