Forums | MacLife

Malkin wrote:

And it's sure to remain that way if he can't get beyond the idea that the best games are all about making the same things over and over just with better graphics.  I hope he doesn't honestly believe that.

It's helpful to realize who he is and what he does. He is the chief architect of the Unreal engine. He doesn't design content or games, just the engine that powers them.

To that end, so long as he gives the other developers tools to make whatever they want with the engine - and without a doubt, the Unreal engine is extremely capable in this regard - then trying to pin him down as someone who is fps-focused is missing the point. The Unreal engine is, in a broad view, a composite of a graphics engine, a physics engine and a scripting component. What other developers make out of these pieces is entirely up to them - be it a first-person shooter, an RPG, another Katamari Damacy or Tetris.

Brad Oliver wrote:

Bat wrote:

"Propitiate?" Reef, is all this verbiage some sort of sublimation? You could just follow the MB38 way and ressure yourself furiously.

I consider myself well-acqainted with "fancy talk", but I'm fixin' to embarrass someone here - and I hope it isn't me.

So..."ressure"? What in tarnation does that mean?

Typo. Reassure... I was riffing on MB38's tendency to throw out various

::[some verb]s himself furiously:: sorts of replies without 'working blue.' MB tends to riff on the self-pleasuring theme, altho not for a coupla months IIRC. I was implying reef might instead just do... something furiously, instead of the fancy wordplay. Going for the funny.

Doesn't matter what was running the demos.  They were just demos, after all, and the issue at hand is the controller (it is, isn't it?)...nothing else is really relevant to the discussion, or concrete enough to bother brining up except to dump FUD all over it.

Bat- in light of this becoming far more serious than either of us intended, I'm only going to hit the "most important" bits.

I still think it's gotten a bum rap largely thru misplaced expectations.

I did have high expectations, of course, but even as a normal FPS it bored me. Ah well.

OK. It was awhile back, but I remember you reporting playing up until about the point the demo ends, give or take.

Regardless, my issues with it had already manifested themselves. Perhaps the action and story were worth getting into, but I had been annoyed enough that it simply wasn't worth my time.

[...]I can't imagine enjoying it on Xbox. It's just not a good port candidate, and what I find good about it wouldn't translate, especially played on thru Xies' controller.

That might be part of the control issues, certainly. But unless they changed the dialogue and story between console and PC games, then I doubt I would have liked it anyway.

I wasn't being condescending; I don't think you have enough knowledge on those specifics to make an informed judgement.

See, I still find that condescending. I have enough knowledge to make the statement I made, which is that I didn't enjoy Unreal 2. Rather, "Unreal 2 was awful," which is a judgment call.

You could dredge up the Halo /Metroid thing- which was never settled, just locked- but I really don't have time, and you still haven't finished Halo either, AFAIK, so your judgements on their relative merits would be weakened too. Myself, I only ever got into the graphics part, and you still don't have the rig to see either at their best.

Now this is where we could really start arguing. The Halo/Metroid debate -- correct me if you disagree -- centered most heavily around the the games' respective atmospheric quality. I don't think one needs to have the most pristine graphics hardware to judge atmosphere; however, I would think that one needs to have at least seen both games in action for an extended length of time, and perhaps even played them both, to participate. I've beaten neither game -- it's a habit of mine -- but played each well past the 50% mark, and logged countless hours replaying favorite bits.

You say that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" about my judging a game based on its first few levels, and yet have no qualms about participating in a debate about game atmosphere based solely on screenshots and IGN videos. That's beyond me.

Now, I will admit completely that I was mistaken about the Epic/Unreal2 connection. I don't know the games industry inside-and-out, nor do I follow games engines as heavily as you. I play games and talk about the ones I like. I very much liked Unreal 1 and knew that Tim Sweeny was the developer, but never bothered to figure what role Epic played (dev, pub, etc.). I assumed Unreal 2 was by the same developer. Since it wasn't, I was wrong to associate Epic with Unreal 2. My apologies to Tim for blaming that game on him.

OK, just some of my takes on the bits you cite.

reefdog wrote:

I still think it's gotten a bum rap largely thru misplaced expectations.

I did have high expectations, of course, but even as a normal FPS it bored me. Ah well.

Early on, as a shoooter it's kind of weak. Later it gets, progressively, way, way better, with some of the best weapons and action I've seen, including the much-praised 'defense' scenarios. You get an array of fixed defenses to deploy in a great variety of ways- MG and rocket turrets, energy fences. A great deal of good detail work, well executed.

OK. It was awhile back, but I remember you reporting playing up until about the point the demo ends, give or take.

Regardless, my issues with it had already manifested themselves. Perhaps the action and story were worth getting into, but I had been annoyed enough that it simply wasn't worth my time.

I don't think I'd want to play it on the 'Box. The story gets pretty good by the end, but isn't terribly original or the game's strong suit. Serviceable. The action gets progressively better.

[...]I can't imagine enjoying it on Xbox. It's just not a good port candidate, and what I find good about it wouldn't translate, especially played on thru Xies' controller.

That might be part of the control issues, certainly. But unless they changed the dialogue and story between console and PC games, then I doubt I would have liked it anyway.

It grows on you, tho it doesn't get very good for some ways.

I wasn't being condescending; I don't think you have enough knowledge on those specifics to make an informed judgement.

See, I still find that condescending. I have enough knowledge to make the statement I made, which is that I didn't enjoy Unreal 2. Rather, "Unreal 2 was awful," which is a judgment call.

I was just saying you didn't play far enough, or on the right platform, to find out that it's not awful.

You could dredge up the Halo /Metroid thing- which was never settled, just locked- but I really don't have time, and you still haven't finished Halo either, AFAIK, so your judgements on their relative merits would be weakened too. Myself, I only ever got into the graphics part, and you still don't have the rig to see either at their best.

Now this is where we could really start arguing. The Halo/Metroid debate -- correct me if you disagree -- centered most heavily around the the games' respective atmospheric quality.

The debate I'm referring to centered on graphics; there had just been some kind of award given for best console graphics and a thread started on that. Anyway, it's late and I need to attend other things, so maybe another time for the rest.

(At least you'll agree that the originals' graphics contributed a lot to the atmoshere we both enjoyed? Did you play U1 on a console, btw?)

Twisted Guy wrote:

Doesn't matter what was running the demos.  They were just demos, after all, and the issue at hand is the controller (it is, isn't it?)...nothing else is really relevant to the discussion, or concrete enough to bother brining up except to dump FUD all over it.

Well, I had a different impression, as if you meant there was some kind of dev kit or early-version Revo hardware inside the Revo shell. I'm still not keen on any controller, so one that gave me a m/kb option would still be better for me, esp. for FPSs; and technologically you can't turn back the clock or stay stagnant. I played all thru Unreal 1 and its expansion pack this summer, but it was fine seeing it run thru today's hardware, 16x12, 6X FSAA/ 16X AF and still nearly locked at 70 f/s.

I do go back and play old games, but I need advancements too. Anyway, as I keep saying, I'm not really a console guy.

IcarusFountain wrote:

Now, can we all zip up and let bygones be bygones?

We would, but Bat won't let us.

Brad Oliver wrote:

Malkin wrote:

And it's sure to remain that way if he can't get beyond the idea that the best games are all about making the same things over and over just with better graphics.  I hope he doesn't honestly believe that.

It's helpful to realize who he is and what he does. He is the chief architect of the Unreal engine. He doesn't design content or games, just the engine that powers them.

So in other Words he is B!tching about it because its to hard for him to design an engine that will run on the Next Nintendo??


Shaggy

Yup.

This is a forum.

Shaggy