X-box showoff report.
Jarle Hrafn Grindhaug
The games set up to be playable was Halo, RSC, Project Gotham, Abe and some
snowboard game I cant
remember the name of.
First of all I must say that the arrangement was one of the most pathetic I
have ever seen.
They used composite cables connected to expensive plasmascreens!!! The
picture was
so flat and lifeless as possible. Also the picturesettings on the screens
was as they were
from the store, and we know how optimized they usually are.
The people doing this show had NO clue about games OR consoles as I have
always
feared from an X-box release.
The machine:
Its even uglier than I had imagined, the design oozes of consoleflop.
The controller is huge and some of the buttons are simply unreachable.
BUT we learned that the japan controller is coming to europe. And thats a
good thing.
The games were also fed into the Harddrive, something I found interesting
as we could check out how it worked. I must admit that I was shocket to
learn that
there was serious lagging. The game sometimes stopped up and needed a couple
of
sec. to keep up.
The games:
Halo was probably the most impressive game at the show. Though I doubt FPS
will
be any huge success on the consolemarket this was actually a good FPS.
HUGE scenery with no popups, you can spot mountains a mile away.
BUT you can spot DirectX gamemaking a mile away in this title. The textures,
the colours,
tha lighting and the movements are all to static for my taste. Also the game
has Half Life written
all over it.
P. Gotham was probably the biggest dissapointment of them all. This game
isnt even the
shadow of what GT3 delivers. GT fan or not; EVERYBODY in the room agreed
that this wasn't impressive.
Abe actually impressed some with the nice GFX and fun gameplay.
RSC looked alot better than P. Gotham and had nice speed. But I thought it
got a little
boring. Maybe since I have a GT3 wheel at home. But the GFX was actually
pretty impressive.
The snowboard game had nothing you will miss in SSX Tricky. But the GFX are
good but I
dont think the controls are as smooth as with SSX. Also serious HD lag
problems involved here.
That was it.
--
.:JarLe hRaFn GriNdHauG:.
www.studiosilhuett.com
www.bruktvinyl.no
Zathras
news:9st9cq$2uc$1...@oslo-nntp.eunet.no:
> Yesterday I attended an X-box showoff here in Oslo Norway.
Cool - lucky bugger ;-)
> The games set up to be playable was Halo, RSC, Project Gotham, Abe and
> some snowboard game I cant
> remember the name of.
>
> First of all I must say that the arrangement was one of the most
> pathetic I have ever seen.
> They used composite cables connected to expensive plasmascreens!!! The
> picture was
> so flat and lifeless as possible. Also the picturesettings on the
> screens was as they were
> from the store, and we know how optimized they usually are.
> The people doing this show had NO clue about games OR consoles as I
> have always
> feared from an X-box release.
That is poor - I do hope X-Box has RGB out when it comes to Europe...
But _the_ question is, will it support PAL60!? ;-)
> The machine:
>
> Its even uglier than I had imagined, the design oozes of consoleflop.
> The controller is huge and some of the buttons are simply unreachable.
> BUT we learned that the japan controller is coming to europe. And thats
> a good thing.
Hooray - so this is now confirmed - marvellous. The Japanese controller is
way better than the American one.
> The games were also fed into the Harddrive, something I found
> interesting as we could check out how it worked. I must admit that I
> was shocket to learn that
> there was serious lagging. The game sometimes stopped up and needed a
> couple of
> sec. to keep up.
I hope the "installing" of games is quick and painless, and that we are not
going to run out of HD space too quickly...
> The games:
>
> Halo was probably the most impressive game at the show. Though I doubt
> FPS will
> be any huge success on the consolemarket this was actually a good FPS.
> HUGE scenery with no popups, you can spot mountains a mile away.
> BUT you can spot DirectX gamemaking a mile away in this title. The
> textures, the colours,
> tha lighting and the movements are all to static for my taste. Also the
> game has Half Life written
> all over it.
I think I will buy an Xbox for this game - Half-Life is (still) a fantastic
game. It's the detail which impresses, there is a _huge_ amount of stuff
going on in this game, and the complex AI must be chewing up a fair amount
of CPU time.
> P. Gotham was probably the biggest dissapointment of them all. This
> game isnt even the
> shadow of what GT3 delivers. GT fan or not; EVERYBODY in the room
> agreed that this wasn't impressive.
That's a shame - Bizarre need this to be a hit - and I thought MSR was a
fantastic game, only the "catchup" AI and penalty system let it down.
Haven't they now ditched penalties all together? Has the AI not been
improved?
> Abe actually impressed some with the nice GFX and fun gameplay.
Yes, I still like the look of this one, need to play it mind.
> RSC looked alot better than P. Gotham and had nice speed. But I thought
> it got a little
> boring. Maybe since I have a GT3 wheel at home. But the GFX was
> actually pretty impressive.
>
> The snowboard game had nothing you will miss in SSX Tricky. But the GFX
> are good but I
> dont think the controls are as smooth as with SSX. Also serious HD lag
> problems involved here.
I hate snowboarding games to be honest, so this doesn't interest me :-(
Thanks for the report.
-----
Chris
Dr. Boggis
>
> Yesterday I attended an X-box showoff here in Oslo Norway.
Where was it? In a games shop?
> The games set up to be playable was Halo, RSC, Project Gotham, Abe and some
> snowboard game I cant remember the name of.
'Amped', I expect.
