PC Gaming 'a Generation Ahead' of Consoles, Says Crytek Boss 412
Crytek co-founder Cevat Yerli spoke recently about the growing gap between modern PCs and consoles like the PS3 and Xbox 360, saying that the desire to develop for multiple platforms is hampering creative expression. "PC is easily a generation ahead right now. With 360 and PS3, we believe the quality of the games beyond Crysis 2 and other CryEngine developments will be pretty much limited to what their creative expressions is, what the content is. You won't be able to squeeze more juice from these rocks." One reason this trend persists is because of the perception that PC game sales are not high enough for most developers to focus on that platform. Rock, Paper, Shotgun says this indicates a need for the disclosure of digital distribution sales numbers, which could dispel that myth. Yerli's comments come alongside news of Crytek's announcement of a new military-based shooter called Warface.
Don't blame the platform (Score:2, Insightful)
Before you start saying that these consoles are essentially tapped out, keep in mind that the PS3 isn't near its full potential yet.
PS3 still not maxed out - Andrew House (SCEE President)
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=248275 [computeran...ogames.com]
PS3 hard to develop for on purpose - Kazuo Hirai (SCEE Chairman)
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=248275 [computeran...ogames.com]
Now, when you've finally "tapped out this rock", then come back and complain. Until then, blame yourselves for your inability to develop good gam
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The PS3 might not be "maxed out" in terms of software existing which uses it's good points. It's pretty clear though that it's maxed out in terms of what the gaming market is ever going to do with it. The reality is that Sony tried to go a new direction with hardware but they failed to get the market stranglehold they needed to force developers to take risks on new coding styles for a platform specific title.
Either way the original point that the PC has far surpassed the PS3 is still true. The PS3 has
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Actually it's not a new direction at all. If anything, the PS2 was the new direction. Stick very high speed vector processors next to the a standard CPU and GPU and some low latency ram on a high speed interconnect. The PS3 is just this idea extended to more vector units and current-generation CPU and GPU (at the time it was made).
What Microsoft did was smart - instead on banking on very specialized hardware, it made sure it's development kit could do the optimisation automatically, hence it's MUCH easier t
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The majority of developers are going to make their games cross-platform to maximize sales. Without anything to differentiate it, the PS3 and 360 just get the same games (with a very limited number of exclusives).
That said, speaking as a developer for both platforms, you're massively overstating the performance of both consoles there. The PS3 has around 200 GFLOPS of cpu performance, the 360 has around 100. Theoretically, if every single CPU instruction is a multiply-add (hahahahaha). In practice, the PS3 is
Re:Don't blame the platform (Score:4, Insightful)
For me, the biggest weakness of all consoles is the controller. PS3 and XBox controllers force game developers toward silly simplifying moves like the abominable "third person shooter". I guess if you're into puppetry it might be fun, but if you're looking for anything like an immersive experience, third person shooters aren't going to get you there. No matter what you do, you're looking over the shoulder of a character who, for some reason, doesn't seem to understand that sometimes you want to jump over the box and sometimes you want to use it as cover.
I wouldn't mind so much if the net effect of the ubiquity of consoles was just that it slowed the development of graphics for PC games, but it's done something much much worse: it's forced PC games to adopt horrible control mechanics and idiotic point of view, and for no better reason than the limitation of the console controller.
It amazes me that decades in to see how clumsy console controllers are. That's not to say that it's impossible to get somewhat used to a console controller, but even when you've mastered them, it's still an ergonomic nightmare. In online gaming with PCs, you can always tell when someone's using a console controller. Not that they're going to be necessarily worse than someone who's using a keyboard and mouse, but there are certain tell-tale signs.
And the "alternative" controller schemes, like the Wii and even the Kinect are still completely unable to control fine movements. If you want to swing a bat or a sword, you can use a Wii, but if you want to strafe while picking off the enemy from a crouched position and switching to a different weapon or reloading, good luck. I'm interested in seeing where the Kinect will go, but until they make Kinect controllers for my PC, I'll never know. I did my best to warm up to a PS3 for more than a year, but finally (about the time MW2 came out) I finally just gave up and went back to PC gaming. The fact that Sony continues to be hostile to its customers was no small part of that decision.
The best thing that can happen to PC gaming, in my opinion, is for simple hacks for the PS3 and XBox to become readily available so games can easily be copied and shared. Personally, I'm surprised that so many console gamers have chosen to accept punishment so readily for PC gamers' filesharing. Especially since there's very little evidence that filesharing has in fact hurt PC game developers.
Re:Don't blame the platform (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't see first person shooters as immersive at all. I feel like I'm playing a floating camera with a gun attached. I prefer third person shooters for a number of reasons, 1) They don't give me dizziness and headache from the camera movement 2) They give me a much better idea of the relative position of my character compared to everything else, and doesn't make it feel like the character is floating when he climbs ladders or whatnot 3) They allow the character to have much better movements as you can see in more then one direction 4) They allow you to have more game-play mechanics like interesting melee combat.
Third person shooters can also be made competently with PC controls in mind, for instance Global Agenda is a great Team Fortressish shooter that's third person and designed for PC and I find it much nicer to play then Team Fortress 2.
Re:Don't blame the platform (Score:4, Insightful)
Figured I'd add onto this...the problem with first-person shooters, for me (or, say...in the F1 racing game where you can have a "looking out the windshield" view vs. a view from behind the car), is that in first-person shooters, you're in a tunnel with no peripheral vision.
