4 posts tagged “xbox 360”
For a while now, I have been raving about how I think the PS3 is going to be the king of the hill once developers start getting to grips with it (not to mention showing some tasty snippets from some rather lovely up-coming games), when two things happen that could drastically improve the quality of the games on PS3 - first up, Sony announce RSX Edge, a set of development tools that, in a similar way to the way Renderware allowed PS2 programmers to forget about the nitty-gritty of graphics/physics and concentrate on the gameplay and textures, gives Third Party developers the tools they need to get on with giving us top-notch PS3 games that look astounding.
The second, well, it's a more personal thing - I've just been asked to apply for a Producer/Project Management role running a team of PS3 developers. Keep your fingers crossed that I get it, as I promise that I'll take any developers that fail to deliver top-grade product out to the car park and shoot them - how's about that for a deal?
In all seriousness, I think that life for PS3's early adopters is going to get better and better - XBox 360 is already creaking at the seams to keep up and Microsoft have just basically admitted the first "Core" system is obsolete by announcing the "Ultimate" edition with a bigger hard drive and (it is rumoured) HD-DVD as standard, or at least the ugly £120 external drive bundled in the same box. So that would make the 360 cost £350-ish including a standard "premium" pack and an HD-DVD add-on. Not much less than the PS3 that is all in one box (no external PSU or HD-DVD drive to clutter the place up), has a larger hard drive (60gb, as against 20gb) and has Bluray, which is looking set to trounce HD-DVD as a format. Oh, and you have to pay to get all the "Gold" (i.e useful) features of XBox Live, whereas Playstation Network for PS3 is totally free. That white box doesn't look like such a good investment after all - I am so glad that I cancelled my order for one when Amazon had their pre-order fiasco: a) it means I waited for PS3 and b) I bought a PSP to get me by in the meantime and love it.
It's a shame that 360 seems to be relying solely on Halo 3 and Gears of War to try and beat down the opposition, as none of the other features seem as well implemented after 12 months in the field as either those on the Wii or the PS3. I really loved my original XBox (I sold my PS2 when I got one, it took over so much), but the 360 didn't seem next-gen enough once I got my hands on one and now, by altering the specs and selling bolt-ons to try and match the PS3's specifications, it appears that Microsoft is admitting that is exactly the case. If you bought a "Core" 360 at launch, you'd have paid £299-ish. Say £250 to be fair. Then add £80 for the hard drive and £120 for the HD-DVD drive. That's £450 for a machine that still doesn't match the PS3's standard spec (£425 list price at launch in the UK), not to mention the "Red Ring Of Death" (no free replacement under warranty in the UK, by the way - £80 charge to replace a dead 360, unlike in the USA where it is done for free) problems, or the fact that you end up with an Xbox, an external drive and a brick-sized PSU all making the place look untidy. Oh, and you'd have a non-wireless controller and only basic XBox Live features unless you paid even more. Methinks that Microsoft has dropped the ball...
Firstly, forgive the cheap pun, but I couldn't resist. The point of this article is that, as part of my on-going PS3 research, I have discovered that a game that is also being developed for PC and XBox 360 is shaping up to be potentially revolutionary.
Stranglehold, for that is the title of the game in question, at first seems like it will be another Max Payne-esque third-person shooter with a gangster theme, but the truth is something a bit more special than that. That its full title is "John Woo presents: Stranglehold" should give you more of a clue about what sets this game apart from the rest. The legendary action film-maker is not just lending his name or characters to a game, he is actively shaping its creation. Now, I know that the Wachowski brothers supposedly sat in on development of Enter The Matrix, but the truth is that they probably signed-off on the design brief and made the live-action clips that were scattered throughout the game, in the same way they had basically no input on The Animatrix, as all the shorts were ostensibly made by the animators who they signed up. But Mr. Woo is different. Mr. Woo is trying to make a sequel to "Hard Boiled" (possibly the best action film ever made, period) that just happens to be on a games console. The developers have stated in their blog, as quoted on ign.com, that Woo is taking at least a directorial role over camera angles, whilst also taking a keen interest in how the player becomes Tequila, Chow Yun Fat's character in the earlier film that is reprised here. Yes, Mr. Fat is here in all his digital glory. I know that attempts to stick an action actor in a game have been made before (from a bitmap version of Arnie in the awful "Red Heat" game of the late 80s/early 90s, to Pierce Brosnan in "Goldeneye", to Jet Li in the PS2 game "Rise To Honor"), but the power of the next-gen machines really allows you to be Chow Yun Fat - you can see his expression and, with the input of Woo directing the action, the animations look to be exactly how Chow Yun moves in his films. You get the obligatory bump-mapping, real-time lighting and the like, but the game doesn't look much better than any decent title on 360 or PS3 in terms of the modelling, etc. No, it is in the characterisation and, for want of a better word, emotional reaction to the game that the difference is.
