Games: What games are you currently playing? [OT!]

[mrwiseman]

A demo/beta version Sonic Adventure is available for PC here: http://www.sega.co.jp/pc/sonicdx/trial.html

[Nevan]

Why do they keep remaking it on everything?

I mean come on, it's a good game, I'll play it on Dreamcast, thank you very much. Unless they add some new level. :-\

[One Classy Bloke]

Yes! Thanks for the Demo Wiseman.
Lately, i've been playing some Xbox game ports to the PC. I've been playing Splinter Cell, which is ok, and Halo, which is amazing and may be better than Goldeneye. (note, thats very surprising to me)

[mrwiseman]

IRT N:

Why do they keep remaking it on everything?

Because it's a lot cheaper: you don't have to spend time and money on program, stage, and story design, you don't have to pay artists for graphics/music/sound, and beta testing is limited to the new programming, and not to the whole game stages. All they have to do is to port the program to PC, and if it's written in a high level language, like C++, all they have to do is to convert the system calls: the game engine that controls how the characters move and what they can do remains the same, and all they have to change is the parts when the game calls Shinobi (the Dreamcast OS, not Windows CE) to send the graphics and sound data, and read the gamepad and optical drive. This is, if the new platfrom is at least as powerful as the old one, or if you don't mind some slowdown. If you would have major slowdowns, not enough memory, etc., ports are a lot more difficult to do, and that's why you don't see many Dreamcast games ported to PS2, and when they are, they are often much worse than the original (the Dreamcast is a more powerful system than the PS2).

Porting a game like this is a way to get more money off a past investment. It's not stupid, as long as the platform they are porting it to and the game being ported are well chosen. In this case, I think it's not stupid, beause PCs really lack good platform games, especially high-quality ones with colorful, artistic Japanese-style graphics, instead of the standard PC dark alley with boxy graphics. Which really surprises me, because, after all, it's sega. Must be their smartest idea of the year or something, but I'm still skeptical, maybe they finish the port and it's all nice, but they charge for the stages serparately, never advertise it, don't port the English/Spanish/German/etc. versions, or something moronic and retarded like that.

But if they do finish it, port the int'l versions, and sell it at a reasonable price, Sonic Adventure will be one of the very best games available for PC, a console-quality game in PCs is a rare find, and this one is from a genre the PC really lacks (well, anything outside Quake clones, Need for Speed clones, and The Sims, is kinda lacking). I won't get it having the Dreamcast version, but I'm sure many PC gamers (excluding Dreamcast owners) will be amazed by such quality (and they'll be surprised to find out that that game existed on the Dreamcast since 5 years ago).


IRT OCB:

Lately, i've been playing some Xbox game ports to the PC.

In the case of Xbox games, porting them to PC is as easy as changing the box so it says "PC" instead of "Xbox", deleting one liners in the code that check for the Xbox hardware and halt the game if they don't find it/detect an illegal version of game or hw, using InstallShield to pack the game, and making some quick'n'dirty performance options menu for faster/slower PCs. Even low-level instructions (assembly) will work, because they are essentially the very same platform.

Sometimes, the "porting" is done the other way (i.e. PC to Xbox, like Morrowind). In this case, there's more work to do. They have to strip the installation and use the Xbox system, add Microsoft's territorial lock and hardware detection, strip the performance options and set them to fixed values that work well on the Xbox, fix a couple functions not supported by the Xbox, and here's where the big problem arises: most PC games are so poorly programmed I would do it better typing with my ass. Since the Xbox is a limited hardware, i.e. you can't go and tell the gamers, "ha ha yo llama, get a $500 GeForce 8 to run my Quake clone at decent fps and fuck off", which is essentially what they do in PCs, they have to optimize parts of the code, so the program ends being what it should have been from the beginning. They also tend to remove some features that are too keyboard/mouse oriented so it's easier to play if you don't have them.

"Porting" Xbox games to PC and vice-versa is even a smarter thing, because you can do it in one day (one week if you need to fix lame, slow code), and reach a broader market. It's not a bad idea to release the game on Xbox first, then release it unlocked for PCs, because there's a higher piracy % in the regular PC market, and you don't need to work further on the game this way because most PCs are usually faster than an Xbox.


Overall I think porting games is good, except when they have to ruin them by doing so: Grandia II for PS2 sucks, because not only that Dreamcast game could never be released for PS2 as is, because the PS2 simply lacks that power (textures, rendering quality, unoptimized scenario complexity (*)), and in the case of G2, they didn't even push the PS2 hardware too far, they could have done something better than that.

(*): The DC doesn't need a lot of graphical optimization/culling because it's such a nice and well-designed hardware. This is one of the reasons why, when they port a DC game to PS2, the poor PS2 is like OMG when it receives an assload of graphics to process, because it doesn't have such a smart hardware, and it processes everything you send for drawing, even if it's totally obscured by something else (and it wastes its own power by doing so).


Ok, why the hell did I write all this? I was bored ^_^ .

[PhoenixKingSizer]

I finally finished Syberia. It's a really nice game, even if it is a point-and-click adventure game ^_^ <-me, used to blasting enemies with big guns

The graphics and music...I can't even begin to describe theme. You'll sit there drooling everytime you're treated to a nice FMV. They're really pretty. The theme is pretty original too.

Now I have to play Syberia II >_> but first, Fatal Frame II awaits me...

[Nevan]

IRT Wiseman: Yea, that's true. I'd rather play it on the Dreamcast anyday though. :-p

[Xellos]

Never heard of Syberia Sizer, I'll have to look into it. PS2?

And I prefer the GCN version of Sonic Adventure.

[bassmandee]

Starting Grandia, Final Fantasy X-2, and Xenogears

[Nevan]

I got True Crime, and that game ownz.

Buy it now!!!

[Xellos]

I got Mario Kart Double Dash, which pwns, and the RotK game, which I have yet to play.

And I'm still playing PSO, FFX2 New game+, and Wild Arms 3 (11 hours into WA3, awesome still, just between new areas and such it's kinda boring)