Aboutgameusurper Expertise TOPICS I can answer questions about:
Game Strategy, Recommendations (based on age or genre preference), History of a game, Recalling a game you played, Game music, Company or Creator info, and System troubleshooting
GENRES:
My specialties are Adventure, RPG, Survival Horror, Action, and a small amount of Strategy and Puzzle. I avoid sports games like the plague, and have little interest in any racing games save for a few, F-Zero, Mario Kart and Wipeout being the main ones. Nor do I know many fighting games, mainly Bushido Blade and a few others. I am not much of a fan of First Person Shooters either. I am especially well versed in RPGs, particularly Final Fantasy and most of SquareEnix's other titles.
GAMES:
Not limited to the following. These games are series, and I know them all. There are MANY other individual ones. Feel free to ask and I will let you know if I can help you.
Actraiser, Alundra, Breath of Fire, Bushido Blade, Castlevania, Chrono Trigger/Cross, Donkey Kong, Dragon Warrior/Quest, Drakkhen/Dragon View, Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, King's Field, Legacy of Kain/Soul Reaver, Mana, Mario, Mega Man, Metal Gear Solid, Ninja Gaiden, Metroid, Parasite Eve, Resident Evil, Rygar, Silent Hill, Spyro, Star Fox, Suikoden, Tomb Raider, TMNT, Wild Arms, Xenogears/Xenosaga, Zelda, and Zone of the Enders
SYSTEMS:
I have recently added the Wii and PSP to my collection. NES, Super NES, N64, Gamecube, Wii, Gameboy Color, GBA, DS, PS1, PS2 and PSP plus computer, but I'm not really a big computer gamer.
Systems I plan on getting in the future are XBOX 360 and eventually PS3 (When the price goes down...a lot) I am also a big fan of emulators on the PC. I have many of the old 8-bit and 16-bit systems and ROMS for my computer and know a lot about them. These include NES, Super NES, Genesis, Turbografx, MSX, Gameboy, Gameboy Color, and GBA.
Experience I have been a video gamer for nearly 20 years. I started with the original NES way back in 1988 and have owned or played nearly every popular console since then. I have completed hundreds of games and played thousands. I have a large file cabinet filled with hundreds of hand-made maps, lists, and various stategies for many of the games I have conquered in the past two decades. I subscribe to 5 different game magazines to keep up to date on the newest stuff out there. I would officially call myself an expert on the subject of videogames. And if I don't know the answer, I can find out about it and direct you to someplace that does.
Publications Nintendo Power magazine, and I am thinking of writing for Gamegrene and GameFAQs in the future.
Education/Credentials Experience with games baby, and lots of it. Nothing formal if that's what you're wondering. Just good old playing and reading.
Question QUESTION: With the current consoles (Xbox 360 and PS3)they seem to have a hard time developing games that have truly great graphics along w/ outstanding physics and true HD 1080p.
Their are always compremises were they add something, but then later had to make something else loose the quality.
Eg: GTA IV - Having real game physics, but just good graphics.
MGS4 - Great gameplay and story w/ great audio quality, but rumors state that Hideo Kojima was not satisfied with the graphics.
Gears of War - Rumors say that on the 360 they had to remove a couple of things so the game can run on the Xbox 360. This is why the PC version was better in quality.
Question: Why can't they make a game that has great graphics, physics, story along w/ great multiplayer? Also having the game run at true 1080p and a steady framerate of either 30 or 60fps.
PC guys always talk about having great resolution along w/ high framerate.
ANSWER: Well, I hate to say it, but those with computers do have a distinct advantage when it comes to running high-end, processor-pushing, graphic intensive software. Or a disadvantage, if their computers aren't beefy enough and can't handle it. Just the fact that you can upgrade your RAM and video card on a PC, not to mention the CPU and motherboard to get better speeds, is what makes computers far superior in their ability to adapt to what game companies throw at them. The downside to this is that you have to spend more money to keep a top of the line gaming computer current with the newest chips and boards.
You may be thinking, why don't game companies just forget consoles and develop solely for PC's. But everything is not warmth and sunshine. Game companies have it hard with computers too. They have to balance what they want to create with what they can market to the general public. Say they go and create a game that you have to have the newest, bad-ass hardware in order to run. Not only are they limiting their audience to only those that have this hardware or are willing to upgrade to play their game. But they may also alienate a lot of their previous fan-base (if they are an established company) that just can't pull together the coin to upgrade.
