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Karooo

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Posts posted by Karooo

  1. God of War III

    in Games

    Posted

    Dear sir, it is aPS3 exclusive, so as a recent trend on IVG, anything that is PS3 exclusive...its automatic...things roll that way....

     

    PS3 exclusive = Teh blu ray and cell. its easy to be hyped :D UC2 was pure win though.

  7. God of War III

    in Games

    Posted

    I don’t think I could ever get tired of watching God of War III.

     

    godofwar3a.jpg

     

    I do mean just watching, too. Over the past couple of days, this is the game to have drawn in the crowds. Its booth is regularly the busiest here at the Eurogamer Expo, with excited hordes gathering gleefully around the eight enormous screens. There’s a reason for that, and you don’t even have to actually play it to understand that.

     

    You want evidence? Okay. How about the scene where Kratos grabs Helois, wrestles him to the ground, then slowly rips off his head, with agonising screams and tremendous amounts of spraying blood? Just minutes earlier, Kratos had gouged out another character’s eyes. And earlier still, an enormous, fiery beast towered over a gargantuan courtyard, thumping and stomping around in the distance, before raising a bloody huge foot and clambering up in chase of the player. One of his toes is roughly the same size as Kratos.

     

    The God of War series has always been spectacular, in the most literal sense of the word. But even with that knowledge, even with the reasonable assumption of a glistening cinematic experience… my goodness, God of War III looks impressive.

    Blood soaked

     

    It’s one of the most ludicrously vicious games I’ve ever seen. It’s fearlessly gruesome. It’s soaked in blood and relishes in the breaking of bones. It’s the sort of game that makes the Australian authorities scamper for the big, red censorship button. And it’s absolutely brilliant.

     

    To think that this is several months away from release is astonishing - the level of polish is already staggeringly high. Each animation is inch-perfect, the visual detail flawless, the audio brutal and boomy. Every single cinematic sequence flows seamlessly from the gameplay, rarely taking away control from the player and always, always impressive to a ludicrous degree.

     

    Indeed, the game is a big fan of keeping you in-game. The gorgeously rendered menu screen for the version we played features Kratos’ head, filling the majority of the screen. Starting a new game doesn’t switch you to a loading screen. The camera simply zooms out, then pans around the scene before settling neatly into a third person viewpoint. That gorgeously rendered menu screen was in-game. In-bloody-game.

     

    The camera itself is a highlight. It’s bewilderingly dynamic, flying around at all angles, but never once does it frustrate. Far from it - it swings and zooms beautifully to create a perfect filmic quality while never, ever focusing on anything other than the action. It is always in the right place. It’s about as good as an in-game camera has ever been.

     

    Quick as a flash

     

    godofwar3b.jpg

     

    It’s probably fairly evident that I’m rather enamoured by what I’ve seen of God of War III. Do I have any concerns? Well, not huge ones. Some of the action is slightly fiddly, the on-screen tutorial tips occasionally too thin. The odd sequence or combination of buttons feels slightly unintuitive. But then, this is the sort of thing that could prove to be vastly better in the context of the full game.

     

    Perhaps the biggest disappointment, though perhaps inevitible, is the game’s reliance on quick-time events. It uses them to contribute to the oh-so-wonderful cinematic experience, and it’s difficult to think of a way such sequences could be approached differently, but the frequency with which they appear is slightly annoying. There’s something about the inability to actually, properly perform the spectacular action sequences that grates, just ever so slightly - particularly when the more hands-on, chain-swinging action feels so smooth, so joyously horrible, and so breathtakingly chunky.

     

    But when you’re flying through a tunnel, dodging huge, flaming balls of molten rock… or when the camera swings around to reveal a vast, open, astonishingly beautiful courtyard, before zooming right in to showcase the frankly silly amount of detail on the surface of a rock… or when that head rips off, agonisingly slowly, gruesomely convincing in its animation… that’s God of War III. And if that’s still God of War III come March of next year, it could be a very special game indeed.

