The Evil Within

Zero-Cool

The Evil Within was announced Best Playstation game at Gamescon, fairly big.

The Evil Within was just awarded best PlayStation game at ‪#‎gamescom2014‬! Thanks a lot to the international expert jury for this great honour!

Zero-Cool

Trophies/Cheevo's announced

http://theevilwithin.com/en-gb/achievements

Cold|Fusion

sheehy83 wrote: »

Lads get yer asses to the P.T demo on PS4 if ye want some horror to tide you over for a while, seriously creepy game with a surprise ending.

What game is this? Cheers!

Zero-Cool

Cold|Fusion wrote: »

What game is this? Cheers!

A standalone Horror/Puzzle demo. If you clear it a certain way, you will get a trailer that reveals the whole thing is a teaser for the new

Silent Hill

game

ripperman

Cold|Fusion wrote: »

What game is this? Cheers!

Look for it under Demos in the Playstation store. About 1.3 gigs. You're in a unique and brilliant position, if you genuinely don't know what it is!? Try to play it without reading anymore. It's serious stuff indeed.

New trailer..really looking forward to this now

Zero-Cool

Japanese voice over sounds so class and Psycho Break is a much better name as well.

ripperman

Brilliant trailer! :eek:

BeerWolf

So looking forward to this game, desperately want a new Horror game to get into!

Cold|Fusion

ripperman wrote: »

Look for it under Demos in the Playstation store. About 1.3 gigs. You're in a unique and brilliant position, if you genuinely don't know what it is!? Try to play it without reading anymore. It's serious stuff indeed.

Seriously, never heard of it, just added it to my downloads, 7mins to go, thanks lads!

Cold|Fusion

Tried it out last night, creepy as hell, especially with turtlebeach headset on! Thanks for letting me know about this gem.

Cold|Fusion

Pre ordered TEE on VGP there, Oct 14th seems to be release date in NA, 17th in europe. Works out about 17 euro cheaper than what it will cost here, which seems to be 65 euro. However I don't have a USA psn account and i'll want to get that season pass. Pity, as I have about 30 in vouchers for eu psn and have yet to add it to my cart. Next I need to figure out how and where to pay for usa psn credit I guess. All in all you get the game and season pass for roughly what you would shell out for just the game here.

Retr0gamer

Ebay, playasia and amazon.com will sell you digital PSN codes. I think Amazon.com don't have a mark up.

Cold|Fusion

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Ebay, playasia and amazon.com will sell you digital PSN codes. I think Amazon.com don't have a mark up.

Hi, thanks for that info, what do you mean by Amazon.com do not have a markup? Thanks.

Captain Chaos

Cold|Fusion wrote: »

Hi, thanks for that info, what do you mean by Amazon.com do not have a markup? Thanks.

They don't add EU or Irish VAT rates to purchases like Amazon.co.uk do.

But depending on what state you make your US address you may have to pay additional tax on it like I did. Can't remember what state I put down.

Cold|Fusion

Ah, got you, thanks. I used California, created us account and added it to psn and bought season pass, all geared up.
I do seem to have a predicament now though. I have set my ps4 as primary through my brothers account, and he has set his ps4 as primary through my account (both eu psn accounts). So that we can both share our EU bought psn content.

When I created the usa psn account it asked if i want to make my ps4 primary, with the usa account, I said no.

When I get the game, I intend to play it using my eu psn account, but will the season pass work I am wondering with this setup if I want to use my eu psn account? (at this point I know I cant share the usa dlc with my brother, I'm not worried about that part, I am just hoping it will work with my own eu psn account) I know it is confusing, but maybe people that have it set up this way to use there dlc with family might know where I am coming from.

Thanks.

Xenji

Some impressions of the demo from Dusk Golem who is the main horror game aficionado over at Neogaf, quite a long read but very informative.

01.) The game is littered with developer veterans. Shinji Mikami, the father of Resident Evil and director of Dino Crisis, Resident Evil 4, & Vanquish, is the most obvious one. But a series of other people from Shinji's past are involved, including staff that worked on RE1-RE4 (including the lead environment artist from REmake), a few people who worked on Haunting Ground, a few from Platinum Games who worked on Bayonetta 1 and Vanquish, and people from Grasshopper Games who worked on Michigan: Report From Hell, Killer7, and Shadows of the Damned. This has also been measured out with fresh blood to the industry who the staff at Tango have been reaching and training during the game's development.

