Ubisoft’s Shanghai studio to develop Xbox 360 Splinter Cell

[liverkick]

Don't know if that was a smart thing for him to say. It makes it too obvious where this game gets its inspiration from.

He's not the only dev Ive seen make a direct comparison to Kojima's TGS reel. When asked Resident Evil 5 dev said he expected a similar level of detail to the MGS4 trailer, and Silicon Knights' lead designer for Too Human said they're going in a similar direction to the look of MGS4 with a "heavy emphasis on special effects" (paraphrasing). Hideo's team has some fans.

 

[chroniceyestrain]

To be fair, SC3 was in development since the end of the first game. Shanghai was already making PT near the end of SC, and Montreal was working away at CT while development of PT was going on.

I know that they have multiple teams working on SC, but I still think they need to slow it down. I'm not bashing SC by any means, all the games are of high quality, I just don't want to see this series run into the ground like so many big publishers like to do. I think they should take more time between games like MGS. I didn't like SC2 as much as the first (level designs weren't as good), haven't played SC3 yet.

Don't know if that was a smart thing for him to say. It makes it too obvious where this game gets its inspiration from.

Like the free look camera?


To clarify, he said that the Splinter Cell 4 ENVIRONMENTS are shaping up to be more realistic than those seen in the MGS4 TRAILER.

 

[Deepak]

I agree with chroniceyestrain, Ubi Soft should be a bit careful here, they should try and preserve SC, so that SC series doesn't lose its charm.

 

[therealskywolf]

Core gameplay and design being developed by Montreal. Shangai is just.....buffing up the Visuals to next gen quality. Sounds like a good plan to me.

 

[mckmas8808]

Core gameplay and design being developed by Montreal. Shangai is just.....buffing up the Visuals to next gen quality. Sounds like a good plan to me.

I totally agree. And Montreal should be making SC5 the real SC shocker.

The bad part is, since MGS and SC are big competitors both games are now on their 4 game. People will be comparing MGS4 to SC4 all the time. To bad because I think the Montreal team could give Hideo a run for his money.

 

[Qroach]

Where are you gettgin this crap from? What makes you think the montreal team is that more talented than the shanghai team? I mean other than so you can play off one version as "not next gen" until splinter cell 5 comes out on PS3.

You honestly know very little about the capabilites of the shanghai team at UBIsoft. They did a good job with Splinter cell 2 (an unreal engine based game). i'm sure they can do even better on net gen consoles with the latest unreal engine.

 

[mckmas8808]

Where are you gettgin this crap from? What makes you think the montreal team is that more talented than the shanghai team? I mean other than so you can play off one version as "not next gen" until splinter cell 5 comes out on PS3.

You honestly know very little about the capabilites of the shanghai team at UBIsoft. They did a good job with Splinter cell 2 (an unreal engine based game). i'm sure they can do even better on net gen consoles with the latest unreal engine.

I guess you are talking about me here huh? Take a quick look around the internet world and you'll see that 9 out of 10 gamers that play SC thinks that the Montreal team are just better than the Shanghai team. SC2 was great, but let's be honest SC3 was way better.

I have no doubt that SC4 will be great either, but my point was I think the difference between SC4 and SC5 will be as big as SC2 and SC3.

 

[kyleb]

SC3 was worked on notably longer and had more trouble with low framerates, it would be absurd if it didn't look better. I don't see how that makes for a valid comparison between the ablities of the two teams.

 

[blakjedi]

SC1 and SC3 are considered to be better games overall especially in terms of graphics and immersion than SC2.

Ranking:

1- SC3
2- SC
3- SC2

"Its like that, and thats the way it is... HuHHHH!"

I had to throw a little RunDMC in there!

 

[mckmas8808]

SC1 and SC3 are considered to be better games overall especially in terms of graphics and immersion than SC2.

Ranking:

1- SC3
2- SC
3- SC2

"Its like that, and thats the way it is... HuHHHH!"

I had to throw a little RunDMC in there!

You like RunDMC too? Yep they are pioneers.

On-topic: Thats the way I see it too. Just so happens the Shanghai team made the 3 rd best SC game out of three. That's why I think a Montreal SC4 360 game would have been better. But it's not that bad because they will probably make SC5.

