PS3 Q&A Thread

[stray]

Did they reset the GTHD servers? I just got a 13 overall ranking on that dinky little Mazda (time was 1.25), and 55 on the Lotus. The best I could do before this was the top 200 or 300.

[stray]

I got around to downloading that Genji demo. Never played the first one, but this game doesn't seem that bad. It's no Onimusha, but it's probably in the same realm as Otogi (and just as beautiful). I.E. Not the most inspired Oriental hack and slasher, but gameplay seems decent enough (besides the camera...but very few of these do that well anyways). Great music as well.

Wonder why it's getting slammed so hard. Schild? You bought it. Played it through yet?

[Velorath]

I wouldn't say it got slammed all that hard when you actually read the reviews.  Most just said the game was average, and a bit dull.  The Gundam game on the other hand, got slammed.

[stray]

True....But it's the end rating that obscures that, I guess.

It's funny, but I basically agree (from what I can tell) with the things they say: Beautiful visuals, nice score, average gameplay, awful camera.

But even though I agree, the difference is that I wouldn't give an otherwise nice looking and decent game like this a "2 out of 5" or a sub 50% rating just because of the camera.

[Velorath]

I think what you're seeing is a shift game reviewers seem to be making towards more of a "5 out of 10 is average" way of scoring (which is a logical way to review things, but the key obviously is to do it consistently, which I don't think they're doing).

[Calantus]

there's still plenty of good (Gampesot 8.0+ games, or whatever ranking system you'd like to pick from) I haven't played yet

Reading through this thread I ran into that quote. Is there a way to find Gamespot X-rating+ games beyond just surfing through games and seeing what they scored?

[Trippy]

there's still plenty of good (Gampesot 8.0+ games, or whatever ranking system you'd like to pick from) I haven't played yet

Reading through this thread I ran into that quote. Is there a way to find Gamespot X-rating+ games beyond just surfing through games and seeing what they scored?

Go to "All <Platform> Games" when you are looking at a particular platform. Then "Browse All Results". Finally click on the Score column.

For some inexplicable reason they took out the Search config page where you could specify a score range, which genres you were interested, and so on.

[Calantus]

They need a way to turn off all the basketball/skateboarding/football/snowboarding/baseball/soccor/wrestling/etc games. I mean... damn.

[Roac]

They need a way to turn off all the basketball/skateboarding/football/snowboarding/baseball/soccor/wrestling/etc games. I mean... damn.

That's what Trippy was talking about.  They had it.  Their search engine was damn nice and made it very easy to find exactly what I wanted.  Now, not so much.

[HaemishM]

I'm sure if you used the search function, you wouldn't have your eyes raped by so many EA Street Sports ads. They couldn't have that.

[Roac]

No, they still had full screen clickthrough ads.  If anything I saw more of the damned things then, because back then I actually visited their site.  They hid the content I wanted to see (easy searching for games I might like), so I don't visit that much anymore.

[Sairon]

I talked with the lead programmer at Massive the other day, he's been lead since they started 10 years ago so he has quite a wealth of experience. Anyway, he was mostly intrested in PS3 in this generation it seemed. He thinks that the PS3 will be the truly innovative machine when it comes to technology. He thinks that just as the PS2 was a bitch to program for, it had entirely diffrent possibilities than the competition. Compare first generation PS2 games to the best looking bunch now at the end of the cycle and there's a much larger difference than for xbox and gc. He pointed out that in for example Warhawk they have ray traced clouds, just because they can. People talk about how it will be impossible to unlock all the potential of the CPU cores, but I bet you that there's smart people out there which will do it.

[Kageru]

Oh, I'm sure they can unlock the power of the PS3 architecture. And there's a huge number of technical people who would adore the challenge it provides. However the people with the money may be a lot less interested in another increase in the cost of development, and making it much harder to do versions for other platforms.

A lot of it is going to end up depending on the size of the PS3 installed base.

[Big Gulp]

A lot of it is going to end up depending on the size of the PS3 installed base.

The PS3 will get enough exclusives, and the console will drop in price eventually (although probably only sometime late in 2008) so that the install base shouldn't be a problem.  The thing is, though, that although it's more powerful than the 360, it's only marginally so.  Also, they'll never come close to duplicating what MS has going on with Live, and I think that if Sony comes breathing down their neck they'll drop the subscription for that as well.

The PS3 has some advantages, but man, it's competitors have leaped out ahead of it in a huge way.

[stray]

Seems like this might be a big era for middleware (not that it already isn't). Less people even trying to take advantage of the hardware themselves as much, putting the main burden on specialists and first parties to push the hardware.

[Roac]

I talked with the lead programmer at Massive the other day, he's been lead since they started 10 years ago so he has quite a wealth of experience. Anyway, he was mostly intrested in PS3 in this generation it seemed. He thinks that the PS3 will be the truly innovative machine when it comes to technology.

More hardware is not innovation.  The hardware arms race has been going on since... well, since computing began.  As for how excited programmers are to work with the PS3, I really doubt it because it offers nothing really new.  What Microsoft is doing with Live is new.  What Nintendo is doing both with the DS and Wii is new.  The PS3 and PSP are not new. 