02.) The game is legitamitely challenging. People often complain about games being too hand-holding, easy these days, and for a horror or action game want to be challenged, and Evil Withon is just that. The game is even challenging on its Normal difficulty, though there are two difficulties higher than that available. This is coming from someone who commonly plays most games on hard difficulty the first time through, The Evil Within on normal alone challenged me.

03.) The enemies are intelligent and deceiving. The main force of enemies in this game are beings known as The Haunted, they make creepy noises, strange and creepy animations, and are tough to take down. They work together, pointing you out to others with loud noises when spotted, using odd signals to tell others to corner or crowd you at the right time. Some will decide to hide around comer to ambush you, duck or side-step your aim if you're trying to take that perfect shot, or madly charge at you with a weapon to induce your reaction time. Some even try to sneak up on you and grab you to let others get at you, and if you manage to hide or evade them after alerting them, they'll still scour the level hunting for you actively rather than just forgetting you were ever there.

04.) A mechanic similar to Crimson Heads from REmake is present in this game. Enemies are not killed in this game just by shooting them. Just like Shibito from the Forbidden Siren series, the enemies will just revive after a while after being shot down. Some almost immediately, some after a period of time. Some will come back faster, stronger, and more aggressive once back from the dead and be a force to reckon with. The only way to destroy a body is to get a headshot, or burn the body. Buuut...

05.) Headshots are hard. A lot of games make headshots instant gratification and an easy task to do even with a casual player. Evil Within's headshots are hard. The enemies have way smaller Hitbox's for their 'weak points' than say, Resident Evil 4 or 5, Dead Space, or the like. They're very precise where you must shoot them. Simply shooting the head won't do it, you can shoot off their jaw or chunks of their skull, and they'll still keep marching, unphased. And Sebastian's aim is not perfect, shakey and he doesn't always hit the mark. Headshots are hard, but rewarding as they send out juicy amounts of gore and feel, sound, and look satisfying. Speaking of that...

06.) The gore is satisfying. When Sebastian gets a particularly gruesome kill, gore will spray from the enemy an coat nearby walls and furniture, and even Sebastian itself. It looks cool, and feels good.

07.) And the game has satisfying death scenes. Two I've witnessed is Sebastian being blown up, his body limbs tearing apart as scattering around, and one where an enemy with a knife grabbed me and slit my throat. Blood poured out as Sebastian clenched at his throat and fell to the ground. They're gruesome and morbid, but awesome.

08.) The game will punish you. Trying to hide when an enemy see's you will prompt then to drag you out and get a free hit on you. Trying to be an idiotic and run up and melee an enemy will get you killed very quickly (on not so they take 15-25 melee strikes to kill, and they can kill you way before that if you attempt it like an idiot).

09.) Ammo is scarce. You will run out of ammo, only get 1-2 billets when you do find ammo usually, and finding it is a lot rarer than most all games of its over-the-shoulder style. You need to choose when to fight, run, sneak, hide, or set up traps.

10.) The game has puzzles, and their difficulty scales to difficulty. The puzzles have differences based on what difficulty you play the game in. Playing the game on Easy/Normal/Hard/Akumu will provide different twists on the puzzles to make them more challenging the harder difficulty you play on.

11.) The game has randomized elements. I've played the demo 7 times, and each time things changed. The items you get from boxes always changed (most boxes give you nothing, but sometimes drop things like ammo, green gel, trap pieces, and the like), enemy placement changed (sometimess when entering a room in a Playthrough there's be no enemies in a certain room, sometimes a ton. Sometimes there'd be an enemy waiting for you around the corner in this hallway, sometimes there wouldn't be. It changed per Playthrough), and some random atmosphere building spooky scenes and noises that only sometimes happen.

12.) The game has a save-room hub area. Through the game, you'll find glowing mirrors you can stare into and transport into, and find yourself in a hub area with multiple unlockable rooms, a strange nurse character, a place to upgrade using green gel, and other little Doo-dads and the like.

