Take a look at this comparison of last-gen graphics provided by the inferior garbage bin, 2005 budget GPU with Xenos and the Xbox 360 and compare them to the stunning visuals of a truly next-gen system with the symbiotic power of Blu-Ray, Cell, and RSX. Playstation 3 is mighty impressive, isn’t it? February isn’t too long fellas. Time to turn in your Xcoats at the door.
Killzone 2 / Halo 3 Comparison: Click to Enlarge
November NPDs were released a few days ago showing strong momentum of the Playstation family during a period of economic uncertainty. Sony is clear on their way to sell their projected 10 million Playstation 3’s during the fiscal year.
During 2009, Sony sees a number of stunning titles only possible with the power of the Playstation 3. February 27th begins the launch of the graphical showboat Killzone 2, which will be followed up with InFamous, Heavy Rain, Uncharted 2, Final Fantasy XIII (exclusive in Japan), and Gran Turismo 5. This amazing lineup of exclusives, coincidng with a potential price drop sometime in 2009, will mark a transitionary period for the Playstation 3’s sales.
2007 was the year of the PS3, along with 2008, and we’re happy to report that 2009 will be an even greater year of the PS3.
Can Peter Molyneux and Lionhead redeem themselves after the utter disappointment that was the original Fable? Read on…
It doesn’t seem all that long ago that Peter Molyneux was perfoming his song-and-dance routine in front of a mob of lapdog journalists, talking up the wonders of heroes aging in realtime, a world that reacts to the players choices, and growing trees from acorns. Fast forward to 2004, and we were left with was perhaps one of the greatest disappointments of the past generation, second only to Halo 2. Instead of a grand, lush world to explore, we were stuck on roads. The main story was absurdly short, with dramatic encounters and whole chunks of the world chopped out at the last minute. Eager gamers were left stunned by the sheer smallness of it all, and lashed out at Molyneux himself, forcing him to make a public apology.
I had once entertained the idea that perhaps if Fable had been made on a more powerful platform (at that time, it was PC) instead of being constrained by the relatively meager Xbox hardware it would have fulfilled at least some of the potential Project Ego had. Now, four years and a generation later, I find myself thinking the same thing about Fable 2, both in terms of it’s status as second most disappointing title of the generation behind Halo 3, and wondering what could’ve been achieved on the vastly more powerful PlayStation 3.
Fable 2 is a textbook example of what happens when ideas are larger than the media format used to express them. From the poor visuals, constrained world, and technical shortcomings it’s difficult to decide exactly where the blame for Fable 2 lies, with the incompetent developers at Lionhead, or with the underpowered, last-gen media constrained Xbox 360. Installed on the Xbox 360’s hard drive (if you’re lucky enough to have any room on that $100 20GB HDD, that is) Fable 2 takes up only 6.8GB of space. Just indulge for a moment, and imagine if they had a Blu-Ray disc with a full 25GB to play with. Close your eyes and imagine the textures, so real you might reach out and try to touch the screen in disbelief. Let the soaring sounds of 7.1 lossless audio fill your ears and lift your soul. Now wake up.
Glitches and game-stopping bugs pop up left and right. Forums are rife with complaints about broken quests, graphical problems, and general malaise. Just opening the ingame menu is a stuttering, nausea-inducing experience. Technically the game is a mess at best, at worst it may actually be a danger to you. The Xbox 360’s DVD drive is working overtime on this game, so much so that several times I feared the disc might break apart, causing injury or death. Additionally, the decibel level put out by the drive when playing Fable 2 may cause hearing damage, so be sure you have earplugs and sit at least 15 ft. away from the console at all times. Here at SDF your health and well-being is a major concern to us, and I could not in good conscience recommend playing Fable 2 with anything less than a sheet of bulletproof glass between you and the console (you might consider investing in a pair of nice safety goggles as well, one can never be too cautious when dealing with such poorly made hardware).
With respect to the actual features of the game, once again Peter Molyneux’s inflated sense of self-importance gets the best of him. You may recall the dramatic and tantalizing revelation of one “innovation” after another, all seemingly poised to revolutionize the gaming landscape as we knew it. Fool me once Peter, shame on you. Fool me twice… well, I wasn’t fooled this time. He’s as full of hot air as the space inside the Xbox 360’s cheap plastic casing, only his hot air comes out the front instead of the back (he’s also guaranteed to RROD).
The much ballyhooed dog companion is little more than an annoying device to point out “hidden” treasures, even when they’re in plain sight of the player. This should tell you just the kind of audience Fable 2 is made for; dimwitted man child Xbots and actual children who need the obvious pointed out to them. There’s never any emotional attatchment to the dog, so you won’t really care when he’s killed in the end. Whoops, was that a spoiler? Sorry about that. You can bring him back to life though, so don’t worry. Damn, that was another spoiler. Sorry again.
The highly anticipated and ultimately highly gimped co-op feature ended up being more a source of discontent among players than enjoyment, who were angered over being promised one thing and given another. Originally a friend was supposed to be able to bring their unique hero into your game world and quest with you with their own clothing, weapons, and look. What we got was downgraded to being able to select from a set of premade characters and join in as a generic henchmen. Your co-op partner is also denied their own dog because of “framerate issues” according to IGN. The Xbox 360 can’t handle two dogs onscreen at once before being brought to it’s knees? What generation is this again?