     

    http://resolution-magazine.co.uk/content/h...god-of-war-iii/

  15. Post Your Gaming Setup

    in General Chatter

    Posted

    hmmm TV is placed too high.... it should be at eye level when u are seated on your couch/sofa set

    same goes for the speakers.... front n rear should be ate ear level and centre should be below the telly.... never above... :)

     

    :doh: I have done everything opposite of what you said :D

     

    :doh: damn need to remove the speakers now :(

     

    thanks dom :hug:

  17. Suggestions and feedback

    in General Chatter

    Posted

    Most users ever online was 574 on Mar 29 2008, 02:04 AM

    its something unrelated to this thread but didnt know where to ask...what happened on this date and time :P ...does that mean actually 574 people were online in the forum at this particular time????

     

     

    Nope they were guests probably related to N4G i mean even i dunno, for eg : When KC posted GT5 screenshots in N4G Users became 300+ .

  20. God of War III

    in Games

    Posted · Edited by kArooo

    God of War 3 Interview: We talk to the game's director Stig Asmussen to learn new details about one of 2010's biggest games. For the full story, be sure to check out the December 2009 issue of GamePro, which features an exclusive God of War 3 cover story loaded with new info!

     

    God of War 3's director Stig Asmussen recently talked with us about some of the colossal challenges his team faced when bringing Sony's flagship action franchise to the PlayStation 3.

     

    In this exclusive interview with GamePro, which is part of our December 2009 God of War 3 cover story, Asmussen also discusses future downloadable GoW 3 content, why multiplayer won't work in a God of War game, and how the team is still thinking about adding Sixaxis support. Read on for the full interview, plus some exclusive screens and artwork for God of War 3.

     

    GamePro: There are extraordinarily high expectations for God of War 3. The series is coming to a new platform and it's been over two years since God of War II. Do you think you've reached the level of polish that God of War fans expect? Do you feel like you're finally there?

    Stig Asmussen: In theory, yes, I definitely think we've reached that. In practice, no, I think we have a lot of work left to do to get there.

     

    Both of those games, God of War and God of War 2, had an incredibly high level of polish. Everyone understood how much setup we had and what worked in the fiction of the games. We all have to get everything done to make sure everything falls into place with God of War 3.

     

    And if it does, we'll be in really good shape to offer an experience that's as good as, if not better than the previous games. If not, well, everyone will be unhappy.

     

    GP: What was the biggest challenge that came up during the development of God of War 3?

     

    Stig: Well, the biggest challenge is the complexity of everything. Many things that we're trying to do in the game crosses multiple departments. What we used to be able to do was get three or four guys in a room, saying "This is what we're trying to achieve here," and pretty much rest assured that those guys would be able to go off and make that happen.

     

    Now, the technology is so complicated, and the level of detail that's expected is so high and intricate, it crosses multiple departments. So, something that used to take three to four months takes twenty, twenty-five, forty, or even fifty, and requires a level of communication and management that is incredibly complicated.

     

    It could be incredibly small, something you see in the game, like the "Helios Head Rip" for example. That probably involved 15 people to get that one thing done. It took multiple iterations. A lot of that was the process of just learning how to do that, and getting the technology right. And a lot of that process was making sure that the proper communication happened between all those teams of people.

     

    212635-1.jpg

    GP: Do you feel pressure to show some restraint when determining the amount of gore to put in God of War 3? How do you know how far to push the overall level of violence?

    Stig: Well, I think that with the lightning quick kills, that's something that's part of Kratos's character. We have an opportunity on the PlayStation 3 to make those things really come across.

     

    But we've got to be careful because we're treading a fine line, and we want to keep falling into that canonical realm. We always have to make sure that we keep it real personal and in the fiction of the game. When we have these discussions in these meetings about how we execute some of these gory moments, it tends to always get to the point when we're laughing about stuff, and I think once we're laughing, we've probably pushed it too far. [Laughs]

    GP: The demand for providing some sort of multiplayer in games has grown tremendously over the years. Even franchises like Resident Evil, known predominantly for their single-player content, have integrated multiplayer support to satisfy this demand. Have you guys played at all with the possibility of including a multiplayer mode in God of War 3, maybe with co-op? Or is that something that just doesn't fit?

