Unreal Tournament 2007
 
"For its 2k7 iteration (think of it like a sports game; the year's bumped ahead by one) the series is not just coming back to the console world - it's aiming to set a new benchmark for online multiplayer in the process"
 
Building a better battle
 
"We've been working on teh gameplay side of things for about a year," the game's lead designer, Steve Polge, told us as we first laid eyes on it. "We started off refining the basics, the movement and the weapons," he recounted. "We went back to the roots; played older UT games, other FPSs, so that it just feels really good." However, Polge wsa quick to add: "We're stilli n the early part of development." Judging by the level we saw, you wouldn't have thought it.
 
In a classic segue into "the really cool stuff," Polge quickly talked about the weapons being familiar, but enhanced, then got down to one of the major elements that could make UT2007 the PS3's online killer app: its vehicles. 'We're really innovating most with the vehicles," explained Polge. "We think it's something that will really translate well to teh console. It's actually one case where console controller is actually better suited for gameplay." (No, Epic Games doesn't have a PS3 boomerang controller - no one does - we controlled the dev kit with a stock dual shock 2).
 
Big guns are good. Big vehicles with bigger guns are better. There will be 18 in all, up from the six that debuted in UT2004. Executive Producer Jeff Morris landed an Axxon Cicada in front of us, giving us our first look at the detail achievable by pairing UE 3 with great artists. With its vertical wings, belly turrent, and nose art, it looked like the offspring of an aircraft from WWII and WWXXII. It was also difficult to look at it and not think that it would look perfectly at home in a big-budget Hollywood movie without needing to be pre-rendered.
 
Next up, we got to see the returning, but improved, Scorpion. This all-terrain vehicle nove becomes a self-destructing projectile if the player uses its newly added boost to rush enemies and then ejects before impact. It's also great for showing off how the game's ground vechicles have evolved from "floating boxes" to heavy feeling, realistically handling terrors of the terrain.
 
In fact, the vehicles have evolved to the point that entire battles can be played out using them. It's something that Morris had no problem with. "Where is the 'Twisted Metal Championship"', he wondered aloud. "There's no real leader of the vehicular combat genre on consoles. In fact, the genre has really evaporated over the years," he observed. "We see a real oppurtunity to bring that type of gameplay back in Unreal Tournament 2007."
 
 
The men (and women) behind the machines
 
We can't disagree with that, but this is a FPS, right? You're not just a car -- you're a man, woman, alien - a being packing some major firepower. Fear not, the foot soldier has not been forgotten.
 
At this point in development, the Onslaught mode is the major focus of the UT2007 team. The battlefields feature many elements well known to players of UTs past. capture nodes, turrents, and the like... but there are, of course, some new twists.
 
"We're tyring to give the level designers a lot more freedom to experiment with doing all new types of Onslaught levels," expalined Polge. 'We have special objectives now that can be mixed into the mode. We have low-key objectives like blow up this bridge, but they can also be very elaborate."
 
Morris is especially excited about this new aspect. "Even though you're still palying Onslaught, you know that if you complete this one special objective, for example, you're going to start out the next match in a really cool vehicle." He loves his vehicles.
 
How does all this cause and effect gameplay fit into the whole picture? "The other big thing we're adding in Ut2007 is a campaign called Warfare," explained Polge. "The outcome of one battle will realistically affect the next one. It gives a more story-driven aspect to the game, offline or online."
 
The design team is also very big on giving the player the freedom to change their role on the battlefield at any point. Polge explains: "We're not going to have classes. What we're tyring to do, though, is encourage people to take on roles." His example: "You can go and grab a sniper rifle and be a sniper for a while, but if you decide you're tired of doing that, you can play as an engineer by picking up some deployables, which are something els we're adding to UT 2007."
 
"Mines, energy barriers - we have a lot of ideas," he teased.
 
 
Blurring the off/online
 
“Even though it’s an online-oriented title, a staggering number of people play UT2004 offline,” Morris revealed to our amazement. “We always take the single player very seriously,” he continued. “One of the ways we’re doing that in UT2007 is by giving the characters lots of personality.” According to Morris, offline bots will interact with the player and each other much more realistically now. The game is set to incorporate Epic’s voice recognition technology for communicating with bots as well. “My goal is to be able to use natural words to banter with the bots,” Morris explained. “I want to say ‘Go take this point!’ to the bot and have him say ‘Nah, I don’t’ want to,’” taking it a step farther, Morris adds: “Then I’ll say ‘You WILL take that point!’ and then he goes ahead and does it. And that’s just that one guy’s personality.”
 
UT2007 is also set to include a deeper create-a-character feature than the previous games, enabling you to customize nearly every aspect of your character’s physique and battle gear.
 
