No stopping PS2

In the past year games have been released that have seemingly pushed the PS2 to it' s limits. What was previously thought improbable has been proved wrong over and over.

When Capcom announced that they were porting Resident Evil 4 to PS2, pretty much everyone thought that it would have to be scaled back significantly. Fortunately this wasn' t the case, and they look pretty much the same, and the PS2 has an additional chapter and some nice bonuses too.

Tekken 5 was another major achievement, because quite simply PS2 games aren' t supposed to look this good...

Burnout Revenge, Gran Turismo 4, God of War etc are all games that a couple of years ago you definately wouldn' t have expected on PS2.

Now Shadow of the Colossus is already out (US) and is really bloody impressive (Zelda who?) and Black is about to hit (i played the demo already and it' s the game that Killzone should have been) and there is seemingly no stopping the PS2. Black has blown me away, almost as much as Resident Evil 4 did on Gamecube, and i think that everybody should get Shadow of the Colossus.

I wonder is any games suprised anyone else like that...

I totally agree with Shadow of the Colossus. Have you heard the bit about it' s spiritual sequel? it looks amazing. definately, all of those games have pushed the ps2 to it' s limits. The newest burnout is leaps & bounds better than it' s predecessor. and i haven' t played Black yet, but it sounds good. What' s it like? more of the Gangsta shootemup, or something along the lines of a bloody Ghost Recon. are the visuals any good because i havent been able to find any screenshots of it. holy shniykeys is the sentence flow in this post ever fractured. So... Frustrating... Think back... to... 8th grade English... alright whatever. you' ve played killzone right? is it any good? exempting online, because my psonline is off right now.

Killzone sucked badly!

Black on the other hand is tons better (based on the demo i have). The amount of destruction is stupendous, although understandable since it' s by the guys who did the Burnout games. The screens are from the PS2 version too (i hope they port it to 360).









By spiritual sequel you mean?

The UK which has been neglected by way of PS2 games in recent months is currently anticipating maelstrom of critically acclaimed titles. We Love Katamari is first out next week. You US lot should know that this is the first Katamari game to be given a UK release meaning we miss out on the first game for good. Secondly a week later is Psychonauts. Hotly tipped by a few UK mags when it came out in America it finally gets a UK release. Finally one week later Shadow of the Colossus shows up. This has been the most painful to wait for being a big fan of Ico.

I wish I could play it again for the first time. Paul your going to like it.

Change is inevitable. Except from a vending machine.

Viva La Revolution! erm, I mean Viva La Wii!

I can' t wait!

Oh, and Black is looking very impressive. Then again I' m biased; being hooked on Burnout since number 3 and proclaiming it the greatest racing game of all time.

refusing to ackknowledge the PS2 as a good console, all i can say is that those games are rubbish


Rubbish!!


okay, jokes aside


RE 4, doesnt look quite as good on the PS2 than the GC, the halved the number of polygons used on Leon, but it still looks quite good.

I mean Sony has to keep releasing AA titles for the PS2, untill they can release the PS3, if they dont, they will be done for. Atleast Black will be released for the Xbox as well.

(Zelda who?)

DON' T EVER SAY THAT AGAIN... :)

New PS2 games have enormous gameplay that I rarely found on X - Fuck the graphics.

While Killzone is a mediocre game - it looks like those guys could make the best FPP ever ...but they probably won' t :)

I checked that movie from E3 again - the only thing that makes it look so REAL are the explosions.I think it is possible to make a game like that in the coming generation (with some tricks and stuff).

But when we praise Playstation 2 we have to keep in mind why so many hate it and call the ultimate crap - it is because PS2 has become great in 2005 and before it , it wasn' t worth shit.

Errrr, ...Zelda who? *kidding*

I' ve always had all the consoles on release, i love games with a passion. But saying that, when RE4 came out for GC i stopped playing games on my Xbox and my PS2 for months. Then when Tekken 5 and MGS3 were released i played them to death (Tekken 4 sucked ass!) and the PS2 was back in my good books.

