PS3 Interface

Well here is a video pretty much showing all the features of the PS3 UI.

E3 2006 show

Well its finally here and those lucky enough to be at E3 are playing those really nice games made for the PS3, but what are they really like?, well as soon as ive finished reading all the reveiwes of whats on show and gathered some screenshots, I will post it here for you to read (at least you wont have to go searching for it).

But just for starters, I dont know if you recall me showing shots of a game called Untold Legends, and the graphics looked a bid pants, but gameplay was meant ot make up for this… Well they guys over at SOE have got their act together and have updated the graphics and it lookign rarther spiffy now, but all tihs will come later. 

Sonys Pre-E3 Confrence

Well Ive just finished watching Sonys Pre-E3 confrence video and it showed a fair few videos of games up and coming, plus some features via the new pad and PSP.

Games on show

1. Gran Turismo HD (E3 2006 demo)
2. Coded Arms
3. Lair
4. Gundam
5. Enchanted Arms
6. Warhawk (Pad demo)
7. MGS4
8. untitled (naughty dog games)
9. Genji 2
10. Getaway
11. Resitance fall Of man
12. Eight Days
13. Afrika (working title)
14. EA Tech Demos (Tiger Woods, NBA)
15. Heavenly Sword
16. Amoured Core 4
17. Hot Shots (everybodys golf)

Some of these videos were pretty much a let down, including GT-HD which wasnt anything to talk about, basicly it was GT4 on PS3 running at High Definition resolutions, no GT5 or any other cool looking stuff. But the rest of the demos were ok nothing amaizing apart from one or two cool looking things Like the EA demos, whiched really looke great and Hot Shots (Everybodys Golf) this looked amaizing. Also Afrika looked quite interesting ,but not much in the way of gameplay. The rest seemed to do what the development people set out to do.

Sony also Announced the price of the PS3…

USA – 20gb $499 || 60gb $599
Japan – 20gb Y59,800 || 60gb open price
Europe – 20gb E499 || 60gb E599

Which in my opinion is not too bad seeing as you get a Blue-Ray player and a consle, but what Sony dosnt mention is that the 20gb Harddrive version has No HDMI, No card reader and No WIFI.

So the pad and console design, whats been changed? Well on the consle side of things, no too much its still that sleek shape and it will be only available in balck for the forseeable future, but the pad has gone through some radicle changes… sort of anyway.

The have ditched the rumbble featuer and faviour of a Nintendo Wii style motion senser, which is a big blow, Sony have said that the rummble featuer was causing problems with the senser, but we all know that this is rubbish, its because they lost the lawsuit over patents on the rummble featuer in PS2 pads, allong with the new senser, it is also lighter and has a new PS logo thing (button???) between the start and select, along with 4 lights on the back.

Click for bigger images

Recent Videos

Well you should have, by now watched all the videos of GDC and the games and tech demos. Here is my take on what was shown.

Lets start with the tech demos.

Untitled Game (car been shot up)

This video is very impressive, the reflections and lighting looked amaizing, along with the texturing and the actual model. But the best part was it being shot up, with bit flying off, glass smashing & paint chipping, all made for a stunning bit of film. But doese this represent actual ingame stuff? Well acorrdig to Sony it dose and if we are to beleive them, this will make a great game. BTW fr those not in the know, this is actually the second tech demo shown from this game, the first was at E3 last year, this showed a Gas station being blown up.

Ducky

What was this demo showing? well from what i can make out, it was a physics demo, showing the relationships between the actual models and the water, and how liquid dynamics will effect actual in game assets. granted other game have had this (Farcry) but not to the level of detail that the PS3 will offer.

Fish (including crowd demo)

These were impressive videos, showing off the actual social stuctures that can be put in place to make games seem more life like (Ambiant warfare in Warhawk), these weel be used in games like GTA6, think… walking down the street, and you decide to mug someone, in previous games people across the street just ignored what was going on unless they were the police or rival gang members, but what if the genral public decided they didnt like what they saw and came to the aid of the victim, or on the other hand, what if you were getting your ass kicked and the public came to your aid, that would add a whole dynamic that was previously limited in other GTA games.