13.) The game had an interesting collectible element. Finding and breaking Goddess statues found in the game reveals a key inside. You can use keys found in these statues to open up lost locker drawers in the morgue in your hub area save room for extra goodies

14.) Upgrading is diverse and useful. The game has an upgrade system, letting you upgrade with green gel you collect in your save room area. You can upgrade everything from character abilities like health or stamina, individual weapon stats as efficiency, capacity to carry things, ability to make traps from collected parts, and more. They each can be upgraded by level, have a cap, and get more ad more expensive to upgrade by the level, but can help players in the style they did to play te game.

15.) The nurse is emotionless, observant, and amusing. She watches over the hub area you visit, and often will start with a comment about the state of which you're visiting (if you're carrying a lot of green gel, she may ask if you plan to use it, if you enter in a few times shortly after each other, she'll accuse you of being paranoid, etc). She has a dry sense of humor and speaks with little to no emotion. An amusing re-occurring character, ad the closest thing to a friend you have.

16.) The HUD is completely adjustable. From the options menu, you can turn everything on/off, and many onto fade. You could play with absolutely no sor of UI on the screen at all if that's what you desire.

17.) Screen grain/noise is also adjustable from the options menu and can be turned off. Thought I should mention.

18.) Sound design in this game is absolutely terrific. Really good 3D sound, creepy, atmospheric, and unnerving tunes, the music does it's jump perfectly and is somewhat undertoned or completely silent to let the the environment sounds take over. Adds a whole lot to the experiences, the best sound design I've personally seen in a game since Among the Sleep.

19.) The environments are detailed, moody, gothic, varied, and creepy. There are a variety of objects to hit and destroy, drawers to open up, places to hide user beds, tables, in cabinets, etc. Weird but interesting art direction and unique designs to attribute to different rooms. And the variety of locations you visit in the game are varied, ranging from a mental hospital, a forest, a ruined city, a cave, a church, and more. Lighting is also a very well handled.

20.) Game has a variety of different 'stalker' enemies, ranging from a crazed chainsaw maniac who appears multiple times in the game with a distinctive chainsaw sound as you either try to sneak past or run past him, or take him on. Re-bone Laura, a multi-armed black-haired girl who comes out of blood and corpses. The Keeper, a strange box-headed man with a hammer. Ruvik, a randomly appearing hooded man who cause a screen effect as he appears and disappears to stalk you down. They have different functions, are intimidating and panic inducing, and play fun, varied roles in gameplay and function.

21.) Game doesn't rely on cheap scares overly, and instead works with a lingering tension that puts you on edge and uncertainty. An atmosphere that is strong and effective in making you paranoid and fascinated.

22.) Some fun and challenging achievements for those who like to be challenged, ranging from completing the game without upgrading, overcoming situations with self-pertained odds against you, and more.

23.) Game has a well thought-out Post-game. From what we know, the game has unlockables, including new weapons once completing the game, and a New Game+ mode, though can only do this mode for te difficulty to beat the game on a d lower (not higher).

24.) Game includes areas off the beaten path, exploration, and levels with multiple paths and ways to approach a situation, even though it does go over a linear path. Good thought put into the design, layout, and pacing.

25.) The game comes off and plays as its own thing, inspired by other things from film snd its own developer history, but their talent shows, in a game that has a legitamete survival element and tense atmosphere.

Zero-Cool

Sounds brilliant!

^^this is great news. I think I'm going to give myself a a news ban from this game until release from now on. Don't want to ruin it for myself.

tok9

I take it I don't need to read that so. I'm glad to see others happy with it.

Think I'm going to have to purchase this game!

The more I see and hear about this the more enticing it is, think that this, Crimes and Punishments, Shadows of Mordor and maybe Alien Infestation will be my autumn games. Properly throw in Far Cry 4 at some stage too as it looks like the kind of madness that'll put a smile on your face.

Robert ninja

Xenji wrote: »

Some impressions of the demo from Dusk Golem who is the main horror game aficionado over at Neogaf, quite a long read but very informative.

