@DarthNocturnal Oh thats good to hear, I think I'll probably end up getting one eventually to play Hellblade 2 and Obsidians new game(Fallout New Vegas is one of my favourite rpgs).
My journey through the Gears series continues. Finished Gears of War 2. Awesome game, really picks up pace during the second half. Definitely preferred it to the first game.
Just started Gears of War 3 now. About 4 hours in. I like that they've tightened up the controls quite bit, but what's with the massive change in visual style they've gone with? Gears 1 and 2 were almost defined by that dark gritty style. Gears 3 has been entirely colourful so far, with outdoor environments and the sun shining. It's a really weird change in tone for no apparent reason.
Yeah I remember there was that period when everything tried to be dark and gritty, almost as if games were trying to prove they're not for kids anymore.
But I didn't realize Gears of War ditched that before Gears 4. It kinda messes with the whole tone of the game.
Digital Foundry explains why Halo infinite looks like this and the good news is that the problem will be fixed with the ray tracing patch (Series X).
Basically, unlike cinematic games like The Last of Us II that uses static lighting (with a lot of inconsistencies), Halo Infinite uses dynamic lighting and what was shown was basically within a shadowy area, away from the sun and with no artificial lighting. This makes textures look flatter than they really are.
why these cute/girlie whatever games needs to be Microsofts 1st party titles? Because if those girly games are 3rd party and multi console release, i will consider either Nintendo or PlayStation version as both of them are easily to be purchased here in Indonesia than Xbox games.
Xbox brand is totally dead in Indonesia
I'll bite too. Then why do you care if you can't buy Xbox consoles and games in your country? Those games don't sell that much on any platform anyway, the best-selling Japanese games are another kind of games: Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Persona, Pokemon... Stop posting that there arent's girly quirky Kawaii games on Xbox because once is enough and that is not going to change.
Basically, unlike cinematic games like The Last of Us II that uses static lighting (with a lot of inconsistencies), Halo Infinite uses dynamic lighting and what was shown was basically within a shadowy area, away from the sun and with no artificial lighting. This makes textures look flatter than they really are.
Eh, I think a lot of it's a stylistic choice too. They're making an open-world environment that they're trying to have running at 60fps. You need to make some sacrifices to achieve that. So one way is to just go for a bit more stylized visuals. Even in the previous trailer, that male character doesn't look that realistic. He already looked a bit cartoony.
@Dezzy Also that they're supporting a much weaker console, with supporting much weaker consoles you sometimes have to decide whether to compromise the performance of the much weaker console or scale back the whole experience. Gears 5, Forza Horizon 4, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, etc. chose the former meanwhile it seems Halo Infinite chose the latter.
Yeah and they've been working on it for like 4 or 5 years, so chances are they probably intended it to be just an Xbox One game for a large part of development. Which probably has held it back to some extent.
@Dezzy I haven't played Gears 4....that's interesting they changed the art style so much. I also didn't realize that. I'm kind of glad though. The originals were too "brown", or really they had too narrow a color palette and it made everything blend in with each other unnaturally. They were a product of their time...but that time did kind of suck.
@BlueOcean It's funny how fickle consumers are. When people talk about what they want in "next gen graphics" they say "more realistic" - yet what they apparently mean is hyperrealism that doesn't exist in the real world designed to maximize appearances artificially. Like when they boost the saturation of TVs in the store to make one brand look "better" because it looks entirely fake.
I still find it depressing though on a level that makes me really take a step back from the gaming scene in general. If the big argument that comes from the XBox show is "oh good those horrible graphics just need ray tracing and then all will be right with it", something is really broken in gaming. And it's not new. Yokoi said it would happen 25+ years ago. Bad graphics can break a good game, but it seems like all the market really cares about is how the screens and trailers look, gameplay be darned. It basically means EA has been right all along. I lived through that in my PC era as well....Crysis and the like. Having 2 (or 3!) the latest $700 card in linked SLI mode, liquid cooled, to run the newest tech demo with mediocre afterthought gameplay in max settings, smooth 60fps, and 1600x1200 res was all that really mattered to much of the player base. Console was much better...until now.
Death Stranding looks like a PS3 game outside the cutscenes, but nobody notices because the cutscenes wow everyone. Halo Infinite looks like an X1X game all the time and everyone gripes because the cutscenes don't wow. Spiderman 1.5 looks "true next gen" running at current gen refresh and everyone applauds the power of "next gen." Ratchet & Clank doesn't look different in my head to the PS4 Ratchet....I adore that game entirely....but the graphics were already good. I don't see what people are going on about.
On PC at the time, gaming wasn't about games, it was a p$$$$$g contest between rich boys over who could buy the most expensive rig, and between insecure tech nerds who needed to prove they could tune x% more performance out of the hardware. Running the same level for 5 minute demos of the graphics became "gaming." Now that's moved to console.
@Dezzy I don't think that the dynamic lighting is an artistic choice and I haven't mentioned anything else. The dynamic lighting is better by definition but gameplay trailer takes place in the shadow out of the sunlight and without artificial light. Once they use ray tracing it will get better. I didn't mention it but yes, the art style is different, it's a little part of the video.
@Grumblevolcano It looks like they aren't pushing the graphics as much as other titles so performance isn't a big issue on Xbox One but, at the same time, the environments are huge and the game looks good all things considered. I think they will polish the graphics, especially on Series X, and ray tracing should change the look drastically.
@NEStalgia Death Stranding looks better outside of cinematics than Halo Infinite ever does, based on what I've seen. Ghost of Tsushima looks better than both. And The Last of Us Part II? Even gameplay footage looks next-gen, IMO. It's seriously impressive.
