@BlueOcean Dood, ur not a r33l g@m3r! My rig runs Crysis at 640x480, max settings at 25fps! If you don't have this rig why do you even try to play? Just buy a Nintendo, baby!
I feel like it's 2007 all over again..... Can't we put the next gen genie back in the bottle?
@ThanosReXXX LOL, sorry, you replied while I was already writing the next reply and then that spawned 2 more conversations so I ended up never getting around to it
But yeah, it's...it's worse than frustrating.....it seriously is making me take a step back and think "why do I want to be on this treadmill at all?" The whole point of moving from PC to console was to get away from that nonsense, and now console has all the same mess. It's been getting there, but it seems like this new gen really moved the bar back in the wrong direction. Meanwhile the PC people are using old gaming laptops and not upgrading much....makes me wonder.
@NEStalgia Push Square is sort of like NL: the forums are fine, but the comment sections under the articles can be a disaster. I've poked around Pure Xbox, but I can't help but feel like my lack of enthusiasm for the Xbox brand would just help to poison the well in a place that's already so empty.
Anyway, I don't see how any of this is different than any other generation. The perception of prettier graphics have long driven sales of new consoles. It's the reason we will NEVER get a 60fps standard, no matter how powerful the hardware gets.
Although it's weird to me, because we're getting to a point where a focus on more powerful console hardware is coextensive with the perpetual push for photorealism in gaming, and that... I dunno, it seems so pointless. I'm impressed by something like TLOU Part II on a technical level, for sure, but, at the same time, if developers want to create photorealistic games filled with cinematics and a heavy level of control over the amount of interactivity in a game, I have to wonder why they wouldn't just spend tens of millions of fewer dollars and just direct a live-action movie that will inevitably be more photorealistic than any computer simulation of reality will ever manage to be. I can look outside my window and see photorealism that would embarrass the Playstation 10.
It doesn't help for those of us who already suspect a lot of these developers are composed of people who failed to make in-roads with Hollywood.
I will say, though: I appreciated how the vast majority of the games in the PS5 presentation were vibrant, stylized, and cartoon-like. I didn't really see much that was comparable from Microsoft, aside from Everwild, which could be good but kind of comes off as pretentious at the same time, like it wants to be a work of art. We'll see.
I've actually never played PoE, but I might have to if this is true. Was the PoE connection confirmed, or are you just thinking of the rumors about Avowed?
@Ralizah Every NLife site needs its Sliggy....why not Ralizah?
PushSquare is like NL's evil twin. The articles are twice as bad as the ones here, and the commenters 30x worse. To be fair, x360 era was like that, so it's just "where the cool kids" are that are a reeking cesspool, and that's partly why I'm giddy that XBox is seen as "failing against Sony" already....it means the peaceful oasis is likely to continue, which makes it much more fun. If XBox "won" it'd probably force me to move everything to PS5.
It's not so much about the perception of prettier graphics driving sales so much as the "what exactly do you want?" aspect. People are taking very good graphics, running well over 60fps, and complaining that it's not what they wanted. It's really about the reality that the "really amazing graphics" don't look that much better unless you're counting pixels. Blue and Thanos ragged on me like crazy for "staring at the grass" in Forza Horizon and preferring 30fps mode due to the free FSAA. But getting rid of the "sparklies" when you're sitting 8" from the screen really does make it look a lot better. So I get it to a degree. But what people seem to want is stop-motion shows that look "even better than live action movies". We're beyond the point where the graphics meaningfully contribute to the game. It's literally just begging for tech demos to justify hardware and that it "can be done" at this point.
I enjoy good graphics. I'm still debating playing DQXI's PS4 version or Switch version depending on how much I can tolerate the MIDI and how extensive the extra (non-2D content really is.) I do get the desire for really sharp and smooth graphics. But there's a big difference chosing between Switch level graphics and PS4 level graphics versus splitting hairs between X1X level and XSeX level (and PS5 level) graphics. After a certain point the graphics get in the way of the actual game, and we crossed that line some time ago. The arguments for the new gen are entirely about bragging and purchasing a sense of self worth through screenshot supremacy, and little else. And let's be more than a little fair, it's console fanboy wars disguised as being upset by Halo's graphics.
