Musashi Wins! said:
I certainly share your preference for 60fps. And I think most people can notice it if they play two games of differing frame rates in close proximity.
All the same, I think it's a dumb reductionist argument, because though it's a relevant factor that more developers should strive for...it's hardly the only determinant about whether a game is quality or not. So much not so, that arguing about it only makes people seem petty.
It really doesn't matter about genre either. Two things....I remember playing a lot of Rallisport 2, probably the best looking car game this gen, and going back to PGR2 and finding it painful to play. You couldn't help but notice the frame rate and it essentially killed my enjoyment of the game....also, I bought GT4 and Forza on the first day of release being a fan of sim racers. Forza wasn't only more critically acclaimed, it was simply more fun because the developer added a lot more to the genre than image quality. GT had the framerate and a photo mode coupled with a lot of missing improvements that made it feel archaic and lackluster in comparison. The game suffered because the developer had tunnel vision about their game...not that the general public cares, because hardcore bullshit aside, people buy marketing and style over substance for the most part.
Radiata Stories is a beautiful 60 fps. It's also inane. It's not close to being better than most of the 30fps rpgs released this year. RE4 might be the best game of the year and one of the most graphically impressive...and it's not 30fps.
My only point is this....everyone likes 60fps (I think) when it's available. But it's not close to being the end all of good game design. People who say it's meaningless might sound insincere, but no less crazy than those who try to make it into more than it is. I think a lot of both sides here are simply extending their console war attitudes about it...which is pretty obvious when you get the people involved who are involved here again.
I agree with you entirely that what makes a game good or bad is the gameplay, not the framerate. The majority of games in my top 10 each year are 30fps or less.
The issue being presented in this thread was kinda a wierd one though. It was less about "oh no we can't make 60fps, should this be taken as a bad thing" and more "well we can get 60fps but we don't want it so were going to add more shadows to get it back down to 30fps". It's almost as if people
don't like 60fps. If Gears of War is a good game I'll buy it regardless of if the framerate is 60,30, or even 20fps. But the ideology of "we've finished a game and it runs well, so lets go back and knock the framerate down" just seems like the wrong way for people to be thinking. RE4 is the best looking GC game and probably the best looking game this year even if it's 30fps, and the mass amount of enemies is probably what keeps it from achieving 60fps.
If they were talking about gameplay additions such as adding more enemies or more objects to interact with and saying that would bring down the framerate I'd have no problem. Gameplay should always be prioritized over graphics. But if they want to drop it from 60-30fps just to make the explosions look better than it's kinda pointless.
So yeah, I have no problem if a team tries their best and struggles to finally get to 30fps with their game before releasing it. I'll buy their game ASAP as long as it's good. I just don't want to see developers who are getting 60fps talk about dropping framerates becaus they feel it's not needed.
Speevy said:
May I suggest buying more Western games to appreciate the other qualities in those titles?
Do you mean graphical qualities since the 30/60 debate has nothing to do with gameplay
I surprisingly do play a lot of Western and European games but I tend to play them on my PC where I put my 3d card to good use so I can get ~60fps on most
Although I play the Bioware stuff on Xbox and enjoy them at the 15fps or so they run at
I'm really looking forward to Oblivion (60fps) and PGR3 (which I at least know they are
trying for 60fps) on the X360 as well. There actually aren't that many 30fps games even out recently that are highly rated and console-exclusive, so it's tough for me to find something 30fps that shows how a stable 30fps is good enough for most games.
