GRAW2 (SP Demo)

[Eight Rooks]

Appallingly short after the generous Crackdown demo; yes, I know it's not a sandbox game, but still - "To Be Continued" right in the middle of a god damned fight only five minutes after the start is taking the piss somewhat, IMO. And while I wouldn't go as far as Kotatsu I do think it's technically somewhat... underwhelming. Like the shimmer on the rotor blades, where I feel I can make out the exact area where they've applied some really simple ripple effects, that sort of thing. Enemies also still do sweet FA, it seems - and since in Gears and Vegas they were circling and rushing me from the word go I think I'm justified in pointing that out as a flaw.

On the other hand, hey - more GRAW. The first game was glitched, flawed, too easy and rushed out of the door, but hey, it looked and sounded great and was fun to play. The demo seems to be more of the same at the very least - the first was no classic, and I don't know if I'd pay full price for a "mission pack", but I'll certainly pick #2 up if I get the opportunity.

[anephric]

I was happy when the first helo that appeared in the game didn't turn itself inside out in some miserable polygonal explosion.

Seems quite a bit nippier than the first game - feels like you're running faster, doing stuff faster, not trudging through porridge like the first.

[spagmasterswift]

I broke the helicopter >_<

[Kotatsu Neko]

I wonder if people feel it's more of a map pack because it looks so similar in every department. The demo level is a deserty style one, and there was a lot of that kind of grey/yellow colour in the first game, the multiplayer maps had desert style to them as well.

I dunno, it felt okay to me but very rigid due to me playing so much gears.

Looks like the same texture set by and large, and it wasn't very good in the first place. Far too bitty and scruffy looking, no polish to it. Quite low resolution too. Look at the buildings and wall sections, they're really crudely done - compare them to the ultra high res, zbrush sculpted walls in Gears of War...!

It's a mixture of lazy/rushed/poor art and a no doubt punishing development schedule. Funny thing is, usual Ubi practice is to alternate the sequels between teams, one in Montreal and one done elsewhere, so each year's game will actually have had 2 years of development on it. Not so with this one, it's from the same team as GRAW 1.

I guess another curio related to the rushed development is how it's still using it's own unique engine, and hasn't moved to Unreal 3 like pretty much every other in-house Ubi game. No doubt contributes to the dated looking visuals.

[anephric]

I imagine they were deep in dev on this before Ubi rolled out UE3 and it was too much work to change engines.

[EvilBoris]

I wonder if they still will be using a seperate uglier engine for multiplayer.

[anephric]

I thought GRAW used the same (Yeti) engine for MP, just sans HDR?

[EvilBoris]

I thought GRAW used the same (Yeti) engine for MP, just sans HDR?

It may well of, but everything from the textures to the models looked like they were outta a PS2 game.

Or Maybe the singleplayer actually looks like that when you turn off all the swanky effects.

[chopemon]

graw used an updated summit strike engine for the multiplayer, hence red storm developing it

[Kotatsu Neko]

graw used an updated summit strike engine for the multiplayer, hence red storm developing it

That thing is an old hold over from the Xbox 1 days isn't it? Or maybe an ancient PC engine.

Super dated though, even more than the SP engine.

[anephric]

Aha. I didn't think it looked that bad in MP (not like Splinter Cell: DA multiplayer bad), just less shiny and bloomy.

[Eight Rooks]

Thing is it's not the visuals that'd keep me from going back to GRAW singleplayer, it's the woeful AI. The first game was definitely not without its flaws even at the time, but despite the invisible walls (or mission boundaries or whatever you want to call them) the scale of it was just incredible. I could quite easily see the seams on the city flybys (identical textures everywhere, simple reflections, trees like cardboard cutouts) and I didn't care, it was just so, so good to get any kind of sense that this was a real metropolis, an open environment (if not a genuine one, obviously), that whole jazzed-up US news footage cinematic feel to the whole thing. Nothing on the previous generation had managed it to such an extent and I'd argue Gears still doesn't, fancy texturing, roadie run, chopper cutscenes or not. If the second game pulls this off too I'll take a dated engine and low polygon counts, thanks.

[Pookmunki]

I agree with the mission boundaries point, i didn't mind them being there as missions would have gotten very loose without them, the cities did look fantastic.

[capcom_suicide]

I agree with the mission boundaries point, i didn't mind them being there as missions would have gotten very loose without them, the cities did look fantastic.

Theres a 720p music video up for GRAW2 now. Looks like large cityscapes will continue to be a theme.

The explosions are so good it's worth repeating myself.... wowowowo!

[Kotatsu Neko]

Thing is it's not the visuals that'd keep me from going back to GRAW singleplayer, it's the woeful AI. The first game was definitely not without its flaws even at the time, but despite the invisible walls (or mission boundaries or whatever you want to call them) the scale of it was just incredible. I could quite easily see the seams on the city flybys (identical textures everywhere, simple reflections, trees like cardboard cutouts) and I didn't care, it was just so, so good to get any kind of sense that this was a real metropolis, an open environment (if not a genuine one, obviously), that whole jazzed-up US news footage cinematic feel to the whole thing. Nothing on the previous generation had managed it to such an extent and I'd argue Gears still doesn't, fancy texturing, roadie run, chopper cutscenes or not. If the second game pulls this off too I'll take a dated engine and low polygon counts, thanks.

Most game engines could do that, it was just flying over a special super low detail level filled with boxes for buildings. Remember it cuts away before you actually drop down and land, at which point it switches to the regular level detail linear map.