Christian

It should be noted that anyone that compares screenshots, should compare actual game play as opposed to comparing cut-scenes that do not heavily tax the CPU/GPU like game play would (due to factors such as A.I. and physics).

You can do amazing things with a decent game engine for cut-scenes; however, throw it altogether with game play and that’s a whole other story.

Wow, Big Ed... I never thought that your comparison would be correct; however, I have to agree that in your picture comparison Ninja Gaiden looks just as good, if not better than Heavenly Sword. What I like about Ninja Gaiden is that the graphics are much cleaner and more consistent.

Now, before someone begins quoting spec numbers or something rather about the power of the consoles, you must remember what's going on here: Ninja Gaiden came out when the Xbox's capabilities had been near fully unlocked. I consider that game to be well-polished and utilizing the Xbox to the extent of its capabilities.

Heavenly Sword, on the other hand looks like they are throwing a lot of different graphical effects at the game; however, they have not mastered them yet. Don't get me wrong, the game doesn't look terrible, in fact, it looks great. Still though, there are inconsistencies of texture quality (especially of the main character to, say... the ground) that tend to stick out and make the game look awkward.

It is also worth noting that most all of the game play could have been done last console generation with the exception of some of the physics.

This does look like an interesting game, though not entirely original, yet I can't justify paying over $600 to get it.

Also, does anyone find the A.I. to be rather dull? I've seen videos of so many of the enemies standing around like they are waiting for you to attack them since they often do absolutely nothing.

If you want an example of a game that Heavenly Sword should look to as an example of what it should be, then look no further than Assassin's Creed.

It always makes me sad when "churches" claiming to be Christian don't really follow what Christ taught. It would seem that the "church" of England is simply trying to make money by nearly demanding tribute to their "church." (NOTE: I use quotes when referring to these buildings where many people worship because Jesus Christ teaches that the real Church is actually those who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior to be the one who makes up for all of their wrong doings in life because Jesus lived a perfect life (without doing wrong) and was raised from the dead by God after dying on the cross (Matthew 16:18 & Romans 10:9)).

The problem with this is that it is the job of Christians to tithe (basically donating money to the cause of Christ). This is not the job of those who are not Christians (tithing should not involve businesses in the way that the "church" of England is trying to do).

Also, Christians are not to judge non-Christians, which is why I don't understand why in the world the "church" of England is seemingly trying to judge some videogame developers. The Bible specifically addresses this issue in 1 Corinthians 5:12-13 where it states that judging those outside the Church (non-Christians) is not the responsibility of Christians, but that job is for God Himself. (Note that the Bible states it is the job of Christians to judge other Christians of the Church-- not in a condemning way but in order to correct others) I don't know about anyone else, but if God says that is His job and His alone, then I have no problems leaving it to Him.

After this whole incident that the "church" of England has made, now I know why so many people have the wrong impression of Christians: it is because those that claim to be Christians do not represent Christ as we should (myself included). Instead they often go finger pointing at non-Christians as to what they have done wrong instead of teaching the message of becoming saved in Jesus Christ.

I know that this message might be foreign to many out there, but I thought I'd give a little insight to what true Christianity is all about: following Christ. What everyone often sees are either those who claim to be Christians or Christians who are still young in knowing God. As a result, they often do things that go contrary to what the God they follow teaches: loving God with all that they are and loving others.

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"God loved the world so much that He sent His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life." Believing this is how to become a Christian.

@ Aaron #13

Cigarette Smoking Man!!!!! Oh, how long has it been! X-Files all the way!

Wow, how far have you fallen Link! I remember when I first played the Zelda games on the NES, they were mature Nintendo titles for that time.

When the SNES and later games came out they seemed to become more and more kid-oriented with cute sound effects and playful looking enemies.

Seeing this video reminds me of why I stopped playing later iterations of this 20-year old game (by the way, which I find is too long for any series to run). The number of load times is also very troublesome and annoying. Numerous or long load times take people out of the game experience and often pester them with having to constantly wait for the game console to finish loading the game.

