As you all probably can easily tell if you have working eyeballs, many pics that developers release these days are renders and are not truly representive of the actual game. A great example is Gran Turismo 4. Here is a game screen that is a typical rendered shot (this is NOT the PS2):

This image has way more anti-aliasing than the PS2 is capable of when moving graphics in real time. Many of the GT4 pics are also of a much higher resolution than the PS2 is capable of.

Here is an ACTUAL in-game shot of Gran Turismo 4:

Notice the black borders all around (which fall into the overscan area of the TV) and the overall PS2-quality to it. Now I' m not trying to prove that Gran Turismo 4 is a bad game, I' m just saying that it won' t look as good on your TV as the pictures you' ve been seeing. Many, many game developers do things like this, so Sony is not alone. I mean heck, check out the differences in Dead or Alive Xtremely Lame Volleyball:


Fake (render)


Actual game screen.


Kikizo is known for their direct-feed movie files, and I think it' s great. However I have stumbled upon the following Quicktime and was wondering if I could get clued in on whether it is a provided-by-Sony clip or if Kikizo recorded this while actually playing the game themselves:

http://www.gametrailers.com/gt_vault/t_granturismo4_kikizo_paris1.aspx

A couple of things make me a little suspicious that it might not be " actual footage" . First of all there is no HUD or onscreen information of any kind. Second of all there is no black border around the image like we know the game has. Thirdly the file is Quicktime format, and in my experience Kikizo usualy uses WMV (not that it really matters). The footage looks pretty good, and it' s hard to tell if it' s real or a render (which moving footage can actually be... it uses the game engine but it is processed with more anti-aliasing via the developer' s worstations and not an actual PS2).

Any guesses?