Shadow of the Colossus is one of the, if not the most beautiful game last-gen, agree?

[Jaeyden]

I played it for the first time over the weekend. I really like the simple approach they took to the game play. Sword, bow, horse and health meter....no inventory to worry about and just a map to explore. The instruction manual is even overly simplistic. I was able to down three bosses in about five hours of game play so with 13 more to go, I know I'll have much more content to enjoy. The boss fight's are puzzles as opposed to brute force contests....which is nice, because unlike the gigantic boss encounters in games like God of War, it gives you the ability to step back from the encounter and appreciate the scope of the moment you are in.

I guess I am one of the lucky one's, being completely oblivious to this game. Nero's "ignorance is bliss" advice was true. The fights are really something to behold visually, and racing around the landscape can be equally stunning. The camera has it's moments and the frame rates dip sometimes too, but over all once you get into it those things fade to the wayside of the way this game is presented. It's kind of like a Porsche with a Pinto engine. The game is beautiful to behold but deserving of a different platform for presentation. I can't help but have the thought "I wish this would have been a PS3 project".

Casting any the technical discussion aside, the game is truly a work of art. This is the kind of game we should see more of in general. I really hope that someone out there is doing something just like this for the next gen systems, and I hope we get to play them soon.

 

[DieH@rd]

I defeated only first 7 colossi. And I must say the 5th one [Bird] is mindshattering! I mean OMG, it was so beautifull that I felt like crap when I killed that poor giant...

Speedrun of 5th Colossus - http://ia311508.us.archive.org/2/it...us_13430/ShadowOfTheColossus_13430_part05.avi
I cant wait to see on what has Team ICO worked all these years...

 

[dubyateeeff]

STONE HIM!! CAST HIM TO THE FIRE!!

FOR SPARTA *KICK!*

 

[DuckThor Evil]

FOR SPARTA *KICK!*

Blocked and returned with 10x the power... :smile:
BTW. I was already casted into the fire by my friend who I showed this game. I think he is still in the mental hosbital recovering from the shock of ugliness! how do you like that!

 

[homy]

Here is the list of technologies employed in SoTC. I'm not sure if any of the next-gen games have implemented them all.

1. The pseudo-HDR rendering and dynamic exposure / tone mapping algorithm
2. Motion blur - with afterglow effect
3. Generating shadows via the self-shadowing stencil shadow volume technique
4. Hair growing on the colossus using a fur shader
5. LOD system and landscape rendering
6. Collision with the colossus, and the "deforming collision system"
7. Movement control of the colossus using inverse kinematics
8. A true sense of reality comes from physics simulation
9. The fake volume particles and fake light scattering with "high-quality illumination"


Beat that developers.

 

[Nesh]

FOR SPARTA *KICK!*

Blocked and returned with 10x the power... :smile:
BTW. I was already casted into the fire by my friend who I showed this game. I think he is still in the mental hosbital recovering from the shock of ugliness! how do you like that!

I defeated only first 7 colossi. And I must say the 5th one [Bird] is mindshattering! I mean OMG, it was so beautifull that I felt like crap when I killed that poor giant...

http://www.destructoid.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/11/shadow468.jpg

Speedrun of 5th Colossus - http://ia311508.us.archive.org/2/it...us_13430/ShadowOfTheColossus_13430_part05.avi
I cant wait to see on what has Team ICO worked all these years...

haha thats how I felt too with every colossus I killed.

I mean...you see such a beautiful,proud, ancient creature, that had so many told and untold stories and what?....an insignificant little human kills 15 of them, puts them in the verge of enxtinction just to give life to one.... just ONE insignificant little bitch.

Greenpeace of that age would have been very pissed with him.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I mean...you see such a beautiful,proud, ancient creature, that had so many told and untold stories...

Did they? They just seemed to wonder an empty land to me. Probably very boring. Short of their weekly Canasta get-togethers, I expect they were pleased to be put out of their misery.

Still, for those siding with the monsters, I hear Team ICO are going 'Rampage' with SotC 2

 

[Obakan]

In my eyes it would compete with last-last-gen games. games lastgen games like farCry and Halo looks far better.

 

[archangelmorph]

In my eyes it would compete with last-last-gen games. games lastgen games like farCry and Halo looks far better.

Technically yes..

But try to tell me that Far cry looks better than SOTC artistically and... well..

LOL!

 

[Duke]

Here is the list of technologies employed in SoTC. I'm not sure if any of the next-gen games have implemented them all.