Oh, the eye candy
 
Gameplay explained, the entire team want to regale us with details about the technology and art that makes UT2007 look so damn amazing. And hey, we were just as eager to listen. As the game’s executive producer explained to us in words and on the screen, the real time level we were in originally “looked too clean. Too sci-fi.” So the team decided to base it more in reality and give a grungier look to everything. “The cool thing is, every little grungy bit we added caught the light and gave the game an even more amazing look,” Morris explained as he pointed out the remarkably crisp floor and wall textures on the 720p display, light glinting off the floor’s diamond plate as the camera moved.
 
Yes, the game is targeted to run at 1280x720, a.k.a. 720p resolution if you have a high-definition display. We asked Epic Games vice president Mark Rein, who was also present at the demo, about the target frame rate. “It’s simply too early to say, but we’re aiming for it to be as high as possible,” he responded. For the record, the 720p, totally un-optimized build running on hardware less powerful than the final PS3 spec was clipping along at 49fps.
 
We asked Rein about the now famous E3 demo of UE3. How difficult was it, really, to get it up and running? “The only trick we did to make sure that the lighting looked right and shadows looked right when we were doing our E3 demo was to change the mode in the game engine from Direct X to Open GL,” he confirmed, adding: “There’s no difference in what you see running of this test bed PC [a high-end system with a $500+ NVIDIA 7800GTX video card] and the PS3, which is really amazing.”
 
“People are going to be totally blown away when the get a PS3 and play it,” Rein continued. “PC gamers are used to having the absolute cutting edge graphics – console players are just going to say ‘Wow!’” As for how PS3 will ultimately run the game? “When you see the [final] game running on PS3, it’s going to be smoother [than on the PC]. You’re not going to have the operating system in the way and all the other things that can make a PC game look ‘poppy,’” he said. Driving home the point, he added: “People ask me what the next generation is going to offer other than better graphics, and I say ‘Stop! Go back and look at the graphics!’ Don’t downplay that. People spend $600 on a video card to get this kind of performance on their PC, and this is a potentially sub- $500 console!”

Josh (a programmer) on coding for PS3 "really a night and day difference" from what he was used to on PS2. Easier? "There's just a lot more preexisting knowledge you can apply from the entire game development world," he elaborated. "You don't have to learn everything all over again. So in that way, it's a huge difference"
 
Sweeney (lead programmer) said he was happy Sony went with NVIDIA for PS3's graphics processor. He also said that its developer frinedly and "...allows us to get the best-looking games up and running much more quickly."
 
That's the end of the main reading part of the story. There are some screenshots and concept art with captions.
 
Get this, UT2007 is going to have hoverboards!! So now when you die, you don't have a long walk to get back to the action. It gets cooler...when you are riding it, can fire a "tow beam" and latch onto world objects and vehicles. So you can either hitch a ride or gather speed for clearing a large gap. And now get this, YOU CAN PULL OFF SSX-style tricks!!

 
Originally Posted by Kaz + Jack on PS3:
- they see lots of life left in PS2 well after PS3 is out
 
- Hairai says there will be lots of original franchises on the PSP next year
also want to expand Playstation experience to the handheld envrionment with existing franchises which aren't just ports, same name, different gameplay
 
- Sony still doesn't know when and which country they want to launch in first.
 
- Hirai on the PS3 slipping into 2007, not going to happen, they are still on track for a Spring 2006 launch
 
- Tretton on Microsoft's impact of a head start with xbox 360 "I dont' think it's a matter of time, but rather a matter of units."
 
- Both Sony guys said PS3 will be able to deliver the quality of visuals seen in the E3 demos. (perhaps even better) . " I think that, in the very near future, you'll see some comparable gameplay footage that will really put those rumors [that PS3 can't be as powerful as we're claiming it is] to bed."
 
- When will we get to play actual PS3 games on a real PS3? "...but what I can say is as soon as we feel that the quality of the software is up to where we expect it to be, and that we're confident of us being able to present that to everybody and everybody go home with the impression that, yes, these guys are really pusing the envelope in terms of what they bring to gameplay, graphic quality, and everything else." "... we'll present those games just as we're good and ready to go"
 
- Sony is still looking into pricing of the system
 
- another question about pricing and only certain hardcore people buying it... Bacially Hirai replies "we have a pretty good history of providing value for what we bring to the consumer"
 
- a question was asked (to Hirai, who remeber, is the Preisdent and Chief Executive officer) about the controller...it seems only one person has held the controller, Kutaragi. lol Here is a quote from Hirai. "Kutaragi actually showed it to me, and he was kind of waving it in my face, and when I tried to reach out for it, he said 'No,no,no,no,no -not yet!'"

