Gears of War 2

[JP]

It makes sense that there will be the loads of the old style gameplay too but I suppose the on-rails section would have been a good one to choose for the video as it gives them the option to show off the much more open landscape while keeping the player confined without the use of crappy invisible walls.

It'd be nice if they managed to open up the main game a bit too I think but not to the UT3 scale of that environment.

Thats what I thought too, I'm sure it wont all be like that. Rollercoaster rides are fun, but I like to have a bit of down time in these games to catch my breath.

[MJ]

I've just watched the footage from the Marketplace and November cannot come soon enough! I think days off will be booked for this. It's good see the 360 finally gets Brumaks and the chainsaw move is there from the teaser trailer. I like the Locust shield and neck break. The Lancer looked different.

[Matt]

It's funny that, because I remember being bowled over by how jag free Bioshock appeared to be at 1280*720 with no AA. Perhaps it is just the benefit of games running the proper damn resolution they should do!

Actually you mentioning Bioshock has reminded me that, on the PC at least, it did have AA. So that kind of scuppers what I wrote about the engine. I know you can force UT3 PC to AA by messing around and renaming ut3.exe bioshock.exe, and forcing AA in the nVidia drivers. However that only works on nVidia hardware, not ATI, which the 360 has. So there must be more to it.

Even then, technically you're not getting PROPER AA. The AA is applied earlier in the pipeline so it doesn't affect bloom and some other effects, and the colour samples aren't technically correct.

Just read online Mass Effect 360 does have AA "sometimes" as well. So I really don't know what the engine is doing Obviously it can do AA on 360 some of the time.

So now I'm not sure

Bioshock on the 360 was 720p with no AA, like Gears 1 and seemingly Gears 2. I think it's asking a lot for the engine to look this good and have AA on a 360. The post processing really does makes jaggies less obvious than many other 360 games.

Given how it's becoming increasingly common for the big console games to be more like 600 to 640 than 720 (cod4, halo3) I think the Unreal engine is pretty amazing.

[PhilG]

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but doesn't the 360 GPU provide 'free' AA? I'm sure I've read that before.

[Matt]

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but doesn't the 360 GPU provide 'free' AA? I'm sure I've read that before.

It allows up to 4xMSAA tiling via the edram, but nothing is exactly "free". I can't recall off the top of my head, but selecting it limits some other graphical options on the GPU.

The big problem is MSAA (multisampling AA) isn't FSAA (full screen) and doesn't really work that great in deferred rendering pipelines - 2xMSAA will double the amount of shadow rendering. And pretty much every engine is going the deferred route these days, as it offers some great speed incentives.

Sweeney- Gears of War runs natively at 1280x720p without multisampling. MSAA performance doesn't scale well to next-generation deferred rendering techniques, which UE3 uses extensively for shadowing, particle systems, and fog.

I'd imagine 4xMSAA would incur a four fold cost in rendering shadows and these other effects, which would kill the game.

On the PS3 you can use Quintox AA with deferred - Killzone 2 is 720p QAA.

The trouble is simply all these variations on AA are "optimised" versions, and none do it properly. FSAA is the only correct way to get AA imo, but then you're rendering 4 times the screen and downsampling. Going to take a while before you get that on consoles!

[Spatial]

Bloody MS!

Tried to download the footage and got "This item is not availiable in your area"

Had to use my UK account to grab it.

[Rossco]

Just looks a bit meh to be honest. I'll probably end up buying it somehow but seems the same old stuff. I noticed myself alot in the last year or so being less and less easily impressed by games. It's early doors yet though..

[Dazzyman]

Looks amazing. I dont want em to change anything from 1st one only add a few bits like they have, 1st one never needed fixing was perfect enough

[Matt]

I hope you can knock people of the fixed execution animations. So annoying, see someone going to stamp on your teammates head, you can't do anything about it.

[EvilBoris]

Hopefully it will support one of Natural Motion's animation system, EPIC were advertising for programmers to integrate it into UE3

[prinnysquad]

I'm really impressed by that footage. That mission seems to have a grander scope and busier environment than any on the first game. Bigger indeed.

[SuperBeatBoy]

I totally agree. The brumak chase and the new design of the chainsaw are awesome.

[Dazzyman]

I really hope we get the extra 5chapters as a flashback on 360 even as a unlockable for completing it as their fantastic on PC, Brumak was best boss fight in the game.

[randombs]

Just saw it, had my jaw dropped throughout the whole thing.

I especially loved the number of enemies on the ground running about, and the sheer amount of things going on at the same time. I always prefer scale and numbers to individual model quality in games like this, as I rarely have opportunities to just stop and stare at the textures and whatnot.

I love how big and chunky everything is, but I just hope they don't tread too much old ground. Controls, enemies and whatnot are fine, but I wouldn't want to sit through too many on-the-rails bits (at least in the video you had control within the space) like the boring car bit at night in gow1 (although I love those freaky flying things that muller you in the dark, looking up and seeing them in their thousands was a sight and a half).

Although I'd be glad for just more of the same, as I loved gow1 (and I didn't even play multiplayer at all)

[MattyD]

I can't imagine the whole game will be like that. The game's selling point was using cover and close quarters combat so this is almost certainly just a set peice. It also makes for a good video as someone else said as it's easier for viewers to get a sense of what's going on.