Home Messages Index
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Author IndexDate IndexThread Index

Re: [News] WinFS Dies (And Yet ANOTHER Feature Conceded)

__/ [ [H]omer ] on Sunday 25 June 2006 04:00 \__

> TheLetterK wrote:
>> On Sun, 25 Jun 2006 03:01:21 +0100, [H]omer wrote:
> 
>>> I think graphics card manufacturers (er ... *both* of them) are
>>> just clutching at straws trying to figure out how to make people
>>> upgrade hardware that *really* doesn't need upgraded, ably assisted
>>> by Microsoft (of course) who happily oblige by bumping version
>>> numbers to make people believe the upgrade is necessary.
> 
>> Oh hell no. There's been substantial improvement in the capabilities
>> of video cards over the past few years. That's one of the few areas
>> of computer technology that's actually gained new capabilities in
>> recent years.
> 
> I remember John Carmack giving a presentation at an Apple Expo about
> Doom 3, and how he slavered over nVidia's latest toy.


Doom 3 did not run quite so gracefully on my modern Raedon. But it gets
worse....


> Being an ID fan, and old Doom-Meister in particular, I bought the
> game.


Why buy when you can try the demo as means of evaluating the game? Having
grown up as a _huge_ Doom and Doom II addict, I found no assimilation
between the 'old generation' and the 'new generation' of the game. So
nostalgia played no role at all. No imps; no chainsaw; no punch; no snorting
in the background...


> What a disappointment. What was cited as "atmospheric" turned out to
> actually just mean "pitch black", and the gameplay was abysmal
> ... literally boring.


Exactly! The whole game is about trying to see the most in pitch-black rooms.
It's about scare through surprises (visual and audio). What would be the
point raising the contrast/brightness (old Dooms has gamma correction, F11
IIRC)?


> The graphics ... what I could see of it ... looked OK, I suppose.


"It's like a big-budget movie with a story that goes nowhere" (Elaine quote).


> The icing on the cake was when the game crashed, mid-way through level
> 2 IIRC. My hardware seemed up to spec (P4 3.6GHz, GF6600GT, 2GB DDR2,
> XP SP2, latest drivers, latest patches etc.), but no dice.
> 
> I'm quite sure that from the POV of development, newer APIs and
> hardware capabilities make game development much easier, but in "user
> experience" terms for the end user, the differences seem minimal at
> best, to me at least.


Same here. I really miss the games from the olden days when everything was
developed with quality storylines (Leisure Suit Larry, Monkey Island,
Goblins...), as well as innovation rather than the aim of sticking in as
many polygons as possible while retaining decent FPS rate. It's like a
brute-force battle rather than an attempt to please the audience with
quality content.

best wishes,

Roy

-- 
Roy S. Schestowitz      |    Bring home the world cup, England!
http://Schestowitz.com  | Free as in Free Beer ¦  PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
Cpu(s):  20.3% user,   3.6% system,  18.5% nice,  57.5% idle
      http://iuron.com - semantic engine to gather information

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Author IndexDate IndexThread Index