Quantum of Solace on Wii - Wow

[Viper]

Treyarch just blew me away.


It's off screen with overdubbed music so bear that in mind. Oh, and the A.I. does suck but the gameplay and COD 4 engine are kicking ass.
kuXmDvGhOX0&fmt=18



Higher res video. Much better.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuXmDvGhOX0&fmt=18

[Gummy]

Surprisingly looks good.

[Viper]

Think we've finally surpassed the Xbox graphics stigmata?

[tokoshi_x]

I think the Wii was always capable of surpassing the Xbox graphics. Its just that not many developers are pushing the Wii to that point and only a handful of games actually look that good on the Wii(Super Mario Galaxy, Conduit). But games aren't always about graphics(MadWorld, Fragile, No More Heroes).

[JasonXe]

Think we've finally surpassed the Xbox graphics stigmata?

ehhh. Ghost Recon 2 graphics probably looks about the same or better on the original xbox.

Okyl9DoZV38

I'll think of a good game to compare it to eventually.

[frosty]

I'm sorry, but galaxy looks like shit compared to Xbox's games. I used to own it and it never once impressed me at all. The graphics were aliased badly and looked plain save for the occasional weak shader effect. This one however, I'll give the nod to being slightly above what I've seen on the old box (and I do mean SLIGHTLY, after seeing the above video). There are some nice shader effects in use, such as on the car, but there's also effects in the ghost recon video not seen on the wii vid like depth of field, or the thousands of individual blades of grass swaying in the wind. Wii does seem to have better geometry going on for the backgrounds though.

[seahorse]

nah, as soon as i see a game on wii that looks as good as chaos theory on xbox, then i'll eat my proverbial hat.

[JasonXe]

Just the fact that a year 2001 box can compete or outperform the wii technically is sad. The wii probably should cost around 20-30 buxs above the ps2 at least. Nintendo must be filthy rich from incredible profits.

[Pro A.]

They were filthy rich from incredible profits long before the Wii came around.

Going back to Bond for a sec... I'm intrigued by the game. I'll probably get it for 360 if I do buy it because I like that controller for shooting games. I liked Everything or Nothing in 2004 and have been waiting for a game that would have some of that game's exuberant energy and solid gameplay. Looks like this title could be it. I hope they take a shot and make some original games that are close to the Daniel Craig vain because that would be killer.

[OG_Monkey]

wow

[Viper]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuXmDvGhOX0&fmt=18

Same video, higher res. Yeah, not seen anything on Wii like this yet.

Watch that Ghost Recon 2 video and then watch this new one. Not even close.

[GTAce]

Sorry Viper but i also disagree.
Halo 2 and GR2 look better.
Just look how chunky everything is and there are zero details in the background.
I think one problem with vids like that is, that the bright light from the screen gives it some kind of HDR effect.

[Viper]

OK, what exactly is "chunky"? I don't understand how that relates.

And missing background details?

[Generosity of God]

Treyarch just blew me away.


It's off screen with overdubbed music so bear that in mind. Oh, and the A.I. does suck but the gameplay and COD 4 engine are kicking ass.

don't you mean Beenox?

anyways, i'm definitely happy with how it's looking. it's a relief that it doesn't look like the original images that were released a couple months back. they looked like it was for N64.

i do have some issues still.

- the water looks solid. is the light that's reflecting off the screen creating the solid look or did they forget to turn water effects on for the video?

- AI is missing intelligence. though i'm going to be hopeful and say it's being played on easy difficulty.

- the advanced control setting sucks. need to see what's in the custom menu coz that bounding box was taking things back to CoD3. please let it be customizable.

aside from that i'm pleased. plenty of action. would like to see direct feed footage before being completely satisfied with the graphics. but it seems like it will be good enough.

i'd like to know what the CoD4 engine actually brings to the table. i understand that it saves the developer time from having to create an engine from the ground up (like HVS with Quantum3) but how exactly is it making CoD:WaW and QoS looking as good as they are?

[dork]

that looks pretty good for the wii. 007's face is so freakin' beautiful and hawt.

[JasonXe]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuXmDvGhOX0&fmt=18

Same video, higher res. Yeah, not seen anything on Wii like this yet.

Watch that Ghost Recon 2 video and then watch this new one. Not even close.

B8qhB8Ge4eQ

Mind you this came out in March 05 so this is pretty much 04 tech. It is still comparable to qos which is using cod4 engine. That should put this debate to rest.

