[PS3] Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time

Cornsnake said:
Wouldn't it make more sense if Resistance 3 was in preprodution now, and going in full production up till release next year. It's Ted price team that made both Resistance games. They have to be doing something right now, and if they are going that make a new IP at Insomniac the current R&C team seems like more logical choice to me. I can imagine they want to do something different after making R&C games for so long.

My guess for the new studio would be a PSP or PSN game seeing as it's a smaller team. I like what Insomniac did with Q4B. And wouldn't something like a new engine demand a constant communication with production teams, which might be difficult over that distance.

Anyway, it's all speculation. It's going to be interesting to see what they come with.
Click to expand...

They don't have "teams". They have studios. There are "pre-production" teams that work on concept art, design, etc. But they become a part of the development team when the full development kicks in.

All of IG works on Ratchet and clank, and all of IG works on Resistance.

This is why they opened a new studio, so they can do full production for 2 years on a project, while still maintaining a yearly release calander.

As it is right now, their games are in 'pre-production' for about 8 months, and get between 12 and 14 months of actual development time, if I remember correctly from convo's during the last community day.


Pastu - You should take your wife! :p j/k. It really is an awesome experience. Everyone that works there is really awesome, willing to talk about development (well, to an extent!) and holds a plethora of knowledge. I was only there for a day, and I felt like I learned a lot more than I knew previously (about development, etc).

Oh, and Ted Price, Ryan Schnieder, Bryan Intihar, and James Stevenson are all really cool people.
 
The demo was pretty good and crafty, although they probably needed to show Ratchet shooting and hoverbooting to really get new people hooked, the shadow tech is slowly catching up, game is still baking a lot of shadows, with palm tree shadows being baked textures having no effect on Clank, boxes and bolts have real-time shadows though which is great, lighting quality is still lagging behind alot though. Probably having to maintain 60fps they would have to make some sacrifices, things like glass doesn't really reflect, metal does kind of reflect the environment but doesn't reflect Clank, really not sure what their visual priorities are for their tech.
 
Kittonwy said:
The demo was pretty good and crafty, although they probably needed to show Ratchet shooting and hoverbooting to really get new people hooked, the shadow tech is slowly catching up, game is still baking a lot of shadows, with palm tree shadows being baked textures having no effect on Clank, boxes and bolts have real-time shadows though which is great, lighting quality is still lagging behind alot though. Probably having to maintain 60fps they would have to make some sacrifices, things like glass doesn't really reflect, metal does kind of reflect the environment but doesn't reflect Clank, really not sure what their visual priorities are for their tech.
Click to expand...

Maybe image quality and stability? Just saying. When a good 80% of the games this generation fail to maintain the same frame rate and IQ as Ratchet and Clank, maybe you should check your visual priorities.
 
Demo was a disappointment. 2.4 GBs for a short Clank preview, introducing the new time puzzle mechanic. Struck me as a demo for existing RnC owners, who already know the core shooting Ratchet gameplay.

I apprecaite the smoothness of 60fps, although it's not perfectly stable and can quite readily be made to stutter. The art style is nice but the showcased environment was rather bland. I think the game overall is far better than the demo showed, and I'm left bemused why it was so huge.
 
Just played the demo and I cannot see the point of it.

No doubt you are going to have to go through all that again with the real game so why not just show some normal platforming and smashing.
 
Stripping a game down for a demo build is not always straight forward. There may not be very good tools to determine what assets are used where, or a simple process to remove them. It can be an iterative process where assets are removed, a build is made, QA smokes it, more assets are removed, some are added back, etc. Worst of all, this is usually happening when the game is being finaled, and no-one has time for it.

It could be an E3 or TGS demo. I have yet to download it.
 
I don't think this is a final build. The image is soft, Ratchet and Clank: Quest for Booty looked better. I know people use the 'not final build' excuse to disappointment again and again but I have confidence in Insomniac.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I thought this was a pretty nice demo. The puzzle elements seem interesting.

They said there were going to 2 demo's. 1 for Ratchet and 1 for Clank. So I assume the Ratchet demo is still to come.
 
Will try the demo later today. From your responses, it sounded like the demo is too limited ? Did they say anything about the second demo ?