I' ve always played Xbox games, i mean Jade Empre, Stranger Wrath, PGR2, Fable, GR2, DoAU, Ninja Gaiden etc are all great games, but before last year the PS2 had been lacking. But a flurry of good games last year (RE4 was great and worthy of purchasing for the extras), and with good games still being released it looks like it' s going to go out strong!

Now if only they' d release Twilight Princess!

EDIT: Gangsta, Killzone will suck really badly, it' s already a done deal. I would have thought that with it being a CGI video they would have sync' d the firing/hits etc. It was impressive but we won' t see stuff like that for years (3+) yet. Killzone on PS3 will be a completely overshadowed by Halo 3 on 360.

Killzone video is not " impossible" on 360 today.
I mean the graphics , not the character animation and stuff - cause that was something achievable only in CG (non repetitive animation patterns and such).

If they make explosions like that , they can make that kind of game.

I played Twilight Princess demo and words are not enough to describe it.

Fuckin hell how can you say jade empire was good? :)

I have a PS2 and I' m not even going to bother with RE4 - finished it on gamecube - that' s the way you should play RE4 - those bonus features aren' t that important to me.

There' s no deal about killzone majik - same with Halo 3.

Tell me that after you played both and I' ll listen but for now talk to the hand cause the head ain' t into MS lovers talk :)

I think the way games are being made on the ps2 have more to do with it.
The system hasn' t gotten any stronger, but " middleware" to focus on content over creation is big buisness these days.

Make no mistake, capcom intended this game to look the same on all consoles it sees fit to publish for.
If thise were an all out technical achievment, and companies like capcom and konami were forced to start from scratch/custom the game to spacific hardware, the ps2 would be showing it' s age for sure.

As to say, if capcom never intended to make RE4 for the playstation, and just made it gamecube-centric, the game would look leaps and bounds better.

Yet one more reason all the console developers are pushing for the next gen so soon, because the playstation 2 is holding all of them back.

The graphic form the Killzone video are definately NOT possible on 360 right now. Look at the biggest and best looking games heading towards the platform this year, ...Gears of War, Resident Evil 5, Dead Rising, Ghost Recon 3, Prey etc. They all look really good, but not one of them looks as good as that video. Sure when developers have gotten around the consoles architecture and figured out how best to utilize the 3 cores, then you' ll see graphics that look like that, but not any day soon and certainly not in this next 2 years.

The original Killzone looked good, it looked like it should play well, ...but it didn' t. It was complete rubbish. Since they already have a crap game in that series, there' s nothing to say that the remake will be any better, especially since it wasn' t even the team responsible for actually making the game that did the CGI video that was shown at E3/TGS, they just did the art direction for it.

Halo on the other hand already has 2 very impressive games (ok so the 2nd game didn' t quite live up to it' s name), and i' m certain Bungie will have learned from their mistakes in Halo 2 and correct them for the 3rd game. Halo 2 was a good game in it' s own right, but i' m certain Halo 3 will be the game that everyone expects it to be.

Oh, Gangsta, where did you get a Twilight Princess demo?

I just can' t stress this enough.
The killzone " video" was admitedly, nothing more then a concept video.
Even at the CES, gurilla said the game might look a little differant, but wanted to stress " something similar"

Like kojima said in playstation magazine, next gen hardware has no barring anymore, they are all very similar, it' s a non issue.

Now as the nintendo revolution is said to be the weakest system in the threesome, i would expect that most of the multi-platform games (such as RE) will look similar to what you will come to expect from the REV.

Because a publisher makes much more money pleasing all console fans, then with exclusive content.

Sure, there will be many exclusive games to show off what each system is capable of, but 70% of what your come to see in the next 4 years will be multiplatform, and be only as good as the weakest link.

What?

We KNOW it was a concept video, we' ve already had this conversation ages ago. But what he was saying was that graphics like that are possible on 360 right now, which is daft. Many developers are currently relying on Microsofts XNA toolkit and until middleware developers get used to the hardware proper then games of that visual quality aren' t possible.

