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X05: Quick impressions
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I'm finally back from the X05. I do not have as much videos as originally planned because of a very busy schedule today, but still there should be enough footage to keep my PCs busy with encoding tomorrow. So while I'm working on the videos, here are my quick impressions of the games there.


Kameo : The games looks even better than during TGS, thanks to self shadowing and depth of fields effects! Kameo is now my most anticipated title (with PGR3) for this launch. I would never have thought this possible just one month ago.
PGR3 : The build we got to play (2-3 weeks old) still had a few framerate and texture streaming issues, but the gameplay was as good as antipated. If you liked PGR2, you'll love PGR3. Can't wait for a finalized version !
PDZ : I have mixed feeling about this game. The gameplay seems very solid with some very nice coop features, some levels look great, but there also some very strange "art" issues, especially with how the characters look. For me, this one is a Wait&See title.
Top Spin 2 : The game was running at 60 fps on the showfloor, with some nice graphics. The gameplay was still a bit buggy, but otherwise it was very good.
Amped 3: They killed my Amped ! Amped 1&2 have been some of my most played titles on Xbox, and this Amped 3 is simply a different game. The mountains are huge now with a good framerate, but I'm not sure I'll actually want to play on them anymore...
King Kong : Activision should take some notes. For a port from a Xbox game, this 360 version looked very nice ! The art direction is excellent as expected, and the gameplay seemed quite tight.
Oblivion : Looked as nice as excepted, but it's difficult to get an idea of how it will play in just a few minutes
Condemned : The game was running quite well now. It seems like a more "intelligent" game than your average FPS, with some very nice gadgets and effects. Very oppressive atmosphere, not unlike Se7en.
Full Auto : Just a few seconds are enough to understand this game. A quite mindless but very fun racing game. It was running at 60 fps with some huge framerate drops, but the devs still have some time to fix this. A very likeable game.
Test Drive Unlimited : Much better than the horrible TGS demo. This game is full of excellent ideas, making it (I guess) the first MMO-racing game. Very nice concept, and it looks like the devs will actually manage to pull it off. A game I will try to follow as closely as possible until its release in Q1 2006.
Fifa 360 : The graphics are nice, but something is off with the players lighting. Otherwise it's still Fifa, some people will like it, others will hate it.

I'm about done with the games I've been able to play. I'll update this news if I have forgotten some. Overall I think Microsoft managed to have a very nice game sho, with lots of nice titles being playable and enjoyable.

All comments (89)

SPBTooL
SPBTooL
Commented on 2005-10-05 22:45:12
Thanks BlimBlim.
Sounds like it was...nice.
In reply to
airiox
airiox
Commented on 2005-10-05 22:46:13
Sweet. With Kameo getting all the pub lately I may have to check into that and hold off on PDZ in exchange for this. Too bad nothing has been said or leaked about Ghost Recon 3 in quite sometime now. :(
In reply to
Freniger
Freniger
Commented on 2005-10-05 22:47:05
Oblivion + Kameo + PGR3 = : )

BTW, when can we expect some new videos?
In reply to
dumbdrumdude
dumbdrumdude
Commented on 2005-10-05 22:48:31
IGN has some footage of GR3 but...well the voices are all about 4 times as low as they should be and the sound is a good 20 seconds off with the end of the videos being a black screen with sound, doesnt look all that great, but hopefully it will improve
In reply to
GriftGFX - He can also<br>ban your ass!
GriftGFX
Commented on 2005-10-05 22:48:49
Thanks Blim, excellent work as always. Look forward to your vids.
In reply to
boricua87
boricua87
Commented on 2005-10-05 22:49:31
what bout my #1 games ghost recon and madden...where they looking ne good??
In reply to
boricua87
boricua87
Commented on 2005-10-05 22:49:57
oh thanks for the update btw....
In reply to
BlimBlim - Tyrannosaurus
BlimBlim
Commented on 2005-10-05 22:53:23 In reply to boricua87
Posted by boricua87
what bout my #1 games ghost recon and madden...where they looking ne good??
Both are games I simply don't know how to play so I can't comment about them. GR:AW was a very early build (in fact the first completely playable build of the game ever) so it was *very* buggy graphically. As is, it did not look that nice. I'm sure the final game will have everything sorted.
As for madden, it was good from what the few US people who were there told me. It looked quite nice.
In reply to
Drunkenshaolin
Drunkenshaolin
Commented on 2005-10-05 22:53:30
nice work.... well done...stay away from the red lights houses..hehehe
In reply to
InjaT
InjaT
Commented on 2005-10-05 22:54:30
BlimBlim, have you some in-game footage from Oblivion?
In reply to
boricua87
boricua87
Commented on 2005-10-05 22:56:00 In reply to BlimBlim
Posted by BlimBlim
Both are games I simply don't know how to play so I can't comment about them. GR:AW was a very early build (in fact the first completely playable build of the game ever) so it was *very* buggy graphically. As is, it did not look that nice. I'm sure the final game will have everything sorted.
As for madden, it was good from what the few US people who were there told me. It looked quite nice.
thanks blim
In reply to
purbeast
purbeast
Commented on 2005-10-05 22:57:28
Thanks for the update man.