Ugh, Neogaf really? Oh well, suppose we don't have much of a choice. From what has been said, everything sounds absolutely great. Adjustable HUD, grain effect, difficult enemies with decent A.I, horror seems high-tier. However, this bothered me

05.) Headshots are hard. A lot of games make headshots instant gratification and an easy task to do even with a casual player. Evil Within's headshots are hard. The enemies have way smaller Hitbox's for their 'weak points' than say, Resident Evil 4 or 5, Dead Space, or the like. They're very precise where you must shoot them. Simply shooting the head won't do it, you can shoot off their jaw or chunks of their skull, and they'll still keep marching, unphased. And Sebastian's aim is not perfect, shakey and he doesn't always hit the mark. Headshots are hard, but rewarding as they send out juicy amounts of gore and feel, sound, and look satisfying. Speaking of that...

Oh boy, here we go. I hope the game doesn't have any unadjustable mouse acceleration (to OFF, of course). I played all versions of RE4, from the gamecube to the latest steam release and out of all them I have the rather unpopular opinion that keyboard and mouse are actually better for the aiming in that game and third person shooters in general (sleeping dogs is an exception).

Point being, shaky-hand thing does not work with mouse aiming. It's fine for stick, but just feels wrong when your aim trails off even if your palm has been completely still on the mouse. Not to mention, I don't see how this game could have any more difficult head shots than any other game beyond the fact that jaw-shots may not hit the brain and don't cause instant death. Aside from that, what's making headshots hard? If I turn mouse acceleration off, adjust the mouse sensitivity, I get the exact same aiming I should get in any well-made game.

I'm assuming the Neogaf writer was playing on PS4? - That's where they've really been pushing this game at demos even at Quakecon (lol what a disaster that was). Maybe it was just hard on stick but I really hope they don't bork the classic KB/M controls.

I'll likely be playing this game on whatever the hardest difficulty is available for first playthrough and it sounds like a really nice challenge as it is... I wish they won't screw it up with artificial difficulty or any other disrupting mechanics injected into my controls beyond the default limitations of the control schemes as-is. Having some upgrade "improve aim" would confirm there is aim-disruption being added and those 'upgrades' would slowly remove/reduce it.

I don't mind the weapons themselves being inaccurate at certain distances, that's understandable to an extent.

Anyway, besides this one thing it sounds like it is coming along very nicely. Will definitely like to hear from early-buyers about their experience so I'll be keeping and eye on this thread and other forums and image boards like 8chan.

Oh and have they removed the black bars from the game yet?

Robert ninja

Xenji wrote: »

Some impressions of the demo from Dusk Golem who is the main horror game aficionado over at Neogaf, quite a long read but very informative.

Ugh, Neogaf really? Oh well, suppose we don't have much of a choice. From what has been said, everything sounds absolutely great. Adjustable HUD, grain effect, difficult enemies with decent A.I, horror seems high-tier. However, this bothered me

05.) Headshots are hard. A lot of games make headshots instant gratification and an easy task to do even with a casual player. Evil Within's headshots are hard. The enemies have way smaller Hitbox's for their 'weak points' than say, Resident Evil 4 or 5, Dead Space, or the like. They're very precise where you must shoot them. Simply shooting the head won't do it, you can shoot off their jaw or chunks of their skull, and they'll still keep marching, unphased. And Sebastian's aim is not perfect, shakey and he doesn't always hit the mark. Headshots are hard, but rewarding as they send out juicy amounts of gore and feel, sound, and look satisfying. Speaking of that...

Oh boy, here we go. I hope the game doesn't have any unadjustable mouse acceleration. I played all versions of RE4, from the gamecube to the latest steam release and out of all them I have the rather unpopular opinion that keyboard and mouse are actually better for the aiming in that game and third person shooters in general (sleeping dogs is an exception).

Point being, shaky-hand thing does not work with mouse aiming. It's fine for stick, but just feels wrong when your aim trails off even if your palm has been completely still on the mouse. Not to mention, I don't see how this game could have any more difficult head shots than any other game beyond the fact that jaw-shots may not hit the brain and don't cause instant death. Aside from that, what's making headshots hard? If I turn mouse acceleration off, adjust the mouse sensitivity, I get the exact same aiming I should get in any well-made game.

I'm assuming the Neogaf writer was playing on PS4? - That's where they've really been pushing this game at demos even at Quakecon (lol what a disaster that was). Maybe it was just hard on stick but I really hope they don't bork the classic KB/M controls.