And again, if you' re going to start quoting stuff then try and provide a link eh?!

What Kojima ACTUALLY said was...

" ..a little bit more down to earth...so people maybe can join easily to start creating on the 360.." with regard to 360 and Microsofts XNA toolkit, and " ..gives the impression that the developers could create games on less budget.." with regard to Revolution (N5).

He also said of PS3 developers...

" ..not sure if everyone can live up to that high standard that Sony is expecting.." because of it' s complicated architecture.."

Kojima-san then launched into a lengthy analogy about having dinner to clarify his thoughts. " PS3 would be like a dinner you only have once a year or twice a year on your anniversary," he said, whereas Xbox 360 would be something you had " two or three times a month" and Revolution " is the kind of great dinner that you have every day at your home" .

http://www.ps3land.com/news/article120.php

So no they' re not similar. While admittedly PS3 and 360 have more in common than most will agree on in terms of processing power, Revolution will definatley be lagging behind. But who cares? I don' t, i just want to get my hand on the controller!

And for the record, publishers if they are smart enough can make more money for ' exclusivity deals' than putting out multi-platform games, since companies like Sony and especially Microsoft have the readies that publishers so desperately want.

Personally it makes no odds to me since i' ll be buying both PS3 and Revolution (N5) on their respective launch dates and i already have a 360.

ORIGINAL: whiteguysamurai

Sure, there will be many exclusive games to show off what each system is capable of, but 70% of what your come to see in the next 4 years will be multiplatform, and be only as good as the weakest link.

This would surely please Terry, as he' s not a fan of 3rd party exclusives. I' m kinda half and half on the subject. I mean, I like a game to optimized for one system. If a game must be multi-platform it should always come out for the strongest system first and be ported (RE4, Splinter Cell). The problem is the developement cost of multi-platform games. If you' re talking Capcom or Ubisoft (which has at least 3 different teams) then it' s easy. If your talking smaller companies, then they must choose the platform that will benefit them the best.

And, of course it' s best to have all three systems, as it lessens the chance for a drought. When M$ didn' t have any games out for a while, PS2 and Guitar Hero saved the day! Now tha DOA4 is out, though... hell, I still play Guitar Hero every now and again!

there was one interveiw i read on 1up.com with kojima, where he explained he didn' t dislike the xbox360, that his team had gotten the ps3 development kits before the xbox 360 kits, and that he felt the metla gear solid 4 demo could be done on the xbox 360, i' m racking my brain trying to find it.

Don' t quote me, because this is from memory.

Well anyway, i didn' t notice we were on the same page when it came to killzone, and that' s a relief.

Also, the revolution will be a fine follow up from the gamecube, taught microsoft a few lessons on making a great deal of money with little risk, you might also say the same thing for sony, but sony is pig headed when it comes to hardware license.

Yeah i know the interview you' re referring to. But people here don' t seem to understand that MGS4 won' t actually look like that when you' re playing it. They seem to think that the visuals displayed in the realtime demonstration are what will a) be exactly like what the final product will be like, and b) will look like that when you' re playing it.

It was a cutscene, and all MGS cutscenes are rendered in realtime by the game engine, but they never look that good when you' re actually playing it. Don' t get me wrong, i love MGS games, but people with such high expectations of hardware that isn' t only not out but has so little officially known about it' s ingame performance, they make me laugh!

Yes, we' re on the same page, and yes it IS nice to see someone who is as seemingly technically minded as myself.

I' m happy that Sony have decided to forgo the extra cost and develop their own toolkit for use by game developers in a similar fashion to what Microsoft have done. Perhaps they will solve the PS3 aliasing problem (that it would have definately otherwise had). But that' s only if they finish the kit then get it to developers in time for the launch, ...Spring is getting closer by the day!

MGS4 GoW both look amazing - and first wave of next gen titles is always less impresive than second and third.