In real life, if I was sneaking around with a gun trying to shoot people, I'd be relying on my peripheral vision as much or more than my direct vision. This is why I, too, prefer the third-person view, because at least it opens up the field of view a bit.
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Can you say MEMORY (Score:3, Interesting)
Consoles have always had a simple weakness. Memory. Developers love it, consoles don't have it.
Netbooks now come with 2GB. The PS3 comes with 512mb. That is all, video and main memory and in some ways it really only 256mb. When was the last time you had a computer with 256mb main memory? Or for that matter a 256mb video card? Oh okay, my current netbook has but then I would hardly call it a gaming machine.
A perfect example was Morrowind, it performed horrible on the PC at first with frequent loading betwe
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More like 4 generations behind. The PS3 ran what amounted to a modified GeForce 7800GTX.
Bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
I haven't seen anything innovative done on a PC that couldn't have been done on a PS2. Crysis 2 is innovative? Oh please. Two extra bullet-points on the back of a box do not make a game "innovative". Portal: innovative. Tower of Goo: innovative. Minecraft: innovative. What do they have in common? They could run on hardware that is 10 years old.
I think the Mr. Crytek fails to see past his own problems: that the shiny that his company specializes in does very little to make a game special.
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Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, it is indeed pretty clear they're talking about graphics. It is also pretty clear that when they say "is holding back creative expression" and "holding back quality games", what they mean is that all their creative expression and quality work is going into making a game prettier. Which in turns means they have no idea how to make quality games.
That's what I'm calling bullshit on. The fact that creative expression is identical with fill-rates or polygons/sec. I'm sorry you were so gung-ho to call me on my snobbery that you missed that point.
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Yeah, and I'd like unicorns too when I get around to learning how to ride a horse.
Timeliness matters. You can't "insist" on a community around a game existing at some arbitary point in the future, if only because developers & publishers have no control over the activity in the community once a game is released.
Some games are the type that you pick up, play, master, and move on. Some games aren't, and have a longevity in the community. Just because you can't "get around to becoming able to run" or "even
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Portal: innovative.
Yes
Tower of Goo: innovative.
Haven't played it, so I'll take your word for it.
Minecraft: innovative.
There was a similar game before, but MC is quite different from it now.
What do they have in common? They could run on hardware that is 10 years old.
Portal is on Source engine. While it could run on 10 year old hardware, the graphics would suck. You need a better video card (at least) to make it have decent FPS at max graphic settings on 1600x1200 or higher resolution.
Minecraft requires less resources, but also has worse graphics. I have installed the HD texture pack, because while the game itself is good, I did not like the low qua
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I haven't seen anything innovative done on a PC that couldn't have been done on a PS2.
So you think graphics are completely irrelevant, good for you. I'm as much of a fan of gameplay innovation as anyone - I still play a lot of DOS games, in fact - but outstanding graphics DO add something, and there's no question that the PC has a lot more potential than current-gen consoles, let alone a PS2.
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
"Crysis 2 is innovative? Oh please. Two extra bullet-points on the back of a box do not make a game "innovative"."
The great irony in you saying this is that the reverse is true, console game quality is hurting PC game quality. PC games have been dumbed down for consoles and consolized for multiplatform release.
Also console ports for the PC get sloppy seconds due to multiplatform release. We saw the awful game for windows live inserted into Gears of War for PC. We also saw how Badly Halo and Halo 2 were ported to PC. Halo was originally a PC game they had to fit into the first xbox because MS needed a game to sell the system.
Don't believe it console games have effected PC game quality? Check out supcom 2 and Civ 5's terrible reviews on amazon.
Civ 5
http://www.amazon.com/Sid-Meiers-Civilization-V-Pc/dp/B0038TT8QM/ [amazon.com]
Supcom 2
http://www.amazon.com/Supreme-Commander-2-Pc/dp/B002BXN6GY/ [amazon.com]
Sorry but I call bullshit on your bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
Look man there is nothing wrong with liking gameplay. I am a full supporter of the "games need to have good gameplay" idea. However there is also no need to hate on graphics, which seems to common on Slashdot. A kind of techno luddism. "Oh these games would be just as good with older graphics on low end hardware." No, sorry, but that is false. A game is a rich experience. Part of that experience is visuals and good visuals go a long way to making that experience immersive.
So holding gameplay up as the One a
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This comment is so blatantly ignorant of gaming that I don't even know where to begin.
Tower of Goo is innovative? Minecraft is innovative? Tell me, how many games have you played in total? Five, maybe ten? Those two titles are both highly derivative of previous games. The fact that they're a fad now does not somehow make them "innovative." Justin Bieber isn't innovative just because he's popular. Portal is the only game you listed that fits the term.
And if you don't understand the technology that wen
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HD/3D rendering has nothing to do with games. The gameplay of Crysis 2 could be run on PS1, let alone PS2.
Sure, the aliens do look really good in Crytek's games a high end PC, but the game would be the same game if the graphics were pixellated brown goo.
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No, it couldn't. The PS1 didn't have enough CPU power to pull off the number of simultanious enemies that Crysis had, or be able to exist in such large maps, or have as good AI.
If you're willing to sacrifice all of those, then yes you could, but the gameplay will be so different that its a pointless comparison.