By using a film director who knows how to make the best action movies, you are ensuring that not only will the dialogue be of an acceptable standard, but also that the way in which the plot progresses feels like a movie, as opposed to feeling like a game that tries to be a movie (I am thinking of things like GTA, which wants desperately to be a "Goodfellas", or at least an episode of "The Sopranos", yet always feels like a game). This is something that has not really been tried since the ill-fated (thank god) "Interactive Movie" games of the early to mid 1990s when CD was a new media for PCs and consoles - I am thinking of things like "D" on the Sega Saturn. Many of these games basically just linked CGI or Full Motion Video clips together in the same way the Quicktime Events in a game like "Tomb Raider: Legend" or "Shenmue" work. This lead to dull gameplay that was essentially just a string of either/or choices linked by video clips. Since that time, the phrase "interactive movie" has been a bit of a pariah, a euphemism for "looks lovely, but plays like crap" at best. Stranglehold, however, looks to play pretty well - you shoot, jump, slide on things - everything you want in an action game, after all. The "movie" part comes in when you look at how the camera moves whilst you shoot, or how the action blends into a pre-rendered clip, for example.
If you are a developer (and I have been, albeit on non-gaming products), your main concern is that the mechanics work - if the camera doesn't clip the scenery and the player can see what is going on, then that's all you worry about. Look at it like this, you can probably point a camera at a person and get a photo of them that doesn't cut their head out of frame - you'd still hire a professional photographer to take the pictures at your daughters' wedding, wouldn't you? By using Woo's undeniable talent, the camera can be used to dictate the pace of an action sequence, your reaction to events on screen and even push the emotional part of the plot forwards without the use of extraneous dialogue. Think of the shot in Jaws of Brody sitting in his beach chair when he thinks he sees the shark in the water - that pull-back/zoom-in shot shows not only his concern, but isolates him totally from the surrounding holidaymakers who are unaware of the danger. That's what a good camera move/angle can do and that is what, aside from the plot and the rights to use the characters, Mr. Woo ultimately brings to the table.
I am genuinely excited by this game - it is trying to do something genuinely new (make the line between cinema and gaming all but disappear) and, by choosing a genre that is ideally suited to a games console, there is a real chance of pulling it off. Even if the gameplay is identical to Max Payne, this game will still be better, as it will feel less like an homage to a Hong Kong action film and more like the real deal. Release is currently set at "summer '07", but it has been pushed back from November '06 already, so they are obviously not rushing to meet a release date at the expense of quality. Hopefully it'll come out for summer and we'll all be shooting gangsters in slow-motion whilst a flock of doves flies past well before autumn.
Well, here I sit on the horns of a dilemma. I have, since the drive in my old XBox died, been without a games console (apart from my PSP, which is more of a travel companion). I do have a Gamecube, but save for the odd go at Donkey Konga, or a run at Resident Evil 4, it has not seen the light of day since I completed Zelda and all of the other games I had on it. No, that now lives with my fiancee who is happy to join me in the odd post-pub game of Monkeyball. So, I need to get a new console to fill the slot on my TV stand and stop me building a monster PC just to play games.
Why do I need one at all, I hear some nay-sayers ask? Well, the fact is I prefer a good couple of hours gaming to watching Big Brother or the like - games are, by nature, interactive and get your mind working. I tend to watch DVDs to relax and play games for fun. The last ones I really enjoyed were the Prince of Persia trilogy (including the extra in-between version on the PSP) and Tomb Raider Legend. I've played a lot of Neverwinter Nights on my laptop and have also spent a lot of time playing Dawn of War and the like. But what I really like to have as a leisure option is a nice console with a racing game, a golf and/or other sport game, maybe a fighting game and something with a bit of action (i.e Halo, or Splinter Cell for example). So, given the fact that I will no doubt buy my other half a Wii (she is a) a Zelda fanatic and b) very interested in the nunchuk controller), do I get myself an XBox 360 or a PS3? This is my current dilemma.