So they need to find a happy medium between what they want to create, and what kinds of systems the majority of the gaming populace is likely to have. This is not a problem on a console as everyone has the same thing. Of course, a game that is created on a console will probably be better graphically on the PC if it is released on it. It just makes sense to give the PC owners sharper graphics and lighting on their games. That is why they have the computers to begin with, to enjoy these types of perks.
A computer monitor by default nowadays is able to display at least 1024x768 resolution. That is more than twice the resolution of a standard TV. Many monitors, particularly the widescreen ones, can go to nearly 2000x1400 or so. I do not have one of these, but they are around. This is some sharp-ass graphics. For a game company to rob the computer owners out of being able to utilize this increased resolution when they paid for the monitor to be able to run things at it, is stupid. Ever try and run a game designed for 480i resolution on a computer monitor? It looks bad. Hence why many games get upgraded when ported to PCs.
Now I know what you are thinking, well I play my 360 or PS3 on a 52" hi-def 1080p uber wide flatscreen. Good for you. Most people can't afford those, nor do they have a need for them. I know I don't. Yes I may be missing out on sharper graphics, but I can still play the games. Since being able to display games at such high resolutions is not standard among the majority of the TVs in the country, the graphics are less than what you would see on a computer.
For an example of this resolution disparity in action, hook up a 360 or PS3 to a NORMAL TV displaying standard 480i resolution with something like component cables. (the separate red, green and blue video cables) This is my setup by the way. Now play the game and see how the colors, even with the high-end component cables, bleed into each other a bit and how the scanlines on the actual TV screen show through the graphics?
Now get yourself the Nintendo emulator Nestopia and some NES roms (google it) off the internet and save them on your computer. Go into the video settings for your monitor and make sure it is on 1024x768 or higher. Then go into the video settings of the emulator after you start it and set it to match whatever the monitor resolution is. Make sure you do not have any graphic filters selected. Now start a rom and look at the graphics. I almost guarantee that if you did this the way I said that the regular Nintendo graphics on your computer are sharper and crisper with better edges and color definition than whatever the system on your TV is showing. Stupid, huh? This is how big of a difference even a standard computer monitor has over a standard TV.
As far as framerate goes, this is affected by the amount of RAM a computer has as well as the video card. If the computer is not up to snuff with what it is trying to play, it will suffer. My laptop trying to play WoW is an example of this. It has a 64MB graphics card with 512MB RAM. It can run WoW, barely. And what is there does not look pretty at all. I can only turn in cardinal directions and I only see every 4th frame of animation or so. Oh and this is with every graphic effect turned down all the way down or off. Now my tower, on the other hand, has a 256 MB graphics card and 2GB RAM. WoW runs absolutely flawlessly with every graphical effect maxed out. This is how different two computers can be.
Many games have options for the PC versions to INCREASE the framerate from 30 to a full 60 if you are capable of running it. The home console versions may be forced to stay at a steady 30 since that may be all the system can handle for that kind of game. You must also remember that that increase in animation frames takes space, space that may not be able to be spared. And if you are worried about the difference between a 30 and 60FPS framerate, don't be. After 30FPS or so, the human brain and eye has diminishing returns to the point where further increases get less and less noticeable. Also it is nice to know that computer monitors only display in progressive scan, where standard TVs generally use interlaced video unless they are progressive scan compatible. You can read about Frame Rate here:
The 360 and PS3 on the other hand, are limited in that they are sold as is and the games that are made for them have to adapt to what the console is capable of, not the other way around. This is one of the reasons console add-ons fail more often than not. The audience that plays console games doesn't want to invest more dough into buying something that will only marginally increase the ability of their console. See Sega's 32X and CD add-ons for prime examples of this. Also Nintendo's 64DD for the N64 that never came out here.
Though I doubt that game makers have completely harnessed the possibilities of the current consoles, they are probably on their way. You start seeing the really good stuff about 1-2 years into a console's life cycle. How Kojima-san could have been dissatisfied with the graphics of MGS4, I don't see. But that is his baby after all and he has been nose deep in development of all the games for the past decade. So he would know. Just to me, the average laygamer, they have done a superb job and I would need a microscope to see the faults that may be plain as day to him.
When it comes to sacrificing anything, in the XBox 360's case I suppose you could legitimately claim that they just ran out of room on the disc. But you really can't go there with the PS3 as Blu-Rays hold nearly 50 GIGS of data. Some of the mediocre (in my opinion) titles that have been made for PS3, even with this massive amount of storage space, are just not up to what the console should be capable of if you ask me. But like I said, the developers need a grace period to get their heads around the new hardware and fully utilize all it has to offer.
