HALO

Yeah, my other gripe with Microsoft is the cost of the HDD for the X360. 20GB for £69.99? Fuck you. And sorry, the argument about laptop drives costing more doesn't cut it. The 120GB drive supplied with the X360 Elite is an improvement - provided I can upgrade my standard X360 with one and retain all my DL content (add-ons for Oblivion as a case-in-point).

As for what you said about rendering, I thought the point was that the X360's shithot GPU handled most of the rendering and the game itself only needed to supply basic info? Kinda like that freeware FPS game that was only a few hundred MB and used the processor to handle all the graphics?

That freeware FPS created textures, map geometry, etc., etc. on the fly in the engine itself. A neat idea, but far too computationally difficult for anything more complex than a Quake III-style game.

No, it's far more traditional in the world of Halo 3. While there are some effects that are created by the GPU, like anything shiny, particle effects (like what is seen when you fire a plasma-based weapon) or bump maps (textures that have an additional depth texture associated with them to give it an illusion of depth), they aren't generated on the fly. And believe it or not, that's still very, very taxing to the GPU.

By far, art assets take up the most space on that disc, followed by audio assets. I'd expect that the length of the game is a result of two factors - one, simply a lack of space on the disc, and two, a desire to get away from one of the biggest complaints of the previous games - repetative map design. I noticed that only one of the maps had duplicate areas (the one where you kill the shield), and only one really had you backtrack (the one where you go fetch Cortana). This was in stark contrast to the original Halo, where some areas were so similar to each other, excepting the enemies, that you could quickly get lost, and backtracking pretty frequently.

To get away from this, it necessitated that each map basically look very different from each other. While there could be some common elements, virtually every area had unique assets, filling the disc quickly.

I wouldn't be too worried about the length of games being limited by DVD just yet, 9 gigs is still a lot of space. We will start to see multi disc games in the near future though.

The disc space argument as often brought up has little to do with the length of games, it's like arguing that the space on dvd's is preventing film directors from making longer movies.

Yep, only games I've ever seen that were bigger than DVD capacity on disk were either MMO titles (after many updates), or games with many expansions, or UT2004+bonus maps, which was always oddly gigantic to me. I think UT used totally uncompressed textures and stuff to get faster framerates / load times or something.

I wonder how huge UT3 will be :S

Out of curiousity, since the disk space arguements were brought up again, does anyone know anything about the games that are being put out on the Blu-ray discs for PS3?

I'm only asking because Heavenly Sword is quite probably one of the best looking games I have ever seen. The level of detail in everything is amazing. You can't tell me that the extra disk space did nothing for the developers simply because it'd be a stone faced lie.

I've also heard that they had problems with GTA IV- Rockstar wanted MS to allow them to make the game only playable with the HD for the 360, presumably so you could download a portion of the game so that you only needed one disk for play.

I'm not seeing how it is to MS's advantage to continue holding out on next-gen discs, the way I see it, if they made the HD player capable of reading game discs and transfering the data to the system then they would have another push in the format wars. Unless the HD player is already capable of playing games and it will be a requirement to play newer titles in the next 6-12 months. Let the ugly truth be revealed if that is the case, because by then I'll have paid $479.99 for my 360 + $179.99 for my HD player totaling $659.98. Now whose price point does that resemble?

Again, 9gb is a lot of space, and for games which need more than that there is always the multi-disc option.

You also seem to be mixing up your terminology, using HD for both the hard drive and hd-dvd drive interchangeably. The reason Rockstar would want to use the hard drive on the 360 is nothing to do with a lack of space on discs, but rather it makes coding the game much easier.

It is a lot faster to access files off a hard-drive than a dvd, and having a hard-drive there would also allow them to save a lot more information about the world as it is streamed in and out. Basically the same reasons that most pc games will ask you to copy all the files off the disc onto your hard drive before playing.

Terminology is meant as suggested where applicable, except Illinois.

Yay, multiple discs. The exact thing we got away from by switching to DVD in the first place. Color me unimpressed.

It's a fact of life that data expands to fill the available media. If both the PS3 and 360 were using blu-ray/hd-dvd I can still guarantee that there would be some multiple disc games before the end of the consoles lifespan.

Even in the case of the PS3 the blu-ray isn't really being exploited yet in a way that is meaningful for most consumers. Ratchet and Clank is interesting in that every single language the game is available in is on every disc, but with most games that are taking up massive amounts of space it is actually a case of data being on the disc multiple times to reduce access times due to the slow read-rate of blu-ray.

Well I'm not really supporting either format, I just want to see games make a leap to the next gen formats before I start seeing multiple disc games.

I can't recall any multi-disc games for the PS2 or Xbox, have any examples?

Don't know off the top of my head.

I don't really see the bother with multiple disc games, getting off my arse every few hours to change a disc is worth the console being a hundred bucks cheaper in my book.

Apparently you have not reached the levels of laziness that I have. Whether I should be proud or ashamed I am not sure.

Haven't seen enough of multiplayer to really say. And while I can't remember the title of the level, it's the one with the aerial battle. Sheer, unadulterated awesome.

Yeah, great that the UNSC finally got some airpower that the Chief can use in-game. The Hornets are a decent match for the Banshees given the homing missiles. Took a while before I figured out why they gave them to you for the level where the two Scarabs attack, until I realized about the destructible portion at the Scarab's rear. The tank just isn't maneuverable enough to dodge the main gun of two Scarabs at once.

Star Ocean: Till The End Of Time for the PS2

Fair enough, forgot about that one.

I still have the video of you trying to run me down and me smashing you with the grav hammer

Trying to get a 6 month time card, can't find any local shops that sell them.

Don't want to use a credit card, thats why i'm looking for the time cards.

Question - does anyone know if it's possible to change the splitscreen in 2-player co-op from a horizontal to a vertical split? It was possible on Halo 2 and I found that view much easier to use (as in, you can actually see what the fuck you're shooting at). The horizontal split of Halo 3 co-op is slightly easier for me to see on, but not much. On Halo 2, you needed to enable widescreen output on the XBox, but doing so on Halo 3 gives the reduced display issue you get with HD settings above 480p...

Honestly, I don't know what Bungie was thinking not making a vertical split standard anyway - it uses the screen area much more effectively.

I fail to agree. Especially if you have two players sat on a couch facing the TV - the vertical split reduces the possibility of confusion. Plus I find not only does the vertical split make everything in view bigger than on horizontal, but having a wider up/down FOV is more useful than a wider left/right FOV (since you can only shoot at the center of the screen anyway, and seeing an enemy moving to flank you is easy compared to working out that someone is firing on you from above or below).

Split screen sucks in general, but if I'm forced, I prefer vertical division on a widescreen tv, and horizontal on a 4:3 TV.

Of course, best of all is having your own monitor that is only a couple feet from your face

It was nice to finally play with you foil!