Wet Announced for September 15th, Economy Be Damned

[IrrelevantTangent]

Looks like Kill Bill: The Game, not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm especially glad to see that we'll actually get it this year along with L4D2, and I'll certainly endeavor to keep a close eye on this one.

 

[cleverlymadeup]

that looks like an awesome game

glad they're taking a bit of a risk and releasing it when they are. so many good games coming out in the next few months

 

[Byers]

So it's basically Grindhouse - the game. The graphics look like playstation 2 however.

Which is one of the key problems with many gamers. Are you here to play a fun game, or to watch a movie?

I'm here to play a fun game with good graphics.

Then you really need to re-evaluate your priorities if the quality of graphics is a factor in how much you're able to enjoy a game.

Well, I'm awfully glad you're around to tell me what I need and need not do.

Regardless, the games I enjoy the most are the ones that immerses me the most in the story, atmosphere and game world. Only then does it truly become my idea of escapism. Effective graphics are a part of that. That isn't to say I want graphics that require a computer from the future to play (hello Crysis), but games released in 2009 that look like they were developed 5 years ago don't instantly catch my attention as a must play title.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

I'm here to play a fun game with good graphics.

Then you really need to re-evaluate your priorities if the quality of graphics is a factor in how much you're able to enjoy a game.

Well, I'm awfully glad you're around to tell me what I need and need not do.

Regardless, the games I enjoy the most are the ones that immerses me the most in the story, atmosphere and game world. Only then does it truly become my idea of escapism. Effective graphics are a part of that. That isn't to say I want graphics that require a computer from the future to play (hello Crysis), but games released in 2009 that look like they were developed 5 years ago don't instantly catch my attention as a must play title.

The past 5 years has probably seen the least graphical improvements in any given 5-year span. Sure you could easily notice a graphical update going from Halo 2 to Halo 3, but to argue that either of them is lacking in the graphics department requires some very shallow thinking.

You claim that graphics are a part of getting immersed into a game. Yet the existence of novels proves you wrong.

 

[Byers]

I'm here to play a fun game with good graphics.

Then you really need to re-evaluate your priorities if the quality of graphics is a factor in how much you're able to enjoy a game.

Well, I'm awfully glad you're around to tell me what I need and need not do.

Regardless, the games I enjoy the most are the ones that immerses me the most in the story, atmosphere and game world. Only then does it truly become my idea of escapism. Effective graphics are a part of that. That isn't to say I want graphics that require a computer from the future to play (hello Crysis), but games released in 2009 that look like they were developed 5 years ago don't instantly catch my attention as a must play title.

The past 5 years has probably seen the least graphical improvements in any given 5-year span. Sure you could easily notice a graphical update going from Halo 2 to Halo 3, but to argue that either of them is lacking in the graphics department requires some very shallow thinking.

You claim that graphics are a part of getting immersed into a game. Yet the existence of novels proves you wrong.

A novel as a narrative is very different from a game. A game narrative is more akin to a movie, or TV series, as it's a visualized narrative. But an interactive one.

In a game, the central character is you. The point of view is yours. And while a novel explains the character's thoughts and feelings going through his head when pitted against the events and surroundings of a book, a properly immersive game should not be telling you how to feel or act when you face the various surroundings you face or events that transpire, but rather let you think and feel for yourself. The degree of this being possible is dependent on how well the game shows or illustrates these ideas to you. Simply writing something like "You find yourself facing a house of astounding beauty but with an underlying eerie atmosphere" in a text box on your screen does not in any way provoke the types of reactions from you that makes an interactive narrative effective. It needs to illustrate and make it come alive around you, at which point graphics, sound and music becomes vitally important tools.

As for the lasting power of game engines, it's true certain engines were sophisticated enough to be modified and developed for further use without looking terribly dated, like the Source engine (which was a product of a remarkable long and comprehensive development, I'm sure). But the game footage in question looked unremarkable even compared to a somewhat dated Source engine.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

A novel as a narrative is very different from a game. A game narrative is more akin to a movie, or TV series, as it's a visualized narrative. But an interactive one.

In a game, the central character is you. The point of view is yours. And while a novel explains the character's thoughts and feelings going through his head when pitted against the events and surroundings of a book, a properly immersive game should not be telling you how to feel or act when you face the various surroundings you face or events that transpire, but rather let you think and feel for yourself. The degree of this being possible is dependent on how well the game shows or illustrates these ideas to you. Simply writing something like "You find yourself facing a house of astounding beauty but with an underlying eerie atmosphere" in a text box on your screen does not in any way provoke the types of reactions from you that makes an interactive narrative effective. It needs to illustrate and make it come alive around you, at which point graphics, sound and music becomes vitally important tools.