But what you say is pretty true....for developers it's all about just creating movies but without access to Hollywood. With lots of failed Hollywood wannabes in the design chairs. Ironically it was XBox that went all in on that with Spielberg and Lucas at the XBone launch and got lambasted.....and it's XBox today getting lambasted for doing a 180 and going with pure arcade gameplay over photorealism. For gamers.....I don't know....is it that they just want to play movies? (Insert Sony joke here) Is it that they just like feeling superior that spending money makes them the "best" of something when they're otherwise the best of nothing? It's weird. It makes me wonder why we abandoned FMV games. (Insert Gamer Girl joke here.)
Funny, I was going to make a comment about looking out the window for photorealism earlier in the thread I'm not sure where the "thrill" of just comparing rendering to life and saying "yep it's closer than before" comes in. It's not that entertaining. Better graphics and prettier artwork certainly can be appealing, but only up to a point before it becomes "so pretty it doesn't matter anymore." We're arguing about lighting and shadows and pixel effects. "My sparkly magic waves look better with 1000 points of individual light!" Funny, because the fireflys outside don't illuminate much of anything in any meaningful way....they're just floating light dots.
LOL, I wrote the above, and THEN saw your comment about failed Hollywood wannabes. Same train of thought! (@ThanosRexxx)
Similarly, yeah, PS5 had a lot of stylized games, which I indeed look for, but I didn't come away from either show feeling like one had tremendously more on that front. Grounded certainly is colorful. Fable, Psychonauts. Avowed isn't colorful but as a PoE/D&D game of high magic, it actually falls more on the side of what I'll call "dark colorful" They're "serious" worlds in a world that's magical and inherently vibrant (compared to the just plain dark Witcher, etc.) Everwild strikes me the same, pretentious, "arty"....not my bag at all.....much like anything Media Mollecule other than LBP (which comes close to crossing that line at times as well.) Actually I watched Everwild and thought "wow, this feels like a Sony presentation...."
Avowed=PoE 3D is confirmed and would probably have better self marketed if they called it Pillars of Eternity: Avowed, or just PoE3, or something. It's set an Eora, the world of PoE. PoE takes place in the Eastern Reach region. Can't confirm Avowed is the same or different region, but it's the shared world, just as the D&D Forgotten Realms games all take place in Faerun, but The Sword Coast and the Underdark are two very different locales and settings.
We have reached that crazy point in the time line where in the Xbox thread people are talking about PlayStation stuff and the PlayStation thread they're talking about Xbox stuff lol. I love this site
@NEStalgia lol, wasn't Sliggy basically heckled off the site? No thanks. Besides, Pure Xbox feels (sorry) like it's sort of an Xbox safe space. A place people can go to enjoy Xbox news without having to constantly hear "xBoX hAs No GaEmS" and whatnot.
I agree Sammy and a lot of the article commentators can get more than a little fanboyish, but it does actually have a really good community in the forums.
DQXI really doesn't look that much better on PS4, and you get a lot extra for going with the DE. Far better music, a much faster battle speed, improvements to the forge, 2D mode, extra side quests, extra main story content, the ability to marry who you want at the end of the game, etc.
You're an Xbox stan, right? Why not just play DQXI S this holiday on Gamepass? The resolution will probably be quite a bit higher if you have a One X/Series X, and it's effectively free if you're already a subscriber.
I do actually think there is room for a lot of visual improvement in games. It's funny to me that PC footage of Cyberpunk 2077 just completely blows away what we've seen of next-gen home console games to date. I feel like that game benefits from CDPR's incredible aesthetic sensibilities, though.