For that matter, what PS3 game couldn't run just as well on an NES if you're willing to sacrifice all of that?
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but can be enjoyable as brainless eye-candy.
The point is he is claiming that is innovation, it just isn't.
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
I invite you to look at Shadow of the Colossus. HDR, fur shader, fairy shader, DoF, very nice looking motion blur, IK, and much more flashy effects, on a 200Mhz MIPS machine with 32MB of ram, complete with data streaming. That, and the game is considered to a goddam piece of art if there was ever a game that was worthy of calling art.
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
Also blocky models, blurry textures, and horrible terrain pop-in. Yes, it could be done on the PS2, and it's an absolutely amazing bit of work considering the hardware limitations.
But that doesn't mean it couldn't have been even better with PS3 technology, and even better than that with today's PC technology.
You don't need flashy graphics to make a good game, but if you acknowledge that the quality of the visuals are one of the things that allowed SotC to become a work of art, how would it not have been improved by the ability to render those visuals exactly as its creators envisaged them, instead of having them limited by technology that was lagging well behind the state of the art?
Re:Bullshit (Score:4, Interesting)
You can make a game 20% more immersive by increasing visual fidelity, but you can't put enough lipstick on it to call it art. The concepts that made Shadow of the Colossus art could have been executed on a SNES. There is a 2D flash Portal that still feels exactly like Portal.
There is a trap in there: Visuals always make something *better*, therefore if we polish the visuals enough the game can be any arbitrary level of good. And that's just not true. You have to have a core, a soul, that makes it appealing on a human level. That's not going to be true of Crysis. Don't get me wrong, Crysis was fun. But it was bubblegum. Half-Life 2 looked amazing, but it also had the gravity gun, a story, and an eerie flip on the usual hero mythos.
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> But that doesn't mean it couldn't have been even better with PS3 technology,
Well, we'll find out next year, since Ico and Shadows of the Colossus are coming in 2011. :-)
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Besides "Mr. Crytek" isn't talking about Innovation - he's talking about creative expression. The ability to have "more" in a game (better graphics, bigger worlds, more detail).
Creative expression? Give me a break. That's like saying that a photographer is more creative than a painter because photos have higher resolutions than paintings.
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Interesting)
No, that's like saying that a photographer with a good DSLR or a film SLR camera can be more creative than a photographer with a cell phone that takes 320x240 photos. The photographer with a good camera can make his photos low resolution, but he can also take high resolution photos where you see every detail, while the photographer with a cell phone cannot take high resolution photos even if he wants to.
You can make a low resolution PC game (Minecraft or any old PC game) but you can also make a high resolution game if you want to. If you were creating a game for the NES or a PC 15 years ago, you would not be able to create a game with good graphics even if you really wanted to.
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Really? How does the PS2 go with HD/3D rendering? They're the most basic of functions offered by PC's (for 10+ years now - I had 3D and HD on my geforce256). So surely the PS2 could do that?
The PS2 was 3D, unless you're talking of stereoscopic 3D, but the Geforce256 didn't have that.
War-face? (Score:5, Funny)
a new military-based shooter called Warface
Sorry, facebook will insist that you change it's name.
Getting pre-emptive deja vu here... (Score:3, Insightful)
And it has happened again as it has happened every single generation of consoles and as it will in every future generation.
One platform is constantly shifting and upgrading, the other doesn't.
What do you think happens in the gap between console releases?
Unfortunately they're currently too busy trying to milk motion controls and using that as an excuse to not release new hardware. Hopefully Nintendo will just out of nowhere drop a magic console developed using their profits from their current gen console.
Either way some games are better on consoles (fighting, local multiplayer, driving games etc) , while other games I prefer my mouse and keyboard support (simulation, rts, fps, etc)
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You can play pc games with almost any input device you want, including xbox 360 controllers.
Say I've hooked up my PC to a TV [wikipedia.org] and connected four Xbox 360 controllers through a USB hub. How many controllers does a typical major-label game designed for the PC support? One. Instead of adding shared-screen play, publishers expect players to buy four PCs, four monitors, and (more importantly) four copies of the game.
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It may just be me, but how many people play 4 player split screens for games these days? I thought it was bad during the time when tube TV's were standard, but how many games these days support more than 1/2 players simultaneously? This is of course ignoring platformer type games that can actually get away with having a few players on screen at the same time without degrading usability. Racing games? Split /Squinty screen. FPS? Split /Squinty screen. RTS? Not on consoles. Puzzle games? Sure, because they ge
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It may just be me, but how many people play 4 player split screens for games these days?
This is actually where Wii games shine. They can't do online multiplayer; heck, even connecting two Wii consoles that are in the same room is an enormous pain. The one thing they do well though is putting four people on the same console, playing the same game. It's one of the secrets to their success: all those party games and coop modes really sell the system to casual players.
PC + HDTV = MAME heaven (Score:2)
how often have you gotten friends around the pc monitor for playing a fighting game together
One PC in my house is connected to the VGA input of a VX32L, is a 32" HDTV made by Vizio. Emulators run beautifully, but I'm tired of having to break the law just to play more than single player.
I have a desk set up for a single person for work and gaming and a tv with a sofa set up for multiple people.
Put a slim PC next to the TV. I saw a nice Gateway in Best Buy the other day when I was looking for an Archos 43 tablet.
