Ben-DutkaApril is a relatively slow month but at least there should be several big game announcements. Heck, we've already seen one…
God of War: Ascension has a lot to live up to
When the new God of War was announced this past week , I was very enthusiastic. I'm not a huge action buff, but each and every one of these games is just so amazing that they're impossible to ignore. And who would want to? Everything about this franchise, from the epic feel to the nearly flawless gameplay to the excellent pacing and unbelievable game design, has been almost off the charts. And of course, that means with each successive installment, the expectations get higher and higher…it has to be a difficult position for the developers. When you're in charge of one of the industry's very best , even the smallest slip can be viewed as highly disappointing.
These days, it seems gamers are becoming more and more difficult to please (sorry, I still say a great many are spoiled rotten) and if the devs don't deliver a genre-defining title and a legitimate game of the year contender, it will most certainly be seen as a step back. I'm also wondering how they'll approach the story, because prequels can be tricky; too many shortcuts and cliched elements can be utilized. So Ascension will definitely be under the microscope.
Quiet down, Crytek, just make a great game
We all got tired of Peter Moleyneux and his outlandish statements concerning Fable last generation. This generation, Crytek has repeated this "will push the consoles to their limits" statement quite a few times; repeatedly for Crysis 2 and once again, they're starting with Crysis 3 . They're not the only ones, though; PC-oriented developers typically look down on consoles, anyway, and just assume their projects (designed more for PC in the first place) are just going to be superior to anything in the console realm. Yeah, well, several PS3 exclusives have proven that to be incorrect, and unless Crysis 3 footage impresses me more than The Last Of Us , I think Crytek should just quiet down.
The Uncharted titles are graphical benchmarks this generation, regardless of platform, and to be perfectly honest, most PS3 exclusives have at least tried to push the technological capabilities of the machine. Therefore, in my eyes, the only teams who can legitimately say they're "pushing" the PS3 are the first-party studios. That's it. They know the console better than anyone, and that includes you, Crytek.
Side note- I'm sure Crysis 3 will be awesome.
Personal gaming update
Instead of doing what I should be doing – finishing Assassin's Creed: Revelations – I'm side-tracking myself. To relax, I went back to Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (my favorite; just love the 80s theme) and had myself a no-holds-barred blast. Just silliness but still fun. Plus, I've found myself hooked on Shadow of the Colossus again; the HD remake is just incredible and I'm once again awed at the unparalleled design and artistry. I'm also still playing a few Vita games, and I'm tempted to go back to a recent Final Fantasy VII play-through, which I abandoned a few months ago. Sometimes this happens; a bunch of games get in the way of "progress." 😉
Stay tuned for more news concerning the upcoming feature giveaway, the next PSXE show, and interviews.
I'm sure the new GoW will be great. I look forward to seeing some game play footage. GoW3 was such a technical marvel it feels so far ahead of the rest of the games out there. It's really one of a kind from an technical standpoint.
I think Crysis 3 will be great. I don't mind if Crytek is boasting their engine. It's what they do. They're in the business of marketing middle-ware. Crysis 2 did get my vote as best looking multiplat last year, and really, I thought it was outdone only by Uncharted 3. (I haven't played the blurry PS3 version though)
PGU: Other than spending a night with GoW, it was more NG3 for me. I managed to get some online stuff going but every match ended abruptly with loss of connection. Frustrating. Anyway, school has gotten thick with work this week and I've just been busy as heck. Adapting from a Java environment to plain Jane C takes some getting used to. Anyway, I sort of want to start up on LO some more. I miss the slow, sleep inducing pace. 'stroll down the city street listening to Kenny G. music, then an abrupt 10-15min short story keeps you from walking to that corner to search that road side container for that stray capsule item' Yeah, nice and mellow and chill. Though, I don't like to play a game like this unless I have no less than a 2-3 hour block of time to waste…
As I was here sketching a car here, the thought occured to me, I think I did play the blurry Ps3 version of Crysis 2 for a wee little bit…
Then I remembered KZ3 launched that year. A close call there between those two. But I think when KZ3 was at it's best it looked better than Crysis 2. Snow stage blows my mind. Thing is, KZ3 has some sort of ugly looking levels that had wonky color palletes that seemed not as pretty and not as artistically well executed. Anyway, thought I;d share that bit of info no one probably cares about =p
Last edited by Temjin001 on 4/21/2012 11:39:38 PM
I like the color palletes used in Killzone. Crysis 2 just tried to look realistic like most other shooters. Killzone has a unique look to it in comparison. Like its almost painted.
