Is Gears of War as good as it gets?
by James Ransom-Wiley 
{ Oct 26th 2006 at 4:20PM }
"We pushed the 360 to the limits," Gears of War QA manager Preston Thorne told Siliconera at last night's Hollywood launch party. While obviously an inflammatory remark, there could be some truth to the statement. After all, it was Epic that allegedly convinced Microsoft to bump up Xbox 360's RAM to 512 MB -- and Epic still maintains that 256 MB would not be enough to run Gears in its current state.So does that mean PlayStation 3 couldn't handle the game? When asked, Preston skillfully dodged the question, but implied the answer was "no."
All console hardware has limits. Has Epic hit Xbox 360's? Does it matter? With the boundaries of the playing field defined, won't developers focus less time searching for the lines and more time experimenting with what's inbounds?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
The Intangible Fact @ Oct 26th 2006 4:24PM
lol....WELL, WELL, WELL, WELL! Looks like buying a 360 is the way to go.
Ethan @ Oct 26th 2006 4:25PM
Why wouldnt the ps3 be able to handle it? the ps3 has 512 mbs of ram also, and it has cell to handle the things 3600 cannot.
crono141 @ Oct 26th 2006 8:25PM
Seems kinda early in the consoles life to have hit the "limits" already, don't you think?
While I think that Wii will reach its graphical limits 1 or 2 years out the gate, I have a hard time believing that "Gears" is as good as it will get. There's plenty of other things... tricks to the hardware, tricking it into doing things it was never designed to do; you know, the stuff they still discover about the PS2, left on the 360. Its only a year old.
The Intangible Fact @ Oct 26th 2006 4:27PM
They say the 360 can handle more advanced AI.
Ethan @ Oct 26th 2006 4:27PM
and uhh, one more thing. If this is as good as the 360 gets, then the ps3 will surpass it by far, since launch ps3 games look better than it already.
Jason @ Oct 26th 2006 4:27PM
yea, how would the ps3 not be able to handle it?
Fandel @ Oct 26th 2006 4:29PM
How many times have we hard this before? Every generation of console systems has some a game that comes out within a year of the consoles launch, that supposedly taxes the systems hardware 100%. And what happens the following year? there is a game that graphically destroys it. Games will not be taxing the Xbox 360 hardware until at least five years from now.
Logan @ Oct 26th 2006 4:36PM
I'm excited about this game and I'm feeling that my one complaint is going to be that the story and dialogue are as ridiculous throughout the course of the game as it was in the 10 minute Gamestop preview.
Paul @ Oct 26th 2006 4:30PM
These fanboy arguments sound like the old ford/chevy debates from when I was a kid except we weren't such little girls about it.
Go out and grow a pair and leave those of us that want to read the news about the industry alone.
Lefty @ Oct 26th 2006 4:30PM
ethan
the ps3 has 2 types of ram and while the gpu can use all of it it has many bottlenecks that prevent it form being able to use it the same way the 360 uses its unifed ram structure. this is why resitance fall of man has some lack luster textures at times and can not run in 1080p. i think both consoels should have had 512 of dedicated vram and 256 for the cpu but we get what we get and with only 256 dedicated vram for the ps3 its a issue
AoE @ Oct 26th 2006 4:32PM
Um.... Remember when Ubi told us that Splinter Cell maxed out what the Xbox could do? Remember how Splinter Cell Chaos Theory looked compared to that first Splinter Cell? I'd be shocked if this was magically the first console in the history of console gaming that topped out graphically less than 12 months after shipping.
Simon @ Oct 26th 2006 4:32PM
Compare Halo with Halo 2. I think we can rest assured that we will be seeing far better looking games a few years down the line as developers get used to the console and tools.
BMWM3P @ Oct 26th 2006 4:34PM
That's all the 360 has, the PS3 is going to blow the 360 away. The part about the PS3 not being to handle it just a joke. Bill Gates sure has a lot of penis puppets going around and saying stupid shit.
ViEt pRiDe @ Oct 26th 2006 5:35PM
LOL So 360 is already maxxed out? just wait to see what developers can do with the power of the Cell Broadband Engine + Bluray! If the 360 is already maxxed out, M$ is in BIG trouble....
arch @ Oct 26th 2006 4:38PM
awwwwwwwwwwwwww poor POOR (literaly poor after they drop 600$) sony fanboys. whats are those magic words to describe this? suck it? yea. thats it. suck it.
back on topic NO IT DOESNT NOT HAVE THE SAME FUCKING RAM. for the last time. the PS3 has a texture limitation DUE to it. you dont add 256 + 256 and think "512, its the same." it isnt.
the 360s is much more efficient. just to shut the fanboys up before they flood with their garbage.