Gone is the need for yearly PC upgrades (Score:5, Insightful)
as long as the developers target the consoles and PC then you only have to match the specs of that console generation.
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There was never a need a for yearly upgrades. Current games have always been comfortably playable at less-than-max settings for PCs two or three years behind the latest-and-greatest. It's gamer dick-swinging that led the misguided to constantly chase the "current" hardware--the producers of PC games always allowed for older machines.
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Re:Gone is the need for yearly PC upgrades (Score:4, Informative)
That's a recent thing and is OPs point. You most certainly couldn't certain play games on a 3 year old system back in the mid-late 90's for example.
eg. Unreal 1 was released 22nd May 1998. It required a 166Mhz CPU at minimum. Less than 3 years before that the top of the line CPU would have been the Pentium 120 (released 27th May 1995). So you could have bought a top of the line CPU and in less than 3 years it'd be below minimum requirements for the newest games. That sort of thing was normal in that era. It doesn't happen today though.
Multiple independent "generations" (Score:5, Insightful)
PC is easily a generation ahead right now.
Wii showed that graphical output isn't the only thing that defines a hardware generation. In the seventh generation, while Microsoft and Sony were moving their output forward by a generation, Nintendo moved its input forward by a generation by bundling a Bluetooth handheld pointing device with the console. It took the other guys years to come up with Kinect and Move to match the Wii Remote.
But the major consoles are still ahead of PCs in how many simultaneous players a game will usually support. This is in part because consoles are ahead in what monitor size their makers can encourage their users to connect. Sure, using a TV as a monitor has been easy since HDTV became common starting in 2006, but home theater PCs are still a rarity for some reason. Is it usability, or is it a plain old path-dependent Catch-22?
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It took 4 years (Score:2)
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It's also an issue of market. High-end game PCs make up only a small part of the whole PC market. If you indeed did make games that required the horsepower of a $2000 gaming machine, I doubt you would see much profit. Yes, technically consoles are a generation behind, but if you're looking at selling lots and lots of copies, you want stable hardware specs. Most PC games are probably sitting in the generation, or at least half-generation, behind the full throttle systems as well, simply because you want
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I think you'll find that any PC being sold the last few years has higher system specs than any console today as long as the PC was sold with any sort of discrete video card. I've got a PC that plays modern PC games and it cost me around $700. Because I can do so, much of that cost won't be renewed because I can reuse several of the pieces for my next generation or even the one after that.
"I fail to see what hardware has to do with creativity anyways"
Hardware doesn't in itself encourage creativity, but it su
Its not multiple platforms thats hampering gaming (Score:2)
not to mention the horrible, flat-out fascist attitude of the console producers towards any kind of free development, improvement, or modding on their devices.
really, it would be better if they are totally dropped.
How about some evidence (Score:2)
Yerli makes these sweeping statements... and then we have this:
Yerli's comments come alongside news of Crytek's announcement of a new military-based shooter called Warface.
Please tell me - how is all that extra PC horsepower being used in a way that's not possible on a console? I know all these "shoot people in the head" games are immensely popular... but come on! The same sorts of games exist on the XBox 360 and PS3 and look really, really good - so it's certainly not graphics performance or computations per second that's a limitation.
No, as others have pointed out: The limitation is the lack of creativity on the
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The limitation is the lack of creativity on the part of most developers.
But that's largely because most games these days are developed for consoles, which means lowest common denominator design and limited in scope to be able to run on antiquated hardware.
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With a console all your doing is locking into 5 yr old tech and staying at a low level within that tech range.
A constant trade off rather than anything new to show off.
Your over hyped console cannot do "almost-lifelike games" without really dropping in many
Ok (Score:3, Interesting)
How about large game worlds? Consoles, with their tiny memory amounts, put real limits on that kind of shit. As an interesting study in this, look at Deus Ex 1 vs Deus Ex 2. DX1 was PC only, running on Unreal Engine 1. Levels were more or less large, continuous, zones. You'd start and just walk around the whole thing, no loading. Also it wasn't streaming, the whole level was active, NPCs moved around freely and did things off camera. DX2 was designed for consoles, using Unreal Engine 2. Despite being a numb
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How about large game worlds? Consoles, with their tiny memory amounts, put real limits on that kind of shit. As an interesting study in this, look at Deus Ex 1 vs Deus Ex 2. DX1 was PC only, running on Unreal Engine 1.
Deus Ex 1 wasn't PC only, it was on the PS2 as well.
Also it wasn't streaming,
Streaming worlds is smart, it enables you to have HUGE worlds with 0 load times between zones, like EQOA on the PS2. You could walk/swim from Fayspires to Qeynos and never see a load screen. Who cares if things out of your FOV don't exist and are regenerated.
The consoles are only 720p devices (1280x720). Yes, they do basic upsampling but you gain no detail with that. Other than a few rare PS3 games (which suffer in therms of textures and so on because of it) that run at 1080, they all run at 720, and sometimes even less.
Citation needed.
talking hardware here, not current games (Score:5, Insightful)
Think a lot of people are missing the point here.
They are talking about hardware, not what the current PC games compare to their console counter parts.
See, this is the problem. PC are capable of so more, yet we get a dumbed down console port instead of a game tailored to the extra stuff modern PC's can bring you.
Most PS3 & 360 games are barely 720p, usually less. Crappy AA on them, etc.