Actually, on that front, it's funny you dunk on The Witcher, because I feel like, despite the dark subject matter, it's one of the visually pleasing games I've ever played. The environments, weather effects, etc. just blew me away. Absolutely beautiful.
THIS, on the other hand...
...meh.
Like I said, I expect it'll probably be good. Obsidian is a good developer. But, as far as I'm concerned, it was a terrible reveal trailer.
Fable is definitely colorful, although, like I said, the Shrek factor works against it for me.
Psychonauts 2 is very cartoonish, but I find the character design to be repulsive. The main character looks deformed and jaundiced.
We have reached that crazy point in the time line where in the Xbox thread people are talking about PlayStation stuff and the PlayStation thread they're talking about Xbox stuff lol. I love this site
And let's be more than a little fair, it's console fanboy wars disguised as being upset by Halo's graphics.
Judging a console by a cross-generation game and bashing the games because of some trailers where you can only see the potential. Why don't people wait until playing or seeing the final thing before reviewing a game?
but I didn't come away from either show feeling like one had tremendously more on that front.
I wonder what were Ralizah, Anti-Matter and the rest of them doing while watching Microsoft's event? .
@NEStalgia Write the full name at least once! I had to google PoE, Path of Exile? It's fascinating what you have written about those studios, in between.
I reached that conclusion on the 23rd but Everwild is no longer an Xbox One games so that means that the following games are Series X exclusives: Everwild, State of Decay 3, Forza Motorsport, Avowed, As Dusk Falls, Hellblade II, Stalker 2, The Medium, Fable. As you answered Grumblevolcano, I realised that of course there will be games in the next two years but most of them aren't coming to Xbox One. The Xbox One games are Grounded, Halo Infinite, Battletoads and Gears Tactics. Flight Simulator may be if it employs the power of the cloud like Sea of Thieves (and I'm not joking).
@BlueOcean All of the games I listed are either coming to XB1 or I think will come to XB1. Flight Simulator was already confirmed for XB1 in E3 2019, Gears Tactics was already confirmed for XB1 at the Game Awards 2019, Psychonauts 2 was reconfirmed for XB1 in the July event.
I rewatched the Everwild segment of X019 and nothing there said it was coming XB1, maybe people assumed it would be given Series X was just a codename at the time (Scarlett)?
@BlueOcean I actually watched that video. I watch most of DF's videos. What I found funny is that the ray-tracing really didn't do much for the image quality of Metro Exodus in their comparison shots. And I'm not expecting a similarly dramatic shift in Halo's look, either.
It's worth keeping in mind that Ray-tracing is a general technique that has a whole number of different applications (reflection, refraction, global illumination, shadows, etc).
Metro Exodus was only using ray-traced global illumination. Other techniques often look better, and obviously if you use multiple techniques it looks even better.
My guess would be a game like Halo would primarily use reflections, given how many shiny surfaces it tends to have, so the impact would probably be completely different.
@BlueOcean hey, i did name it: pillars of eternity!
@ralizah i can't even stand visiting push square let alone commenting
Good point about dq switch on game pass. I already own it on switch and ps4. So theres probably not too much point but at least it can be considered. Still curious how much the extras and qol really add.
Can't say I expected the Infinite graphics thing to get to mainstream status:
Lol this is what Bill Burr refers to as "fame whoring". Just mindlessly attach yourself to anything that's trending, even if you have no real connection, in the hope that it will raise your profile somehow.
Can't remember who said it a page or so back, about XSeX launching too soon, but it is starting to feel like, given the circumstances of the pandemic, recessions, lack of nearly finished games etc. that MS are only pushing XSeX now in an attempt to spoil PS5's launch.
You guys had me at blood and semen.
What better way to celebrate than firing something out of the pipe?
It's the end of July and only 2/10 Final Fantasy games announced for 2020 Game Pass are in Game Pass currently so I'd guess some of the others would be part of the next Xbox event.
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