*spin-off* Activision's Call of Review Hero: Controversy: Spin-Off

[Acert93]

Don´t agree with the idea that Killzone 2 graphics technology is far greater than COD´s quake based engine ?.

Predictable & Predicted. Kudos Scott.

 

[brain_stew]

A 10 for graphics? Really?

 

[the ignoramus]

Means nothing coming from IGN. I'm more interested in seeing what Digital Foundry thinks.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Something people on forums and devs keep forgetting.

To your average person it doesn't matter if you have the latest technology. It doesn't matter if you have a better technological presentation. It doesn't matter if you have better textures. It doesn't matter if you have HDR/godrays/dynamic shadows/pre-baked shadows/cut corners with rendering/had subpart whatevermagigit.

In the end, all the matters is the subjective impression your target audience has of how well put together your games graphics are. How well does it carry the theme of your game. How well is it visualized. Most importantly how well is it presented.

KZ2 for example used arguably subpar rendering techniques and made compromises that if not well put together could well have been disasterous. Yet despite that, their artists were able to realize a vision and present it in such a way that in the end it didn't matter HOW they did it, it was a GREAT looking game.

There is absolutely zero ways you can quantify "Good" graphics because graphics is just Art.

And you will NEVER get a consensus from people on what constitutes good art. At the end of the day, graphics/gameplay/etc. are all incredibly subjective ideas that you cannot quantify objectively.

What I think is the greatest thing sinced sliced bread, someone else will think is a steaming pile of dog poo. What that person thinks is absolutely incredible I might find incredibly pedestrian.

Watching people argue over whether such and such person is out of his mind thinking such and such graphics deserves X score is rather like listening to some kids argue about whose dad has the better job. Or what superhero is the best/strongest/whatever...

In the end everyone is right.

Regards,
SB

 

[Crossbar]

KZ2 for example used arguably subpar rendering techniques and made compromises

Even what is subpar graphics technology is a matter of subjective opinion, link. Even though we may think otherwise.

Killzone 2 is arguably the most technically impressive game of modern times

There is absolutely zero ways you can quantify "Good" graphics because graphics is just Art.

I agree and maybe it would be better if they replaced the term graphics with art so there is no missunderstanding. If you cannot deal with technology and art separetely just call it art or at least graphics/art.

Whatmore is that I think that reviewers look at the graphics with eyes that are tainted with their overall game experience. If the total immersion of the game with an absorbing story, believable voice acting, lifelike animations, hectic multiplay etc is overwhelming they may not pay as much attention to the graphics and just think it fits the game perfectly. If game play is not so good you may get annoyed and start to find any graphical glitch just as annoying.

 

[Love_In_Rio]

Predictable & Predicted. Kudos Scott.

What do you mean ?. that yes ?.

Predicted&Done.Kudos Me.

 

[Love_In_Rio]

KZ2 for example used arguably subpar rendering techniques and made compromises that if not well put together could well have been disasterous.
SB

I completely disagree. If something can be considered objetive is the graphical techniques. KZ2 has a great list of graphic milestones.You could say that artistically you prefer one game or another, and I couldn´t say anything about that. For example i prefer clasic art to modern art but other people not.

Anyway I want to make clear that for me COD Modern Warfare 1 and now Modern Warfare 2 are the multiplayer games of the generation. But let´s render unto Caesar that which is Caesar´s.

 

[Phil]

Sometime, it's easier for a higher technical achievement to fail than it is for something that is less challenging. Which is better, a game that pushes new bounderies but fails in various places (but is still a more impressive technical achievement by far overall) or something that strives for less but makes no mistakes and at least delivers a consistant experience throughout?

IMO, most reviews tend to give higher scores with the latter as it's more easily quantifiable to them.

I think it's great that CoD scores high. More 60 fps games should, as if they didn't, we'd be seeing even less of them.

 

[obonicus]

Something people on forums and devs keep forgetting.

To your average person it doesn't matter if you have the latest technology. It doesn't matter if you have a better technological presentation. It doesn't matter if you have better textures. It doesn't matter if you have HDR/godrays/dynamic shadows/pre-baked shadows/cut corners with rendering/had subpart whatevermagigit.

Is this a natural effect or because we haven't elevated the level of discourse? People don't know what they're seeing, but as with the 60fps thread, people also don't know how to identify 60fps but might actually be able to see the difference between 30fps and 60fps. People might be able to see the difference between techniques, if reviewers just had the language to bring it up.

There is absolutely zero ways you can quantify "Good" graphics because graphics is just Art.

This is false; it's not just art. It's entirely execution, but technology is part of the execution, even if not the predominant part. There's no reason to exclude either of these, or to simply everything with a meaningless 'I like it'. And even art can be analyzed more objectively than 'I like it' -- Laa-Yosh does it all the time.

And you will NEVER get a consensus from people on what constitutes good art. At the end of the day, graphics/gameplay/etc. are all incredibly subjective ideas that you cannot quantify objectively.

