I'm in chapter 5 now so I've seen a lot of the game. It sure is a pretty GC title for sure. Hell, it looks as good as HL2 on PC as far as I'm concerned, and I think it's more fun too.
I was wondering about a couple of things though. Firstly, it sure looks like its using point sampling filtering on mid/far-distance textures. What's up with that? Is that really point sampling or some strange LOD issue? It's definitely not beautiful anisotropic. It reminds me of some N64 games
Secondly, is the game running in 16-bit color? Whenever you die and load again you can see BAD dithering artifacts. In game it's not so noticeable, but I've died enough now (heh) that I always notice those artifacts...
Oh, and how did they do the water, fire, and lava!? Is that water "pixel shading"? The lava room was just AMAZING. It almost made me think they used some sort of FMV to make that... And the fire looks completely real...
The most disappointing texture work in the game, IMO, is the ocean in chapter 5 btw.... It's such an obvious repeated texture. In comparison with the earlier lake it's almost an embarassment.
I also have to say that I don't like the perspective you have to play in. I can't win in the parlor games for the life of me because of it...and in regular gameplay I have a really hard time seeing the goofy laser pointer a lost of the time. That laser pointer is almost an obvious "fix" for the perspective IMO.
ALSO, do you guys think the "letterbox" is really a design element or actually a hardware limitation necessity? The framerate is so good that I wonder if the reasoning could be edram usage? That could go hand-in-hand with the 16-bit color possibility.
I was wondering about a couple of things though. Firstly, it sure looks like its using point sampling filtering on mid/far-distance textures. What's up with that? Is that really point sampling or some strange LOD issue? It's definitely not beautiful anisotropic. It reminds me of some N64 games
Secondly, is the game running in 16-bit color? Whenever you die and load again you can see BAD dithering artifacts. In game it's not so noticeable, but I've died enough now (heh) that I always notice those artifacts...
Oh, and how did they do the water, fire, and lava!? Is that water "pixel shading"? The lava room was just AMAZING. It almost made me think they used some sort of FMV to make that... And the fire looks completely real...
The most disappointing texture work in the game, IMO, is the ocean in chapter 5 btw.... It's such an obvious repeated texture. In comparison with the earlier lake it's almost an embarassment.
I also have to say that I don't like the perspective you have to play in. I can't win in the parlor games for the life of me because of it...and in regular gameplay I have a really hard time seeing the goofy laser pointer a lost of the time. That laser pointer is almost an obvious "fix" for the perspective IMO.
ALSO, do you guys think the "letterbox" is really a design element or actually a hardware limitation necessity? The framerate is so good that I wonder if the reasoning could be edram usage? That could go hand-in-hand with the 16-bit color possibility.