Fandel @ Oct 26th 2006 4:34PM
Whoops, should have said "heard", instead of "hard" in my last post.
As for the Ram issue. The xbox 360 has 512 megs of unified ram. It can be used as system ram, or video ram. The PlayStation 3 on the other hand, has 255 megs of solid system Ram, and 265 megs of solid video ram.
The problem is with the PlayStation 3's lack of video ram. But still, I'm sure that if they tried hard enough, they could do Gears of War on the PlayStation 3. Hell, Unreal Tournament 2007 is coming out on the PlayStation 3, and that game uses virtually the same engine as Gears or War.
> @ Oct 26th 2006 4:35PM
This makes perfect sense, MS will announce XBOX720 in about 3 months... to compete with PS3 (because Gears aint gonna do it).
Colonel @ Oct 26th 2006 4:36PM
what reefer are you smoking, Ethan?
you mean to tell me Resistance looks like that? no dice. it's on the same level as Call of Duty 3, and that game itself isn't anywhere near GOW
look, it's just marketing fluff. Konami advertised metal gear solid 2 as pushing the PS2 to its limits when it came out in 2001. Obviously not the case, as God of War and Shadows of the Colossus are extaordinarly beautiful games for PS2 hardware.
Every developer learns something new further into the life of a system. The PS3 is going to have some terrific looking games because of the processor and the data it'll be able to store on the Blu-Ray. Developers admitted that the 360 is a VERY powerful machine, and that through its ease in programming and powerful hardware that it'll come out with some stunning games as well. Wii might even surprise a few people.
Stay tuned everyone. Even though next-gen started last year in November with the 360, this gen of gaming is still only beginning.
arch @ Oct 26th 2006 4:39PM
OH and SECOND, THAT is why epic fought for 512 ram. and it cost MS one billion dollars for it. theres a clue for you.
OTAM @ Oct 26th 2006 4:37PM
"That's all the 360 has, the PS3 is going to blow the 360 away."
All it has?!?!? Have you looked at the game?! It's drop dead gorgeous! Let's hope the game PLAYS well and that all the time spent on GOW (yes,GOW,get over it) wasnt spent on the graphics.
Why can't this game come out already? I can't wait any longer!!
Lou @ Oct 26th 2006 4:42PM
Console makers (MS,N,S) make better devkits over time. It is through better devkits that more power will be unlocked for ALL systems.
Do you think with final hardware only months before a launch that console makers have the most optimized toolsets in their devkits that they release to 3rd parties?
NO!
That's also why Nintendo 1st party titles are always ahead of the curve but it applies to all 1st parties.
Lefty @ Oct 26th 2006 4:39PM
BMWM3P
no have u not seen mass effect, bioshock, or the beautiful alan wake. how bout halo 3? there are mnay games that do some crazy things comming out over the next 6 months for the xbox 360. gears of war is just the beggining. and i didn't even mention huxley which i think will be a triple aaa game as well
JM Scion @ Oct 26th 2006 4:43PM
Yeah I remember people were saying Dead or Alive 2 maxed out the Dreamcast, and then Shenmue blew that out of the water not only in graphics but in size. I do wonder however why both game consoles - the 360 and PS3 - only have 512mg of ram. I am a very poor gamer and yet I could afford a gig of ram on my PC, and I play against people with 2 or 3 gigs of ram!
Lefty @ Oct 26th 2006 4:42PM
OTAM
12 more days man lol. i am more anxious to vote. i am going to vote that racist allen(senator for va) right out of office lol. than i cna enjoy some gamming
Les Doodis @ Oct 26th 2006 4:42PM
What do you expect them to say? "No, we didn't try to use the 360's full potential."
They are pushing it as hard as they can right now. They will obviously be able to push it farther in the coming years, people.
lolo @ Oct 26th 2006 4:45PM
" Every generation of console systems has some a game that comes out within a year of the consoles launch, that supposedly taxes the systems hardware 100%. And what happens the following year? there is a game that graphically destroys it. "
so what. we are talking hardware limits here, next year devs "could" code better but that dsnt change the fact ue3 powns the xbox
KilgoreTrout XL @ Oct 26th 2006 4:44PM
My cat's breath smells like cat food.
Tony Tomas @ Oct 26th 2006 4:45PM
Unbelievable. This is the second Epic related BS story to come out in the span of a week that Joystiq wouldn't have needed to post if they had listened to the interview we sent them that we conducted with Mark Rein.