I would be more forgiving of this aspect if it wasn't so often; however, these load times are all over the place, and even between some text conversation scenes-- with no audio. . . what is there to load that takes so much time?!? Also, this is also supposed to be a next generation console, and, as such, should make the obvious upgrades (such as reduced load times). For example, take a look at Oblivion, there are load times; however, they were only between major intervals (outside to inside and vice versa). Not between one little path to another (Oblivion never had load times outside or they were near seamless) Where is the dynamic loading? (I ask this rhetorically knowing that the lack of RAM is the cause for this problem).

Anyway, if anyone could please explain to me the draw of playing so many of these Nintendo games which are often built off of the same concepts as their previous iteration. Personally, I will play only around 3 iterations of the same game series before the whole story or game elements start to wear on me.

P.S. Don't even get me started on some Nintendo games that have been re-released up to 4-8 times (or more) for Nintendo's profit. These are the same games people may have even bought years prior, yet they buy them again. Why?

But wait!!!

What happens if Chuck Norris faces Chuck Norris in a fighting match!?!? If that happens, then it will effectively rip a vortex in the space-time continuum and destroy all of existence! Why? Because Chuck Norris CAN'T lose!


...Ah, the fun with Chuck Norris jokes... XD

"US $800"... ROFL...

@max:
@BPM:

BPM, I wouldn't be so quick to make fun of "max." I will agree that there is a 3D mode, if you will of this game. However, don't forget that unlike what basic mathematics teaches the point of axes is really only defined by the user. That is to say you can redefine any coordinate system according to your variables such that you can swap x,y, and z as long as it is consistent with one's data.

Furthermore, if you rotate the axes for Cartesian Coordinates, then one could say that they all are referring to different planes. Really the values x,y, and z are place holders for the data which they describe.

If you really want to take it up a notch, you could refer to circular, cylindrical, spherical, intrinsic, Plucker, complex, multidimensional, etc. coordinate systems, where all of the axes change.

One could also say that "max" is correct in his assumptions about being in the "z-y" plane if you look at it from a cross-sectional point of view. To further explain, since the game renders the 3D space such that you can never move forward or backward into the space; however, rather the space moves through you, Mario could then be said to be stuck in the z-y plane, though he can propagate in the x-direction. This means that Mario can switch between moving in the x-y plane to being stuck in the y-z plane though being able to have the x plane propagate through him.

It's really all a matter of perspective and how you look at things both literally and figuratively.

Redefining coordinates:

z
|_ y
/
x


y
|_ x
/
z

etc... =)

Seriously, probably around only 1% of those out there actually have a system that:
1. Supports Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio streams
2. Speakers that are of such high quality that someone can hear the difference

I could really care less about v1.2 versus v1.3. Besides, is there really such a great difference between HDMI and component. I mean, when you walk into say a Best Buy and look at an HDTV can you honestly say, "Yep, that's a component connection they've got set-up there." I'm still trying to figure out what everyone is so hung up about. Can anyone help me.

P.S. I've spent too many hours in front of HDTV's and I've found that the way the image is constructed (DLP, LCD, Plasma, etc.) is far more important than even the difference between 720p to 1080p.

Wow, I didn’t know that I would get so many responses. Thank you for taking the time to read my post. Also, I’ll elaborate on one of the points I made in my last post since it seems that so many of you have questions about it.

The main one was regarding the Cell processor being able to perform AI effectively in a game. First, let me say that both the Xenon (Xbox360’s chip) and Cell are both highly capable microprocessors and, in the hands of clever developers and software engineers, both will be able to perform far beyond that which we have yet to see.

However, that also goes without saying which one of the two processors will be the easier to develop games. Thus, it is important to look at the architecture of Cell and Xenon. I will focus more on Cell since that seems to be where the bulk of most people’s comments are coming from. I will also address the AI issue that I seemed to have stirred up.

For the purposes of simplicity, I will approach this discussion with the expectations that those reading this are well-informed about the architecture and execution style of today’s microprocessors. If I lose some of you with some of the detail, I apologize, but some of the concepts with microprocessors take a degree and many years working in the industry to understand—I will try to stay away from most of that.