(Emphasis mine) No, you can't lump these things together. We do have language to categorize graphics in a more objective fashion. 'If I like it' is still part of it, of course, but 'if I like it' is a really useless metric. As an extreme example, over on GAF you can find people who think that 8-bit and 16-bit 2d graphics are better than the 3d you find in modern consoles. You'll find more than one person who actually likes graphics best if and only if they're on the DS. How applicable would these people's opinions be to the general populace, much less the denizens of B3D?

Purely subjective, uninformed analysis leads to ridiculous conclusions, like with GTA4, in which the 640p, 0xAA PS3 version was not only declared to be better-looking (merely on the merits of different-colored lighting) than the 720p, 2xAA 360 version, but also, in a couple of places, to have better IQ! People put on their fanboy glasses, their 'PS3 can do Uncharted' goggles and see what they want to see when we stick to subjective analysis.

In the end everyone is right.

But this is exactly the problem. By this premise, reviews are mostly useless (and yes, you'll get disaffected gamers claiming that this is the way of the world). If you're going to simply go 'dur, but I like it', you might as well be an unpaid blogger. We can't expect consistency, credibility or knowledge from some amateur fanboy reviewer, and that's clearly the level of reviews we're comfortable with. At the same time, because reviewers (and their defenders) reiterate that reviews should be entirely subjective, we can't rely on any single one and review aggregators like gamerankings or metacritic emerge (which leads to a different set of journalist whinging).

 

[obonicus]

Whatmore is that I think that reviewers look at the graphics with eyes that are tainted with their overall game experience. If the total immersion of the game with an absorbing story, believable voice acting, lifelike animations, hectic multiplay etc is overwhelming they may not pay as much attention to the graphics and just think it fits the game perfectly. If game play is not so good you may get annoyed and start to find any graphical glitch just as annoying.

If this is the case, drop the graphics criteria entirely! If you don't have the language to discuss graphics, to analyze graphics, don't talk about graphics! That said, why are we comfortable with the notion that paid videogame journalists, who are in many cases quite literally treated like VIPs by the publishers, can't discuss games beyond the vagaries of the worst kind of fanboy? Why don't we hold them to a higher standard? Are we just accepting that they're just fanboys who happen to get a game before release date? Interestingly, in what I think is an attempt at self-validation, journalists are at the vanguard of the 'when will games be taken seriously' complaints.

 

[Love_In_Rio]

If this is the case, drop the graphics criteria entirely! If you don't have the language to discuss graphics, to analyze graphics, don't talk about graphics! That said, why are we comfortable with the notion that paid videogame journalists, who are in many cases quite literally treated like VIPs by the publishers, can't discuss games beyond the vagaries of the worst kind of fanboy? Why don't we hold them to a higher standard? Are we just accepting that they're just fanboys who happen to get a game before release date? Interestingly, in what I think is an attempt at self-validation, journalists are at the vanguard of the 'when will games be taken seriously' complaints.

Or at least divide graphic mark in two: art and technology. That would be more fair.

 

[Prophecy2k]

Not wanting to retread old ground... but I'm of the particular persuasion that video game graphics can be "reviewed" objectively to a certain degree.

It's really about the overall art design and how well that is realised through the games use of its graphics technology. A game that appears visually "polished" regardless of the number of technical flaws, and presents visual scenes that effectively meet the overall vision of the game, would be seen almost unanimously to have "good" graphics.

The very fact that games like Halo, Uncharted, KZ2, Crysis etc when seen by the majority of people, produces an overwhelming consensus that these games have "great" graphics really is a testament.

On the flip side there are games that the vast majority of people will see and almost unanimously agree that the games look like "ass", regardless of the "art" style the developers were going for.

I agree that there are also games which have "bad" art or rather inconsistent art design that tend to be much more subjective upon review, however even these can be measured by how well their art design (be it subjectively good or bad) is realised through the graphics technology to a certain extent.

Regardless of whether we're speaking about the core or casual gamer, both has a very general eye for games with good graphics (i.e. meet their visual goals) and bad graphics (i.e. games that fail miserably at it). To say that "its all relative", "its all subjective", "everyone has different preferences", "everyone's right" for me is a bit of a cop out, and fundamentally ignores the truth.

Alas though, for a game like COD:MW2 I'm fully convinced that IGN and the majority of other gaming publications don't want to be the ones who call out any of the the flaws of a MW game. Considering the sales potential of MW and the fact that the prevailing majority of gamers had already resolved to buy the game regardless of the review scores, the only thing the gaming press have to lose is possible future exclusive first review privaleges and interviews etc with the devs and such.

For such a big game, I don't think any gaming publication would want to jeapordise their relationship with Activision by being the only site/magasine to call out MW2's flaws.

IMHO of course

 

[obonicus]

Or at least divide graphic mark in two: art and technology. That would be more fair.