I think Killzone is a good game - it definitely isn' t crap , and it shows a lot of potential limited by hardware - people look way better than those in Halo or even Halo 2.Gameplay depends on your weapon - first few are crappy , but then you get some sweet stuff and it gets 8-9/10 (gameplay)

Halo' s are overhyped in my opinion.Good but overhyped.Perfect Dark for N64 is my favourite console FPP :)
Half life 2 was so much better than both halo' s.

i didn' t play kill zone , but for the other things you say gangsta , i perfecty agree with you, and yes half life 2 was better than halo 1&2, those games are soooo overhyped, may be it is so because of it' s online gameplay...

Online matters too though, and it' s becoming a standard feature in console games.

While HL2 definately kicked ass on PC (can' t wait for Aftermath), the Xbox version sucked ass! Halo 2 was really overhyped but was still an enjoyable game, and the first Halo was remarkable when it arrived as an Xbox launch title. Halo is still cool!

Perhaps you guys are just anti-social loners who don' t like playing online?! Perhaps not...

Killzone was sh1t, simple! Ok so sh1t is me being too harsh, but while it had impressive graphics and a great musical score the gameplay just doesn' t quite cut it. It had terrible AI, dodgy collision detection, horrid ingame spoken audio and haphazard character animation, ...but yeah, it looks pretty for a PS2 game.

Perfect Dark on 64 was a work of art and i' m hoping it sneaks onto DS sooner or later.

The ps2 is actually more powerul then people give it credit for, the problem is that Sony is notoriously bad at giving instructions or Middleware to devs. Basically they hand the developers a piece of unique architecture that is nothing like a pc or any other console and they give theoretical peack performances. This leaves the devs with no choice but to use trial and error when developing games on the ps2. Hence the reason why we are seeing experienced devs come up with masterpieces like Collossus only now. This is something that will improve greatly with the ps3. Still MS being the biggest software giant in the world you can bet they will have better Middleware for the 360.

ORIGINAL: Game Junkie

Still MS being the biggest software giant in the world you can bet they will have better Middleware for the 360.

This is also why Sony cannot (and will not even try) compete with MS in the online gaming arena. Besides the server side of it, it is all software driven, and Microsoft hires the best programmers. I personally think that Sony should still try to have something similar. I mean, no one can argue with the popularity and success of Xbox Live.

ORIGINAL: Majikdra6on

Perhaps you guys are just anti-social loners who don' t like playing online?! Perhaps not...

Haha, that' s fun. I have always seen online players as anti-social loners. Instead of inviting people home to play in the same room or to go outside they just sit alone at their PCs or Xboxes. Bah!
Online gaming sucks (ok maybe not). But I don' t like the fact that it' s becoming standard. I prefer good single player experiences. I think that one of the most entertaining things with games (except multiplayer games) is that you can escape reality for a while and live Links life or Clouds life for a change. I think it' s called escapism and it works like some kind of virtual therapy. It' s the same reason why many read books and watch movies.
But with online play you really never escapes reality since you keep having conversations and interact with your friends. You don' t really see that Halo character as an alien. It' s your friend and so the illusion of an alternative reality disappears.
Hmm, that sounds strange so don' t get me wrong, I don' t live my life in videogames. I prefer playing games with my friends but escapism is one if the things that makes videogames so fun.

So, erm, do you invite your friends round to read your book with you then?!

Ha, no i know what you mean, but online play is still becoming more and more of a standard feature in console games. It' s got to the point where reviewers are including the addition or lack of online play in the total review score (which is unfair really).

The thing about stuff like Halo or PGR3 or whatever is that while they are very good single player games (i too appreciate a nice siongle player game with a great story line), the option of being able to play online when you' ve got bored/stuck/simply had enough is quite valuable. I think online play in games extends the games life too, i mean i completed Ghost Recon 2 four times and probably wouldn' t have gone back to it for ages if it wasn' t for the impressive online modes.

Perhaps you should play MMRPG' s.

Well I do like online games. I just thought it was a strange thing to call people who don' t like online games " anti-social loners" .

It was a joke.

You' re a joke
(that' s a joke too)

LOL!

Online is a godsent to me as I know nobody half as good as me at games. After I' ve done playing a story mode or doing ofline challenges I can go online and play against actual people.