I thought Crysis 2 looked good, but nowhere near KZ good. I'm a huge fan of Crysis after the second also, and preferred it's mp when it released, so I'm not saying this with any bias. KZ2,3 Uncharted 2,3, and GoW 3 are 5 games that simply push the hardware, while others just claim to. It's hard to justify that point though when your games don't look or run as well as those.
But Crysis 2 was developed very well and there's no doubt Crysis 3 will look great and play great.
hehe. Kenny G huh? I'm picturing Temjin jamming to a "killer" Kenny G clarinet solo. I know Kenny G is more known for his saxaphone work but a clarinet makes the image in my head more comical somehow. 🙂
Interesting comments about KZ3. I agree the snow levels look stunning. I'm very fond of Akmir Snowdrift. Not only because of the way it looks but also because it is a great level to dominate on. Just get both tactical spawns and pin the enemy down on the rig or in pole builings. Won a lot of matches this way.
As for KZ3's color pallete. Well, at least it has some color to it. The overly saturated green level(Pyhrus crater) reminds of an old green monochrome computer monitor. It's almost solid green.
I think KZ3 is one of the best overall looking games on the PS3 if not the best. The particle effects are awesome. Just look at the smoke rising out of the vents or the poison gas in operations, The smoke trails from rockets are pretty damn impressive as well, Everything looks so sharp and crisp.
Crysis 2 is good looking game but it has too much motion blur that helps make the game look too blurry.
PGU:
I have been playing Mass Effect 3 mp almost daily with Zettai. We have had a lot of fun together and are eagerly awaiting the special events Bioware is supposed to be bringing to the PS3. Why does Sony always get the short end of the stick? Bioware has claimed Sony got in the way regarding these special events which makes little sense to me because I thought Sony had the more open network and was great to work with. Bioware and Sony are working to fix this…but there are no timetables or promises yet. The whole thing is kind of vague. I'd love to know exactly what went down between Sony and Bioware that has caused PS3 owners to be left out in the cold regarding these special events.
So my router some how stopped working and then my iPhone also couldnt post to PSXe. The site screws up after I hit submit.
Yeah, KZ3 is way more stylized, except for that MacGyver approved Duct Tape. So real =p
I wish they wouldve done something about the terrible looking water in the first stage and the junk yard stage. An over sight if you ask me.
If aliens abducted me and they wanted me to produce the best looking FPS in 2012 or else I get the rectal probes, it'd probably come down to KZ3 and Crysis 2. The snow stage impresses me because of the rolling waves crashing on the ice bergs. The wind blowing flurries everywhere. The many flags flailing in the air and all of the huge geometry etc. It's just mad impressive. 360 can't do that. No way.
It's other levels, like the wierd looking stealth mission jungle. The junkyard brown level that has horrible closer up textures. The scanline green level Excelsior noted etc. Stuff like that. Like I said, when it's at it's best I think it's untouchable. But sometimes I felt it was uneven in execution.
I seem to be one of the very, very few who actually liked the blurryness in Crysis 2.
It didn't even occur to me that they might have done it also for performance reasons, I found it to be a really cool effect. I thought it added lots of depth to the picture!
In real life our eyes focus at a given distance and makes everything outside of that focal point blurry, and I think that effect mimicked that in an interesting way. Seeing everything in a picture equally sharp is really quite unnatural when you think about it.
So yeah… I liked it a lot.
Last edited by Beamboom on 4/22/2012 12:31:30 PM
Their will always be a difference in quality even if u compare the top quality third party games vs. Sony's top exclusive games (in comparison on the PS3).
Last edited by AcHiLLiA on 4/22/2012 1:46:39 PM
I don't know, but from playing Crysis 2, I did like it very much… unfortunately I have not finished yet. Stuck at the minute…
Q!
"play.experience.enjoy"
Shadow of Colussus was really hard for me 🙁 I got stuck on the 4th or 5th Colossus, the one that would smash through walls to get to me.
Eventually i'll give it another try
Why is God of war being advertised so much (every ad on hulu and a couple spots on tv)but im yet to see any of Starhawk…a game coming out in a few weeks? Either God of war is coming sooner than we think or sony havent learnt a thing from their marketing mistakes
I know it makes sense to market a game like starhawk (new ip, not many know about it) but where would you spend your marketing dollars? On one of the most popular franchises in gaming, or on an unproven game?
Needless to say I think Starhawk will be awesome, but I understand the philosophy.
I still think its dumb to waste advertising resources on a game that is being released almost a year from now, by june people will forget it and that's money wasted. Funny thing is very few ads will run next year when its almost out
Well that's just it… Nobody will forget that a new GoW game is coming out. But I agree a year or more out is a little premature. I agree with you 100% though, I'd like to see some better marketing for their exclusive games.