I also bet you my cupcakes that the xbox can run qos possibly 2-13% better as well. But in all serious, we're comparing a 2001 xbox tech to the wii is disheartening.

Boasting about the wii graphics is like a small wii wii man boasting about how big his wii wii is. Then when everyone sees it they laugh their ass off.

The wii is still fun no doubt but graphics is something that shouldn't be brought up in a conversation. If anyone is looking for that then they got the 360/PS3 for that kind of tech. People didn't buy the wii off the premise it was a graphical showcase but because it had a family fun factor added to it.

[GTAce]

OK, what exactly is "chunky"? I don't understand how that relates.

And missing background details?

Look at the balustrade (?) for example.
No details in the background=no water ripples, no trees, no other objects (not even bitmaps), just plain blue and green.

Btw. if we compare to the last generation of shooters, dont forget BLACK, which was on the even weaker PS2.

[Viper]

don't you mean Beenox?

- the water looks solid. is the light that's reflecting off the screen creating the solid look or did they forget to turn water effects on for the video?

- the advanced control setting sucks. need to see what's in the custom menu coz that bounding box was taking things back to CoD3. please let it be customizable.

i'd like to know what the CoD4 engine actually brings to the table. i understand that it saves the developer time from having to create an engine from the ground up (like HVS with Quantum3) but how exactly is it making CoD:WaW and QoS looking as good as they are?
1. Treyarch was the development team that ported the COD 4 engine to Wii and development was shared with Beenox though they did take a bulk of the load. It was the porting of the engine I was referring to in my original post though.

2. It's off screen so it could be a mix of both conditions.

3. I believe the custom options are as diverse as MOH2 Heroes so don't expect to be stuck with poor controls.

4. A well designed engine can enhance efficiency by making tasks that usually take a lot of work to achieve a fairly simple process. Much like the Quantum 3 Engine form HVS, the COD 4 Engine taps into the Wii's TEV unit which can render all the modern shader operations. But because the TEV is not a Direct X style environment, most game engines and developers never bother using it because of the extra work involved. Those two engines integrate the TEV into the actual development environment making it easier to take advantage of the more technical graphical effects.
Boasting about the wii graphics is like a small wii wii man boasting about how big his wii wii is. Then when everyone sees it they laugh their ass off.

The wii is still fun no doubt but graphics is something that shouldn't be brought up in a conversation. If anyone is looking for that then they got the 360/PS3 for that kind of tech. People didn't buy the wii off the premise it was a graphical showcase but because it had a family fun factor added to it.
1. That clip was almost 95% night vision. Not exactly an easy thing to compare given the bright outdoor setting in the QOS clip.

2. Don't forget that both of your videos are from direct feed while this is off screen.

3. The reason I bring up graphics is because the system is far more capable than what we've been given. It's quite a bit more powerful than the Xbox yet no publishers have been willing to pay for that extra TEV development with few exceptions (Nintendo themselves and now Activision - HVS too but they funded their game themselves, not a publisher).

The point remains a valid debate because it shouldn't be that way. You're correct that the Wii is not trying to be a graphic monster but it shouldn't be stuck in 1st gear by developers all the time either.

Look at the balustrade (?) for example.
No details in the background=no water ripples, no trees, no other objects (not even bitmaps), just plain blue and green.

Btw. if we compare to the last generation of shooters, dont forget BLACK, which was on the even weaker PS2.
1. Don't forget this is off screen so a lot of details will not be visible because of it...and the lovely YouTube compression.

2. Balustrade is the correct term though see above.

3. Are you telling me that this (http://ps2.ign.com/dor/objects/668817/black/videos/black_013106_01.html) looks better than the vid I posted?

[GTAce]

With all the particle effects and destructable objects, yes.
And this level part is one of the shittiest to show off BLACKs graphics.

[Viper]

While in the greenhouse, I saw lots of things being blown to bits and reacting to gun fire. Particle effects is actually one of the Wii's true graphical strengths. We didn't see much of anything really blow up in that vid so wait for that comparison.

Sorry, that was the one being displayed in the first dozen or two IGN vids so I just grabbed one. But considering all we have is this one level (which could be the worst graphically as well, we don't know) for QOS, we're stuck at this point.



My main overall point is to go back and compare this to all previous Wii 3rd party games. It's a huge frikkin difference. And if Treyarch (whom many of you chide as a poor developer) and relative unknown Beenox can do this on Wii, what could a quality, dedicated developer do?