Getaway 3

Now this was an impressive video, showing off London in full 3D glory, wit hfull HDR and at full HD standard, ths was a great video, the HDR was a little over done for my taste but they still have 8 months to sort it. This video was or actuall in-game footage, and was being played infront of the audiance, along with that they rep from Soho Studios, said that they need to use Blue-Ray because they could not have got the whole the whole game onto DVD.

Motorstorm

Even tho this was full in-game graphics, it still wasnt upto the standard of the E3 vid they showed last year, but all in all this video was incredible, especially the way the suspention worked to show the effect the actual ruts made previously effected the buggy, and alo the ability to sprya particles onto models was great too, I have high hopes for this game, I just hope the playability is as good as it looks.

Warhawk

Another game that was played infron of the audiance, was Warhawk. This showed off some incredible visuals along with that all important "ambiant warfare" going on in the background, the game looks like it will be an intense play one released on the public, the volumetric clouds and sea looke damn fine to me. And it was also running at 4* AA.

Rachet and Clank

This had to be the best of the videos shown, the graphics on show were at a Pixar standard, showing off a City reminisent of the "Fith Ellement" showing hover cars flying about the huge sky scrapers, with robots walking down a gang way. But no word if this is actual in-game graphics or just another FMV. I cant wait for E3 to see whats going on with this title.

Lair

The video of Lair was agian very impressive, shwoing the low poly models then the normal mapping and also shaowing the actual high res models too. but this is just the tip of the iceberg, the amount of dragons in flight are asounding, and the lighting again look great. but best of all was wen the models were stood in thin aitr absolutly still and the cammera panned around them in real time shwoing of the detail of the actual dragons. This was actual in-game stuff too, so this game is looking promisting.

Well thats about it, but be sure to find the videos online and take a look for yourself, if you havent already.

Final Fantasy XIII Rumours Quashed

Looks like it may have been a bit of whishfull thinking on many peoples part (including me) to get hopes up for a showing of Final Fantasy XIII @ this Mays E3 show. Here is a response 1UP got from Square Enix.

"Yesterday 1UP passed along a juicy tidbit about Final Fantasy XIII appearing as a PlayStation 3 exclusive at May's E3 from the pages of the next Electronic Gaming Monthly's Rumor Mill, and it didn't take long for Square Enix's public relations department to send out an official response to the buzzing.

Of course, if I've learned anything from public relations statements in the past, anything past a "no comment" only encourages more people to believe the rumor (and often means there's some truth). Final Fantasy remaining exclusive to Sony isn't much of a shock to begin with, but the news was enough to get Square Enix to prepare this:

"While there have been numerous rumors about Final Fantasy XIII, Square Enix has never released any information about the title. The recent online article stating that the title will be exclusive for PlayStation 3 and shown at E3 is not based on any official information obtained by us. I hope readers will remember April Fool's day is tomorrow and many Print and Online outlets pull pranks ever year, before they get their hopes crushed by a joke." — Sonia Im, PR manager at Square Enix

For the record, 1UP's article was not a joke, nor was EGM's statement about Final Fantasy's alleged next-generation exclusivity. Heck, if it was, that would probably go down as one of the lamest attempts at faking out in the history of botched April Fool's jokes.

C'mon, we're better than that."

Lets hope its all true and FFXIII dose appeare, but maybe we will have to settle just for other games instead.

Motorstorm GDC vid

Here she is in the flesh, abeit a little poor quality and also no sound but what the heck, you get the idea. just watch it over and over with sound and comentary.

More GDC vids surface

As the title says, these are some more videos of those GDC tech demos Sony showed off. enjoy.

File : Raycasting demo (7.52 MB) (532×400)
File : Chameleon Fish (7.29 MB) (532×400)
File : Crowd Demo (24.4 MB) (540×304)

Video Interview with Sony @ GDC 2006

Here is a video of Phil Harrison and other Sony reps talking about PS3, If you want to see what the PS3 is all about download this vid.LINK

New Screenshots Surface From GCD

Well here are the New bigger and better quality screenshots from GDC 2006.

