So Everythings Plastic Then

[Mr Pump]

This is really beginning to irritate me now, but how come in many 360 titles everything has to look like it is made out of plastic.

Rare is the worst offender, everything and I mean everything looks like it has been made out of shiney plastic in PDZ. Maybe in the near future we will laminate everything, including somehow water, to make sure we don't get finger marks everywhere but I doubt it.

Quake 4 is the same althought less shiney, just as rubbery. Even Condemned although a great game with some fantastic enemy models decides to laminate its main characters in later cutsceens although oddly not so much early on.

So what do people thing of this, does anyone actually like it and what are the worst examples you have discovered?

Personally I hope this is just the case that early developers haven't yet worked out how to best use these new effects and are just using them to make their games "next gen". Lets hope we will see an end to this over the coming months.

[Nicholas]

Yes, and I found it to be a problem especially in Barbie's Horse Adventures. It looked like all the characters were just plastic dolls, real odd.

In all seriousness, the Doom-engine is supposed to look that freaky, I believe. PDZ is just bad character design, but all-around, I think it's just the developers figuring out the hardware. And ... stuff.

[Lyris]

Isn't it just a case of the technology needed to simulate a real world look not being there?

[Roddie]

good thing the gba micro has a metal case

[PeteJ]

It's not the technology, rather the developers over-using shaders they shouldn't be using. Fight Night, for example, does not look plasticy, however Rumble Roses and DoA4 does.

To be honest I think at the moment developers are getting games they've been developing for the xbox, seeing a quick buck on the 360 and doing a lazy port for the 360. Because the Xbox was cut so short, I think it could be some time before we see what it can really do.

Everything so far has felt like old technology ran through the 360 tumble drier.

[Kotatsu Neko]

It's part artistic direction and part technology still in development.

I'm sure Team Ninja could have made the characters in DOA4 look more real, but Itagaki must like the plastic doll/anime look.

Look at Fight Night as Pete said, or those Crytek Crysis shots that apeared a few days ago. The tech is improving.

[forpey]

Someone (possibly Eurogamer) said that the bump mapping effect making everything look plastic is 'the new lens flare'.

I liked that.

[EvilBoris]

Its true, you only have to look at the few bump mapped walls in halo 1/2 to see the effect starting to creep in.

Far cry Came along with its shiny people and lumpy walls, DOOM 3 was made out of pure grey acrylic, Chroncicles of Riddick was the same, Quake 4 continued the Trend.

I feared that every FPS in the next gen was going to look like that horrible grey goop, But i played Fear and it kept away from that effect most of the time, same with condemned which avoided it apart from on the people.

I don't actually think PDZ suffers from it that bad, apart from on the snowy levels where the titanium rocks look a bit odd. It gives the lab levels a cool high tech sheen, and at least they still have colour unlike DOOM 3.

As people have said, the technology has already moved on from bump mapping (or they can just apply it better).
Look at gears of war for example, it looks like its heavily bump mapped, but something is slightly different as its not all shiny, it has a matt sheen to it.

I'm sure its something that will become less and less noticeable as the tech gets better

[Tobal]

Rumble Roses and DoA have always looked like that, as the style there going for is something very similar to anime/manga art. As for Rare, its just a bad character design and at least proved they can do it in the past with Conker and co(the recent Conker remix wasn?t plastic looking), but the characters in PDZ really stink, it a cross between a the current terrible American cartoon art and Anime styling and just comes off looking ****.

[vertigo]

On the plus side, the next Barbie Horse Adventures game will look absolutely amazing.

[forpey]

Heh heh!

Army Men could make a Next Gen comeback.

[Duddyroar]

PDZ is just bad character design

Don't let Wil hear you saying that...

[Kotatsu Neko]

Don't let Wil hear you saying that...

It is though, it's awful!

I wish western devs would stop pretending to be Japanese.

[MattyD]

The devs are just over-using the same old shaders, as someone else has already pointed out. You have to ask why though - I think it's just because the hardware is new and they haven't figured out how to impliment their own effects yet, so they're falling back on the hardware effects. If I remember rightly not one of the launch titles is multi-thread, for example. Things will probably improve over time.

[Wools]

It is though, it's awful!

I wish western devs would stop pretending to be Japanese.

Oh please!