Im more pumped for GOW ascestion then crysis 3. I just hope GOW ascenstion campaign is a bit longer than 3. It was a amazing game, but a tad short. My game update i been taking advantage of double xp on mw3 this weekend then taking short breaks playing LBP2 to get away from all the madness.
I also got Witcher 2 for my 360. Its great but definitely not graphically the best looking 360 rpg like many are claiming but its very adult like. With the most nudity i ever seen in a console game. The game is a bit challenging and requires a bit of a learning curve but the Gameplay is smooth and fun and its a breath of fresh air. I look foward to jump back in sometime this week.
We're all pretty damn spoiled, that's one reason I like to give games a chance that aren't on the big hits list. Back in the day playing through design problems was just the way you played, you made it part of the challenge.
Still powering through Mass Effect 2 so I can get to 3. I'd like to somehow get back to FFXIII-2 but I just want to finish it to get my moneys worth.
With the age of our consoles, I'm kind of wondering why every AAA studio isn't professing that they're pushing them to their limits. Sure, it may only be calculations and not really have anything to do with the game design, but those strong representations do help to engage you with the world. What I really care about is that design and it's why I'm more interested in The Last of Us than Crysis 3. The latter is a semi-open world shooter with a few more decisions than is typical while the former promises to be far more visceral. I mean, hell, I'm enjoying DMC far more than I thought I would largely because of the intricacy that can be found within it. That last boss battle though… Developers need to get rid of cheap sh** like that.
Personal Update:
Well, yeah, I'm onto the last boss battle of DMC, as just mentioned, and I almost snapped my controller out of pure frustration earlier. It's just so bad.
Other than that, I've almost finished the first volume of the Sherlock Holmes anthologies and that's about it.
the storys the only part im interested in for ascension.
gameplay wise the series has been going down the mountain at break neck speed ever since the original released.
the first one was near perfect, a awesome story, complemented with varying combat and varying weapons, and varying gameplay.
then GOW had far fewer puzzles no where near as cleverly thought out, and the weapons were no where near as varied either.
GOW2 was all about the boss battles.
3 was more of 2, fewer puzzles and worse ones, fewer variation, and more focused on boss battles and big scale.
enter this room, rip everything to pieces, rinse and repeat.
mixed with the odd platforming and boring puzzles.
GOW1 had by far the best level design with such variation in the levels, and such variation in the enemies you faced in that level.
same thing with the weapons each one was drastically different to another and each weapon was catered towards a certain enemy and was needed to defeat certain enemies.
GOW3 was the complete opposite, really poor level design, constantly repeating locations how many times did we revisit hades?
or the room where the flame of olympus was? GOW felt like it was set over sections of different areas over different times, GOW3 was the total opposite it felt like it was all set in one house on the same day!
then the weapons were no where near as varied, and neither were the enemies.
2 of the 4 weapons you never need to use besides puzzles.
the nemean whip is pretty much useless, and so are the claws.
you really only need to use 2 weapons the blades for smaller weaker enemies, and the cestus for larger enemies.
thats it!
no where near as varied and catered as what the original was!
and because of that GOW3 became a massive button masher, it does not matter what you do or what you use just mash one button and congratulations you win!
how fun!
im expecting the same from ascension, hopefully it wont be hopefully its allot more like the first but im not holding my breath.
im really looking forward to the story though, its suppose to be the very first GOW game set before kratos did the deal to defeat the barbarian army and he became a slave to the gods.
i wonder how far forward it will go though, will it go through kratos training to become a spartan warrior where he was split up with his brother?
or will it be just before the events where he became a god?
maybe the bulk of the game will be detailing how he became the leader of the spartan army and why they were fighting the barbarians.
i doubt it will go too far back to where kratos and his brother were separated because he was just a kid training then, i dont think that would make for a very fun game.
there probably will be flashbacks maybe even like what uncharted 3 did with drake, but the whole game wont be set that early.
thats just how they are.
crytek has always been known for amazing visuals so of course there going to come out and make this PR talk, simply because thats exactly whats expected of them!
its like Ferrari coming out and saying our next cars going to be the fastest in its price sector, of course there going to say that because that is exactly what fans expect!
if they were to release a slower car, if crytek were to release a graphically disappointing game, well there not going to be doing too well in the sales department!
crytek have always been about flashy graphics so i expect nothing less from them for crysis 3!
however for once id be nice to see crytek put some effort into the PC version and not give us another shonkey console port!
really disgusting considering where crytek started.
i think they have forgotten they would be no one if it was not for the PC community!
if crysis came out on consoles instead of PC you really think crytek would be as famous as they are now?
