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Those screenshots are wicked sickâ„¢.  They look half way between Frazetta paintings and that Final Fantasy movie.

EDIT: love the mud slushing up behind the tires of the Scorpion.

Last edited by Metacell (2007-07-17 2:58 am)

ABigSmall wrote:

Bat wrote:

ABigSmall wrote:

...

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Ah yes, just saw the "extra 5 chapters" thing on the Game Head video.

Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but I do wonder if Epic would release a future downloads thing to bring the extra PC-only content onto the 360.

Haven't played Gears at all, so you probably know better than me, but I thought the stop-cover-and-aim method for GoW was well-suited for dual-analogs?

I'd guess the new MP maps would, and the mini-campaign will stay on PC. Any howls from the consolers can be assuaged by announcing GoW 2. Editor stays on PC.

'Stop & pop' should work even better on the PC's mouse and keyboard.

elpato84 wrote:

...controls ...then designed specifically for the 360, after all.

A few more words there.

On controls, this is Epic, and it should be a proper port of a game largely built on PC then optimized for 360. Controls should be fully remappable, and also remember anything with the GFW logo, Live-enabled or not, is required to support the 360 gamepad, so at worst you'd need to spend the ~$20 at Target to get the 360 PC wireless USB adapter- then you'd be able to control GoW PC exactly as you play now on 360. It's a viable option for those more comfortable with the pad.

360 optimizations include using assets tailored to 512MB total RAM and no HDD. There are always advantages and disads to a fixed hardware target, and there's no question that 2GB system RAM plus a 512MB videocard can be better than the 360, at least in some ways. Sweeney, Butcher and a few other tech heavyweights lobbied hard during 360's design phase to keep a HDD standard on all 360s, but MS decided to offer the Core SKU anyway- the HDD was the biggest single money-losing part in the original 'Box. So you wind up not having a hard disk to cache to as all games have to run on Core as well as Premium... there are places you can see things load in from DVD if you watch carefully.

On the flip, Xenos is still more powerful and feature-rich than most installed videocards, but then Gears is the kind of game that typically drives upgrades and makes hardware makers very happy. I'll be very surprised if the DX10/Vista version, at least, doesn't look as good at launch and better down the road, at least, than on 360. Patches will see to that (hardware tesselation is technically DX10.1 but supported in current, 2xxx ATi chips).

Edit: Cliffy did get the idea for the third-person (it's been called it second-person also) perspective from RE4, "because the character would look so smurfing great." But thematically, he'd been wanting to make horror-themed games since he got the idea for Over Fiend in high school. Merging with Scion in 2003 finally gave Epic enough manpower to work on more than one game at once, e.g. UT and GoW.

Last edited by Bat (2007-07-18 3:47 am)

MacZiMiZer wrote:

I agree on the GoW + m/kb = ???

if you pass up the controller, most third person games (no matter the genre) really are more managable with a controller/joystick

I did just fine in Max Payne. I'd not want to use a pad there either. In any case fully remappable means potentially using multiple control devices simultaneously (hell, mouse and keyboard are separate devices).

it sounds awesome, though I doubt I'll have cash after getting my mac pro and UT3/Starcraft 2 and GTA IV for my ps3

When Blizz announced SC2 they reaffirmed their 'no-console' approach. There's your cash. I do think we just got more insight into why Halo 3 is slated for September, tho.

If they went UB though, wouldn't that add a lot of programming time?

So all in all, why buy Windows anymore?

It might.

Because most good games still aren't on the Mac, never will be, and the recent spate of announcements might be a flash in the pan? You like Halo; Mac Halo from 12/03 only recently reached rough parity with Halo PC, and 2.0.2 still gives a few people trouble. Not atypical.

(even ignoring the ease of which one can get a pirated copy for boot camp )

Hey, no talk here.

I think GoW would work fantastic with a mouse and keyboard. If Rainbow Six: Vegas is any indication, (same engine, similar cover system, xbox port..) then it should own. .

*Taps on the chest of Mac gaming*
*Hears a faint heartbeat*
*Pulls the blanket off the head of Mac gaming*

Now all we need is Macs with some decent GPUs and we'll have an industry again.

MacZiMiZer wrote:

So all in all, why buy Windows anymore?
(even ignoring the ease of which one can get a pirated copy for boot camp )

Crysis.

Hey, I love my Tandy!

1000 TX.

Bat wrote:

My TI-99/4a wants its cassette drive back.

I could never get my second-hand tape drive to work with my C64. Anyone have some protips?

Phydeaux wrote:

Bat wrote:

My TI-99/4a wants its cassette drive back.

I could never get my second-hand tape drive to work with my C64. Anyone have some protips?

I have one of those too, in my basement somewhere (My od' man was connected).

Saw it days ago. Complex, difficult to even guess about and needing its own thread to even conjecture about.

Seems like deliberately crippling a game running your engine would be quite a boneheaded move. I can see Epic keeping some advances to itself, but basic playability? Wonder if the other company is trying to hide their own problems from their investors.