Modern PC can do the 1080p, max AA and not break a sweet. And not break your bank. Get a Nvidia 460 1gb card for $200 and you got yourself a nice card that kicks ass.
And yes, I'm a gamer. Been so for 30+ years. I prefer my PC for gaming (even got me 3D Vision, which rocks), but I do have a Xbox 360 (jtag'd), a Wii (softmodded) and will have a PS3 whenever I get enough money for it (ya, and I'll hack it also, because that's how i roll).
It's funny, because I remember when arcade games were the better graphics systems, and computers & consoles tried to be that good. Then the computers surpassed both the consoles & arcade games. And we, the computer gamers have been paying for it ever since.
(sorry, when the PS3 & 360 game out, their graphics weren't really on par with computers, they were already behind, and it's a bigger gap now).
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What really makes me sad these days aren't so much the graphical sacrifices that PC gamers have to suffer from, its the control limitations. Whenever I play Mass Effect, I feel like punching the developers, because its perfectly clear that whomever designed it was only targeting console game play mechanics.
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What really makes me sad these days aren't so much the graphical sacrifices that PC gamers have to suffer from, its the control limitations. Whenever I play Mass Effect, I feel like punching the developers, because its perfectly clear that whomever designed it was only targeting console game play mechanics.
I agree. I hate over the shoulder games. In fact, some of them make me sick to my stomach (Dead Space is one that does that).
I think they don't want to have people think the game is a first person shooter, when in reality, that is what the game is.
Generational Gaps Depend on Niche or Mass Market (Score:2, Insightful)
I would agree that there is a generational gap between true gaming PCs and consoles. That's always going to be the case. The upgrade and refresh cycles of gaming PCs are going to be much shorter than consoles. However, the console market is much larger than the true gaming PC market. In order to expand the market beyond this niche, game developers have to target "standard" PCs, and that is where the variability is hardware capabilities is an issue. If I develop a game for a console, every user is going
Interesting (Score:2, Insightful)
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PC games are written by people who could not code on embedded machines if their life depended on it.
You mean some PC games are written by sloppy coders. Some other PC games are written by people with experience coding for 8-bit microprocessors. Still others are written by people who specialize in PC only due to console makers' institutionalized discrimination against small businesses.
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That's at least partially an artificial problem with the games, not the PCs. For one thing, it seems like half the developers half-ass the PC version intentionally, since they have less control than on consoles. For another, the PC market is smaller and less of a concern.
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Also, where are those Kinect and Wiimote enabled games?
Generally - really, which one is it? "The games I play - PC games - are...deep, man" or "shiny!!!"?
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I've long thought the ability to issue patches is the reason PC games have a lot more issues than their counterparts. Unfortunately, this generation has added that capability to consoles, as well. In theory, it's a good thing; issues that come up can be fixed without going through ridiculous rigmarole (just look at the Metroid thing with Nintendo). In practice, it means developers get to release buggy products. Just look at Fallout: New Vegas. It was basically unplayable on the consoles and little bett
Re:What a load of garbage. Games on PCs are crap. (Score:5, Insightful)
To understand the poor coding, you must understand the game industry and the choices they make. I'll explain using analogies that everyone can understand.
Example 1: Your task is to build a house. You can make your own brick, cut your own lumber, pour your own concrete foundation using concrete that you mixed, do your own plumbing, etc. The quality of your house is based on however much time you feel like spending to do it yourself. Obviously this would take far far too long, so you opt to use materials already created. You buy all the ingredients. Obviously some may not be up to your standard, but the loss of quality is relatively low compared to the vast amount of time you will save. You've given up a little and gained a lot.
Example 2: Your task is to build a house. You have three days to do it. The previous house, using the components you purchased, took several weeks to build. Your only solution is to use modular components. AKA, bed room. Living room. Kitchen. Bathroom. Assemble with a crane, connect together on a foundation, voila. A house. The quality suffers quite a bit using this pre-built solution, but you got the job done on time. It was the only way you could do it. You gave up a lot to get the job done on time.
Example 3: Your employer now realizes you can build houses in three days, and that there's a high demand for your house building services because you did such a good job in example one. Still, your employer thinks you can build it a little faster. Two days to build the house now. They know people won't care about the quality because once they've bought it, they've paid for it. As long as it still meets the most basic definition of a house and doesn't endanger the lives of the people living in it, it's suitable for sale. Your only option is to make a house factory and simply air lift the house in once complete. You don't even have time to secure the thing to the damn foundation.
So we've gone from perfect house to shitty house that will slide off its foundation in a strong wind. This is how the game industry is. They HAVE to use shitty tools and shitty coding to slop things out the door as fast as they can, because the marketing team has promised Call of Duty Black Ops 2 and 3 to be out by February and won't even tell the developers this until January 25th. Guess what department the executives are in?
Re:What a load of garbage. Games on PCs are crap. (Score:5, Funny)
Hasn't someone told you that here on slashdot we only understand car analogies? Get out of here, and take your damned houses with you!
Re:What a load of garbage. Games on PCs are crap. (Score:5, Funny)
SLASHDOT TRANSLATION:
Example 1: Your task is to build a car. You can make your own frame, cut your own windows, pour your own plastic bumpers that you mixed, do your own drivetrain, etc. The quality of your car is based on however much time you feel like spending to do it yourself. Obviously this would take far far too long, so you opt to use materials already created. You buy all the components. Obviously some may not be up to your standard, but the loss of quality is relatively low compared to the vast amount of time you will save. You've given up a little and gained a lot.