I'll likely be playing this game on whatever the hardest difficulty is available for first playthrough and it sounds like a really nice challenge as it is... I wish they won't screw it up with artificial difficulty or any other disrupting mechanics injected into my controls beyond the default limitations of the control schemes as-is. Having some upgrade "improve aim" would confirm there is aim-disruption being added and those 'upgrades' would slowly remove/reduce it.

I don't mind the weapons themselves being inaccurate at certain distances, that's understandable to an extent.

Anyway, besides this one thing it sounds like it is coming along very nicely. Will definitely like to hear from early-buyers about their experience so I'll be keeping and eye on this thread and other forums and image boards like 8chan.

Oh and have they removed the black bars from the game yet?

Game went gold today, happy days

http://ie.ign.com/articles/2014/09/25/the-evil-within-goes-gold?abthid=5424444bf6f8835563000011

Robert ninja

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/evil-within-gold-bethesda-horror,27765.html#xtor=RSS-181

recommended system specification for the PC version. The list includes a 64-bit version of Windows 7 or Windows 8, an Intel Core i7 processor with four cores or more, 4 GB of RAM and 50 GB of hard drive space. The game also needs an Nvidia GeForce GTX 670 or equivalent with 4 GB of VRAM, a high speed Internet connection and a Steam account for activation.

http://www.bethblog.com/2014/09/25/the-system-requirements-within/

As mentioned in the blog post, we’re not posting minimum requirements, because we’re looking to share requirements that show the game the way it was meant to be played.

Baked.noodle

Yikes!

http://www.bethblog.com/2014/09/25/the-system-requirements-within/

Updated October 2

On the heels of our Gone Gold announcement, we’ve put the final touches on the recommended PC requirements for The Evil Within. These specifications are listed as “recommended” as they are the settings we’ve determined ensure that your gameplay experience plays as intended by the development team.

Recommended PC System Specifications

64-bit Windows 7/Windows 8
i7 with four plus cores
4 GBs RAM
50 GB of hard drive space*
GeForce GTX 670 or equivalent with 4GBs of VRAM
High Speed Internet Connection
Steam account and activation
*It’s worth noting that the 50 GB of space required is for the PC install. When the installation is complete, the game will take up ~41 GB of HDD space.

Minimum Requirements

OS: windows 7/8.1
GPU: GTX 460 or an equivalent 1 GB VRAM card
CPU: i7 or an equivalent 4+ core processor
RAM: 4 GB
HDD: 50 GB

Speaking of space (and by your request), here are the install sizes for the console versions of the game.

Xbox One — 40 GB HDD Space
PlayStation 4 — 40 GB HDD Space
PlayStation 3 — 7 GB HDD Space
Xbox 360 — 7 GB
Note: The Evil Within requires a mandatory install to the Xbox 360’s HDD or a USB 2.0 (or higher) flash drive.

Smithy2306

Hope this game is good. I like the consoles skins.

Cold|Fusion

full release has already hit the web, i'm really tempted to try it, but going to wait for my pre-order on ps4, looks awesome!

Reebrock

This game looks like it could be great, what do you think? I'm excited to get my hands on it.

Myrddin

Moved from Xbox

Reviews should hit this weekend. Eager to see how it's received by the critics.
Released Worldwide on 14th Oct, might have to take a half day

Robert ninja

• 30fps
• black bars
• borked resolution and aspect ratio

What's the status on the game's framerate and aspect ratio?

Shinji Mikami and the team at Tango designed The Evil Within to be played at 30fps and to utilize an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 for all platforms. The team has worked the last four years perfecting the game experience with these settings in mind. For PC players, we’ll provide debug commands on how you can alter the framerate and aspect ratio, but these commands and changes are not recommended or supported and we suggest everyone play the game as it was designed and intended for the best experience.

Does the game support 4K resolution?

Yes. The engine can go even higher if you’ve got a monitor and video card that supports it.

Can I disable the letterboxing?

The letterboxing (a 2:35:1 aspect ratio) is used for gameplay purposes, as certain elements display in the black areas of the screen. On PC, you can turn off the bars and force the game to render full-screen. However this option is not supported. We’re keeping the ability to turn off bars as a console-only command that we will share at launch

How can I turn on the debug console?

There will be a command-line option to enable the console. More at launch.

What can I do with the debug console?