Just wondering ... I am very much anticipating Tiger Woods 2006. I know it is only going to have 6 courses and only 10 PGA players, but I was just wondering if you had a chance to play it or see it in action, and if so, could you comment on it? Thanks blim.

One more thing.

I am worried about the aliasing in these games because every screen shot I have seen recently has a bunch of Jaggies. Can you comment on whether or not AA was turned on in these games that you played? Thanks again.
In reply to
hasanahmad
hasanahmad
Commented on 2005-10-05 23:00:01
Also blim, did you play Ghost Recon, how does it look compared to the trailer which came out just before TGS
In reply to
Fenris
Fenris
Commented on 2005-10-05 23:00:20
This has rapidly become my favorite Xbox site. The updates and the people in the forums make up an overall excellent experience.

Excellent work Blim!
I have really enjoyed the vids and impressions. You seem to have the same prespective that alot of us have on PD0. I just don't know about that one. It is not creating the positive waves it needs to be a success.
In reply to
BlimBlim - Tyrannosaurus
BlimBlim
Commented on 2005-10-05 23:05:23 In reply to purbeast
Posted by purbeast
Thanks for the update man.

Just wondering ... I am very much anticipating Tiger Woods 2006. I know it is only going to have 6 courses and only 10 PGA players, but I was just wondering if you had a chance to play it or see it in action, and if so, could you comment on it? Thanks blim.

One more thing.

I am worried about the aliasing in these games because every screen shot I have seen recently has a bunch of Jaggies. Can you comment on whether or not AA was turned on in these games that you played? Thanks again.
I saw Tiger Woods running. It did not impress me that much that's for sure. I did not spend much time with the EA games, so I can't really comment more.
As for the AA, I asked J. Allard himself about it. He told me that they were quite flexible about this, unlike with the requirements of the first Xbox. If a developer can justify not having FSAA (by using HDR/Depth of field like Kameo for example, or their own AA technique) then they can be allowed not to use it. Honestly, I had a very hard time noticing any jaggies on Kameo running in 720p.
In reply to
hasanahmad
hasanahmad
Commented on 2005-10-05 23:08:52 In reply to BlimBlim
Posted by BlimBlim
I saw Tiger Woods running. It did not impress me that much that's for sure. I did not spend much time with the EA games, so I can't really comment more.
As for the AA, I asked J. Allard himself about it. He told me that they were quite flexible about this, unlike with the requirements of the first Xbox. If a developer can justify not having FSAA (by using HDR/Depth of field like Kameo for example, or their own AA technique) then they can be allowed not to use it. Honestly, I had a very hard time noticing any jaggies on Kameo running in 720p.
doesnt the Xenos GPU automatically apply AA?
In reply to
anm8rjp
anm8rjp
Commented on 2005-10-05 23:10:01
This is just me wondering... COD2 has been getting excellent media buzz from the get go. PDZ is as we all know a roller coaster ride of thoughts and speculation. I'm wondering what game will be the more A+ title to own. I liked both Halo/Halo2 and GR and GR2.