I assume you realize that all the shiny paint that we get with games nowadays; nearly movie quality CGI cutscenes, full voice acting, a symphony playing the soundtrack and the physics engine all take up a LOT of space. And it's funny, but as space allowances increase with new technology, so to do the amount of the aforementioned items seem to as well. It's like when people who have no idea how to manage money hit the lottery. They are rich and living it up for a while, but then they realize they have spent too much and are back to where they started. Same idea. What once looked like a lot of space is suddenly eaten up by more voice and more CGI.
Just look at how much space a movie takes up on your computer if it is not compressed. Though I do realize game companies can use some MAD compression techniques to fit things on a disc, if you compress stuff too far, you start sacrificing space for quality. The same goes for sound and music quality.
Also, the more you start allowing environment and character interaction options in a game, or more realistic physics, the more space that must be allocated to the back end to make these systems work and the less that is available on the front end of the game. (the graphics and what the player sees) It really is a balancing act.
Computers have the advantage of being able to download stuff to your hard drive that the game needs to run smoother. Consoles don't tend to have their games require this since, up until this generation, hard drives in home video games were completely optional. Since a CD must spin and the laser must read it and then interpret and process the data, the fact that console games run solely off the CD makes things slower. Slower load times equals less of an ability to keep high frame rates among other things.
With computer games, you install much of the game on your computer hard drive, which consequently smokes a CD or DVD player in a console by alot. And this is not even factoring in things like RAID configs and overclocking that hardcore guys do to their computers to make them even FASTER. Thus you can do things faster because the game can access things faster. Sometimes whole games can be downloaded onto a computer and played without the disc. A console can only ever download a fraction of what is on the disc and store it in internal memory at one time.
So, really the reason why you see these large gaps in performance between a computer and a console is because it is inherent with the design of the two machines. Computers, especially high-end gaming computers can beat home consoles walking while the console is running its ass off.
I hope my explanations have been useful to you. By the way, sorry it took so long.
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: Your answer was truly great, but i wasn't really asking the difference between PC and consoles. My mistake....I didn't make it clear.
My question is: Why can't game developers make a game that has great graphics, physics, story along w/ great multiplayer? Also having the game run at true 1080p and a steady framerate of either 30 or 60fps. On the PS3 and Xbox 360
So far the only game i know or heard of that has 60fps w/ full 1080p resolution is Gran Turismo 5.
Answer I don't think it's really a matter of they can't make a game that runs at those high framerates and resolution. It's that they don't really need to. As I mentioned in my previous answer, the human eye doesn't really discern further difference in framerate once you hit 24-30FPS. So seeing as the entire upper half of the FPS scale would be wasted if all companies chose to allow their games to run at 60FPS. It is probably just a toss-up between whether they want or need to run a game at those levels or if they can use those resources somewhere else.
In the case of Gran Turismo 5, being the leading racing franchise that displays the technology of current consoles, they more than likely chose to go 60FPS and 1080p to display as mush detail and allow the smoothest physics. Being a racing game, where the ability to turn and have utmost control over your car is paramount, they would actually benefit from the 60FPS. Not in the displaying of the graphics, but in the responsiveness of the controls. The more frames you have, the more possible sensitivity you can have to the controls.
In other kinds of games, the developers probably felt that it was not necessary to have this increased responsiveness in the controls. And seeing as there really is no benefit in graphics display due to the limitations of the eye, chose not to have their games capable of these framerates. If you look at the real world, we don't see in 60FPS sight, so having human characters in games being able to move at these rates isn't really necessary. Also, racing games are some of the few games where the thing you control can exceed the speeds we are used to seeing in daily life, hence why they may have chose to use the higher rates. To display this sense of speed better.
Also, realize that game companies are just getting to the point where they can fully harness what these next-gen consoles are capable of. The first wave of games on consoles is not really the best place to make comparisons of whether they are fully taking advantage of what they have at their disposal. It could simply be that Gran Turismo 5 is where that trend will begin to change and companies will, little by little, take advantage of the 360 and PS3 abilities in these arenas.
And I don't know if you have noticed this or not. But whenever you have a new system that allows for a greater level of graphical ability, most of the time, developers tend to try and max out that area of the game first before they start taking advantage of other things. This may simply be what is happening here. Once we get over our 'ohh, look at the pretty pictures' phase with these systems and begin concentrating on other aspects, you may well see things starting to change in those areas. Either way, particularly in the area of framerate, I wouldn't worry much about how high it is as your body doesn't really care. The higher resolutions are where there is the most noticeable difference.