> The games were also fed into the Harddrive, something I found interesting
> as we could check out how it worked. I must admit that I was shocket to
> learn that there was serious lagging. The game sometimes stopped up and
> needed a couple of sec. to keep up.
I was surprised to see how long the loading times were on the Abe's
playable demo they have in the shops here in the US. There's a little
sticker on the display unit saying "first console to contain a hard
drive - eliminates load times!!". I suppose it might just not be
optimised yet as it's a demo, but you never know.
> The games:
>
> P. Gotham was probably the biggest dissapointment of them all. This game
> isnt even the
> shadow of what GT3 delivers. GT fan or not; EVERYBODY in the room agreed
> that this wasn't impressive.
I was a bit surprised that the officially licenced cars (Ferraris,
Porsches etc.) could become damaged - they were never allowed to in GT
games. But still, it doesn't look that amazing, unfortunately.
> Abe actually impressed some with the nice GFX and fun gameplay.
Yeah, but the demo was very simple, wasn't it? (Assuming you played the
same one we've got here - collect 100 green blobs as Abe and Munch).
Doesn't show any enemies, nor any character interaction between Abe and
Munch, and no gamespeak either :-(
> RSC looked alot better than P. Gotham and had nice speed. But I thought it
> got a little
> boring. Maybe since I have a GT3 wheel at home. But the GFX was actually
> pretty impressive.
What is RSC?
Cheers for the report Jarle.
Boggis
--
-get thafucka out to reply-
GT3 stats: Day 261, 100% complete
Also playing: THPS3, Devil May Cry
Wanting: MGS2, GTA3
Jarle Hrafn Grindhaug
> > Yesterday I attended an X-box showoff here in Oslo Norway.
>
> Where was it? In a games shop?
No they had a sowoff in what they called the X-box room.
Basically 5 X-boxes set up with HD games.
It was the distributor that arranged it. POORLY though!
> > The games set up to be playable was Halo, RSC, Project Gotham, Abe and
some
> > snowboard game I cant remember the name of.
>
> 'Amped', I expect.
I think so.
>
> > The games were also fed into the Harddrive, something I found
interesting
> > as we could check out how it worked. I must admit that I was shocket to
> > learn that there was serious lagging. The game sometimes stopped up and
> > needed a couple of sec. to keep up.
>
> I was surprised to see how long the loading times were on the Abe's
> playable demo they have in the shops here in the US. There's a little
> sticker on the display unit saying "first console to contain a hard
> drive - eliminates load times!!". I suppose it might just not be
> optimised yet as it's a demo, but you never know.
>
> > The games:
> >
> > P. Gotham was probably the biggest dissapointment of them all. This game
> > isnt even the
> > shadow of what GT3 delivers. GT fan or not; EVERYBODY in the room agreed
> > that this wasn't impressive.
>
> I was a bit surprised that the officially licenced cars (Ferraris,
> Porsches etc.) could become damaged - they were never allowed to in GT
> games. But still, it doesn't look that amazing, unfortunately.
Not even near!
> > Abe actually impressed some with the nice GFX and fun gameplay.
>
> Yeah, but the demo was very simple, wasn't it? (Assuming you played the
> same one we've got here - collect 100 green blobs as Abe and Munch).
> Doesn't show any enemies, nor any character interaction between Abe and
> Munch, and no gamespeak either :-(
Good question. I never actually played it, I just watched for awhile. But I
got the impression
that it was the finished version.
> > RSC looked alot better than P. Gotham and had nice speed. But I thought
it
> > got a little
> > boring. Maybe since I have a GT3 wheel at home. But the GFX was actually
> > pretty impressive.
>
> What is RSC?
Some Rally game.
>
> Cheers for the report Jarle.
Sure. :)
Mike Kay
>
> > > Yesterday I attended an X-box showoff here in Oslo Norway.
> >
cool..... just 1 thing, the games, do you have to install them, or is it
all automatic & just copies stuff across before playing (having visions of
lack of harddrive space & stuff)
Jarle Hrafn Grindhaug
> > >
>
>
> cool..... just 1 thing, the games, do you have to install them, or is it
> all automatic & just copies stuff across before playing (having visions of
> lack of harddrive space & stuff)
Good question. I honestly dont know. And if I were qurious I probably
wouldn't get a
good answer 'cause they honeslty had NO clue whatsoever.. they didn't know
what composite was
so I dont think they could answer on HD issues.
But one of the firste thing they said were that ALL the games were on HD and
therefore
we couldn't swap discs with other machines in the room. :!
I guess this was Microsofts choice to prevent piracy on such an early stage.
Ian Harvey
>> P. Gotham was probably the biggest dissapointment of them all. This
>> game isnt even the
>> shadow of what GT3 delivers. GT fan or not; EVERYBODY in the room
>> agreed that this wasn't impressive.
>
>That's a shame - Bizarre need this to be a hit - and I thought MSR was a
>fantastic game, only the "catchup" AI and penalty system let it down.
>Haven't they now ditched penalties all together? Has the AI not been
>improved?
The review on IGN makes it sound like exactly the same game as MSR. I
preferred MSR to GT3, it was more varied although neither interests me
now. If you want GT3 PG won't be it. If you want MSR with better
graphics then it is.
Mike Kay
hmmmm 1 thing which AFAIK has not been mentioned much with msr is the lack
of grip depending on where you are on the road, i.e if doing over a 100mph
on the hills in the US, I would expect the car to leave the road, any
slower I would still expect loss of traction & increased understeer on the
brow of a hill. this does not happen.