Jak II

[London Geezer]

I must admit, I've been trying not to get too close to any kind of shop, i really need to watch my outgoings and i've been spending LOADS of money on games lately (and restaurants, clothes, drinks etc ) so there u go....
i know that if i do see this in a shop, then i WILL buy it. i know myself too much.... the right side of the brain would go all "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO DONT DO THIS!!!!!!!!!!!"
and the left part of my brain would go "JUST USE THE CREDIT CARD!! IT'S EASY, QUICK AND U CAN ALWAYS SAVE MONEY ON OTHER STUFF THIS MONTH!!!!"....

so there u go...

 

[rabidrabbit]

Heh that's all too familiar situation, just what happened to me with JakII.
I had bought SCII the previous day, ZOE2 a week or two earlier, and Dark Cloud 2 less than a month ago.
I always think "Hell, I'm gonna buy this anyway sooner or later, so why not sooner. If I use the credit card I wont have to pay for it until next month"

I did have to buy it in secrecy and smuggle it home, and dared not play it until late at night when bf was already on bed.
The 'NO, this is just a demo!' trick did work at first, but now when he sees me playing the game, there is just a meaningful 'Hmpf... that demo must be good...'

I still haven't finished the last boss in ZOE2, SCII I have played just couple of rounds, DC2 I'm at the beginning of chapter 2.

In the words of the Great Miguel Brown:
So many games - so little time. How can I lose?
So many games - so little time. How can I choose?


Edit: Oh! Isn't SSX3 coming next week!!??

 

[hey69]

speaking of progr scan .. can anyone point me to PAL progr scan TV's ?

i 'm planning to buy a new tv, if possible a progr scan one
but I 'm concerned about the price..... hope it isnt that much expensive

well, if u want a pro-scan TV here in PAL territories, and u're concerned about money... then sweetie, u're hopeless... not gonna find a pro-scan tv at less than, say, UK£2000.. simply because u'd have to go for plasma or LCD, since there are like 1 or 2 CRT pro-scan TV's here... andeven then they're not less than a grand and a half each

hm, well I see

i will go for a 32" widescreen philips 100hz for 799 this weekend

 

[London Geezer]

speaking of progr scan .. can anyone point me to PAL progr scan TV's ?

i 'm planning to buy a new tv, if possible a progr scan one
but I 'm concerned about the price..... hope it isnt that much expensive

well, if u want a pro-scan TV here in PAL territories, and u're concerned about money... then sweetie, u're hopeless... not gonna find a pro-scan tv at less than, say, UK£2000.. simply because u'd have to go for plasma or LCD, since there are like 1 or 2 CRT pro-scan TV's here... andeven then they're not less than a grand and a half each

hm, well I see

i will go for a 32" widescreen philips 100hz for 799 this weekend

u might want to wait... i mean, personally i would wait.. instead of spending 799 now on a TV that will be useless when PS3 comes out, i rather wait till i can afford a decent plasma that i can be sure will make justice to next gen games.. i know i'm a bit forward-looking, but who knows what kind of financial situation i'll be in, in 2006.. might as well get the cool stuff now, i might not be able to afford it 2 or 3 years down the line...
what am i talking about :? :?

 

[Echarin]

the right side of the brain would go all "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO DONT DO THIS!!!!!!!!!!!"
and the left part of my brain would go "JUST USE THE CREDIT CARD!! IT'S EASY, QUICK AND U CAN ALWAYS SAVE MONEY ON OTHER STUFF THIS MONTH!!!!"...

Um... the left side of the brain is the logical one while the right one is the 'instinct' one.

 

[London Geezer]

the right side of the brain would go all "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO DONT DO THIS!!!!!!!!!!!"
and the left part of my brain would go "JUST USE THE CREDIT CARD!! IT'S EASY, QUICK AND U CAN ALWAYS SAVE MONEY ON OTHER STUFF THIS MONTH!!!!"...

Um... the left side of the brain is the logical one while the right one is the 'instinct' one.

... in normal humans yeah u're right...
do i have to start on the voices from various parts of my brain telling me to kill people and the green fairies telling me food is not right, alcohol is enough to live on...?

 

[Lazy8s]

marconelly!:

I'm not sure I understand what you are talking about, as they obviously load portions of the city around you as you move around, just as they did with the scenery in J&D. If you fell down from above, they would simply load the complete portion of the part of the city where you are falling,

That all depends on whether your fall is covering too much ground to be held in memory and handled at a time.

and keep the surrounding that you wouldn't get to see from upclose low detailed. As I've mentioned, in J&D you could have a full overview of an area from above, and just walk down there (the very beginning of the game features that, and it definitely doesn't imply any '5m draw-in'), there's really no reason they would be changing the engine behavour that much for the sequel,

The difference is in the speed with which you're moving through the level. The rate of streaming is limited by its set-up from the game engine and the speed of the console.

 

[London Geezer]

Now, what i want to ask,

Has anyone noticed how Daxter's fur reacts to light in Jak2? it sure looks like bump mapping/specular mapping to me. In cut-scenes (BTW, the best cut scenes on any console, now i can see where the Toy Story hype thing came from, it's pretty damn close if you ask me, considering what hardware is running it), close ups of Daxter show that his fur reacts to light in a VERY VERY similar way to bump mapping seen in other platforms. It could be Emboss, and it probably is, still it's nice to see that Naughty Dog kept their promise (They mentioned their engine supported bump mapping just after releasing J&D but never used it in the first game for some reason...)...
Anyone noticed it?
It's not the usual pre-baked hi-ish-res texture used on other PS2 games, i'm sure as hell this reacts to light therefore is some sort of per-pixel effect.
Per-pixel effects are also used on other surfaces in the game, but i'm still in the early stages so i'll revert with more info shortly...