1. The pseudo-HDR rendering and dynamic exposure / tone mapping algorithm
2. Motion blur - with afterglow effect
3. Generating shadows via the self-shadowing stencil shadow volume technique
4. Hair growing on the colossus using a fur shader
5. LOD system and landscape rendering
6. Collision with the colossus, and the "deforming collision system"
7. Movement control of the colossus using inverse kinematics
8. A true sense of reality comes from physics simulation
9. The fake volume particles and fake light scattering with "high-quality illumination"


Beat that developers.

Add better animations than in any next-gen game out so far to the list.

 

[Obakan]

Technically yes..

But try to tell me that Far cry looks better than SOTC artistically and... well..

LOL!

Artstically:
Well....almost every game looks better artistically than a game with a empty desert a few bushes and temples. just look at the Island and the jungles in FarCry.
Technically:
Lightning, bumpmaps, shadows, selfshadows, IQ, texture resolution, resolution, AA, AF

 

[slapnutz]

http://edusworld.org/ew/ficheros/2006/paginasWeb/making_of_sotc.html

Awesome technical study on SOTC

 

[_phil_]

Artstically:
Well....almost every game looks better artistically than a game with a empty desert a few bushes and temples. just look at the Island and the jungles in FarCry.
Technically:
Lightning, bumpmaps, shadows, selfshadows, IQ, texture resolution, resolution, AA, AF

This is the 'ignorant Gpufan technical checklist ' .

Nvidia generation kids can't really see further than that,there is a patern...

You can be tasteless (and probably didn't play it) ,no prob ,but to say that SOTC isn't a very technical piece of software is just completly wrong .

BTW ,the whole IK system is badly missing from the feature list.

 

[Neb]

Here is the list of technologies employed in SoTC. I'm not sure if any of the next-gen games have implemented them all.

1. The pseudo-HDR rendering and dynamic exposure / tone mapping algorithm
2. Motion blur - with afterglow effect
3. Generating shadows via the self-shadowing stencil shadow volume technique
4. Hair growing on the colossus using a fur shader
5. LOD system and landscape rendering
6. Collision with the colossus, and the "deforming collision system"
7. Movement control of the colossus using inverse kinematics
8. A true sense of reality comes from physics simulation
9. The fake volume particles and fake light scattering with "high-quality illumination"


Beat that developers.

Well a game like Conker for xbox uses features 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and perhaps 8, 9.

Point 2 has been seen in many games, point 3 to, and 5 is quite common amongst many old games. Point 6 is present in some games (Far Cry real-time terrain deformation).

About point 7 I cannot say much about that one since I haven't checked out what control system other games uses.

Point 8 is the same as for other games, perhaps good physics for last-gen games.

Point 9 is nothing special, and if you think so then you must love BF2 that has fake light scattering, fake HDr (for some maps) and fake volume particles.

But all in all this game is being overhyped quite a bit. Dont get me wrong. the collossis "monsters" are really good looking due to the fur that covers great areas of their body. The animations are very well done and look good. But apart from that the view that is made up of desert and some 3D mountains and the rest is 2D background drops, and not to forget the 15fps average framerate whenever fighting a collossi (perhaps due to the fur?).

Courtesy of IGN.
( http://media.ps2.ign.com/media/490/490849/img_3002530.html )

 

[Neb]

Add better animations than in any next-gen game out so far to the list.

You know, it's easier for the system to handle 3 characters animation (player, horse, collossi) than 2000 characters!

 

[archangelmorph]

But all in all this game is being overhyped quite a bit. Dont get me wrong. the collossis "monsters" are really good looking due to the fur that covers great areas of their body. The animations are very well done and look good. But apart from that the view that is made up of desert and some 3D mountains and the rest is 2D background drops, and not to forget the 15fps average framerate whenever fighting a collossi (perhaps due to the fur?).

Well if your a tech whore who can't deal without the lightning fast pace of PC FPSs running at 100+FPS on £2,000 hardware, and wishes Sony & MS forced devs to make all console games run at 60FPS (regardless of genre, pacing or any other aspect of the style of game being developed) then this will definitely be a problem for you..

I on the other hand never felt the low famerate during play since the overall pace of the game is so slow...