Example 2: Your task is to build a car. You have three days to do it. The previous car, using the components you purchased, took several weeks to build. Your only solution is to use modular components. AKA, Engine. Interior. Axles. Rims w/ the Rubber already on them. Assemble with a crane, connect together using screws, voila. A car. The quality suffers quite a bit using this pre-built solution, but you got the job done on time. It was the only way you could do it. You gave up a lot to get the job done on time.
Example 3: Your employer now realizes you can build cars in three days, and that there's a high demand for your car building services because you did such a good job in example one. Still, your employer thinks you can build it a little faster. Two days to build the car now. They know people won't care about the quality because once they've bought it, they've paid for it. As long as it still meets the most basic definition of a car and doesn't endanger the lives of the people driving in it, it's suitable for sale. Your only option is to make a car factory and simply ship the car in once complete. You don't even have time to test drive the thing to the 10 Kilometers.
Re: Car Analogies (Score:5, Funny)
That was a car analogy. It was just a really sloppy one, because he was working under a deadline.
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Fortunately for us, Nintendo, Blizzard and Valve don't play by those rules.
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I hesitate to point this out, but:
Your Example 1 could describe most OSS games.
Your Example 2 could describe most commercial games.
Now go do a side-by-side comparison of the two, for any given genre.
And I say this as an OSS advocate.
Re:What a load of garbage. Games on PCs are crap. (Score:4, Interesting)
To be fair, developing on a PC is DAMNED HARD. To extend your analogy:
You have to build a house. You don't know what bricks you have, what materials the walls will be made of, or even the amount of space you have to put the house in. You have to build the house in such a way as to take advantage of a 512 mb lot, or an 8gb lot. The floors might be made by nVidia, ATI, or a prefab floor by intel. Each room might be bigger or smaller than you thought.
So you've gone from a console, where you know EXACTLY the dimensions, building materials, etc of the place you're building, to one where you're building an abstracted concept of a game that is supposed to build itself from available materials and still function.
My experience as a developer. (Score:4, Interesting)
There is a lot of truth to this.
I worked on an EA title once. Everything was going fine until one of the higher ups panicked, afraid that we weren't going to meet our launch date, and took charge. The first matter of business was to reduce the bug count. This was accomplished by simply not reporting any new bugs (save for bugs that would cause us to fail cert). A lot of the cert bugs were silly things that most users wouldn't notice or care about, but they took precedent over everything else. Under my producer's instructions, I regularly packaged numerous bug fixes into single changelists, since we were only permitted to submit changelists pertaining to specific bugs (and had to cite them). I also successfully petitioned to get a few non-cert bugs fixed for the more serious issues.
The crazy thing is in the month leading up to cert, I had very little to do. I wasn't allowed to fix anything. I had about two dozen changelists that they simply wouldn't let me submit - regardless of how simple or safe the bug fixes were, or how serious the bug was. I held onto them, but they never made it into any patches either. They simply did not care about the quality of the game. It was all about getting it out the door.
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Just look at the newest games and how badly they perform on supposedly "powerful" machines. These games are not more creative, just flashy and poorly coded.
Have you actually played any new games on a semi-decent machine? Apart from Crysis itself this phenomenon hasn't really been around for about 5 years. It used to be the case that a game would claim to run on (say) a 386 DX but in truth needed a 486, but those games are largely gone. My games rig is about 2 years old, and still plays anything new I throw at it very nicely. For $200 you can get a graphics card that will happily play any new game on the market.
Of course, some games offer 'ultra' graphics s
Re:What a load of garbage. Games on PCs are crap. (Score:5, Funny)
I am sick and tired of nerds calling their PCs rigs and referring to their IT workplaces as a windows "shop" or linux "shop". You guys are not blue collar workers and you would be laughed out of any bar that had real blue collar workers in it.
rig [reference.com] - noun - apparatus for some purpose; equipment; outfit; gear: a hi-fi rig; Bring your rod and reel and all the rest of your fishing rig.
Thank you for confirming that you have some irrational hatred of PC gaming and that your opinions on the subject are therefore irrelevant.
If You Say So...(re: What a load of garbage...) (Score:3, Interesting)
So lets look at some games:
- "World of Warcraft" just had The Shattering which revamped the graphics and game flow of the world adopting tech and design they learned from 6 years of successful gaming.
- Steam just told me that "Poker Night at the Inventory" is available for cheap. Although it is basically a poker game, the fun part is the conversations and jokes in the game.
- "Farmville" is still going strong
- "Minecraft" would be a hard sell if not impossible on consoles
So yeah, if you say so. I don't thi
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PC games are written by people who could not code on embedded machines if their life depended on it. Sloppy code.
So Carmack is good when he writes for embedded machines but sloppy when he writes for PCs?
Re:What a load of garbage. Games on PCs are crap. (Score:5, Insightful)
Just look at the newest games and how badly they perform on supposedly "powerful" machines.
That is wrong. At the default (mainstream) settings virtually all games play well on the current level of gaming computers. Although I will concede that there have been some console ports that perform so poorly that you wonder whether they are running under a console emulator. But that is not representative of all PC games.
The people who complain about poor performance are those who insist on pushing all the game settings up to maximum. The reason they have the adjustable settings in PC games is for those people who spend stupid amounts of money on their systems, to extend the shelf life of the game by future-proofing it, and to make pretty screenshots to help sell the game.