I got to the point you can see the whole frikking city from a mountain (When you enter the Mountain Temple) and also on top of the palace (after the elevator mission).... I was in awe, stayed there in First person view for like half an hour admiring this piece of software...



EDIT: I'm not talking about fur shading, i'm talking about a per pixel effect that makes Daxter's fur look like an orange (sorry i couldnt find a better way to explain), or like a lucid/shiny dense fur, bump mapped and reacting to light... And it does look great although they could have made it a bit more visible...

 

[rabidrabbit]

Yep, to me it seemed more like some specular mapping, a little like the effect on the road on some GT3 tracks. I also remember that there'd been some self shadowing on cutscenes. But the effect does look more bumpy, especially on daxter's chest hair.

Didn't notice bumpmapping on any part of the game, though I didn't look at it with BM on mind. There certainly is high detail on many surfaces, but to me they looked like it was done with polygons.

A beautiful game, that's true. I also spent long times on high places admiring the scenery on different times of day and weather. There's so much detail that most of it seems to go unnoticed if you are not looking for it. For example the flying vehicles have many nice little details.

GTA game with JAKII engine, that would be magical.

l-b, did you find the missions hard? Many reviews said the biggest flaw of the game is it's high difficulty level. To me there was two or three missions that took several tries, but other that those the difficulty was good. Too many games today are too easy, even though I'm no master gamer I find many of them ridiculously easy.

 

[London Geezer]

well i just beat the Baron Robot on top of the building (i guess it's just the first of a few instances i will fight with the Baron) and yes, some missions took a few tries but it never gets frustrating, simply because I KNOW that it's my fault for dying, because i'm rushing or other reasons. the engine is perfect, and high difficulty only becomes frustrating when u die because of a bug in the engine and not for your own fault...

but jesus this game is beautiful....

while driving around the city and especially in the lake area with all those super detailed huts and wooden structures, it does look like a pre-rendered video in some instances, the amount of detail is just unbelievable...

Seeing the whole city from the beginning of the Mountain Temple gave me watery eyes, especially seen at dusk when the sun and the sky is red-ish.... unbelievable.....

the water is also quite convincing, considering how simple it is and considering how crappy it was in the first game....

 

[London Geezer]

Playing thorugh the game, and last night i had the confirmation Daxter's fur has some pretty fine per-pixel specular mapping, which i guess is the same method used on racer's streets to reflect sunlight, but here it's pretty hi-res and much "bumpier". In the cut scene when the fat bastard makes u run around collecting bags of money (bloody hard mission too), towards the end there is a close up of him and it really shows.

 

[maskrider]

Got the game, driving through that city is pretty fun, and the control is slick, but I think there should be an easier camera centering button than going to first person mode, swing to front and than switch to 3rd person mode.

 

[London Geezer]

yeah the camera is always a bit of an issue, although i must say it's almost perfect in Jak2 (as it was in J&D)...

this game just keeps getting better and better, it's unbelievable...

 

[marconelly!]

Maskrider, you can use the right stick to rotate camera at all times.

london-boy, Daxter's modelling, animation and texturing is one of the pinnacle of game's technical achievements, IMO. There are so many pretty places in the game, it's actually one of the very few games where I had to stop and look around, and sometimes even wait for the night to come down, so that I can see how the scenery looks at nighttime When you were at the beginning of the Mountain Temple, did you take a look down at side where you can see the waterfalls and the glowing temple? You have to see that part while the sun rises or sets down. In the forest level, when the sun is in the right spot behind the waterfall, there's a rainbow that shines right on you. Also, I agree that the lake/hut part of the city is just gorgeous, and so is the more industrialized area during the night. There's couple of places in particular in the industrialized area where you can see far ahead and also on the sides, so you get to see all the different parts of the city, and during the nighttime it looks just amazing with all the lights, beams, and billboards.

 

[maskrider]

Maskrider, you can use the right stick to rotate camera at all times.

I found that out after playing some more. Ha ha !

The control is slick and the response is very smooth. The animation is very well done.

 

[London Geezer]

yeah, at the beginning of the mountain temple, (u enter the door then enter the Stargate-kind-of-gate thing, and u come out at the top) i saw the temple and i was WOW... then i just happened to turn around to get the items i had left behind, and saw the whole frikking city.. it was AMAZING the sun was setting, the palace is majestic, and the city lanscape stretches out in front of u.... my jaw dropped....

then when u get into the elevator to get on top of the palace, u come out on the "terrace" and suddenly u can see the whole city-and-then-some underneath u...... my jaw dropped again........

This game is just pure madness

 

[ChryZ]

The animation is very well done.

In terms of animation there are very few games done that well! The cut-scene and in-game animations are incredible.

 

[London Geezer]

yes, and like in the first game, Jak's animations while playing just flow effortlessly, unlike 95% of games out there that have middle-animation-stances or animations that break between a movement sequence and the next that get very irritating...
Daxter is by far the best modelled and animated real-time model ever.
And for once, the cut-scenes are actually funny!!

god knows what naughty dog will do with next gen hardware....

 

[oi]

Have ND announced any new PS2 projects? Otherwise we can always hope that they're working on a PS3 launch title

 

[ChryZ]

Have ND announced any new PS2 projects? Otherwise we can always hope that they're working on a PS3 launch title

Well, rumors posted at MagicBox (~1-2 weeks ago) were reporting the possibilities of Jak3 for PS2 and a Jak&Daxter game for PSP, but I wouldn't rule out next-gen-stuff at ND ... they were looking some month ago for artists/animators. One of the requirement was to be able to handle/animate 100K-polygon characters!