Screenshot half-truths
by Zack Stern 
{ Nov 14th 2006 at 6:25PM }
Perched at his Newsweek blog, N'Gai Croal discusses modern problems with screenshots -- they just don't look as good as video. He cites shader and particle effects detracting from game images when still.We agree that screens don't always show the quality of a game; good animation also makes a major difference. The developers Croal interviews want HD video to become the screenshot replacement. That'll happen someday, but not in the short-term.
What annoys us most about game screens -- and videos -- is when developers render beyond what the game can produce. In that situation, game companies are either deceptive, trying to trick us into thinking the images match the actual game, or up-front, clearly saying that an in-development game should eventually reflect the marketing materials. But if they're honest about it, we're still skeptical about the game -- either way, they can't win with faked screenshots or video.
See also:
Riiiiiiiiiiidge Racer! Xbox 360 vs. PS3 screens
Careful with those ancient Zelda screenshots! You'll poke an eye out with images that sharp.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
potato @ Nov 14th 2006 6:32PM
I don't find the problem that large nowadays. The worst case I could think of was C&C: Tiberian Sun. I was a rabid fanboy for that game pre-release, and it was plenty clear post-release that most of the screenshots were *heavily* doctored.
Video isn't immune either. Remember the Killzone 2 debacle? I don't know who made the call, but he/she ought to be fired for suggesting that the E3 trailer was *actual gameplay*. That is pure BS, it wasn't even in-engine.
I don't mind touchups usually. It's the equivalent of airbrushing a model. Adjusting exposure, brightness, contrast, all fine in my books. But when you're like EA and you start laying magnificent pre-rendered explosions over the flimsy real-time explosion you ACTUALLY have, that's a problem.
Nanka @ Nov 14th 2006 6:38PM
*cough* Crysis *cough*
TwilightKnight @ Nov 14th 2006 6:46PM
Square does this all the time and nobody cares. Maybe because uttering Final Fantasy to most people makes them drool and lose all concept of rational thinking.
But I kid. Square still makes excellent RPGs even with the false advertisements and such.
This also rings of a news post a while back where Activision was forced to pull its ads of Call of Duty 2 in Britian because they didn't show actual gameplay footage. This law should exsist everywhere.
p-diddy @ Nov 14th 2006 6:59PM
Bah, I only trust videos. A) pretty easy to determine if it is prerendered or not B) shows actual gameplay footage, not a frame frozen in time. I can see if the models move fluidly, how the camera behaves, etc.
I don't care if the video is HD or not. Model detail is great and all, but I care more how the game plays and how the characters interract, not if I can see the pores on their nose by sitting 3 feet from the TV.
-p-
Jake @ Nov 14th 2006 7:34PM
*cough cough* Photoshopped XBox Amped...
http://slashdot.org/articles/01/03/18/2222252.shtml
Sizer @ Nov 14th 2006 7:39PM
Not to Penny Arcade whore too much, but their term "bullshot" for stuff like the PS3 conceptual renders (which ended up being 10x as gorgeous as the actual game) is the perfect term.
Mindbleach @ Nov 14th 2006 7:53PM
I liked Bungie's QTVR screenshots for Halo 2. They were static and frozen to some degree, but you could rotate it freely to see the difference between sprites and polys, and between particles and smudged textures. As easy-to-share as video is with broadband, it will never have the consumability of static media. A high-res single frame or composite can be studied and drooled over, or it can be glanced at and called done. Audio and video suffer losses in quality and realism if viewed at anything other than their natural speed.
Of course, as I type this, I can't help but think how unexcited I would be for Portal if Valve had just used screenshots.
FSK405K @ Nov 14th 2006 8:20PM
[cough] Twilight Princess signposts [cough]
FSK405K @ Nov 14th 2006 8:22PM
The best screenshot ads I can think of was for some RTS a few years ago. There were no words, no logos, no annoying "this game is so cool because" BS, just a two-page spread of a screenshot and the name of the game. Does anyone remember what this was for?
Vincent Avatar @ Nov 14th 2006 8:49PM
Oh sure, I say that in the Zelda thread and nobody pays any attention, but some guy with a fancy website says it and suddenly everyone agrees with him.
Oh, internet fame, when will you be mine?
refinedsugar @ Nov 14th 2006 9:07PM
We really needed a newsweek blogger to tell us this? Everyone is that dense? Come on.
EyesonthePrize @ Nov 14th 2006 10:00PM
As someone who has actually taken screenshots of a game for marketing purposes, there is a difference between a photoshop'ed fake and an in-game render (I'm referring to consoles here). The latter requires the console to supersample the screen so that the resulting screenshot is 4x the actual game resolution (or more). Why? Because back in the old days, when magazines printed screenshots, the resolution required for printing is at least 300 dpi. Less than that (TVs do 72 dpi) and you end up printing postage-stamp-sized pictures.
Of course, when you supersample, you end up with screenshots that make the game look sharper due to the added resolution. So it is representative, and yet not... oh well.