As for the lasting power of game engines, it's true certain engines were sophisticated enough to be modified and developed for further use without looking terribly dated, like the Source engine (which was a product of a remarkable long and comprehensive development, I'm sure). But the game footage in question looked unremarkable even compared to a somewhat dated Source engine.

So... I decided to go and look at some screenshots to check out these "PS2 Graphics", and honestly, I wanna know what game you're talking about.

This [http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2007/231/942900_20070820_screen001.jpg] is not PS2-quality graphics.
This [http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2007/231/942900_20070820_screen006.jpg] is not PS2-quality graphics.
This [http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2009/152/942900_20090602_screen003.jpg] is not PS2-quality graphics.
This [http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2009/194/942900_20090714_screen002.jpg] is not PS2-quality graphics.

So I don't know which game you thought you were talking about, but it clearly isn't Wet.

 

[Byers]

A novel as a narrative is very different from a game. A game narrative is more akin to a movie, or TV series, as it's a visualized narrative. But an interactive one.

In a game, the central character is you. The point of view is yours. And while a novel explains the character's thoughts and feelings going through his head when pitted against the events and surroundings of a book, a properly immersive game should not be telling you how to feel or act when you face the various surroundings you face or events that transpire, but rather let you think and feel for yourself. The degree of this being possible is dependent on how well the game shows or illustrates these ideas to you. Simply writing something like "You find yourself facing a house of astounding beauty but with an underlying eerie atmosphere" in a text box on your screen does not in any way provoke the types of reactions from you that makes an interactive narrative effective. It needs to illustrate and make it come alive around you, at which point graphics, sound and music becomes vitally important tools.

As for the lasting power of game engines, it's true certain engines were sophisticated enough to be modified and developed for further use without looking terribly dated, like the Source engine (which was a product of a remarkable long and comprehensive development, I'm sure). But the game footage in question looked unremarkable even compared to a somewhat dated Source engine.

So... I decided to go and look at some screenshots to check out these "PS2 Graphics", and honestly, I wanna know what game you're talking about.

This [http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2007/231/942900_20070820_screen001.jpg] is not PS2-quality graphics.
This [http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2007/231/942900_20070820_screen006.jpg] is not PS2-quality graphics.
This [http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2009/152/942900_20090602_screen003.jpg] is not PS2-quality graphics.
This [http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2009/194/942900_20090714_screen002.jpg] is not PS2-quality graphics.

So I don't know which game you thought you were talking about, but it clearly isn't Wet.

Footage tells more than a thousand screenshots. My comment was mostly concerning the gameplay video I saw on the official website. Granted, the screenshots don't look too much more impressive to me than The Fall of Max Payne, a similar looking game released years back. However I haven't played "Wet" and will save my final judgment until then. But my initial impressions are that it will end up mediocre.

However, I find it amusing that suddenly in the discussion you go from defending the game's choice of having less than great graphics (and the claim that its an unimportant issue) to defending and lauding the graphics it has. It just feels like you're grasping for any straw you can to prove the whole line of reasoning behind the opinions I have as fallacious. Yet you didn't reply to a single point regarding my views on the importance of graphics in game development and games as a visual narrative, even though you were so eager to make wild claims that the mere existence of other narratives proved that I had to be wrong.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Footage tells more than a thousand screenshots. My comment was mostly concerning the gameplay video I saw on the official website. Granted, the screenshots don't look too much more impressive to me than The Fall of Max Payne, a similar looking game released years back. However I haven't played "Wet" and will save my final judgment until then. But my initial impressions are that it will end up mediocre.

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-09-wet/50274

Again. Not PS2-quality graphics. Perhaps it's early current-gen graphics at worst, but it's certainly far better than anything you'd see on the PS2.

However, I find it amusing that suddenly in the discussion you go from defending the game's choice of having less than great graphics (and the claim that its an unimportant issue) to defending and lauding the graphics it has. It just feels like you're grasping for any straw you can to prove the whole line of reasoning behind the opinions I have as fallacious. Yet you didn't reply to a single point regarding my views on the importance of graphics in game development and games as a visual narrative, even though you were so eager to make wild claims that the mere existence of other narratives proved that I had to be wrong.

I wasn't defending any game's choice. I was making a point that unless graphics are intrusively bad (like to the point where it's debatable what your character even is), then there's really no such thing as "bad graphics".