Gameplay cheats, as well as advanced camera controls will all be available via console commands. More to come!

Welp, skipping this one unless people find out it actually runs fine in 1080p 16:9 and 60fps doesn't cause the game to malfunction. Those black bars need to GTFO pronto.

So disappointing they've possibly ruined it with cinematic™ nonsense.


sources
http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1508448-the-evil-within-releases-next-week-things-to-know/
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=907772

Robert ninja

Robert ninja wrote: »

• 30fps
• black bars
• borked resolution and aspect ratio

Welp, skipping this one unless people find out it actually runs fine in 1080p 16:9 and 60fps doesn't cause the game to malfunction. Those black bars need to GTFO pronto.

So disappointing they've possibly ruined it with cinematic™ nonsense.


sources
http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1508448-the-evil-within-releases-next-week-things-to-know/
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=907772

Why? What's wrong with a Cinematic effect. You can't possibly have an idea if it will work well or not.

'The letterboxing (a 2:35:1 aspect ratio) is used for gameplay purposes, as certain elements display in the black areas of the screen.'

johnny_ultimate

A 2.35:1 aspect ratio is not something to dismiss offhand, as it could play a major factor in establishing a unique look for the game through the compositional potential offered by a wider aspect ratio. It's not just black bars: aspect ratios have a significant impact on the way landscapes, people, spaces and everything else are presented. Honestly, I'm always disappointed more games don't use wide (or indeed 4:3) ratios, as they can be utilised brilliantly. 16:9 all the time is dull, as of the three most common aspect ratios it's the least immediately arresting and unique. Especially encouraging if Mikami and co. are using the bars to do something interesting.

gizmo

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

A 2.35:1 aspect ratio is not something to dismiss offhand, as it could play a major factor in establishing a unique look for the game through the compositional potential offered by a wider aspect ratio. It's not just black bars: aspect ratios have a significant impact on the way landscapes, people, spaces and everything else are presented. Honestly, I'm always disappointed more games don't use wide (or indeed 4:3) ratios, as they can be utilised brilliantly. 16:9 all the time is dull, as of the three most common aspect ratios it's the least immediately arresting and unique. Especially encouraging if Mikami and co. are using the bars to do something interesting.

Indeed, I'm also intrigued to see how The Order looks and plays with its 2.40:1 ratio.

The 30fps cinematic feel argument, on the other hand, is patently nonsense I feel.

Retr0gamer

Last time I've seen black bars used like that it was for Resident Evil 4 on Gamecube, another Shinji Mikami game, and that was used to keep the framerate up. Later versions like the heavily compromised PS2 version were full 16:9 (the original was 16:9 in a 4:3 display).

The fact that it's only really on console seems to me that they are really just trying to keep the framerate up although if they do interesting stuff with the bars as he says then it might be worth it.

I'm not really convinced though. 30fps cinematic thing is nonsense as just said. If they really wanted to do that then why not go to 25 fps? I know the reason why not and it's the same reason why 60 fps is far better for games.

gizmo

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Last time I've seen black bars used like that it was for Resident Evil 4 on Gamecube, another Shinji Mikami game, and that was used to keep the framerate up. Later versions like the heavily compromised PS2 version were full 16:9 (the original was 16:9 in a 4:3 display).

The fact that it's only really on console seems to me that they are really just trying to keep the framerate up although if they do interesting stuff with the bars as he says then it might be worth it.

I'm not really convinced though. 30fps cinematic thing is nonsense as just said. If they really wanted to do that then why not go to 25 fps? I know the reason why not and it's the same reason why 60 fps is far better for games.

Conversely, with The Order they're running at an effective resolution of 1920x800 but also using 4x MSAA, a technique that would be more of a perf hit than running at full 1080p, which would rule out that particular train of thought. Not that that means it's the same case as The Evil Within but given the nature of the game and the tech behind it, I'd imagine it's more likely a creative call than anything else.

As for the differences with the PC version, shipping a console game with variable resolution and aspect ratio would be seen as a no no by most studios. The PC version would also need to be more flexible given the varying requirements but they'll still only need to ensure baseline performance on the minimum and recommended specs. This is further emphasized by the fact that the options in question will be console-based debug commands rather than regular options accessible via the menu.