Well I bought We Love Katamari and do love it. It' s strange, quirky, a little more difficult than I thought it would be but overall amazing. Unfortunately it didn' t sell in the UK only managing to hit number 23 in the charts! Is the world crazy or do the majority of the UK' s " Playstation Generation" suck? I can’t believe people aren’t giving it a chance yet keep Need For Speed at the top of the charts. What does this mean for Shadow of the Colossus? Hopefully it isn’t doomed to be another Ico… great but ignored.

It' s possible. It' d be hoddible if it did because Colossus is amazing!

It' s the type of gamer in this country though. They like their tuned Novas and Clios (it' s REALLY bloody sad) and play games like NFSU2 and Tekken to death!

It pretty much comes down to how games are promoted here i think. I can' t remember seeing anything but sport' s games and driving games advertized here (i don' t do TV though so i could be wrong).

What' s worrying is that because a high percentage of PS2 owners in the UK are fairly young or in their teens, it' s not like they will be able to afford the PS3. It' s not being marketted to them!

On another note, i just completely killed several fools on PGR3 while listening to Guano Apes. I think it makes me drive better...

What music do you guys listen to when playing games? Or what music have you put on your Xbox/Xbox 360 to listen to ingame?

YAY Paul! Katamari was a great choice! What a fun and addicting game. I have to kidnap Mxpx' s PS2 for a bit and finish playing some of the games.

Rikka-san!

We Love Katamari is still being played and today I got Shadow Of The Colossus. I actually got a component cable for my PS2 so it' d look it' s best and it bloody well does. It' s too ambitious of a game for the PS2 in fact but it still looks awesome.

After fiddling around with the controls I set off on Agro and got lost. I know you are supposed to follow the light reflected from your sword but I ended up in some underwater place, nearly drowning for a bit before trying else ware... then finally understanding how it works.

The first Colossus is all I' m up to. I' ve killed it and look forward to the rest. It' s defiantly in the same world as Ico... strange shadow creatures around the place in a strange world we don' t know a lot about. Wanda even moves about like Ico. He' s got that vulnerability about him that makes him human. Just the way he runs, climbs, falls and struggles make you feel every ounce of energy uses.

That game has a good ending too. But the lack of cut scenes in between coslli burnt it a bit [i think there was one?]. Very good game none the less!

Change is inevitable. Except from a vending machine.

Viva La Revolution! erm, I mean Viva La Wii!

I don' t get - I love nnovative games like REZ , Meteos - almost all of those , but I got We Love Katamari and I just don' t seem to find it fun ...

When I turned on my PS2 I thought it will be 100% gameplay - the best game this month maybe? but I don' t like it ... I don' t get it ...WHY?
:)

I think its the music, and the way it never takes itself seriously. I love the King!

Change is inevitable. Except from a vending machine.

Viva La Revolution! erm, I mean Viva La Wii!

I played Twilight Princess demo and words are not enough to describe it.

I had a chance to play the demo but I missed out(don' t ask)! I' d kill as many people as possible just to go back in time!!!!!! FUCKING HELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*Weeps*

We Love Katamari is just very odd. Personally I love the style, the eccentric-ness of the King Of All Cosmos and even the odd storyline that seems to be happening. Thats even before I get to the gameplay which has that *just one more go* factor with you trying to colelct more items in a faster time because you know you can.

Perhaps you guys are just anti-social loners who don' t like playing online?! Perhaps not...

Actually, I' m basically an anti-social loner who hates playing multiplayer with others, period . Whether it be online or at an arcade... Heck, I' m the guy who for years WISHED long and hard that arcade game manufacturers would implement a 2-player LOCK-OUT feature in games. Hell, I' d insert an extra coin just to lock other players out from joining in

I have to kidnap Mxpx' s PS2 for a bit and finish playing some of the games.

He isn' t home from 12:30 - 3:30, the perfect opportunity to get in there and make off like a bandit!!1!!

Terry Bogard - currently the most Unhelpful member of the Kikizo forums.