     

    Stig: Well, why don't I ask you a question? How did it work in Resident Evil 5? Do you think it was better, or do you think they should have stuck to a single-player game?

    GP: Well, I thought it took away from the terror, because it's a survival-horror game, and you're supposed to have this overwhelming feeling that your life is on the line. When you have another player who's able to assist you every time you run out of health; that takes away from how scary the game is.

    Stig: Hmm, that kind of sets me up for my response, then. I'm a huge Resident Evil fan, but I got two hours into Resident Evil 5, and I wasn't playing multiplayer, either. I stopped playing, which I've never done before. Previously, I've beaten them all. With God of War 3, there's a story we want to tell and an experience we want to deliver, and multiplayer doesn't fit into that.

     

    Does that mean we don't have conversations about multiplayer? No. Of course we have conversations about multiplayer, and there's a lot of things we think about.

     

    Imagine two Kratos characters running around at the same time. Once you do that, the story becomes something more about an experience between two players and less about something that we're scripting.

     

    So, you have something like Left 4 Dead, which is sweet, but we just decided with this game, there's a certain way that we want to tell it. And staying with what we've done in the past, we want to complete the story in a way that was familiar to everybody.

     

    212635-4.jpg

     

    GP: The challenge rooms have appeared in all the other God of War games and (assuming they'll be in God of War 3) have they evolved in any way? Are you doing something different with them for GoW 3?

    Stig: OK, we'll talk about online, which is one of the things we discussed earlier. It would make a lot of sense to be able to download them. That's something we might see in the future. So, maybe you'll see the game ship with a certain amount of challenges on it, then later on, we might put a download pack out with new challenges. It's a good way to keep the series going.

     

    We have different enemy types to work with, and the enemies do a lot of different things. Challenges are usually based off mechanics that are built in the game, so all the new mechanics will allow us to do different challenges.

     

    For example, now that you have creatures you can ride, maybe we'll put in a challenge where in a certain amount of time you have to get on a Cyclops and kill a certain number of enemies in a certain amount of time. Or, maybe you have to use the Cyclops to get through a certain type of hazard or area or something like that.

     

    So, the new game mechanics are what allow us to create new challenges. Those are something that we usually do really late in development, and we haven't even started on the challenges yet.

     

    There are some ideas in people's heads and other ideas on paper. It'll be interesting to see what we come up with in the next two months.

     

    212635-2.jpg

     

    GP: How long is it going to take to complete God of War 3? Is it a longer experience than previous GoW games?

    Stig: That's tough to answer because we're still tuning it. I think it's safe to say the game should fall in between 10 or 20 hours, depending on how good of a gamer you are. If you're pretty hardcore, you can do it in 10, and if you're very, very casual, you can do it 20.

     

    GP: As far as the large-scale puzzles in God of War 3, do you foresee that these will add a bit more play time to the game?

     

    Stig: Hmm, not that much. If you try to find all the secrets and stuff, you might add another 20 percent on top of it.

     

    Most of that stuff is going to come from the first run. I think people are going to be pretty driven by what their task is at hand. God of War 3 is a very linear game. It's always been a very linear game; so don't expect branching paths or RPG elements or side-quests or anything like that.

     

    GP: Was there anything you had in development really early that you had to change or get rid of all together when making God of War 3?

    Stig: Uh, everything? [Laughs.] Definitely the Titans stuff, it took tons of iterations, and until we launch the game, we won't have it down to a science. But we have a system down where it's definitely going to be worth it.

     

    A lot of things depend on how we "play test". We get people in the room to play the game and if they don't get it, but it makes complete sense to us, we have to adjust it and play test it again.

     

    But, I can't think of anything in particular that we're still spinning our wheels on. To a certain extent, everything you try is a new process, especially when you try it with new hardware. These are things you take for granted and have to be done a bunch of different ways.