Thanks for the overall impressions on X05 Blim.
I would never have considered Kameo, but maybe once it drops in price or goes on sale I might have to give it a looksee, and probably rent it.
In reply to
purbeast
purbeast
Commented on 2005-10-05 23:13:11 In reply to BlimBlim
Posted by BlimBlim
I saw Tiger Woods running. It did not impress me that much that's for sure. I did not spend much time with the EA games, so I can't really comment more.
As for the AA, I asked J. Allard himself about it. He told me that they were quite flexible about this, unlike with the requirements of the first Xbox. If a developer can justify not having FSAA (by using HDR/Depth of field like Kameo for example, or their own AA technique) then they can be allowed not to use it. Honestly, I had a very hard time noticing any jaggies on Kameo running in 720p.
Thanks a lot for the reply :)

But as someone else posted, I thought that one of the 3 cores allowed the developers to get virtually "free" AA in their games. If thats the case, why would they not put it on? I also remember hearing that AA was a standard for each and every xbox360 game, just as 16:9 @ 720p is as well, so is this now not the case?

(of course, i have an HDTV so I am just loving this whole HD stuff, and glad to hear its not noticeable on Kameo, especially since its from the final build)
In reply to
BlimBlim - Tyrannosaurus
BlimBlim
Commented on 2005-10-05 23:14:46 In reply to hasanahmad
Posted by hasanahmad
doesnt the Xenos GPU automatically apply AA?
Not automatically. HDR takes a lot of bandwidth, so if developers want they can get more of it by not using AA.
In reply to
miketuck3r
miketuck3r
Commented on 2005-10-05 23:15:02 In reply to hasanahmad
Posted by hasanahmad
doesnt the Xenos GPU automatically apply AA?
yeh that was the hype they said it did not hit on perofrmance but we know BS sorry MS sometimes say a few porkies
In reply to
fate187
fate187
Commented on 2005-10-05 23:15:46
thx alot for the impressions
In reply to
hasanahmad
hasanahmad
Commented on 2005-10-05 23:18:08 In reply to miketuck3r
Posted by miketuck3r
yeh that was the hype they said it did not hit on perofrmance but we know BS sorry MS sometimes say a few porkies
acctually there is no performance hit. if you apply HDR, Aliasing becomes less visible. HDR seems to abe an alternative of AA.

here is an example:

Here is a picture of Valve's DoD in NON HDR:
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/video/valve_hd...

notice so many jaggies around every object? thats with a 7800 Nvidia Card with AA disabled


Now look at this

Here is the SAME image with Full HDR:
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/video/valve_hd...

notice that the jaggies have been reduced considerably, as much as 4xAA



Do you understand now
In reply to
miketuck3r
miketuck3r
Commented on 2005-10-05 23:27:34 In reply to hasanahmad
Posted by hasanahmad
acctually there is no performance hit. if you apply HDR, Aliasing becomes less visible. HDR seems to abe an alternative of AA.

here is an example:

Here is a picture of Valve's DoD in NON HDR:
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/video/valve_hd...

notice so many jaggies around every object? thats with a 7800 Nvidia Card with AA disabled


Now look at this

Here is the SAME image with Full HDR:
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/video/valve_hd...

notice that the jaggies have been reduced considerably, as much as 4xAA



Do you understand now
i understand fully hdr has nothing to do with smoting out the jaggies its lighting the jaggies are exactly the same on both of those shots, ie the landing vehicle on the left

but htere is obviously a performance hit or why not use it as well as hdr as the jaggies are still there, i know from using 4xAA on BF2 they jaggies diaapear on my X800XL card
In reply to
hasanahmad
hasanahmad
Commented on 2005-10-05 23:33:25 In reply to miketuck3r
Posted by miketuck3r
i understand fully hdr has nothing to do with smoting out the jaggies its lighting the jaggies are exactly the same on both of those shots, ie the landing vehicle on the left

but htere is obviously a performance hit or why not use it as well as hdr as the jaggies are still there, i know from using 4xAA on BF2 they jaggies diaapear on my X800XL card
Project Gotham Racing 3 uses Full AA and HDR at the same time. they trick they use is D3D compression, which Rare hasnt used.

X800 generation of cards didnt have HDR capacity
In reply to
jweezy69
jweezy69
Commented on 2005-10-05 23:33:50
Was Saints row there in playable form or was it even there peroid?
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