If it was coded specially for the hardware?

Didnt Kojima said that the game was optimised for what PS2 does best(ie fillrate).

Will Xbox reproduce the game exactly, tits for tits, rain for rain, if Kojima programmed it for Xbox?

[mat]

well... since MGS2 Substance is comming for XBOX and PC i'd guess yes

[zurich]

The reviews say that MGS2:S suffers some frame rate problems during cutscenes. Since some of the game is gourad shaded (in the tanker's "pipe area", before the marines, fire an automatic weapon to light up the area and behold hehe), and generally not very texture heavy, I don't see any reason why the Xbox couldn't do it and then some. Hell, the cutscenes go letterbox for a reason :P

I mean, the game has good graphics, but nothing exceptional is really going on. Take a look at Splinter Cell for what MGS2 could be if Kojima-san had spent 3 years with an XDK

The "art direction" CLEARLY attempts to dispell the need for 'high detail' textures, and ito nsert gourad shaded polygons here and there.

As I said, pretty game, but look what a dozen guys did cutting and pasting NVIDIA sample code (Wreckless).

[marconelly!]

First of all Kojima is not programming anything. He's a game designer and director.

Second, port of MGS2 to Xbox is less than stellar, to say the least. The game slows down a lot in every graphically intensive scene (rain scene, boss fights, swimming) and for all I've heard from people, and seen in the high-res videos on gamespot, they haven't improved anything. Even the textures look pretty much the same. Rain scene, from what I've seen, is the worst offender - it runs at about 1/2 of original speed, at 20 or 30 FPS, and the rain effect seems largely unchanged (although some people claim they even removed the wind vector from the rain and just made it fall from all directions) Intensive cut scenes, like the intro, and many others, also slow down or skip frames.

It's anyone's guess why they didn't made it better, I'm not going into that.

Hell, the cutscenes go letterbox for a reason

Cut scenes in MGS2 use completely different gfx engine. They feature motion blur, depth of field, and run at 30FPS with horizontal and vertical antialiasing.

[Johnny Awesome]

Do you still feel that the game is worth getting for Xbox if I don't have a PS2? I have a progressive scan 16:9 HDTV, btw. I'm thinking about picking this one up, but I'm still undecided. Help me out.

[marconelly!]

Johnny, if you don't have a PS2 or don't wan't to wait for the PS2 version of MGS2:S then get it - but ONLY if you know what you are buying. There are things in MGS2 that seem to be unbearable to some people, that other people don't have problems with. Notably, the contrived story and many cut scenes and codec chatter.

I don't think the game supports 16:9 on Xbox, and there are also people who claim it doesn't support 480p, and those who claim it does (480p icon on the box is *not* highlighted, btw)

[Vince]

Originally Posted by zurich

Take a look at Splinter Cell for what MGS2 could be if Kojima-san had spent 3 years with an XDK

Um, from what I've heard Splinter Cell (demo atleast) has more than enough issues in the gameplay and bug department to worry about.

I think Splinter Cell, while great looking, will show just how great MGS2's really is.

[alexsok]

I think Splinter Cell, while great looking, will show just how great MGS2's really is.

Actually, there are quite a few areas where Splinter Cell suprasses MGSII and vice versa... though I'd assume no game ever could suprass the unsuprassed cinematic presentation of MGSII!

[DeathKnight]

Quite a few game sites/mags have said that you can't compare Splinter Cell and MGS2, even Gamespot, because they are two near completely different games.

However, if you do want to compare them then you should compare two final products after having played both. Even though the Splinter Cell demo is months old it's getting praise left and right (and I've played it as well). Easily a top candidate for GOTY.

[Johnny Awesome]

Well, I think the story in MGS 2 is utter crap. Is it worth it for me to get it just for the gameplay Marconelly? How much of the game is cinematics versus gameplay?

[Glonk]

Originally Posted by Vince

Um, from what I've heard Splinter Cell (demo atleast) has more than enough issues in the gameplay and bug department to worry about.

I think Splinter Cell, while great looking, will show just how great MGS2's really is.

Care you explain to me what gameplay and bugs bothered you in the demo?

[Teasy]

Even though the Splinter Cell demo is months old it's getting praise left and right (and I've played it as well). Easily a top candidate for GOTY.

I played Splinter Cell recently, I actually didn't like it one bit and I'm not looking forward to the GC version at this point.

I just hated the way I couldn't seem to fire unless I first pressed a button to go into aiming mode, that's so annoying IMO.

But I did only play it for 10 minutes so...

[marconelly!]

Well, I think the story in MGS 2 is utter crap. Is it worth it for me to get it just for the gameplay Marconelly? How much of the game is cinematics versus gameplay?

Gameplay in MGS2 is really top notch, and you also can skip every cinematic and codec if you want. There's a lot to do in the game, missions and boss fights are always interesting and creative. In substance they also have included tons of additional missions both taking place in the locations where the MGS2 story takes place, and in 'VR simulator'.

I assume you have seen the game so there's no need to describe visuals and production quality.

Btw, people who have played and finished the xbox version said that although slowdown is there and sometimes a bit annoying, it rarely affects the actual gameplay.

[aaaaa00]

Originally Posted by marconelly!

I don't think the game supports 16:9 on Xbox, and there are also people who claim it doesn't support 480p, and those who claim it does (480p icon on the box is *not* highlighted, btw)

My HDTV (a 50" plasma) is 16:9 and supports all the ATSC resolutions (720p native).

The mode indicator says the input resolution is 480p.

So I'd say it's an affirmative that MGS2:S(xbox) supports 480p.

For whatever reason, I think the back of the box is inaccurate.