Here's some info from the Ted Price (pres. and CEO, Insomniac games)
 
PSM: Okay, first things first: We're totally excited about "I-8." There has not be something you can tell us about it other than "it's still in development".
 
Ted Price: Ha-ha! Nope.
 
- Price said we will learn more about the game "very soon"
 
- Ted Price, as a developer, says memory and processing power excites him most about working with the PS3. Also, he seems to love Blu-Ray Disc format
 
- He says PS3 has more raw horsepower and eventually (as developers learn)the gap will widen between 360 and PS3. In favor of the PS3 of course.
 
PSM: What's one big thing you can tell us about your next game that will get us even more excited about it?
 
Ted Price: While there aren't any Lambaxes in the game, you definitely get to blow lots of stuff up! Plus we'll be drawing 529,670,000,000 polygons per frame (give or take a few), the game will be run by an AI that can also do your taxes or your homework for you and we'll support full-body biofeedback suits. Probably. (Editor's note; Ted is just being silly here. We think. You never know...)

Playstation 3 supports mouse and keyboard
 
SONY OFFICIALLY revealed many details about upcoming Playstation 3 hardware. At the game developers conference, held at the Cafe Royal, where George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde used to hobknob, the company decided to provide developers with some more information about the machinery.
 
We learned that despite having up to seven Bluetooth 2.0 compliant controllers, and six USB slots, and you will also be able to plug in a keyboard and a mouse. The company representative added that you will be able to play games such as Unreal Tournament 2007 with the keyboard and the mouse. This can mean the end of the auto aiming that you now have on Playstation 2, but I guess that developers will need to make the game fit the controller and keyboard and mouse.
 
Otherwise, if your game is so important, you might take a stand and make people buy a mouse and keyboard for your Playstation 3. At the same time you will be able to use your Playstation portable as a remote device for Playstation 3, but right now won't be able to use it as a controller for games. But you will be able to do some things such as play a video or a song.
 
With a keyboard and a mouse, the Playstation 3 might be a real threat to the PC.

Warner Home Video boss criticises Sony over Blu-Ray tactic
 
 
Lieberfarb accuses Japanese giant of behaving "like Samurai"
 
The president of Warner Home Video has criticised Sony for the tactics it has employed in the battle of the next-gen DVD formats - and for dragging home entertainment companies into the console war.
 
In a speech delivered at the Perspectives in European Video conference, Lieberfarb said: "If I put Blu-Ray in PlayStation and I don't license it to Microsoft for Xbox and I get all the studios to only publish in PlayStation, I'll beat Microsoft in the next-generation games market."
 
"We've been sucked into PlayStation versus Xbox."
 
Lieberfarb went on to compare Sony's strategies to those used by Samurai swordsmen, stating: "If you ever read The Art of War, you will see all of Sony's moves, including taking all its enemies in the same tent and then leaving them empty-handed. These are things that they have done historically."
 
"They did the same thing to Matsushita and Betamax, they did the same thing to Matsushita on compact disc, they did the same thing to Matsushita on the digital video camcorder," Lieberfarb continued.
 
"They compete like Samurai. It isn't the way we compete in the West."
 
Lieberfarb said that although it may look like Blu-Ray is set to win the battle of the next-gen formats, the war is not over yet.
 
"Hollywood blew it. They got duped. They could have created the format that optimized their creative interests. It looks like we lost, because there are six studios supporting Blu-Ray and only three supporting HD-DVD. But you know, there's always surprises," Lieberfarb stated.
 
He concluded by urging the industry to join Microsoft and Toshiba in supporting the HD-DVD format, telling the audience: "Convergence is here, everything is digital, the Internet is going to deliver video, you are going to want to pass information from one device to another and HD-DVD versus Blu-Ray is really the first battle in the issue of who controls the home."

Edit modo:

Originally Posted by zidane1strife
Well, my point was not that it was running at that framerate but that it was considered plausible and not impossible. So a game with 1080p 60fps FP16 HDR, Depth of Field, Motion Blur, heavy particle effects, cloth animations/physics, havok physics, thousands of ai controlled characters, and impressive geometry/textures/effects is considered plausible. With all the talk of RSX b/w starvation/scarcity you would think it would naturally choke with all of that at the same time going on at such a high framerate, that is that all of that at the same time would not be possible or would be nigh impossible due to b/w constraints.

Well that was a long time ago... We constantly adapt as we learn what makes this thing tick...
 
We are definately not using FP16 HDR anymore, Marco implemented a cool method to get the same results using INT8. Faster and with MSAA, Winner
 
1080p? could still happen but I reckon 720p will be the standard but we will see. Just can't see us burning precious memory, fillrate and bandwidth for something only a few people can use...