That is not the full power of the 360 on display in GoW. Listen to Mark Rein tell you himself:
http://vgmfusion.com/get.php?web=http://podcast.chumcity.net/specialty/spacecast/vgmdaily/VGM_Daily_E142.mp3
His interview is at the 24:32 mark of the show
Lefty @ Oct 26th 2006 4:45PM
Les Doodis
exactly. any one who knows programming knows that as time goes when working ont he same ahrdware you find ways to optimise what you can do every clock cycle. so you can get more done. thats why games getter better over the generation but right now gears fo war is the cream of the crop for games. its stunning and makes me exclited about what we will get in the enxt eyara nd years after that.
Eric @ Oct 26th 2006 4:47PM
"and uhh, one more thing. If this is as good as the 360 gets, then the ps3 will surpass it by far, since launch ps3 games look better than it already."
You're a moron, Ethan. Everyone who has played Gears of War has said firmly that it's the best looking game of all time. To quote Dan Hsu: "I can safely say you won't see a better-looking game this year."
Game, set, match. Stop trolling.
Matt @ Oct 26th 2006 6:22PM
Comments like this are stupid, because they assume a fixed set of techniques.
Any idiot can push enough data to make an xbox 360 or ps3 or home pc stutter. The goal is to avoid having to do so, and one does that by managing the available resources in a smarter way.
The guy in the article doesn't know what he's talking about, plain and simple.
Nerdtacular @ Oct 26th 2006 4:48PM
Ladies, ladies...calm down. You can both go to the prom, together.
I wish I could GOW chainsaw gun all you PS AND Xbox fanboys so you would quit whining instead of making insightful posts with facts not fluff.
Rabiddog @ Oct 26th 2006 4:48PM
Ethan,
How many games have you played and seen on the PS3.
None.
Your comments are simply a waste of time. I fart in your direction.
Lefty @ Oct 26th 2006 4:51PM
lolo
and what if ti does? so what. which consle had the most pwer hgands down last gen? xbox. did it winthe console market? no
infact the game cube ahd more power than the p2 and the ps2 pwned them all cause its about the games. how that plays out will be who wins not which one is more pwoerfull though in my opinio they both have strenght and weaknesses over each other.
but this sony fanboy love for power all of a sudden when they had thew weakest console 2 straight gens and owned begs to ask why does it matter of it didnlt matter for the last 10+ years?
please give me the fanboy rant on this one cause apprently 1000 million users enjoyed lower specs and better games last gen.
Lekko @ Oct 26th 2006 4:52PM
Top out pushing the system 100%? yeah. Of course. The CPU/GPU are at 100% full running capacity while running (or probably 80% for a buffer to keep from frames dropping.). But tech keeps increasing, and new things that once took 30% of your overall CPU power now take 15%, allowing you to do more without sacrificing things.
"topping out a system graphically" is really a buzzword and marketing BS, regardless of the system. However, things aren't going to get that MUCH better either. When you look at the original xbox, the sole purpose of buying one has been for Halo (a launch title), and Halo 2 isn't quite the graphical leap in quality that one would hope for. It didn't look like a whole new game. Not many other games really took any other huge leaps over what was a fairly standard graphical bar.
PS2 on the other hand, had a huge learning curve. If you go back and look at the launch titles on it, the difference in quality from those launch titles to the ones of today are pretty big. I have a feeling the PS3 will be the same, seeing as how everyone seems to be complaining about how touch it is to work on Cell and inside the PS3. Given time, they will find tricks to boost quality far more than the 360 which is "easy to program for", which leads to lazy development.
Tob3z @ Oct 26th 2006 4:54PM
If you have heard Major Nelsons recent podcast you would hear cliffy say about how they have pushed the 360 as far as THEY can. He said that since this they have learned how to tweak more things and get better performance.
So basically there going to learn how to make things better.
E.J. @ Oct 26th 2006 4:53PM
I was at the Hollywood preview event too... Let's just say it's really creepy to play video games next to tombs.
Gears of War plays really well and smoothly. The AI is actually pretty smart, as they make their own path and use cover against you. The controls are pretty simple and smooth. D-pad for weapon selection, reloading minigame, A-button cover-context function, B-button for melee, and once you pull off the chainsaw melee, it's quite rewarding with guts and blood all over the screen.
Dirtyboy @ Oct 26th 2006 4:54PM
Oh joy, another PS3 vs. 360 entry...
Each system has its own strength and weaknesses. Choose the brand you like, play games, have fun.