The shallow sim-like social aspects are much the same as the previous game, i.e. they’re a waste of time. You can influence the poorly-modeled copy/pasted NPCs’ perception of you in the most simple and moronic ways; fart at them, give them a ‘thumbs up’, etc… you can woo a spouse in about ten minutes. It took me all of that ten minutes to get completely bored of it. There’s also a crude economic element to the game – you can buy property and rent it out, or buy and sell items to try and make a profit – again much the same as in the original Fable, and just as boring to get involved in. What is new is that now your ingame hero can earn money even when your Xbox 360 is turned off. I haven’t turned my console on for weeks since I’ve last played the game, so should I ever find reason to turn it on again I’ll have a fortune.
Visually the game looks eerily reminiscient of it’s older Xbox cousin, with low resolution textures everywhere, polygon-starved NPCs, and flat lighting. Sometimes there are shadows, sometimes there aren’t. Even with all the compromises Lionhead had to make to get the game running on the overheating Xbox 360 hardware, the framerate still manages to drop time and time again, even when playing the silly minigame jobs where it’s only the main character onscreen. I won’t even get into the animation. Let me just say the first time I dove into the opaque polygon plane crudely representative of water, I thought the game stalled for a few moments and some frames of animation had been skipped. Nope, that’s just the way it was animated. Just to compare it with a game in a similar vein on PlayStation 3, the upcoming PS3 exclusive White Knight Chronicles outclasses Fable 2’s visuals in every way, with a true four-player online mode to boot.
Double the graphical fidelity, double the number of players online. This seems to be a recurring theme.
I won’t go into describing the succession of events that loosely approximates a “story” in Fable 2 (calling it a story would be an insult to geniuses like Kojima), not out of a philanthropic desire to let you, the reader, experience it’s highs and lows with virgin expectations, but because it was so utterly forgettable I can’t recall a single thing about it.
Ultimately Fable 2 is just the latest in a line of Microsoft-funded first party efforts that fail to live up to the high standards set by Sony and the PlayStation 3. Failing to even live up to the 2001 promises of Project Ego, it has left gamers angry, confused, and disappointed. What will it take for an Xbox 360 game to live up to next-generation expectations? The answer is that it will take next-generation hardware, and the Xbox 360 doesn’t cut it. For all of you who purchased Fable 2 before reading this review and were left with a hollow feeling upon realizing that you’ve been taken by Peter Molyneux once again, there is a small consolation coming in the form of a downloadable island to visit that they couldn’t fit on the retail DVD. Called Knothole Island, you’ll be able to travel to the snowy land and make the same expressions at the same copy/pasted NPCs, get a few new outfits you won’t be able to use in co-op, and button mash your way through the same enemies from the regular game, all for the bargain price of $10.
SDF Score (Not an average) – 1/10
Sony Defense Force has been on a hiatus for a few months, but there’s a reason why we’ve been unable to deliver groundbreaking unbiased coverage for so long. That reason has something to do with a relatively unknown studio that resides in a far away land we like to call Amsterdam. For years, this studio has had to endure the scalding criticism of Xbox loyalists for the original KILLZONE failing to live up to its often-quoted ‘Halo Killer’ nickname.
While the status of being a ‘Halo Killer’ certainly isn’t an impressive accomplishment, we’re here to tell you that KILLZONE 2 not only destroys the HALO series in every single regard, but it will also make xbots question the very foundation of their pathetic existence. For years, there’s been a legion of Xombies following the lead of their master Microsoft, even if it meant having their poorly designed system fail on them twenty five times. And why? Becaude Microsoft’s system has a title called ‘Halo’ on it. Supposedly, the only first person shooter that matters to these savage fanatics. Ever since Halo 3’s release, there’s been a post-traumatic stress syndrome associated with the product; Halo 3 failed to deliver on all accounts and ultimately ended up being a very poorly received product in the hearts and minds of even faithful xbox fans. This resulted in the massive sales bitch-slapping the PS3 has given the Xbox 360 in 2008, despite the system costing $200-300 more than the competition.
We’ve spent the last few months extensively playtesting KILLZONE 2 at Guerrilla Games in Amsterdam in order to provide proper feedback for the final release, and it is unquestionably the greatest title in existence. The graphical fidelity of the product represents a true generational leap over Xbox 360 titles like Gears of War 2 and Halo 3. The graphics were so impressive that we were left wondering whether or not we were playing on Playstation 3 hardare rather than prototype Playstation 4 dev kits. Guerilla Games assured us that the game was playing on standard Playstation 3 systems and that no trickery was involved. The playstation 3’s power over the 360 was always readily apparent, but KILLZONE 2 makes the difference seem all the more astounding; like comparing the 360’s graphics to the Wii.
However, the good news is that KILLZONE 2 plays as good as it looks. While we can’t reveal much about it since we’re under strict NDA, it’s safe to say that the suicide rate is likely to increase in the coming months as Xbox fans question the meaning of their lives since the system they blindly support is an utter failure with a derivative, shoddily made title called Halo 3 failing to deliver. For many of these individuals, they will never be able to afford the quality of the Playstatation 3 and KILLZONE 2, which will ultimately lead them to suicide.
But for all of the Xbots out there that are feeling depressed that KILLZONE 2 rapes anything on the Xbox 360– fear not. You can still turn in your fanboy shirt at the door and purchase a reliable, quality system with true next generation graphics. Most doctors agree that the purchase of a Playstation 3 completely cures all illnesses associated with fanboys feeling depressed by purchasing an inferior Xbox 360. SDF supports life, and that’s why we support the Playstation 3. Can’t wait to see you guys in February.