So, the Playstation 3. Well, I have to admit to loving my PSP, but I never really got on with my PS2 (bought one of the Gran Turismo 3 packs the day they came out many moons ago) - I preferred the fun factor of the Gamecube (I used to take it round to friends' houses regularly) and the superior technology of the first XBox (Halo 2 was great) to the black box from Sony. Yes, I know it had Final Fantasy ( I really enjoyed FF-X), but that didn't sell the system to me and I eventually sold it and 13 games to a friend for what I paid for the console a little over a year later, but I digress. The fact is that I am not a Sony fanboy, PSP aside, (I had a Saturn and N64 instead of a PS One, too) so they system has a lot to do in order to convince me to shell out at least £425 for a console alone. It needs to be able to store movies for me to watch and it needs to be able to play games that look great and are good to play, as it has to prevent me from wanting to build the monster PC that I keep threatening my fiancee I am going to. If it can do enough to convince me I don't need a high-end gaming PC to get my entertainment fix, then it will be worth the money. I can stick with my trusty Vaio Core Duo and save myself about £1000. So, the big question is "does it manage to do it?"
So far, the XBox 360 has failed to dazzle me, despite the fact I had one on pre-order - Amazon failed to deliver it and I got the PSP instead; a decision that I have not regretted at all. My best friend got one and tried to convince me that it was awesome, but Blazing Angels looked poor and many other efforts looked prety much as they would on the Xbox I had already. Another two friends have either sold their 360 or put it in a cupboard and gone back to the old XBox, as there are so few decent 360 games and the backwards-compatibility is evidently rather hit-and-miss.
The Playstation 3, then, looked to have things stitched up - after all the Gamecube got hammered by the XBox and PS2, so surely the powerhouse from Sony needed only to make its release date to romp home to victory? Well, it's true that the demos look far more convincing than those for the 360. A couple of those games look amazing, not least of which is Metal Gear Solid 5. The power of the machine appears to be truly a step-up from the XBox/PS2/Gamecube, although developers are quite often criticising the machine and preferring the 360. That could be down to the 360 essentially being an Apple Mac G5 in a different box and, thus, easier to code for, however. Still, the release of the PS3 has been delayed in the UK until March(ish) and those countries that have had it at Christmas are reporting faults and backwards-compatibility issues. Hopefully it will only need a firmware update.
The rank outsider for the next-gen race is Nintendos' Wii. Yes, it's a funny name, but it probably means "console of much happiness making" in Japanese. The brains at Nintendo have looked at the market and realised that games are getting more and more expensive to make. The average top-flight title now has a credit list longer than a Hollywood blockbuster and can cost millions of pounds to make. This means there is little risk taken with new ideas, as a single flop could break a company. Compare this to the days of the Commodore 64 when a game was written by three or four guys in a room and you can see why we have more and more sequels and less and less new ideas. Nintendo have seen fit to try to change this by not chasing after ever more powerful (read:"expensive to code for") graphics, but have instead created a console that tries to break through the dogma that only a "gamer" can enjoy a games console. As with the DS, Nintendo are trying especially hard to get the so-called "silver surfer" generation (those who are recently retired, or approaching that age, with large amounts of disposable income and lots of free time) to use its products. Hence, we have brainteaser games on the DS and a new console that doesn't require you to learn how to use a joypad (not easy if the old fingers have a touch of arthritis, you see) - no, if you want to sword-fight, you wave the wand about, etc. So far, it seems to be working.
I am not going to say that all the Wiis sold are to older people, far from it. I do, however, think that when little Timmy opened his Wii on Christmas Day and insisted on playing Wii Sports, or Golf, then rather than fall asleep, or get bored (as was the case previously), then it might be the case that mum and dad, as well as grandma and grandpa, had a go. They probably had fun, too. That is what Nintendo have gotten right - the idea that a games console and its games should be, first and formost, fun. Yes, it's nice to have fancy graphics, but so many games now have great looks, but poor gameplay (an argument I can remember going back to the days of the Amiga and ST...), but honestly, if you have a racing game where the cars look like cars, the important thing is that racing is easy and fun, not whether you can read the stickers on the tyres. The boom in games like DanceDance Revolution or Donkey Conga show that more people are interested in playing games than are interested in learning how to use a gamepad. If you make the fun accessible, then people will play, it's that simple. It would seem, judging by the sales figures, that Nintendo have hit the nail right on the head. Let's hope the strategy works long-term and that we don't lose their consoles the way we lost Segas'. On current form, however, it looks like Wii and 360 have taken a huge headstart on the PS3 and Sony is struggling to make up ground. Don't count them out, just yet, though.