Retr0gamer

I'd argue it's to get the framerate up in the order as well. Those fogging effects are very taxing on the GPU and reducing the fill rate will take a lot of strain off.

gizmo

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I'd argue it's to get the framerate up in the order as well. Those fogging effects are very taxing on the GPU and reducing the fill rate will take a lot of strain off.

As I said, if they were worried about the GPU load one would assume 4x MSAA would be the first thing to go.

Retr0gamer

gizmo wrote: »

As I said, if they were worried about the GPU load one would assume 4x MSAA would be the first thing to go.

With that many transparency effects MSAA is the only real anti aliasing solution you can use, FXAA or other approximate AA solutions are quite poor at picking out jaggies when there's transparency effects in effect.

It's probably a case of getting the fill rate down to support those effects with MSAA and then making the most out of it with a filmic aspect ratio. Telling us that 30 FPS is an artistic choice though feels to me like a bit of a lie. I probably wouldn't care if they just said they were targeting 30 FPS and left it at that.

gizmo

Retr0gamer wrote: »

With that many transparency effects MSAA is the only real anti aliasing solution you can use, FXAA or other approximate AA solutions are quite poor at picking out jaggies when there's transparency effects in effect.

It's probably a case of getting the fill rate down to support those effects with MSAA and then making the most out of it with a filmic aspect ratio. Telling us that 30 FPS is an artistic choice though feels to me like a bit of a lie. I probably wouldn't care if they just said they were targeting 30 FPS and left it at that.

I was more suggesting they would have abandoned hardware-based AA altogether in such a scenario. A custom temporal based solution could have been an alternative but, as you pointed out, it would have been a pain in the ass given the number of transparency levels visible in some of the footage so far.

My points in general were focused more on the resolution choice than the frame rate though. When they first announced the 2.40 AR and accompanying 1920x800 res, there appeared to be more backlash to that than there was the frame rate call.

johnny_ultimate

I'd be seriously concerned if game makers were afraid to try different aspect ratios because it would be met with an angry backlash. Forget framerate - aspect ratio does indisputablyhave a major asthethic impact. A game like Uncharted particularly would IMO benefit massively from a wider ratio to capture and amplify the scope of its epic landscapes, while games that attempt to capture an early 20th century atmosphere could undoubtedly take advantage of Academy ratio. Sure, that it decreases the technical load helps and no doubt was a point of consideration for both this and The Order, but it should be considered a valid artistic choice too. 'Cinematic' isn't always a bad word, because cinema does some things incredibly well, and having a variety of distinct aspect ratios is one that could be easily translated to gaming. Letter/pillarboxing is a tiny price to pay for the major compositional benefits offered by 4:3, 2:35 and others besides.

Retr0gamer

Well we'll see but I'm not convinced. To be honest even with the aspect ratio it's not really giving the Order a more cinematic presentation than any other game. It just looks too much like a game to me, which is hard to explain.

Robert ninja

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

A 2.35:1 aspect ratio is not something to dismiss offhand, as it could play a major factor in establishing a unique look for the game through the compositional potential offered by a wider aspect ratio. It's not just black bars: aspect ratios have a significant impact on the way landscapes, people, spaces and everything else are presented. Honestly, I'm always disappointed more games don't use wide (or indeed 4:3) ratios, as they can be utilised brilliantly. 16:9 all the time is dull, as of the three most common aspect ratios it's the least immediately arresting and unique. Especially encouraging if Mikami and co. are using the bars to do something interesting.

But you're not getting wider shots when it comes to video games, you're just getting less vertcal space. The original reason why black bars were added was to hide the players' character's legs... which apparently makes a game scarier. This is an FOV issue. 16:9 is wide enough as it is... black bars are NOT going to give you ANY more horizontal space or any 'unique' look. I've played games with black bars and it's annoying... its something I only expect in really old games and like I said before, the last game I saw it was a 4:3 point and click game (about 35% of my screen was black bars on every side).

