Is the retail Killzone better than the review copies?

Musashi Wins! said:
I don't get you guys. I have no axe to grind with this game beyond the fact that it didn't turn out as well as I hoped, but I just can't understand ....I don't know, just the lowered expectations you have for what a game should do well. I guess this is the same way it got some of those inflated reviews I've seen. I don't think Halo was perfect, or the second coming of Christos, etc. but it's level of execution and polish are on a whole different level from software like this. Yea, there's a core of intriguing aesthetics on display, but it all comes together so half-assed.

As I've said many times, I like it, but it's not close to being the best game in any genre and not near what was implied by many in it's development.
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I agree with you wholeheartedly about Halo 2's polish. The game is impressively solid. Sadly, albeit beutifully crafted, I found the game to be tedious and dull. While Killzone is hobbled by some crippling flaws, I enjoyed it immensely. The vibrancy of the warzone in Killzone hasn't let go of me yet.
 
 
Thanks for posting the .zip files. I couldn't download them from the site because it said the page was unavailable. I think my Explorer security settings are too touchy or something.
 
God, if the US version is worse than the PAL version i've been playing, i really feel for the poor fuckers who bought it...
 
I was playing Halo 2 again last night and I'm seeing the same shit people are bitching about in Killzone. LOD and texture pops happen in Halo 2. The first level alone has entire pieces of the starship drawing from invisible to high detail over the course of 5 or so frames.

The movies in Halo 2, while well shot, have terrible LOD popping. If Killzone is getting hammered for that, Halo 2 should be as well.
 
The movies in Halo 2, while well shot, have terrible LOD popping
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Hopefully you understand the reason why, though. For one, they switch between multiple areas rather than sticking to one scene (which is rare for realtime scenes) and two, they are simply pushing the meager ram limit of the XBOX a bit too far. They can't simply load all of the data needed for specific scenes into ram as there is not enough ram available. It looks kinda sloppy, but it isn't a huge deal.

If Killzone is getting hammered for that, Halo 2 should be as well.
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There is a difference here, of course. Halo 2 is one continuous experience and never resorts to load screens. Killzone is broken up into individual maps and each map must be loaded individually. If Halo 2 had taken this approach, you would not have had the same problems. Killzone also runs at an EXTREMELY poor framerate. I would say that the framerate in KZ is about as bad as I have seen this gen. It is absolutely TERRIBLE throughout the game. Halo 2 holds 30 fps a good 95% of the time, however...

Despite the fact that KZ is a technical mess, I actually kinda like the game. The controls and mechanics are suprisingly solid and FEEL very nice. The AI is terrible, yet it somehow works in the constraints of the game world. If they could have polished it up and pulled off a solid 30 fps, I would probably have enjoyed it a whole lot more.
 
Despite the fact that KZ is a technical mess, I actually kinda like the game. The controls and mechanics are suprisingly solid and FEEL very nice. The AI is terrible, yet it somehow works in the constraints of the game world. If they could have polished it up and pulled off a solid 30 fps, I would probably have enjoyed it a whole lot more.
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That's the sad thing. There's the core of a potentially very good game in there, it's just mired in technical inadequacies, and in some areas, either lack of money or lack of time (the combat dialogue, for instance - if i hear another helghast shout "taking FIRE!", or "KILL HIM" (ten times in a fucking row), i may well go insane). It's especially sad since the setting, scenario, and atmosphere, while not particularly novel (Nazis... In Space!), is extremely well done, which is probably the main reason i'm persisting with it, to tell the truth...
 
I know why Halo 2 is doing it. Sometimes it just isn't optimized though. Killzone is the same. If you have 2 characters wearing identical clothing there is no reason why they shouldn't be sharing the same texture dictionary and there is no reason why one set of textures is loaded and the other not. In KZ and I believe Halo 2 the characters have their heads seperate from their bodies as well so it isn't differn't skins for the bodies.

I think this is happening because Halo 2 is using their game engines' rendering management to display the cutscenes. You can tell because it loads up the farthest LOD first and then increases the detail until it is at the level it should be. If you have 2 identical characters and one is in the distance and one is close up it'll LOD the distance character and have the highres guy in the foreground. Instead of wasting the memory to have the LOD there they could share between the 2 characters.

LOD's are only really necessary during the game because in a movie sequence you don't need AI, Collision, Dynamic Audio, etc so the resources these things take up can be removed from the system and be fed back into rendering and animation for the movie. They should have used a differn't management system but time was probably of the essence and the cutscenes low priority.

Regardless, Halo 2's rendering problems are happening while playing the game as well. Due to the Xbox having more RAM and more power it isn't effecting the game as much as it is the PS2 and Killzone (which is still very impressive to me considering the hardware). Halo 2 is certainly doing more per frame than Killzone is even if the levels are not as polygonally detailed.

Killzone does run at a pretty meager variable framerate. Normally it averages 20fps. Playable but not pretty.
 
fyi, SCEA says the killzone versions are the same. albeit, they could be lying.

"With the exception of the PAL/NTSC conversion, please note that Killzone is
the same exact game."
 
Does such a part exist!?!

I'm on the 2nd part of the jungle level right now. The one that has the cool rock formations that looks like the planet in Alien.
 
I'm just on that part now. The airstrikes are awesome!

I started a new profile just to play around on. On the 2nd part of the first level, after you first blow up the tank with the rocket launcher and waste the wave of guys that come out directly afterward, I ran into the adjacent building and was greated by 2 of my soldiers missing their heads! about 3 seconds later they just popped back on.

I've seen my player's head disappear during the death animation and camera but this was way worse.
 
XS+ said:
but the level design and ambience crush Bungie's blockbuster.
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taylor21119.jpg


"which brings me to my next point.....Dont smoke crack"
 
I just got throught the snow level last night. What an epic series of levels those were. The weather station was really cool as was the part with raising the shuttle. Then the battle up the control tower and back down to the main level where they throw tons of Elites at you as well as those bodyguards or whatever they are. Now i'm on the space station and battling it out in close quarters.

So far I've seen about 3 individual levels they should have cut or scaled back because the engine just couldn't handle them. The park with the sakura is one and the first one as you approach the industrial dockyards and then there is one later in the more rugged terrain where shit is popping in and out.

I look at the art and I see stuff they could have fixed or optimized. Sometimes you'll see a door jam and for some reason there is a door imbedded in the wall that flickers in and out. I've seen regular geometry doubled up for no reason. The worst seeming problems I saw were near the silo rooms on dual flights of stairs. Between each stair were white flicking lines. The game just needed a good pass over the art to get everything cleaned up.

They should have used a traditional death animation whenever the player gets wiped out. Sometimes the ragdoll just goes absolutely nuts. Otherwise this is the one game this year I've had the most fun with.
 
My impression from the Killzone demo:

The game is A LOT of fun. But it DOES have a lot of annoying glitches.

I don't think the AI is horrible from what I saw. I was crouching behind a wall and waiting to heal, and the guy i was about to shoot came around the corner quickly and gunned me down.
 
"Killzone is grounded in reality quite a bit more."

Agreed. Reality is quite boring most of the time wich is also true for Killzone. :D
 
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