The controller still seems set to be one per system, but has a lot of interesting little features.
There's some new developments with their upcoming online service. Here's hoping this really will be able to compete with Live, Steam, or even PS3's service would be an improvement.
So I had to double check my Xbox version to compare it to the HD remakes, and I noticed a number of flubs here and there. I checked online and I'm not the only one to notice. There's some serious Cain being raised about this port. This is mainly for SH2. Apparently SH3's port was a lot better done.
First thing I noticed was a much more subdued grain filter, the fog not being quite as intense, and the movies being poorly upscaled and stretched so they end up looking rather distorted and grainy. I also noticed that sometimes dialog doesn't match up and there's some framerate skipping issues. It doesn't help that I had to take up 4 gigs to install ports of PS2 games.
So here's the other thing, there's stuff I didn't notice that plenty of others caught. There are missing details all over the place. There's far less debris in the streets, and some background textures such as the island across the water at the beginning of the game that are missing or different.
Hijinks, the people responsible for this port, state that Konami actually gave them source code from a beta version of the game instead of the released code. Hell, even the GBA port of Mother 1+2 used the most up to date source code from the unreleased English translation of 1. Didn't Konami keep that code around? (Capcom screwed up once with keeping old resources too. They somehow lost a lot of assets for Okami requiring lots of them to be remade for the Wii port.)
So the world looks higher res, which is nice until you start noticing that the lesser fog and grain filter actually exposes the low quality of the textures, which were never updated for this version. They didn't even turn on antialiasing. Further, the streets feel a bit emptier and some of those headlines and little background details that peeps like Weltall love to speculate on are just gone.
That makes the original XBox and PS2 versions of Restless Dreams the definitive version of the game. That sucks...
Compare this to Konami's other big HD release, the Metal Gear Solid HD collection. That game looks and plays absolutely amazingly with things like antialiasing and so on added. Aside from the removed extras, the games are all around better now. (Though I still wish they'd kept those extras.)
Add in the simple fact that they didn't even bother making it a complete collection and skipped 4 and I get the impression that Hijinks just isn't a very talented company. Konami screwed up by giving them beta code for one of the games, but that's only a partial excuse. Other companies have been able to convert the games by reverse engineering the disks and didn't even need the source code.
This video shows the awesome power of the new Blender particle system. There are allot of things about my twister I don't like like, for example I think the simulation is to slow. But you get the idea, properly configured, Blender particles can do some pretty awesome things.
HP just sent me a advisory with the title "USB 3 HDD exhibits slow transfer speeds." LOL, so I click on it and the resolution was something to the tune of nothing is wrong with our laptops your probably doing it wrong.. :)
So my question is that, they listed specific models this issue affects.. So I guess the moral of this story is if you own a:
HP EliteBook 8460p Notebook PC
HP EliteBook 8460w Mobile Workstation
HP EliteBook 8540p Notebook PC
HP EliteBook 8540w Mobile Workstation
HP EliteBook 8560p Notebook PC
HP EliteBook 8560w Mobile Workstation
HP EliteBook 8740w Mobile Workstation
HP EliteBook 8760w Mobile Workstation
HP ProBook 4230s Notebook PC
HP ProBook 4330s Notebook PC
HP ProBook 4331s Notebook PC
HP ProBook 4430s Notebook PC
HP ProBook 4431s Notebook PC
HP ProBook 4435s Notebook PC
HP ProBook 4530s Notebook PC
HP ProBook 4535s Notebook PC
HP ProBook 4730s Notebook PC
HP ProBook 6460b Notebook PC
HP ProBook 6560b Notebook PC
You don't know what your doing and shouldn't be using a computer. The rest of us are good though.. :)
Posted by: etoven - 27th May 2012, 9:49 AM - Forum: Ramble City
- No Replies
So I went out for a little byte to eat at Taco bell, WOW was that a big mistake!
There was a idiot parked in my driveway
There were idiots on the road
I came in and a idiot took my order
Then I sat down next to one idiot screaming at another idiot.
..Who then got up to scream at more idiots.
I was so scared I quickly ate my food and left as quickly as possible. I'm hiding in my house until Tuesday! :)
I've been hearing about this game for a while, but for some reason all the news sites seem to focus on is the "weird" name. I don't see what's so strange about it myself. I think the name is pretty interesting.