I think the bigger problem with Halo is that it's a shooter with bland art design that has never really evolved aesthetically. There's a lot more to how visually impressive a game is than what resolution it's running at.
The Medium is pretty gorgeous, and has the sort of visual presentation I'd expect from a next-gen title.
I don't think Halo Infinite looked bad per se. It looks like an Xbox One game. That's not a bad thing at all, since it's coming to Xbox One. But may not be the best way to showcase the Series X. About the lighting; dynamic lighting can explain why it looked a bit flat. It's just weird that they didn't have the ray-tracing enabled to show off the Series X version.
Dynamic lighting is definitely not "better by definition". I don't know where you're getting that idea from. It just depends on what type of scene is being rendered.
It's generally better for open-world games, because they tend to have a moving directional light (day and night cycles) and also tend to be quite large in size, meaning that baking any kind of lighting at high quality would require a huge amount of extra memory.
@Grumblevolcano Like a 2021 update? It feels a bit like the opposite of BOTW. A game that was held back for next gen. Halo Infinite looks like it was in development for Xbox One, but instead of being held back, it feels like they're rushing it to get it out on Series X day one. That's the feeling I'm getting, but maybe I'm wrong.
@Grumblevolcano nothing wrong with xbox wanting halo out at launch. But clearly they should have grabbed some talent from their other studios to help them meet this tight time frame.
I really wish sea of thieves was available on switch.
@Dezzy Dynamic lighting is better, the only reason to use static lighting is because is not expensive in performance terms and you can create impressive static scenes without loading the GPU.
@Ralizah In spite of clever static lighting, The Last of Us II doesn't look next-gen, neither do Ghost of Tsushima or Death Stranding but the art style can make certain games look subjectively better. We have many examples on PS4 but also on Xbox One, Gears 5, Sea of Thieves, Forza Horizon 4, Final Fantasy XV Royal Edition...
@NEStalgia I totally agree. What leaves me baffled is that Nintendo fans are complaining about graphics now. Ratchet & Clank looks basically like the PS4 game indeed and it's 30 FPS on PS5. Spider-Man cutscenes at 30 FPS are going to look impressive, no doubt. Looking at Halo Infinite again, it looks fun and it looks good and it's not even the final build yet. It has a big campaign, it has great 60 FPS gameplay, it has great music made by Curtis Schweitzer and Gareth Coker and yet people can't stop complaining about the graphics everywhere. I mean, does anyone really think that it will have pop-in on Series X? Does anyone really think lighting won't change the look? If graphics is the only thing that matters, why judge Series X by an early build of the cross-generation game for Xbox One, Xbox One X, Series X and xCloud? I think it's totally disproportionate. Perhaps wait for the final build or another Series X game that is not a cross-generation game, Valhalla, Cyberpunk or the first Microsoft game that is Series X-exclusive? Halo is a cross-generation huge open world game at 60 FPS.
@Octane I don't think that Halo Infinite has be chosen to be a Series X showcase because they know they have more impressive Series X games like Hellblade II. However, I think like you do that they are rushing the game for a simultaneous release on current and next generation. Proof is the ray tracing patch is coming after launch.
@Ralizah Tsushima is beautiful. Death Stranding seriously looks like a PS3 game. That's not a knock on Playstation, that's a knock on Kojima's Patent-Pending Money Incinerator. And agreed on TLoU2. The visuals are exceptional in quality. Too bad about the game....
Halo is a "smart" series. It's an art style originally designed for X-BOX. It was "updated" into an iconic for its time style for 360. But if you change it too much, it doesn't look like Halo anymore. Kind of like why Starfox always looks like Starfox 64, and the roots are always Starfox SNES. If it changes too much, it's not recognizable as being Starfox anymore. The style is part of the brand, for better or worse.
I agree with @Octane. It looks like an X1X game. It is an X1X game overall, and leading with it as a console showcase wasn't the best plan. Not least of which because it's not that relevant an IP anymore. Better to lead with new IP than a stale-but-fan-favorite IP. Then agian, I can't tell what Sony's leading with. They have a number of interesting projects but none seem to be the platform showcase at all.
@Octane If I were to guess, the ray tracing is very early in development and not yet optimized, and probably tanks the frame rate for now. It was a choice between show it smooth or show it well lit, not both.
I'm not sure if Halo is being rushed for XSeX, or if Halo is coming out on time and it's promotion and SeX patch is being rushed. In a way I feel that XSeX is being rushed to try to match Sony. They just came out with 1X and probably should have run on that a little longer and done a new console in a year or two... Not that the hardware doesn't seem ready, but the whole launch feels forced....like a new box is not where they really needed to be right now, but Sony forced it, which is why they're doing the "we have a power comparable machine to Sony for Ubisoft to play with, but our games are still for 1X" feeling.
Yes but creating the effect of advanced lighting for a lower cost IS what "better" means in this context. You're using the term "better" to mean something like "closer to reality". But that's a meaningless standard if no-one can tell the difference! And it's not something people obviously care about. I mean pretty much every video game ever made has allowed you to change the direction of a jump in mid-air. That's not something you can do in reality, but no-one cares. Everyone's just decided it's more fun if you can do that, so we'll all happily go along with it.
@BlueOcean What's really frustrating is it feels like consumers have been so well trained, they get disappointed when told they don't have to bend over. It's corporate Stockholm Syndrome.
MS seems to have gone out of their way to showcase that they're including all their customers, that everyone gets to enjoy this big new project, and you can pick your hardware for the level of performance you want. And instead of thinking "this is awesome, this is a scalable product they're not holding hostage until I buy more other things on command" the community backlashes and says "see, SONY knows how do to it right, THEY know how to gatekeep their best games until I splash out half a grand on their new box so the game only runs at max settings.
How has console gone BACKWARD into PC of the past?
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