In fact i've considered this many times when playing video games in the past on the PS2 and PS1 and I truely believe that in some cases (SOTC being the perfect example) in some games, a low framerate can actually "HELP" the experience rather than hinder it...
Now if you fit into the catagory described above then such a notion will likely burst your cerebral cortex but I actually "enjoy" the feeling of the slow moving motion of the colossi and the weight of the swing of the sword (of the first colossi) when it comes in contact with the ground next to your character.. The judder of the framerate at this point actually contributes to the feedback of the experience and lets you actually "feel" the sheer weight, immense force and power of the ground-clubbing.. The ground proceeds to shake violently, your character is thrown backwards and the force seems as though it's so agressive that it shakes the very foundation of the hardware the game is running on..

I used to get this feeling alot when playing some games on the PS1 where for example a massive explosion goes off and the feel of the framedrop contributes to the feel of the event..

And one of the biggest reasons the game still looks blindingly hot when the framerate slows is because the animations are just so darn sexy..

Very few games have animation which can compete with SOTC IMO...

 

[Neb]

Well if your a tech whore who can't deal without the lightning fast pace of PC FPSs running at 100+FPS on £2,000 hardware, and wishes Sony & MS forced devs to make all console games run at 60FPS (regardless of genre, pacing or any other aspect of the style of game being developed) then this will definitely be a problem for you..

Yes I prefer 30fps above 15fps but 60fps is nothing I care about if visual IQ is better at 30fps!

I thought thoose that had PS2 and their supporters said how much better 60fps is in comparision with 30fps (GT4 vs Forza, MGS2 vs HALO...) , what would they say about 15fps?

I used to get this feeling alot when playing some games on the PS1 where for example a massive explosion goes off and the feel of the framedrop contributes to the feel of the event..

And one of the biggest reasons the game still looks blindingly hot when the framerate slows is because the animations are just so darn sexy...

Effects could look better becouse you see more of them when it goes slower (like in your PS1 example). But animations always look better at 30fps than 15fps even if the game part runs in slow-motion (bullet-time or similar).

I on the other hand never felt the low famerate during play since the overall pace of the game is so slow...

When a game really grabs you and you get immersed in it then one tend to ignore frame drops to a certain level or dont care at all about it. But that doesn't retract the fact that there are big slow downs most of the time (see video review at previous page or replay the game).
But it shure is a great game but just not as spectacular graphically as the user I responded to claims (re-read my previous posts!).

 

[Nesh]

Artstically:
Well....almost every game looks better artistically than a game with a empty desert a few bushes and temples. just look at the Island and the jungles in FarCry.
Technically:
Lightning, bumpmaps, shadows, selfshadows, IQ, texture resolution, resolution, AA, AF

Thats the exact reason SOFTC is better artistically. It makes an impression even with less detail. The amount of trees and objects alone that Far Cry has dont necessarilly make for better art. Art is not about the amout of "trees", the amount of "guns", the amount of "textures" etc. Although these help for a better art, its how the things available are used that define "better artwork". Art its about creativity not about building landscapes.

Far Cry does look overally better than SOFTC and its more likely that it will do a bigget impression, but comparing the games artistically and what each game achieved on the hardware that was available for them I d give more credit to SOFTC. It is more inspirational and more creative.

Sometimes devs can even abandon the use of too much detail for artistic reasons. See Loco Roco for example and compare it to the countless of 2D games out there. Its even emptier than many 16bit 2D games. But it manages to stand out from them for its art direction and creativity

 

[archangelmorph]

Nobody disputes that the game doen't have alot of the technical merits seen in other titles but at the end of the day even better looking titles on the same platform couldn't get the sheer scale of a game like this looking as good as it did...

For a PS2 game SOTC set a standard for visual appeal due to it's very artistic look and feel.. Granted the game doesn't particularly outshine other games which basically "rely" on their technical graphics wizardry to look slick, but artistic it capures a mood, an atmosphere and a world like no other game i've ever seen (bar ICO & that was a bloody launch game )..

I don't think anyone could deny the fact that, given much more capable hardware SOTC could look far far better but the fact is it really doesn't need it because it already represents a beauty that is far from trivial to mimic with less artistic talent and further reliance on shaders...

I see SOTC as one of those classic titles that no matter how far video game visuals progress, it will always look beautiful (more so in motion than in any static shot you could post and then pick apart, which so many individuals liek to do around here I might add..) and the look of the game can never stop you from going back and enjoying the experience again and again (much like stylised games such as 2D fighters, Okami, Zelda Wind Waker, and even FFVII with it's static pre-rendered environs and predominantly vertex-coloured models)..

 

[Nesh]

Very well said