Edit: 16:9 does not appear to be supported. I measured the size of some screen elements and they are not corrected for the aspect ratio even though I have widescreen selected in the xbox dashboard.

[Glonk]

I played Splinter Cell recently, I actually didn't like it one bit and I'm not looking forward to the GC version at this point.

Does this have anything to do with the rumours of the cancellation of the GC version?

Apparently they were having too much difficulty cramming the game into 24MB of RAM.

[Johnny Awesome]

LOL! Yeah, Teasy is just preemptively covering his ass.

I have to wonder how Teasy got to play it though...

Of course, it's no suprise that a thinking man's game like Splinter Cell wouldn't appeal to someone who thinks that Super Smash Brothers is the height of strategic fighting. 8)

[marconelly!]

Edit: 16:9 does not appear to be supported.

aaaaa0, that's what I thought... Cool that 480p is there, though.

Dark10x on GA board did a detailed side by side comparision on PS2 and Xbox versions, and he has a pretty good eye for details like this:

OK, I finally got ahold of Substance for XBOX (friend rented it from work).

I did NOT expect such a major visual downgrade. The quality difference is much larger than it would seem. Everything is done in a much less impressive maner...it isn't just slowdown.

Basically, it's like this...

1) Slowdown and framerate inconsistancy is the first problem. The cutscenes actually loose their polished feel b/c the framerate is up and down constantly...AND the actual playback speed changes (you'll see the camera panning jump ahead real fast then move a little slower and such). The opening tanker scene literally runs at half-speed almost the entire time when outdoors (snake moves SLOW).

2) Textures - Ugh, what happened here? They use the same level of detail on the textures (ie - kinda blurry), however, they are horribly dithered in the XBOX version. I mean, REALLY bad in comparison. Whereas you would have a smooth color gradient on the PS2 version, the XBOX version looks like sh*tting JPEG versions of the same textures. I never expected that.

3) Particles - The rain and other similar particles look quite different. Just watch the opening. The rain looks much less like realistic rain, and more like a bunch of falling sprites.

4) Blur and DOF - HUGE loss here. The blur effect used in the PS2 version really gives the game an almost CG-ish look and really added to the cutscenes. The XBOX version of that effect is MUCH worse looking. Hard to put into words, but it really looses the look that they were going for.

We went through certain areas on XBOX and PS2 and the difference was very noticible. It just totally looses the tight and polished feel that the game had.

XBOX MGS2 has more slowdown (much more), dithered textures, no rain physics and it's quality is much reduced, dithered lighting effects (sun lens flares, the dark tunnel eye, etc. all have serious color banding) and reduced filters used on the visuals.

[archie4oz]

3) Particles - The rain and other similar particles look quite different. Just watch the opening. The rain looks much less like realistic rain, and more like a bunch of falling sprites.

Well... Particle systems are just plain cake on the PS2, it's pretty easy to write dandy little particle engines on a VU. On Xbox, since vertex shaders can't create/destroy vertices and don't have any flow control, doing particle systems is somewhat awkward...

4) Blur and DOF - HUGE loss here. The blur effect used in the PS2 version really gives the game an almost CG-ish look and really added to the cutscenes. The XBOX version of that effect is MUCH worse looking. Hard to put into words, but it really looses the look that they were going for.

Actually decent DOF is pretty easy on both systems, don't know what happened there. As for motion blur, I haven't seen a really good one done on VS/PS yet...

[marconelly!]

On Xbox, since vertex shaders can't create/destroy vertices and don't have any flow control, doing particle systems is somewhat awkward...

I think ERP argued about this once, because vertex shaders have to have an exact same number of vertices for input and output - if you point input to some randomly changed memory address, you get just what you need - a free generator (ERP, please correct me if I misunderstood this)

[Crazyace]

I assume the particle effects slow down because of the transparent overdraw - as the bandwidth saving doesnt work for those cases and the RMW kills chokes the main ram..
If you look at the making CD, the characters use 3 texture layers, so they probally transferred to Xbox VS code pretty easily, so I cant think of any other reason for slowdown..

[archie4oz]

I think ERP argued about this once, because vertex shaders have to have an exact same number of vertices for input and output - if you point input to some randomly changed memory address, you get just what you need - a free fenerator (ERP, please correct me if I misunderstood this)

Yeah I remember that too (a little debate between ERP and fresh). I believe he also mentioned something along the lines of just reading a random number from a single address as well...

I had wondered how well that would work (and rather curious about how much bus chat that might lead up to). I personally would rather just generate verts from a perlin noise map (more natural looking patterns)...

[Crazyace]

Although there are lots of fetches, the fact that the verts are already cached ensures that the bus activity is lower.
Ah well, by DX10 I reckon there will be no difference tween vertex shaders and pixel shader apart from the output of one being the input of the other...

[zidane1strife]

Take a look at Splinter Cell for what MGS2 could be if Kojima-san had spent 3 years with an XDK

Well the programmers behind MGS2 pulled quite a good looking game from the ps2. I'd assume their skill would allow their game with 3yr xbk to be at halo2/Doom3 level... or maybe go beyond those....

[Johnny Awesome]

Well, it's a lazy port. I think I've decided just to rent it when things get slow again. Playing too much Shenmue 2 and BLiNX right now.

[BoddoZerg]

There's way too many PS2 --> XBOX ports that look much worse on 'Box and run at a lower framerate. It's probably because PS2 games are so heavily optimized for the unique graphics architecture of the PS2 that it would take a total rewrite of the graphics engine to get decent performance on a GC/BOX/PC, so they just let it suck.

Splinter Cell's graphics are better than almost everything else out there... no surprise considering that it is using the Unreal2 engine.