I am not a big fan of game demoes. Don't want Insomniac to get hurt because of it though.
 
patsu said:
Will try the demo later today. From your responses, it sounded like the demo is too limited ? Did they say anything about the second demo ?

I am not a big fan of game demoes. Don't want Insomniac to get hurt because of it though.
Click to expand...

Content-wise there's definitely more than enough stuff there for fans.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
tha_con said:
Maybe image quality and stability? Just saying. When a good 80% of the games this generation fail to maintain the same frame rate and IQ as Ratchet and Clank, maybe you should check your visual priorities.
Click to expand...

Ratchet is not just competing against the lower 80%, it's also competing against the top 20%.

The visual priority is to impress the player and keep him/her immersed, it doesn't matter how you do it, if the player is not sufficiently impressed and immersed by the visuals then you have a problem. Obviously the framerate and IQ are not the issues here, but the lighting quality and the deficiency of real-time shadowing make the visuals underwhelming, those are the problems.

60fps is more of a gameplay priority than a visual priority, framerate stability is obviously important, but it shouldn't be an excuse for flat lighting and baked shadows that are noticible. You slap a palm tree that casts a big shadow in the middle of a big platform, don't bake it when all the destructable crates can cast dynamic shadows, you put a light there, make sure it looks like it gives off light. It's not like perfect IQ is necessary, you would want to minimize things like screen tearing and make sure the shadows don't look too jaggy and have some sort of anti-aliasing going on (doesn't have to be perfect), but there are enough great-looking games out there that just being "clean-looking" is not enough for this generation, the demo lacks that wow factor. They probably need serious improvements on their lighting and shadowing solution, it's really the biggest thing holding the visuals back.
Indifferent2.gif
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I've downloaded and played the demo. And I don't recommend you to download it. Graphics are worse than QfB. I don't see a single appealing thing to change the potential buyers' mind , in a good way. I don't know why they released this :/.
 
I too expect more people to go 'meh' and be disinterested than be interested to buy. It's not exciting; it's not 'blow your socks off' in any way. It's 'nice'. It only serves as an introduction to the time puzzle mechanic.
 
Ouch.

Tomorrow is Insomniac's Community Day. I think they can connect with the gamers more if they get the attendees to post impressions, videos and images online. We want to hear from people who played the real game, not a tutorial. The latter is only meant to educate instead of entertain.

We don't mind seeing people laugh or smile while playing R&C too. :)
 
Kittonwy said:
Ratchet is not just competing against the lower 80%, it's also competing against the top 20%.

The visual priority is to impress the player and keep him/her immersed, it doesn't matter how you do it, if the player is not sufficiently impressed and immersed by the visuals then you have a problem. Obviously the framerate and IQ are not the issues here, but the lighting quality and the deficiency of real-time shadowing make the visuals underwhelming, those are the problems.

60fps is more of a gameplay priority than a visual priority, framerate stability is obviously important, but it shouldn't be an excuse for flat lighting and baked shadows that are noticible. You slap a palm tree that casts a big shadow in the middle of a big platform, don't bake it when all the destructable crates can cast dynamic shadows, you put a light there, make sure it looks like it gives off light. It's not like perfect IQ is necessary, you would want to minimize things like screen tearing and make sure the shadows don't look too jaggy and have some sort of anti-aliasing going on (doesn't have to be perfect), but there are enough great-looking games out there that just being "clean-looking" is not enough for this generation, the demo lacks that wow factor. They probably need serious improvements on their lighting and shadowing solution, it's really the biggest thing holding the visuals back.
Indifferent2.gif
Click to expand...

Well, I'll disagree. I understand your point, but Ratchet isn't a game where people are looking for these things. I'd actually argue that 'casual' gamers are more impressed by the smooth frame rate and animation than they would be dynamic shadows. The group of people that are looking for that kind of stuff is significantly smaller than the entire buying audience of Ratchet and Clank.
 
I question if casual gamer are aware of the smoother framerate. Maybe they are, but it seems a feature that goes overlooked by many. Certainly my friends didn't notice the improvement in Booty between 30fps and 60fps, and they're not the most casual of casuls.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top