Enough with this useless flame war, focus on the games...
chad @ Oct 26th 2006 4:57PM
If you listen to Major Nelson last podcast, he had Cliffy B on and he said that they did push the 360 to its limits, but as they get more familiar with programming for it, the WILL be able to produce better looking games.
reguy @ Oct 26th 2006 5:00PM
heres my 2 cents real quick
i find it funny that the sony fans are all of a sudden saying their system is king because its more powerful(but only by a bit) yet they have never had the most powerful system.
you guys sure didnt mind when the pathetic(in power of course) ps2 was cleaning house but now its all about power and teh cell?
negro porfavor!!!!!!!!!!
get over it @ Oct 26th 2006 5:02PM
do any of you ever hit the "read" link or do you just go with joystiq's translation of what they read?
did you miss this paragraph?
"...Another member from Epic’s team chimed in with the fact that there are currently more Playstation 3 programmers than Xbox 360 programmers. “It (the PS3) is in our future. We always had plans for the Playstation 3 and an engine already runs on it.”
could be wrong but it sounds like they could do it if they tried... or if microsoft didn't buy up exclusivity.
canebi @ Oct 26th 2006 5:01PM
hahaha, look at you guys geek out on RAM amounts.
"that it's the best looking game of all time." No, actually I'd say Unreal 07 or Crysis takes the cake for those so far. As for the PS3 not being able to handle it, it can, it's about allocation of memory and how things are handled. More video RAM doesn't mean you cant optimize the data other ways. Look at the unreal 07 engine. It's about how the memory is used and allocated.
Gears of War looks nice, I'm interested to see if it's worth the hype, also Cliffy B is an ego fag, like most game designers.
Orangecoke @ Oct 26th 2006 5:01PM
I've played Gears - it's stunning to look at, I don't really see it being overshadowed by any of the PS3 launch titles.
broseph @ Oct 26th 2006 9:48PM
Joystiq tripe to up the hype.
Kanadwen @ Oct 26th 2006 5:03PM
Wow, and I always thought gameplay was the most important part of games! Now in days...doesn't look like it. :)
DBX00 @ Oct 26th 2006 5:04PM
reguy
The PS2 proved that Sony had the software support to dominate the industry and the PS3 will prove that Sony has the online/hardware to beat Microsoft at their own game. They still dominate with more third party game support, but now they ALSO got them beat on the hardware and possibly online front. Let's be clear, Sony has and will dominate because they produce the games people want to play and keep them coming month in and month out. However, they now have a hardware platform to match the competition as well.
Poot @ Oct 26th 2006 5:04PM
They could do this on the PS3 the same way they did Oblivion on the PS3. It's just the textures take a pretty big hit because of the lack of vram. If you look at those PS3 Oblivion shots and compare them to the 360 version you'll see a pretty noticeable decrease in texture quality. The PS3 is more along the lines of medium, 360 on high, and PC on ultra high.
Thats not saying if the PS3 can push more pixels than the 360, but this is just the limits of the video subsystem as far as memory goes. The 360 is just more flexible.
devi8i @ Oct 26th 2006 5:59PM
I am very excited about teh Nex gen of gaming. As developers use and abuse teh new consoles they will undoubtedly pull more and more out them. I played Halo, and then Halo2 last week to jog my memory on teh differences and its just astounding. To think that GOW looks as good as it does after teh console has only been out for a year, just imagine teh possibilities the same team with anotother two years on teh device can bring to the table. Regardless of which camp you sit in this is a good time to be a gamer. I think we will begin to see the true nex-gen in gaming in the very near future. 360 gets a nod for being first to market and the games we have seen already are impressive. Sony has already shown a lot of promise and once developers have had similar time on device as 360 we will see games on it take that next leap forward as well. Nintendo developers are in an especially good position too. Although horsepower wise they may not have as big a bump as teh other consoles but we will have a console where developers have had and will have far more time on device then for almost any other console made. This will allow them to squeeze even more from it and probably allow them to have shorter time to market with incredibly optimized code allowing developers to spend more time on game mechanics.
Good Times!
DBX00 @ Oct 26th 2006 5:09PM
Poot
What are you talking about?
Speaking to IGN, executive producer Todd Howard said that the PS3 version of Oblivion will sport improved graphical features, the most notcible of which is apparently the updated graphical shaders: "The best examples are those new shaders we have for how 'near detail' and 'far detail' blend together on the landscape," he said. "You no longer have a harsh line cutting across the two levels - they blend together seamlessly and the distant detail and land looks much nicer."
Usedtabe @ Oct 26th 2006 5:09PM
#12,
Keep up with the news. Epic has claimed many times they are having trouble getting the Unreal 3 Engine working on the PS3. So, in answer to your question, no, it could not be done on the PS3