Technical discussion on whether PC or PS2 had the jankiest games. (Yes, people really want to discuss this without any definition of 'janky')
- Thread starter Phantom88
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Im bringing costs in equation because thats what AAA means - the cost invested in a game. Also, that sum for FF7 was always bogus
What that sum actually represents is how much they invested in high end workstations to set up the building, the office enviroment. ) And somehow the internet took that as the game costing 40 million. Which is outside the realm of possibilities, because you can't spend that kind of money in the 90s for a single year of development. Half Life 2 i think was the most expensive game ever made at the time. That one also has an incorrect figure going online/wiki. Gabe claimed the game cost in excess of 40 million dollars at the start of 2004, february or march i think. He phrased it as "last time i checked". He also said the game was taking one million per month. So the game excedeed 40 million at the start of 2004 and it came out mid november at the cost of 1 million per month. Safe to say its cost was around 50 million, the highest cost of any game ever made at that point. Vice City cost 5 million as a random ps2 comparison. You're also right about genres. Because strategy games or adventure games also had large, AAA budgets rivaling the highest end FPS games, but those are ignored in these discussions usually. The version of Anno that came out in 2006 had an article how its the most expensive game ever made in europe until then. It was around 11-12 million$. So more than exclusive Gears of War and not far from something like Bioshock which was 15 million.
Sorry Geezer for the offtopic
Depends how to look at it, all platforms had shovelware….. console exlusives had better polish generally however some made it to the pc aswell (vice city, mgs, mgs2, halo….).
Wouldnt really call the pc ’janky’ at the time, its not the whole picture i believe.
John is a hardcore console fan, but he has been a hardcore pc fan aswell many moons ago. Look for Dark1x and youl see the days pre-console days.
Wouldnt really call the pc ’janky’ at the time, its not the whole picture i believe.
John is a hardcore console fan, but he has been a hardcore pc fan aswell many moons ago. Look for Dark1x and youl see the days pre-console days.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Looking at this thread, I kind of wonder if it's for real? Yes, PC had a lot of jank. So too did consoles. Just watch Games Done Quck or Summer Games Done Quick to see many of those incredibly janky console games as they always have a segment dedicated to those incredibly janky console game releases. Yes, console games had a lot of polish (some of them) but so did PC.
There were tons of PC games that weren't janky, at least where it mattered (the gameplay and controls). This extends back into the 90's. And even when they were janky the sheer size and scale of PC games absolutely dwarfed most console games (high end JRPGs were the only exception on console that could even match the scale of most PC games).
However, animation quality was generally better on console but never exceeded the best on PC. OTOH - PC games were generally far superior technically compared to console games, especially once hardware 3D acceleration became a thing. This has evened out in the most recent console generations as pretty much all of the best PC developers now develop for console and console hardware has mostly caught up WRT hardware feature support.
With a few exceptions platformers on console tended to be superior to PC platformers, but even then there were notable exceptions that proved that if a developer wanted to a platformer could be just as good on PC as on console. Basically this was just down to the fact that at the time most console developers were focused on platformers (2D or 3D) while most PC developers were focused on anything but platformers. You could also flip that around and say that with a few exceptions shooters (3rd person or 1st person) on PC tended to be far superior to console shooters. Again, this was due mostly due to most console developers focusing on anything but shooters due to the controllers being far less useful in a shooter than MKB.
So yeah, there was a lot of jank on the PC, but there was also a LOT of jank on consoles. I wouldn't say one was better than the other unless you narrow it down by genre of games.
I fondly (/sarcasm) remember all of those wonderful (more /sarcasm) console games with fantastic box art that I rented in the late 90's early 2000's that had absolutely incredibly janky gameplay and animations. And then was thankful that I only wasted 1-3 USD to rent them versus buying them for 40-50 USD. Which was better than buying a janky PC game because there generally wasn't an option to rent them, although sometimes you could borrow it from a friend.
Regards,
SB
There were tons of PC games that weren't janky, at least where it mattered (the gameplay and controls). This extends back into the 90's. And even when they were janky the sheer size and scale of PC games absolutely dwarfed most console games (high end JRPGs were the only exception on console that could even match the scale of most PC games).
However, animation quality was generally better on console but never exceeded the best on PC. OTOH - PC games were generally far superior technically compared to console games, especially once hardware 3D acceleration became a thing. This has evened out in the most recent console generations as pretty much all of the best PC developers now develop for console and console hardware has mostly caught up WRT hardware feature support.
With a few exceptions platformers on console tended to be superior to PC platformers, but even then there were notable exceptions that proved that if a developer wanted to a platformer could be just as good on PC as on console. Basically this was just down to the fact that at the time most console developers were focused on platformers (2D or 3D) while most PC developers were focused on anything but platformers. You could also flip that around and say that with a few exceptions shooters (3rd person or 1st person) on PC tended to be far superior to console shooters. Again, this was due mostly due to most console developers focusing on anything but shooters due to the controllers being far less useful in a shooter than MKB.
So yeah, there was a lot of jank on the PC, but there was also a LOT of jank on consoles. I wouldn't say one was better than the other unless you narrow it down by genre of games.
I fondly (/sarcasm) remember all of those wonderful (more /sarcasm) console games with fantastic box art that I rented in the late 90's early 2000's that had absolutely incredibly janky gameplay and animations.
And then was thankful that I only wasted 1-3 USD to rent them versus buying them for 40-50 USD. Which was better than buying a janky PC game because there generally wasn't an option to rent them, although sometimes you could borrow it from a friend. Regards,
SB
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Eurojank in particular is a cool genre, though there is also some superb jank coming out of places like Japan and Korea. The jank is often very much part of what makes some of these games charming. Things like bizarre turns of phrase in npc dialogue, unusual philosophical frameworks, awkward control schemes, glitchy quests and graphics that can bring equal parts technical brilliance and comedic amateurism are all hallmarks.
I reckon good jank is more prevalent on the PC, perhaps partly because of the diversity of the platform and partly because console licensees are likely subject to slightly higher QA requirements, and yes also because eastern europeans like the PC, and they are masters of the art.
I reckon good jank is more prevalent on the PC, perhaps partly because of the diversity of the platform and partly because console licensees are likely subject to slightly higher QA requirements, and yes also because eastern europeans like the PC, and they are masters of the art.
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