People often use your argument as a reason for why console gaming is better, but that it because console games don't have the option of increasing the video settings to maximum. They are fixed at the mainstream level. And often the default mainstream settings on a PC game will still look better than the console versions.
Finally, if you decide to revisit an old game in a few years time, your console game won't age as well as a PC game because you will be able to use all the maximum settings on your upgraded PC. That comparison is assuming your PS4 or XBOX 720 will actually run the old software.
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They would need to do that in concert with all the other big manufacturers like Acer and Lenovo, as well as game developers. I would say Microsoft too but I doubt they would want to since it would be competition for their Xbox. They would basically agree on fixed specs for a cheap gaming PC that anyone could sell, and game devs would target it for their games. But I doubt anything like that could ever happen. There would be too much bickering about what brand of CPU or GPU to use, and with nobody big enough
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They would also have to ship with a well designed controller (and not an after-thought)
Xbox 360 controllers work with Windows 7, Windows Vista, and recent service packs of Windows XP.
add onto that a fancy UI that is easy to navigate from the couch.
If XBMC can solve the 10-foot UI problem, surely Dell or Gateway can.
The problem with PCs as a game center is that every game is different.
PC games that carry the "Games for Windows" certification and support a gamepad must recognize Xbox 360 controllers and automatically configure the buttons.
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Re:Captain Obvious (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of the really good Wii titles don't even use the Wii motion controls for anything more than a gimmick, though. Frequently, shaking could have been replaced with a simple button press (and that would have been far more accurate--I'm looking at you, New Super Mario Bros. Wii) Pointing at the screen gets quite a bit of use, at least since it's got a fairly obvious application (aiming in a FPS.)
The accelerometers were a gimmick, and I think that Nintendo knows it. It worked out for them--they did a good amount of business while in competition with two other giants. What I think Nintendo has proven in this generation is that 2D side-scrollers (or 2.5D or whatever) aren't dead and are actually quite popular, as long as the controls and gameplay are good.
I don't see much of a need to go HD, other than to finally get rid of the last holdout for analog input on my TV.
Wii Boxing (Score:2)
I felt that one of the best Wii titles at launch was Wii Boxing, and it was precisely because of the motion controls, rather than the graphics. I still love playing Wii Boxing to work up a quick sweat, and I find it really improves your hand-eye coordination.
I'd love to see another game making use of Wii Boxing's punching mechanic. Perhaps a game like God Hand or something.
I'm thinking that Nintendo will launch a new console in 2011 no matter how many denials they're issuing, simply because then otherwise t
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Yeah, but that was practically a demo. I haven't tried Wii Punch Out--does it use a similar mechanic?
One of the things I really disliked about Wii Sports was that the motions you made only barely correlated with the motions your character could perform. Tennis is the best example of this--where you halt your swing determined what type of swing your character took (most people I knew tried to swing as though they were swinging a real tennis racket--which didn't work particularly well.) Most of those minig
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Wii Sports Resort, which came bundled with more recent consoles and uses the MotionPlus accessory, is much better in this regard.
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I was in japan a couple months ago, played a fucking awesome wii fps. [snip] Probably helped that I was drunk and a cute girl was giving me a blowjob at the time (^_^)
This was clearly a dream
Re:Captain Obvious (Score:5, Interesting)
I would say the main problem with the Wii is its library. And this comes from somebody who owns one. I really don't care about its graphics, but there just isn't much that interests me on the platform. I have 7 Wii games, while I have 42 or so PS3 games and 17 360 games. Granted, there are a few games that I'm interested in, but it's only 3 or so. So much of the library is dedicated to shovelware games and kid stuff.
I think the culprit behind this is that publishers want to make multiplatform games to maximize returns. It's easy to match the 360 and PS3 games, as they're of like performance. The Wii? Not so much (due to both the hardware limitations and the different default control scheme). Exclusives for it would be better, but exclusives aren't what make the most money these days. So developers make the big games for the 360 and PS3, but give the Wii spin-offs or other budget titles that just aren't as good. Case in point: the 360 and PS3 got Resident Evil 5. The Wii? Umbrella Chronicles and a re-release of RE4.
Of course, none of this matters to Nintendo, as the Wii is basically a license to print money. It's great for those who were never really into gaming before this generation, but the "traditional" gaming segment is more or less left out.
(Or maybe I need to look harder?)
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Walt Disney's Kill Bill (Score:2)
Like Disney, the company is very dependant upon protecting their image as wholesome and family-friendly now
Yet explain how a Disney subsidiary green-lit Kill Bill.
So they are quite strict about what they allow to be published for the Wii.
MadWorld anyone?
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Like Disney, the company is very dependant upon protecting their image as wholesome and family-friendly now
Yet explain how a Disney subsidiary green-lit Kill Bill.
I would have thought that was obvious, Miramax was bought by Disney in 1993 in order to allow them to release more adult orientated films without hurting their brand. A disney subsidiary green lit Kill Bill precisely because it was a subsidiary and not the main brand.
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Miramax was bought by Disney in 1993 in order to allow them to release more adult orientated films without hurting their brand.
So here comes the analogy: Why can't Nintendo likewise start a separate brand to release edgier games?