The game is really nice. It seems to be Capcom's attempt to make an "American style" RPG. It's got a massive sprawling overworld in the Elderscrolls style to explore, the ability to customize a unique character, and some very impressive graphics. The combat system is leagues ahead of Elderscrolls though, in that it's actually fun. Killing monsters is a lot like Monster Hunter, with well developed move sets to use and finding out how monsters behave to properly defeat them. You can also cut parts off of monsters and that's how you get ingredients for crafting and so on (far more interactive than just "looting a corpse"). You can have a large number of "followers" helping you in combat. Again, the combat is amazing. You can do things like jump up and grab onto the underside of a dragon to properly gut it, or if an ogre grabs your friend you can attack the hand to make it let go. There's plenty of questing to do, and those quests do a good job of updating in real time. Sometimes quests get dropped into your log in the middle of combat, which streamlines things a lot better.
The online mode basically consists of taking your friend's characters and putting them in your party as AI controlled followers. Rather disappointing, but it's something.
Oh, the music starts out a little soft but then goes into a rock and roll style that is classic Capcom.
It's an unusual trend. Most of these games aren't having any favors done with higher resolution graphics. Notably, Daxter 1's low poly nature is just brought into sharper relief. That said, a few really shine at high res like Silent Hill 2 and the various God of War games (and also Ico/Colossus).
I'll note that they did well in making sure to keep the openings of each individual game intact. Especially with Ico/Colossus, those openings really set a certain mood. Nintendo's Wii collection of the Prime series messed that up with one very generic title screen replacing all 3 really nicely done openings in the original games. That said, a number of these games are missing modes. Metal Gear Solid's collection in particular is missing the online modes as well as the Snake vs Monkey mode in MGS3 and the skateboarding mini-game from MGS2. Fortunately, they all do seem to be using the latest version so it's Substance and Subsistence for those two games.
The enhancements are all over the board though, as well as which games get the honor of being included in each collection. The Jak collection has a bare bones addition of high res with nothing else touched, but it does include all 3 games. However, the Silent Hill collection, while also improving lighting and fog and even including brand new voice acting (very well done in fact, with Silent Hill 2 allowing an option to use the old voice acting, but Silent Hill 3 oddly only allowing the new) is missing Silent Hill 4. There's no clear reason they skipped on it, they just skipped out on it. (I consider SH4 underrated. Sure the main character's not very well fleshed out, but the main character always seemed more of a player avatar in a game focusing more on telling the story of the villain, and it does that job very well.) Oh, the logo that comes up when turning on Silent Hill is a little... off. Konami then... well I can't remember the name of the other company but it's some sort of happy silly fun slide name and logo that really doesn't fit "Silent Hill".
Personally, the HD collections I'm most looking forward to are for Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts. In both cases they'd see the first ever state-side release of the Final Mix/International Editions of those series. I'd say the Final Fantasy one should be FFX and FFXII minimum, and maybe if they wanted to add in FFX-2 and Dirge of Cerberus, and all International versions where available. Kingdom Hearts collection would be KH1, KH2, RE: Chain of Memories and maybe Birth by Sleep (they did port over HD remixes of the two PSP God of War games so there's precedent). Again, Final Mix of all of those.
All in all, I've seen no reason to pick up any of these collections, except Silent Hill because I want to get some other people I know to play numba 2 and it'll be easier if it's a modern game. Plus, that game actually does look pretty nice in HD. As I said, the new voice acting is really nice. Though, I gotta say the first Silent Hill needed it more. Too bad these collections seem to be ignoring the PS1 generation. It's for the best I suppose. Those games really wouldn't benefit from HD resolution at all, and in fact kinda depend on a low resolution display to blur edges in textures and such. The only "must buy" would have to be my hypothetical FF and KH collections. Still, it's good for them to be out there since the only PS2 games I see on shelves any more are EA sports games. Seriously, is there an audience out there for NFL 2012 PS2 edition? I mean, the only audience I see that game appealing to is very poor people/people uninterested in buying new technology who really like EA Sports games. How big could that particular group be?
<h1>Have a listen!</h1>
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I just recorded my friend with my plain old computer and awesomefiedit with adobe audition... What do you think?<br/><br/>