[GTAce]

Well i agree with you that it looks good compared to most Wii games out there, but the answer for your question "Think we've finally surpassed the Xbox graphics stigmata?" is still "no".
I also agree that the Wii CAN do more, but that "stigmata" is still there, and i also doubt that it will be gone in the next year, especially not if you bear in mind that the Xbox was never outbid (okay maybe with HL² but the whole idea of porting it was stupid).

[Mr. Coww]

So what is the arguement about anyway? Which system does better visuals or which has more games that have a style(as in realistic) that you enjoy. Personaly Mario Galaxy looks better then any Xbox game ive seen. It did ROUND objects amazingly well which is kinda hard to do considering polygons are flat 2D objects by their very nature.
Ill be the first to admit more then a fair share of Wii games have a huge amount of lackluster titles overall. Thats my 2 cents atleast.

[Generosity of God]

multiplayer footage has appeared

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=b4nyZuVsxO0&feature=related
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=b4nyZuVsxO0&feature=related
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=6b6ea7xd6PQ&feature=related - off screen
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=XsoR9RA0iU4 - off screen

i'm liking it. has a very goldeneye multiplayer feel to it. the characters seem to be just as weightless and the environments look just as claustrophobic as in the N64 days. the stage in the third level reminds me a little of the goldeneye facility.

not really liking the sprint. seems too bouncy. needs more side to side, less up and down.

also some more single player footage.
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=pgUFSnRzzs4&feature=related

i'm fairly sure i'll be buying this once i finish my studies for this year.

[SMASHscott]

They were filthy rich from incredible profits long before the Wii came around.

Going back to Bond for a sec... I'm intrigued by the game. I'll probably get it for 360 if I do buy it because I like that controller for shooting games. I liked Everything or Nothing in 2004 and have been waiting for a game that would have some of that game's exuberant energy and solid gameplay. Looks like this title could be it. I hope they take a shot and make some original games that are close to the Daniel Craig vain because that would be killer.

I agree with you and am in the same boat as you.

I'd like to get Quantum for the Wii, but I think in the end i'll end up getting it for the 360 basically for the online play (which i hardly use anyways...but I think online play will outweigh the Wii controls).

I'm also hoping for Everything or Nothing...that was a really good game, and one of the best 3rd person shooters I've ever played. Very under-rated, forgotten and lost in the pile of "crappy, but only called crappy because it'll never live up to GoldenEye" games.

[Generosity of God]

4.5 from IGN is a real downer.

looks like i'll be relying on CoD:WaW to get my Wii FPS fix for the rest of the year. but i'm still hesitant on that one.

may rent the Wii version of QoS to see how bad it is. if it's as bad as they say, i'll be looking at the PC version.

[Viper]

The review makes it seem like they slapped it together just last week.

And judging by the entire lack of movies or pics or any other real details of the game up until just 2 weeks ago, that might be somewhat true.

[Generosity of God]

i think the worst part is the frame rate issues. i was having a hard time believing the review until they put up the frame rate video. it's not something that should be happening these days. so it was a surprise to see it was as bad as was reviewed. the review would have been a couple points higher if it didnt occur. Treyarch/Beenox dropped the ball with this game.

but what i don't understand the most is how the online doesnt lag as bad. very perplexing.

[Viper]

I noticed that too. What should lag the most, online, actually has better frame rates than the single player game.

Talk about a borked project.

And we know they fucked up because COD: WaW using the exact same engine and largely the same team (more Treyarch this time though) is a great game.

[Adrian Santiago]

Polygons were never a problem for the Wii, or even the Cube/PS2/Xbox. It's polys with multiple effects that start drawing back from the system resources. Environments are lightmapped, but there are no dynamic shadows (Open scene with two men running by show that as they pass through shaded regions and so on, they remain perfectly lit).

Things like "destructible environments", save for perhaps the Geomod engines and so on simply allow polygon structures to fall apart, utilizing (in most cases) minimalist weight/gravity physics that have existed since QBASIC titles. In other words, unless something exhibits weight, gravity, molecular density, viscosity, physical forces (wind, collisions, water flow, collective weight damaging rather than collision deflecting), it's not a physics engine.

Bump mapping? Old tech. Dirt mapping? Old tech. I forget the numbers exactly, but I believe that the original Gamecube could handle up to 8 graphical effects per single pass: Which is why it was able to have relatively low poly counts look "nicer" because each poly was "doing more", rather than the programmers using higher poly counts.

