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Gears of War Hands-On Impressions
The Xbox 360 title that everyone seems to be excited about is the first person shooter Gears of War. Hands-On impressions are available from 1up.com, Gamespy, Gamespot, and IGN. From the IGN article: "Sera is gripped in darkness. The Locusts are most at home in the shadows, so expect the worst moments to occur when the lights go off. Gears of War can best be described as a mix between a third-person tactical shooter and a survival horror game. This is pop-and-shoot gaming, not the run-and-gun style of Halo 2. Oh, and it's f---ing awesome."
have to act like immature children? I hope in time there will be a source of adult gaming news with the comprehensiveness and bredth the like of the IGN's and gamespots, but with some maturity and professionalism. cough*and integrity*cough
True genius is grasping a situation like a peice of fruit, and peircing it just right so that it drains dry.
While it does look great, I don't think it's the leap in graphics that it should be. When this generation's consoles first came out, we were amazed at the graphics. Everything looked so much better than N64/Playstation/PC graphics at the time. Now, the difference is much smaller.
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Let's take Half-Life 2, running on the Source engine.
The graphics in Gears of War are only moderately better than HL2.
http://media.pc.ign.com/media/492/492830/img_2465
http://media.pc.ign.com/media/492/492830/img_2118
http://media.pc.ign.com/media/492/492830/img_1766
With the Lost Coast levels that are coming out soon (adding High Dynamic Range lighting), the difference will be even smaller.
Today's high end graphics cards can run HL2 at or above HD resolutions, with higher FPS than the consoles will put out.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=227
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=227
It's still 6 months until the Xbox360 release. By then, the next generation of video cards should be out, or very close to release. That'll narrow the gap or even eliminate it altogether.
This may be the first console launch in history where the consoles fail to outdo PCs in the graphics department.
The major exception to this that I've seen is Killzone 2. It has substantially better graphics than any Xbox360 game that I've seen. However, there's still a lot of controversy over whether the pics and movies that have been released were actual gameplay footage, non-game in-engine footage, or prerendered CG.
Who knows, maybe Microsoft (possibly) and Sony (probably not, they have a reputation of overhyping their graphics and system specs; I doubt their games will look any prettier at release) haven't finished optimizing their console designs, meaning that the graphics that we see today aren't as good as they will be at release.
It's important to understand that in this new generation of engines, you can't actually see the difference from a still screenshot unless you know what to look for.
In motion, though, it's a whole different story. Very obvious.
The lighting in HL2 is still largely precalculated. This leads to a much flatter, more distant world when the game is actually moving.
If Doom 3 hadn't been so damn dark, the difference would have been obvious.
Things to look for are the funny way glass shines in the older style engines, the way shadows drop off. There's a sort of diffuse random light in the HL2 shots you provide.
Stop looking at polys. Start looking at artifacts.
Speaking of artifacts, many current generation titles have anti-aliasing seams running along t-junctions. They're bright speckled lines. If you've never noticed them, you're lucky. They drive me nuts.
All that said, if you've reached the point of suspension of disbelief, good for you.
If by "panic mode" you mean "unlike Sony, actually showing the games working on the show floor", then yes, I suppose they are.
As the show wears on, it's becoming increasingly apparent that Sony has nothing but smoke and mirrors. Try walking up to their booth and actually taking a look at anything they showed in their press conference, and you'll discover that it's just not there. All of their most impressive "game demos" are actually pre-rendered videos of what they claim their console will be able to do. But they don't actually have the goods to back it up. It's real easy to look better than the competition if you're allowed to fake everything.
Everything Microsoft showed was real in-game footage, and you can see it running at the show to prove it.
So why use that PC for gaming when a console does it just as well?
Join me in the dark side, I have vaulted from PC gaming to consoles and I'm having much more fun. But then, I love 3d-person action, driving and fighting games more than I love FPSs. Ninja Gaiden is where it's at. Resident Evil 4 is totally awesome.