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I'd be seriously concerned if game makers were afraid to try different aspect ratios because it would be met with an angry backlash. Forget framerate - aspect ratio does indisputablyhave a major asthethic impact. A game like Uncharted particularly would IMO benefit massively from a wider ratio to capture and amplify the scope of its epic landscapes, while games that attempt to capture an early 20th century atmosphere could undoubtedly take advantage of Academy ratio. Sure, that it decreases the technical load helps and no doubt was a point of consideration for both this and The Order, but it should be considered a valid artistic choice too. 'Cinematic' isn't always a bad word, because cinema does some things incredibly well, and having a variety of distinct aspect ratios is one that could be easily translated to gaming. Letter/pillarboxing is a tiny price to pay for the major compositional benefits offered by 4:3, 2:35 and others besides.

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I'd be seriously concerned if game makers were afraid to try different aspect ratios because it would be met with an angry backlash.

They're not... they don't even think about aspect ratios. Make no mistake, all this black bar nonsense and FPS caps is to reduce strain on their targeted platform's(consoles) APUs to make it so the game can look as shiny as possible for the graphics obsessed market.

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

aspect ratio does indisputablyhave a major asthethic impact

In 3D games... it really doesn't. I can render most 3D games in any resolution at any aspect ratio. It doesn't change any 'asthetic' except for maybe making me feel like I'm playing on my old computer from 2004. If I want to see more space I adjust the FOV. If I truly want more horizontal resolution I'd get a 21:9 ultra wide monitor.


You're talking about games as if they're films and I've heard this more and more lately. Games are not films and they shouldn't try to be. If a game needs to be more story-focussed or have cinematic effects then to me that's all in the camera work, acting, music, script etc which honestly make a HUGE difference to the quality of a game.

The best thing though is that because it's a video game black bars can appear at any time the director wants and we've seen that for a long time. Gameplay normal, but as soon as a certain scene (usually a cutscene but not always) starts then black bars quietly appear... and that never annoys me because I'm usually just watching or it's actually fitting to what's happening. If the game were to continue with conventional gameplay and the black bars didn't go away I'd immediately notice and get pissed off by it.

johnny_ultimate

Robert ninja wrote: »

You're talking about games as if they're films and I've heard this more and more lately. Games are not films and they shouldn't try to be. If a game needs to be more story-focussed or have cinematic effects then to me that's all in the camera work, acting, music, script etc which honestly make a HUGE difference to the quality of a game.

It's not just film though (although they are closely related in some respects) - every major visual medium uses different 'shaped' canvases to express different things - unique symmetries, balance, emotional and visual impact etc... A face, to take one example, will have to be framed totally differently depending on whether it is a narrow or wide canvas. That's across film, photography, painting etc... I personally don't agree gaming is immune to this, and that different aspect ratios - or resolutions, or whatever we want to call them - do have the ability to communicate uniquely.

All the things you mention do make a huge difference, and I'm not for a second denying it. All I'd argue is that an aspect ratio is simply another factor worth considering out of the hundreds worthy of a designer's attention. I just compared gameplay footage from The Order and Gears of War, and IMO I do notice a significant difference in the way their respective presentations handle horizontal space - there's much more space to frame explosions in the former, for example, which IMO packs more of a visual punch than if you have the whole 16:9 frame occupied (16:9, of course, offering its unique benefits - it's the workhorse of aspect ratios, in both good and bad ways). Wide-angled or symmetrical images are always going to be quite striking if the focus is on horizontal space - it's IMO not just a matter of losing vertical space. If the developer merely lops off the top and bottom to save rendering power, well that's pointless and is going to have little significant impact (maybe even a negative one), I don't disagree with that. But if a developer does that and also considers what kind of compositional benefits their newly letterboxed or pillarboxed presentation offers them, then IMO there's definite potential there. Doubly so if technical considerations are a non-issue and the decision to go with a different aspect ratio is a wholly artistic one (I am, incidentally, not convinced that's the case in either of these games).

Retr0gamer

Rab at amusement arcade wrote about something similar today:

http://www.amusementarcade.org/2014/10/09/frames-per-second-what-feels-right/

How Soon Is Now

So is the game any good?

Raymond Pest

Watched the first 20 minutes of gameplay . Looks pretty good getting a RE4 vibe from it but a lot more disturbing

ShadowHearth

Its out like in a few days, right? I would love to get it, but I am too scared of it lol.

Xenji

ShadowHearth wrote: »

Its out like in a few days, right? I would love to get it, but I am too scared of it lol.

It is out on Tuesday, will have to wait till it gets dark to play it though