     

    212635-3.jpg

     

    GP: With God of War 3, it looks like you guys have really bridged the gap between cinematics and the in-game graphics. In the past these have looked drastically different from one another. Now it's almost not even noticeable. Are there any pre-rendered scenes in the game anymore?

     

    Stig: That's something that we've always strived to get better and better at. I think God of War 2 did it much better than God of War, and the original did that really well for a game of its time.

     

    One of the issues that you're constantly dealing with is that you have things running in the game's engine, assets running as an MPEG, and then you've got the high-resolution footage. Bridging the gap between them, it always creates a whole new series of problems. In God of War 2, we could never get the quality of compression for the high-res assets or the in-game assets to match those same in-game assets.

     

    Plus, they don't run at 60 frames per second, they run at 30. So, even if you got the compression completely dialed in, your eyes will still notice the subtle change.

     

    And then you have the high-res stuff, beautiful high-res cinematics, that we have in the first game. We looked at those and said "we think we can do this, or do better than this, in-game." And if you look at the trailer we put out, with the Titans scaling Olympus, that's all in-game footage, and it looks better than the high-res cinematics we did in God of War 2. So, we achieved that.

     

    The other part of the problem is sometimes you have to make sets so big, there's no way you could render it in-game. You'd still have the MPEG issue where you'd have to use extra memory to render out these massive, massive scenes.

     

    In those cases, we'd create our own custom compression editor that works with the PlayStation 3, and it works really well with the scenes we're showing in God of War 3, where you can't tell when you've gone from cutscene to gameplay. As long as the buffers are all set up properly, they all work great.

     

     

    GP: Is it more of a blessing or a curse to be working on the PlayStation 3? It's an awesome platform, but there's got to be some huge challenges too, right?

    Stig: Well, the tough thing about going to the next generation is that you never really know what the hardware will do until it ships.

     

    You're pretty much ironing out problems until that day, and we're still doing that. But the good thing is that we already had all of our gameplay code from the first two games.

     

    We just enhanced it and built stuff on top of it. We hit the ground running in terms of setting up level design and everything like that. But we had to theorize what the technology was going to do later on down the road. For the most part, it's worked the way we wanted it to.

     

    GP: One of the things you guys eliminated at some point in the development process was the Sixaxis support. Are you completely done with it?

    Stig: No.

    GP: Oh, really?

    Stig: We're not currently using it, but that doesn't mean we won't get something in there by the time it ships. I can see a lot of different uses for it.

     

    We're trying to get everything done with God of War 3 first. But that's something that I would like to use if it feels really good. There's no reason why we can't include pulling off quick yanking motions. Not anything like getting on a balance beam or something like that. [Laughs.]

     

    Also, I don't want to do precision control. It doesn't really suit the game or the kind of things you would expect Kratos to do. For example, when you're ripping off Helios's head, maybe you can shake his head violently with the Sixaxis... if you choose to do that.

     

    http://www.gamepro.com/article/features/21...ayer-wont-work/

  23. Demon's Souls

    in Games

    Posted

    Fallout 3 is an RPG.

     

    It has...

     

    - A fully fledged dialog system and tons of NPCs

    - Proper, well defined quests (from what I know, Demons Souls does not)

    - Pausable combat which never really got frustratingly difficult

     

    And you could actually "role play", not just run from point A to B killing everything.

     

    maybe we should call demon souls action RPG :tongue:

     

    anyways I think you are right but i dunno what category demon souls fall under then :fear:

  24. Demon's Souls

    in Games

    Posted

    I can hardly call the game an RPG. Maybe it has some mechanics, a character progression system and leveling up. BUT it surely doesn't seem to play like a "role playing game". It closer to an action game with elaborately timed attacks and dodges and what not. RPGs are typically not about fighting alone. This is like a hellish spawn of Diablo and Ninja Gaiden.

     

    what would you call fallout 3 then :tongue:

  25. Demon's Souls

    in Games

    Posted

    Well its not that hard once you master the combat system, also the bosses are really epic and i guess its just satisfying to beat the game, but this game isn't for everyone especially not for people with limited time to dedicate for a game.

     

    but RPG whores should get this one.

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