F*CK NO!
im hacking my way through the witcher 2 now, funny enough im actually enjoying it allot more then the PC version!
dunno why, maybe its just the more relaxed atmosphere lounge instead of upright PC chair.
i have to tip my hat to CD project red on the transfer of this, its absolutely beautiful!
never thought a open world game like this could look so good!
makes skyrim look like a bloody ps2 game!
only thing i wish they added was the ability to sever limbs.
i dunno, it just gets boring hacking into a guy for 5 minutes and nothing happening.
id add for allot more tactility too, do i go for a arm or a leg or whatever, instead of just sitting here mashing attack.
i wish you had the chance to cancel potions though, it gets really frustrating thinking oh this battles going to be really hard so i better drink some potions, then end up breezing through it not needing one of them!
just seriously wasteful!
makes you allot more reluctant to using them in the first place.
Explain to me realistically how GoW's gameplay has been "going down the mountain".
Last edited by bigrailer19 on 4/22/2012 10:03:27 AM
already spent 2 paragraphs explaining that, thats not enough!?
I like counting how many exclamation marks ______ uses.
How many did you count? 😉
haha so do i
HA! That's a lot more fun than actually reading it…nice game!
!!!
pgu: started a play through of ME2 on insanity, but gave up.
(it's a lot harder than me3 insanity)
trying different things in me2 to see what effect they'll have in
my next me3 play through.
PGU: Waiting for Prototype 2 to get shipped from GF, still playing MLB 11 the show just advance to the ALCS with the Tigers by beating the Rangers in 3 games. Still playing ME3 once I beat ME3 going to run though ME2 again to see I can make sure everyone lives in the final mission.
Brought Captain America movie game for 9 bucks and since my birthday is coming up in a few weeks I'm asking the fam to hook me up with a road Detroit Tigers spring training cap, few issues of IDW's TMNT and NHL 12.
Enen though Crytek is hyping itself once again, I have no doubts that Crysis 3 will be great.
As for my own PGU…..
I'm still doing Borderlands and am at the last of my DLC's(I've only got the Crawmerax's Lair mission left to do, but since I die right away each time, I thought I'd wait till I leveled up much more, now at level 47), but this Moxxi's Underdome Riot DLC I've been doing has been treating me like it's little b*tch.
And & due to it's cheating, I can't even get past the 5 rounds of the 1st murder arena called Hell-Burbia.
I don't know how many times so far that I shot my last guy in wave 4 or 5 out of round 4 & as I killed him, he also put me into the death cry at the same exact time. And since he was already killed with nobody else left in that wave to kill, my blood simply drained out of me & that was the end of the whole entire battle.
And then that screws me up even worse, because I'm then thrown back down into the 1st wave of round 3, rather than starting back on the same wave 1 of round I was already on.
So it's been…. get to wave 3 or 4 of round 4 or 5, only to get cheat killed, reverted back to wave 1 of round 3, get up to round 4 or 5 once again, only to get cheat killed again so it's been a constant battle of rinse & repeat…..for 3 frigging nights now already.
And I'm just about to throw in my white surrender towel for the whole DLC.
"AARRRRGGGGHHHHHH"!!!!!!!!!
Last edited by BikerSaint on 4/22/2012 2:40:01 PM
Killzone 3 is cheap so I just bought it.
Sweet, punch Rico in the face for me. The dude talks tough but half the time he can't walk over and revive my because he's a wussy who gets stuck on things and seems unable to go up stairs for the save.
"Hold on buddy, I'm coming for you!"
"I cant get to you! I'm sorry man!"
Will be interesting to hear what you think about it.
Well said on the Crytek piece Ben.
I'm indifferent to the new GoW news. GoW3 was an interesting game, pretty fun, but it wasn't all that special to me. I'd give it a go, though.
PGU: Today's my 21st birthday, and I spent most of it alone, just relaxing. May seem depressing to some, but I love being alone, for the most part. My father came by and gave me some dough, so I ordered UFC 3 and Nier online.
Also, I went back to Dark Souls. I'm no longer cursed, but I've hit a roadblock right now. Guess I'll have to grind out some souls.
Happy Birthday!
"H.B. to ya, JLB1"
Thanks to the both of you.
I am def looking forward to a new God of war game. I have recently started playing the 2 psp games on my PS3 and have really been enjoying them.
PGU: Have started playing skyrim and trials evolution on 360 and am having fun with both titles. On PS3 I have been playing GOW: chains of Olympus and will be getting a vita when I get paid Friday.
Ben, do you know how I can change my email address for PSXextreme?