 

[kyleb]

Well who am I to contest RunDMC?

Seriously though, there are a lot of factors that go into creating a game which you can't rightly pin on the developers. For instance, did the shadows in SC2 get jacked simply becuase so many people complained about the shadows in the first one being propriatary to Nvidia hardware, or maybe becuase Nvidia warned them that they would break support for buffer SC1 shadows in newer drivers, or what the hell was the deal with those nasty shadows? Then we could wonder about the games respective budgets as well, and any number of other factors that wouldn't reflect driectly on the ablities of the team.

Regardless, I'm pretty sure this news means that the Shanghi team is simply handling the ports to the 360 and PC with Montreal still building the game itself; so I doubt anyone has much to worry about here,

 

[Qroach]

it's likely gonna be unreal enigne based anyway.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Where are you gettgin this crap from? What makes you think the montreal team is that more talented than the shanghai team? I mean other than so you can play off one version as "not next gen" until splinter cell 5 comes out on PS3.

You honestly know very little about the capabilites of the shanghai team at UBIsoft. They did a good job with Splinter cell 2 (an unreal engine based game). i'm sure they can do even better on net gen consoles with the latest unreal engine.

It's just that the guys in Montreal are so good, and well respected, sort of the "A" team. So you hear the game is getting passed on to Shanghai is kinda a downer.

However, that's not the whole story as I understand it.

Montreal team is making SC4 for current-gen, so that means the game will get all their innovations, polish and attention to detail.

The PC/360 port of the game is getting farmed out to Shanghai, so basically they have nothing to do except totally rewqork the graphics. So it works out well, they can dedicate 100% of their resources to graphics while the MTL team perfect the gameplay.

 

[mckmas8808]

It's just that the guys in Montreal are so good, and well respected, sort of the "A" team. So you hear the game is getting passed on to Shanghai is kinda a downer.

However, that's not the whole story as I understand it.

Montreal team is making SC4 for current-gen, so that means the game will get all their innovations, polish and attention to detail.

The PC/360 port of the game is getting farmed out to Shanghai, so basically they have nothing to do except totally rewqork the graphics. So it works out well, they can dedicate 100% of their resources to graphics while the MTL team perfect the gameplay.

Ah I guess that makes sense. No worries then. I heard that this game is coming out Spring 2006. Have you guys heard the samething?

 

[Qroach]

It's just that the guys in Montreal are so good, and well respected, sort of the "A" team. So you hear the game is getting passed on to Shanghai is kinda a downer.

Well that's not totally true. The montreal sutido has had a few stinkers mised in with good games. Prince of persia 2 for instance, What about Batman and Robin? i think many people are overreacting and jumping the gun at this news, and it's 99% the same people doing that.

 

[Jov]

Well that's not totally true. The montreal sutido has had a few stinkers mised in with good games. Prince of persia 2 for instance, What about Batman and Robin? i think many people are overreacting and jumping the gun at this news, and it's 99% the same people doing that.

Whats wrong with PoP2 (WW)?

I personally think its a very good game. Thats said I've not played PoP:SoT or PP:TTT thot.

Back on topic - I think we can't really tell a team is A or B grade based on only 1 game, unless the specific team keeps churning out lower quality games.

 

[cloudscapes]

I personally think its a very good game. Thats said I've not played PoP:SoT or PP:TTT thot.

POP1 and POP3 appealed to different kinds of gamers than POP2 I think. POP2 was a gothic hack-n-slash which is good on its own and for people who were int othat, but the general opinion of a lot of peopel was that it wasn't a "POP" game. It didn't have the ethereal magic that was expected of POP games. POP3 regained a bit of that, which is nice.

I'm still pissed at the voices accents used in the game though.

 

[Mefisutoferesu]

Will the Shanghai team be rewriting the graphics engine of SC4 for the 360 or are they just buffing up the engine? Last I heard the predicted tiling in 360 wasn't transparent, which makes adapting pre-existing engine for the 360 kinda a PITA. Basically, are we gonna see a real upgrade for 360 or are we getting another junky port?

 

[AlNom]

I don't think anyone here knows right now.

 

[Lysander]

As long as they are striving for target rendering quality, all fine.