Re:Walt Disney's Kill Bill (Score:5, Insightful)
Disney didn't make your TV so the subsidiary doesn't care that Kill Bill is out on DVD. Contrast this with the Wii, where it matters not who made the game, it is known to its users as a "Wii Game", and thus has a direct association with Nintendo's brand and image. You play it on a Wii, it says "Nintendo" on the packaging... you get my drift.
Nintendo's kid-friendly image is a huge part of their business strategy, they automatically win all the overprotective parents who are terrified of the Xbox and its filth-laden Live service, where everyone and everything is a "nigger" and/or "faggot" according to its prominent users. I can't speak of the PS3 since I don't have one, but I would speculate that the it is not much different, due to being marketed to the same adult / hardcore crowd as the Xbox. Hell, there was a (shitty) game on the old Xbox where victory resulted in a "Girls-Gone-Wild" style clip being presented as your reward. You'll never see vodka-doused tits on a Nintendo console, that's for sure!
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Wow you're dumb. It's called branding, and Disney is, like, the god of branding. That's why a Disney subsidiary released Kill Bill. The Disney name isn't on the movie.
I don't really know enough about the Wii to make a claim about Nintendo doing that same type of branding, but, fer christs sakes, Disney is a freaking god in that arena. I do know my Wii and the dozen crappy games I bought for it are going to be a Christmas present for my in-laws this year, and prolly a Christmas present for someone else the f
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Yet explain how a Disney subsidiary green-lit Kill Bill.
I think the key word there is subsidiary. It's not like you saw the Disney logo on the Kill Bill poster.
So they are quite strict about what they allow to be published for the Wii.
MadWorld anyone?
Yep, GP was posting with old stereotype in mind. The Wii is a little more grown up these days, though I guess there's something of a confirmation bias given the volume of less realistic-violence games on the console. The only thing that could possibly shake that perception for some out there would be seeing a CoD on the Wii.
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That's already happened - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Reflex for Wii [amazon.com], Call of Duty: Black Ops for Wii [amazon.com]
I've never played them, so I don't know how they compare to CoD on the HD consoles or PC, but they certainly exist. It's not really been heavily publicised though, so I doubt the kind of person that'd be swayed by it would know about it. Heck, a lot of people I know who're into CoD think it's a 360 exclusive purely because it plays the 360 logo animation, thing, at the end of the ads.
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I wasn't aware that Nintendo was still strict on what could appear on their system(s). Last I knew, they'd relaxed quite a bit; BMX XXX had the topless stuff in it, while it was censored on the PS2. Granted, I'm unaware of anything like that on the Wii or DS...
As an aside, I really hate how you have to click through the "health and safety tips" every time you turn on the Wii or DS. Put in the light of being "family-friendly", it makes more sense that it's been included. That, or Nintendo is even more te
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[snip]
(Or maybe I need to look harder?)
I agree with most of your points but there are some very good games for the Wii. Red Steel 2 is an incredibly fun game. I played that game shortly after finishing the campaign in Modern Warfare 2 and I have to admit that I had more fun with Red Steel 2. Monster Hunter for the Wii is another incredibly well made game and pretty much the only RPG on the Wii.
However, both of these games are outliers to the typical games released for the Wii. I recommend them if you own a Wii.
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I promise you it is not the graphics that stop me from playing games on the Wii.
It's the fucking awful games.
It's the controls.
Every Wii game I've played has come in one of two flavours:
a) Trying to use the Wii-mote as advertised, the result being horribly awkward and ultimately impossible-to-enjoy inconsistent fumblings as the Wii really sucks at motion control.
b) Games where the developers realized the limitations of the Wii, and compensated by making the controller a prop which doesn't ac
WASD: Try a Nunchuk sometime (Score:2)
Have the console support mouse/keyboard input
A few PS3 games already do, and the other two still support text entry using a USB keyboard. The Wii Remote is like a mouse, and unlike WASD, the Nunchuk extension controller has proportional (aka "analog") response.
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PC's may be generations ahead in hardware, but they still don't offer the convenience and simplicity of a console, which is why they are popular.
citation needed
PC's would be just as cheap and convenient if people would resist the urge to constantly upgrade. The reality is that when they get the ability to upgrade they chose to do so. I think the couch has far more to do with the success of the console frankly.
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Consoles lack the selection of a PC (Score:2)
I'm now a console gamer because its convenient.
But is it convenient for you when the game all your friends are talking about is a PC exclusive because the console makers turned it down?
PC's may be generations ahead in hardware, but they still don't offer the convenience and simplicity of a console
Nor do consoles offer the selection of a PC.
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In many ways gaming has gone the way of hollywood. More flash, bigger budgets and more streamlined.
Unless the game isn't for your console (Score:3, Insightful)
I can slap a disc in a $300 box with no buttons, and play it.
Unless the game isn't for your $300 console. Imagine that your friend has recommended a PC game to you. You check the developer's web site to see if a version is available for your console, but you find that the developer has posted a rejection notice from the console maker. Various overheads associated with becoming an authorized console game developer are part of why indie games tend to be PC exclusive. Even among major-label games, many are exclusive to a console you don't have, and by the time you've bo
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However I have a hard time plopping down $1000+ for a gaming PC when games on a $300 xbox or playstation look only marginally worse.
However I have a hard time spending $300 on an xbox/playstation when I can buy a $100 graphic card for my PC and get graphics that looks marginally better than any console.