Motorstorm

Resistance: Fall Of Man

Jak & Daxter

These images have been shrunk, the originals are twice as big, and there are also some shots of the Network online system HUD and the Havok tech demo.

Source:- LINK

GDC 2006: A Disappointment?

Well over the last week, GDC has been hosting some of the most anticipated hardware and software since the first Playstation. But from reporters that were at the show, the stuff that was looked at, and shown to the press/attendees, wasn’t that impressive.

I am of course talking about the PS3.

Although compared to current next gen consoles out now, the graphics were a massive leap, and not only the graphics but also the physics too, with third party middleware being developed and added to the SDK for PS3 is a great help and leap for developers over the original PS2. Reporters said that “Still, it was a bit disappointing to see Motorstorm in action with our intro to that game so impressive (and so questionably realistic)”[1].

So is the PS3 what everybody hoped and dreamed it would be?

Well im guessing yes and no (just sit on the fence as usual), because so far we have only seen what seemed to be pre-rendered[2] graphics at E3 last year, with Killzone getting top honor for setting the flame wars on forums alight. Most people who saw it said that cant be possible, and that was proven true by an employee who put up his showreel on the internet, showcasing some of the work he had contributed to the FMV of that said Killzone 2 trailer.

But Killzone wasnt the only game to set fire to young forum addicts, Motorstor was also added to the list of arsonist’s. This game also looked mightly fine in the graphics department showing off a great damage model and particle effects, along with silky smooth frame rate and lashings of other top special effects usually only seen in Movies from Pixar and the like.

Unlike Killzone (who has yet to poke its litle smoking head out from the ash) Motorstorm has been give the light of day at GDC, and while the first impressions are good “They even slowed the buggy down and showed how each tire moved independently when going over these curves. Great stuff!”[1].

But from one report to the other the tales of woe and happiness vary, I think this will happen with the end consumer when E3[3] comes around in May. The expectation of people is very high, and this is due to the waiting game played out by consumers but directed by Sony[4]. Sony new what was going on but they let the public think that the spring launch was a go up until this month where at a press confrence they came clean and moved the launch back till November, this has created both joy and dread from a consumer point of view. People now have a confimed date for a launch, and a world wide one at that, but they also have dread that this could be just another smoke screen, because of other problems with either hardware or software. And just to add more tention the HDD has still not been 100% confirmed.

“Question: There’s been some question over whether the hard drive will indeed be included with the PS3. Can you confirm either way?

Phil Harrison: As head of the software studios I don’t want to be the one comment on the hardware, but I’ll say this: developers are all designing their games to support the hard drive. All of our games are absolutely using the hard drive”[5].

So what exactly are Sony playing at, because they are either genious’s or cowboys, either way they are playing with the gaming masses and people are starting to either get hyped or hate Sony and there new machine.

GDC hasnt really cleared anything up at all, it has only sparked another set of forum fires and caused the media to jump up and down and cry with glee about either how good the PS3 will be once on the market or how the PS3 will fall flat on its HDMI ports. The public who will eventually decide the fate of PS3 have been given no reason to beleive the reports or discount them either, because no Videos or High quality pitures have made it out of GDC of the games shown :Warhawk, The Getaway, Jak and Daxter, Motorstorm & the few tech demos including The-un named game with the car been shot up.

For us as a gaming comuity need this information because we deal in visuals not some repeorters whim, but because all we have are eye witness accounts from biased either way repeorters, the hype machine get to a frenzy and then dies down to a simmer, if only we could have some video or pictures then it would ease out withdrawal symptoms and keep us from setting fire to our forum buddys.

Refrences:

[1] – Gamedaily blog by Level 8-2
[2] – Wikipedia – Pre Rendered
[3] – E3 Insider
[4] – Sony
[5] – Phill Harrison