Thing is, people have been really worried for a long time now about the notion that more graphics does not make better games, yet more and more of the cost of a game percent wise is being dumped into graphics content.  The actual game part of a game isn't changing much.

He thinks that just as the PS2 was a bitch to program for, it had entirely diffrent possibilities than the competition.

There isn't much that is fundamentally different between the XBox, PS2, and GC.  If any of the three had "entirely different possibilities", it would be the XBox because of the Live content and beat the PS2 for online stuff hands down.  Oh, and it had a hard drive too.  Right, and it was the more powerful hardware of the three.  It still lost despite being an arguably better product, because the PS2 dominated mindshare at the outset and was able to lockup a HUGE library of games.  Nobody gives a shit about consoles, people care about games, so pepople bought PS2s.  It had games, which was well reflected in its 4:1 sales lead over the Xbox (and GC).  That library is why the PS2 is still selling well, because even for people who are excited about 7th gen stuff, if you like playing games the PS2 is still where it's at.

[Sairon]

Technology allows more innovation in the gameplay areas. Good luck doing the gravity gun in HL2 with the hardware available when HL1 launched. There's a bit more to it than "more powerful" when it comes to hardware, PS3 is worse than the 360 in some areas but better in others. In the end it's all about the game, just as you stated, at this point however we can only speculate about how good the up coming games are for the PS3 and Wii so it's hard to base a purchase on that.

[stray]

Oh brother. Not the less investment in graphics means better gameplay argument again.

[EDIT]

Besides, the hardware doesn't just push higher graphics capabilities. There's better AI, better physics, better capacity...All of which can help gameplay.

[Cyrrex]

Since this is the Q&A thread, I have a couple of questions.   Some of these have already been speculated on, but I'd be interested in some solid answers if anyone has them:

Is the PS3 region free for PS2 games?

Can the BD player also run ordinary DVDs?  Is this also region free?

These are actually pretty important questions for me...I'm moving to the US in about 2 weeks, and I know I'll need a region free DVD player.  I'd also like to know if I should dump all my PAL PS2 games, or take them with me.  If the answer to all the above is YES (which I doubt), then the PS3 will be a no-brainer purchase for me.

[squirrel]

Oh brother. Not the less investment in graphics means better gameplay argument again.

[EDIT]

Besides, the hardware doesn't just push higher graphics capabilities. There's better AI, better physics, better capacity...All of which can help gameplay.

Agreed, actually after doing a fair bit of reading on the PS3 architecture I'd say that if you're expecting graphics way above what the 360 does you're going to be disappointed. However, given developer commitment, the Cell should be awesome for AI and physics specifically, and those have a huge impact on gameplay.

[schild]

Not region free for anything besides PS3 games.

It can play DVDs. Not other regions besides though.

[Cyrrex]

Bummer.  But thanks.

[stray]

So I got invited to the G.A.P. Is that a good thing? And is that a random invite or something? They're already calling me elite (lol), but I can't think of anything I did that was special (did have some kickass laptimes in gthd awhile back, I guess..).

[Velorath]

So I got invited to the G.A.P. Is that a good thing? And is that a random invite or something? They're already calling me elite (lol), but I can't think of anything I did that was special (did have some kickass laptimes in gthd awhile back, I guess..).

They pretty much invite everyone.  It's not bad to sign up for.  I think they send out demo discs and stuff once in a while, and I also seem to recall that it's how I got into the FFXI PS2 beta (which also netted me a free PS2 HDD that never saw any use afterwards since I only ever played FFXI on the PC).

[Yegolev]

So, it's kinda like being a member of Nintendo Power?

[Velorath]

So, it's kinda like being a member of Nintendo Power?

I guess.  I haven't so much as looked at an issue of Nintendo Power since the end of the 8-bit days.

[stray]

Aww man. I thought it was free parties and swag or some shit. 

And especially thought it was saying that I was a unique snowflake. 

[schild]

Neg. It's nothing.

[ahoythematey]

Fifth Element in Blu-Ray is pretty.  Too bad it's not really an improvement over the Superbit DVD.

[ahoythematey]

Anybody happen to know how to increase XMB text size while in 720 or 1080?  That shit is tiny.

[stray]

Don't think so. It should scale well enough already...?

The only text you can increase manually is in the browser, I think.

[EDIT]

Fifth Element isn't the greatest of transfers.

Actually, there aren't any big, recent visual sci-fi/fantasy flicks that are yet. Unless you want to include X3 and Superman Returns. Those look great, but they're also shitty movies.

Well....I haven't seen Hitchhiker's on BD. Maybe that's good.

...

House of Flying Daggers isn't as good as it could be either.

Like Schild recommended awhile back though, if you want great picture quality, the best you might get is Silent Hill.

[schild]

Ultraviolet and Aeon Flux aren't too shabby either.

Edit: Stray, is your avatar Dan Smith from Killer 7?

[stray]

Yep, that's Dan :)


The Prestige comes out Tuesday. That's supposed to look good.

[Yegolev]

Don't think so. It should scale well enough already...?

Doesn't scale at all as far as I can tell.  The icons seem to maintain their size.  I got used to it, though, and I know where everything is in XMB now.

[ahoythematey]

Yeah, my eyes adjusted pretty quickly to the size.

Is it just me, or are the melee ranges in Resistance multiplayer awfully dodgy?