I don't agree with that either, not unless you're actually going to discuss both criteria to some degree. Just because something is art isn't a valid excuse to use 'it's just an opinion'; there's a lot to discuss even when it comes to art. I'm not saying that the only analysis that can be had is objective; at some point 'I like it' will come into it. But at least develop the language to be able to discuss why you like the look of a game, which is what I feel is missing here.

Again, ideally I'd like every aspect of a review to be this thorough, but graphics are the one subset where the language actually exists. 'Game design' or 'gameplay' are much more nebulous and ill-defined.

 

[Love_In_Rio]

I don't agree with that either, not unless you're actually going to discuss both criteria to some degree. Just because something is art isn't a valid excuse to use 'it's just an opinion'; there's a lot to discuss even when it comes to art. I'm not saying that the only analysis that can be had is objective; at some point 'I like it' will come into it. But at least develop the language to be able to discuss why you like the look of a game, which is what I feel is missing here.

Again, ideally I'd like every aspect of a review to be this thorough, but graphics are the one subset where the language actually exists. 'Game design' or 'gameplay' are much more nebulous and ill-defined.

I think like you. It is only i try to arrive a consensous .

If art is so important games like Valkiria Chronicles should have more points in graphics, but that was not the case for example. There is something more in this.

 

[Prophecy2k]

I think like you. It is only i try to arrive a consensous .

If art is so important games like Valkiria Chronicles should have more points in graphics, but that was not the case for example. There is something more in this.

In my opinion it should have... but then not too much more. The jaggies in the game were a bit too pronounced and took too much away from the beauty of the the game's art design.

The problem was that the art style did such an excellent job at fooling you into thinking you were watching an anime movie, that the jaggies really spoiled the illusion.

Of course other games have jaggies, but then some use clever tricks to hide them, or some other game's still are less noticable because the art style is such that it they barely draw away your attention at all.

But that's OT.

 

[nightshade]

Talking about jaggied & blurry look..COD is among one of those games, thanks to its resolution. I saw a frnd of mine (who can be regarded as an avg joe) buy the game yesterday and go ? over ign's remark of best multiplat gfx. He said how can they say that when the game infact looks blurry & is a jaggie feast.

 

[Neb]

Talking about jaggied & blurry look..COD is among one of those games, thanks to its resolution. I saw a frnd of mine (who can be regarded as an avg joe) buy the game yesterday and go ? over ign's remark of best multiplat gfx. He said how can they say that when the game infact looks blurry & is a jaggie feast.

I take it the score is for consoles only or?

Becouse I had a preview yesterday (PC version) and it certainly looks better than COD4 on PC. HDR lighting, nice emissive lighting, particle physics, soft particles, much improved artowork layout and detail aswell as improved shadows and nice dynamic DOF etc. The mission where you man the minigun ontop of humvee shows some really good artwork + graphics. I can really see how it would get a 10p for graphic assuming high-res, 4xAA->, AF and TSAA.

 

[czekon]

Or at least divide graphic mark in two: art and technology. That would be more fair.

hmm whats next reviews of tech demos then?.
Strongly disagree with statment that game X uses better technology so it should get higher score in review. I dont know much about gfx tech so i can judge game only by how it looks not what they need to do to achiewe this or that effect.
And i dont have anything against using quake 3 engine if the end result is so good.
In the end its all that matters. COD have good gfx with great cinematic experience and imo thats why it get so high score on ign. Animation is top also and with 60 fps for me is one of the best looking games on consoles.

 

[Love_In_Rio]

hmm whats next reviews of tech demos then?.
Strongly disagree with statment that game X uses better technology so it should get higher score in review. I dont know much about gfx tech so i can judge game only by how it looks not what they need to do to achiewe this or that effect.
And i dont have anything against using quake 3 engine if the end result is so good.
In the end its all that matters. COD have good gfx with great cinematic experience and imo thats why it get so high score on ign. Animation is top also and with 60 fps for me is one of the best looking games on consoles.

I was talking only about graphic punctuation, not overall one.

But imagine one point in which two similar games using two different rendering techniques result in looking very similar. One is one of the first games, or the first, to use an approximation to ray tracing and the other still uses rasterization ( well, i am here taking it to the extreme ). Do you think they would deserve the same graphic punctuation ?. The firt one maybe has inside 10000 hours of engine work, and the other maybe 1000, and however the look of them is similar. On the other hand which work will lead us to a better graphic world in the future ?.
I think we must applaud progress or developers won´t be motivated to innovate -graphically-.

 

[czekon]

sure but do you think its up to game reviewres to do go as deep as that? is it not better to leave it to community involved in 3d gfx, they can surely appreciate value of that cause they have the knowledge to understand what takes to do it.
IMO most of ppl dont care about how they do that they just want to end result be as good as possible. After all tech is for geeks .
Sure they can mention some new cool technics used in game but going as deep as tech rewiev with separate score for gfx dunno.