Frankly, I hadn't even seen the screens at the start of the discussion, I was simply pointing out the fallacy in complaining about graphics looking like they're from 5 years ago when graphics 5 years ago were not shitty by any standard that's feasibly plausible in current technology. Then I went and looked at some screens and trailers to get a better idea of what the game looked like, and was floored that you somehow think the graphics are shit.

Maybe you need to go back and play your PS2 again. I know I used to have a problem where if I hadn't played a game for a long time, my memory just kind of "updated the graphics" for me, then I'd go back and play the game again and be floored at how dated the game looked compared to what I remembered it looking like. Cause trust me, Wet does not have PS2 [http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/ps2/legendofkain/1112/leg_screen004.jpg]-quality [http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2005/006/reviews/535840_20050107_screen005.jpg] graphics [http://ui14.gamefaqs.com/1613/gfs_58437_2_3.jpg].

 

[Byers]

Footage tells more than a thousand screenshots. My comment was mostly concerning the gameplay video I saw on the official website. Granted, the screenshots don't look too much more impressive to me than The Fall of Max Payne, a similar looking game released years back. However I haven't played "Wet" and will save my final judgment until then. But my initial impressions are that it will end up mediocre.

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-09-wet/50274

Again. Not PS2-quality graphics. Perhaps it's early current-gen graphics at worst, but it's certainly far better than anything you'd see on the PS2.

However, I find it amusing that suddenly in the discussion you go from defending the game's choice of having less than great graphics (and the claim that its an unimportant issue) to defending and lauding the graphics it has. It just feels like you're grasping for any straw you can to prove the whole line of reasoning behind the opinions I have as fallacious. Yet you didn't reply to a single point regarding my views on the importance of graphics in game development and games as a visual narrative, even though you were so eager to make wild claims that the mere existence of other narratives proved that I had to be wrong.

I wasn't defending any game's choice. I was making a point that unless graphics are intrusively bad (like to the point where it's debatable what your character even is), then there's really no such thing as "bad graphics".

Frankly, I hadn't even seen the screens at the start of the discussion, I was simply pointing out the fallacy in complaining about graphics looking like they're from 5 years ago when graphics 5 years ago were not shitty by any standard that's feasibly plausible in current technology. Then I went and looked at some screens and trailers to get a better idea of what the game looked like, and was floored that you somehow think the graphics are shit.

Maybe you need to go back and play your PS2 again. I know I used to have a problem where if I hadn't played a game for a long time, my memory just kind of "updated the graphics" for me, then I'd go back and play the game again and be floored at how dated the game looked compared to what I remembered it looking like. Cause trust me, Wet does not have PS2 [http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2003/ps2/legendofkain/1112/leg_screen004.jpg]-quality [http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2005/006/reviews/535840_20050107_screen005.jpg] graphics [http://ui14.gamefaqs.com/1613/gfs_58437_2_3.jpg].

The PS2 was out for a few years, maybe pick [http://www.virginmedia.com/microsites/games/slideshow/rip-ps2/img_9.jpg] a newer [http://www.armchairempire.com/images/previews/ps2/grand-theft-auto-san-andreas/grand-theft-auto-san-andreas-4.jpg] game [http://img.hexus.net/v2/gaming/screenshots/colossus1_large.jpg].

Just play the trailer again and take a look at the close ups of the various characters. They look awkward and blocky to the point I associate with PS2 era models, such as titles as GTA and recent tomb raiders (Not so much the main character itself, which seems to be more anti-aliased and with more polygons than the rest of the characters - it seems obvious that they spent a little more time on her but didn't bother to put in as much time on the rest).
And this is with highly stylized effects such as Grindhouse-style dust and scratches, and burn away frames, which I can only guess has been added to the video to make it look better.
Most of the car scenes and explosions also display moderate framerate drops to the point where I can see from the video it would be painful for me to play. And that's on a gameplay trailer, which isn't liable to be played on anything less than an amazing computer. However, it's hard to deduce how hard it would be to play, since most of the trailer is made up by what appears to be in game cutscenes - also, I have to suspect, to make it look better. The fact that with all these tricks and touches it still manages to look mediocre, only reinforces my initial impressions.

Although, I have to say, I'm getting tired of the lengths I'm forced to go to justify my own opinions.

 

[Kiutu]

Ugh....I hate September. I have all this time but not much to do, while the stuff I could be wasting this time on wont be around till Im busy with school. MUA2 is also out on Sept 15th, so Ill be getting em together it seems, while I DONT play them cause of class. Christmas should be in June.

 

[Diablini]

I will definetly try this one out. It's Bethesda's first try at a pure action game.