In the end, most (if not all) game engines use a maximum resolution texture size of around 512x512, with even more using 256x256. The PS3 and 360 throw out occasional "high resolution" textures larger than those, but when they do, polygon depth takes a small hit to keep the fluidity going.

Not trying to sound like a dick to anyone, that's just how game crap works :(

[Viper]

Adrian, I think most of us understand that (and you're correct about the GC having an 8 pass shader TEV).

The problem here is the Wii is much more capable of the end results from this title as is apparent from many other titles.

[Adrian Santiago]

Oh, well of course it is. You look at specs, and they're "virtually the same": Meaning, at the very minimum, the system can handle all that the Gamecube was capable of, and then perhaps 30% more on top of that. Upgraded storage medium, upgraded operating system (is what I call it... the channel software), as well as the system's ability to go online and manage all of the networking protocol in the background.

That said, what you're looking at in the Quantum video, I would wager, is entirely possible and could be virtually indentical/indistinguishable from a Gamecube copy of the title, save for some of the tasty video effects the Wii can literally "throw on" without breaking a sweat.

Bloom lighting being one of those effects (as is evident between the two Twilight Princess ports). In fact, Zelda's a good "first look" at the performance gap between the two consoles... same game, just about the same graphics (few extra sprigs of grass here and there, plus a few extra lighting effects) but the same framerate, same loading times, etc etc.

Additionally, you look at launch titles on the cube and launch titles on the Wii... the Wii ones (save for a few Mii-themed offerings) were right on par with Gamecube titles "coming out now" (again, at the time of Wii Launch). This is because developers on the Cube pretty much "had the experience" when it came time to go to work on Nintendo's new system... and by extension, didn't have to spend years and years to work on those graphically impressive and groundbreaking titles that many folks waited years for on ALL other systems.

Another take.

[TheGreenElf]

I'm sorry, but galaxy looks like shit compared to Xbox's games. I used to own it and it never once impressed me at all. The graphics were aliased badly and looked plain save for the occasional weak shader effect. This one however, I'll give the nod to being slightly above what I've seen on the old box (and I do mean SLIGHTLY, after seeing the above video). There are some nice shader effects in use, such as on the car, but there's also effects in the ghost recon video not seen on the wii vid like depth of field, or the thousands of individual blades of grass swaying in the wind. Wii does seem to have better geometry going on for the backgrounds though.
That may be a bit harsh, Frosty.

[seahorse]

someone who opens a post "galaxy looks like shit" does not deserve to be taken seriously.

[Xer0]

I agree, Mario Galaxy was exceptional looking

[munnkyman]

i have been playing this gme with some friends the last few days and it really is not that bad. the 4.5 it got from ign i thought was a bit harsh. i would give it a 6 or 7.

[Generosity of God]

i have been playing this gme with some friends the last few days and it really is not that bad. the 4.5 it got from ign i thought was a bit harsh. i would give it a 6 or 7.

there have been many people around the net saying this. makes me wonder if IGN got a really dodgy version for review. the lag in their video does make the 4.5 seem justified but if their review build was dodgy in the first place, you'd think they would go back and review it with a proper retail copy.

[masonite]

there have been many people around the net saying this. makes me wonder if IGN got a really dodgy version for review. the lag in their video does make the 4.5 seem justified but if their review build was dodgy in the first place, you'd think they would go back and review it with a proper retail copy.

Isn't it up to the developer to give them a copy of the game? wouldn't the dev give either a "good" game, or at least a disclaimer about what they were giving them?

[Xer0]

Maybe they had a pre-release game for early review purposes? I'm not sure, and I hope that it is because that score is low and sad.

[Viper]

IGN's known to do that sometimes...review pre-release builds to be first on the net with a review.

[Notedog]

It definitely looks good, but unfortunately, if

1) it looks and infinitely better on 360 and PS3

and

2) it plays like crap.

then it won't have that big of an impact on solving the Wii's graphic problem.

Edit-

IGN's known to do that sometimes...review pre-release builds to be first on the net with a review.

Hmm... was IGN one of the websites that claimed REUC had shaky IR controls? The case with that game is that most users had no problem with the controls that many critics had.

[Viper]

I don't remember if they were or not but I'll go back and look...later.

[SMASHscott]

I picked it up for 360

A lot of fun

Classic bond style gameplay


I got hooked on it and beat it already


Will take it online with 360 later this week