Regarding AI:

In general, microprocessors (MP) that are able to perform parallel processing exceed in tasks such as AI. In fact, processors that are designed for parallel processing are able to better perform more scientific based tasks better than other processors. This is why you will see super computer systems (which were designed for parallel processing), such as IBM’s Blue Gene, working to accomplish tasks like modeling human proteins. Parallel processing involves tasks being distributed over multiple CPU’s.

This normally works well for AI since different behavioral patterns are best dealt with by having multiple processing units resolve each of the behavior patterns simultaneously. Computers are not “smart” in the way how humans can easily assess a situation by omitting the consideration of random possibilities; however, since there is still a possibility of the rarity occurring, it must be programmed for the computer to process. Parallel processing for AI comes in when it can consider all of these possibilities rapidly by having all of its processors arrive at this conclusion rapidly.

The shortcomings of the Cell processor come into play when considering its architecture. Though it is true that Cell can parallel process, the way it has been designed hinders this ability. For example, unlike most modern microprocessors Cell was designed as an In-Order MP as opposed to an Out-of-Order (OOO) MP. In the execution of various instructions, as they are read in by the MP, the processor can, after the instruction fetch, basically take a look at the queue of instructions coming in and then optimize them for the MP’s use.

For example, if you had the following code:

LW R8,0(R5); Loads R8 from the memory addressed by R5
LW R11,0(R4); Loads R11 from the memory
SUB R5,R4,R7; R5=R4+R7
ADD R1,R9,R3; R1=R9+R3

If the memory addressed by R5 was neither in the L1 or L2 cache it could take a great number of cycles to load this value from main memory (for example 25 cycles). Let’s also assume that the memory addressed by R4 is also to be found in main memory.

Since R5,R4,R7,R1,R9, and R3 are not affected by these load operations, then they could effectively be executed by the MP since the data unit is stalled waiting for the memory to return the addressed value. This is due to the fact that the ALU is not needed after the load instructions so both the subtraction and addition instructions could be re-ordered by the microprocessor so that both of these will have been executed before the second load instructions is sent and further stalls the microprocessor.

If these instructions were taken in order, then 50 cycles would be wasted on waiting for memory to load the values to registers. This is restructuring of instructions would affect how nearly all programs run on the microprocessor, including AI software. Cell does have some methods in its compilers that compensates for this deficiency; however, it is nothing compared to the efficiency of an OOO MP.


Furthermore, the Cell MP also lacks the ability to branch predict as normal MP’s do. This heavily affects its ability to cut-down on executing meaningless loop iterations or subroutines that could have been avoided. This definitely plays in to AI as the behaviors of characters are repetitive in nature can often be predicted, thus allowing the CPU to detect what set of instructions to execute next.

Branch predictors are important because they can effectively cut-down on the wasted instructions executed by the MP which translates to more efficient cycles/sec. Now, Cell does have some form of a branch predictor; however, it is performed by the software and is limited in its capability since it is a work around for the usual hardware that would have performed this.

Now, in all these things, Cell is still a powerful processor; however, it does indeed have shortcomings that can hinder it from effectively accomplishing certain tasks that are more related to general applications processing. Cunning developers will find ways around these issues as they have and will more effectively do in the future.

However, smaller developers who are looking for and easy platform to develop for will not find it with Cell because of its radical and vastly different architecture. It is much different from some of the best processors out there, such as those offered by Intel or AMD, thus making it more difficult to utilize. Processors, like the Xenon, stick more closely to these conventional processors (as in MP cores not SPE’s), which make it easier to develop for, especially when combined with Microsoft’s development tools.

Though there are existing engines out there that have been created for this console generation, developers that want to create their own gaming engine will find it much more difficult to develop for the PS3 due to its vastly different architecture.

In the end, gamers will not really be able to see much of this since developers will most likely not release their games half-way finished, but until they have found a more working-version (and hopefully finished) product. Probably the largest way that this will affect gamers is that they might see more software titles released exclusively for the Xbox360 and they might also see more titles that were designed for the Xbox360 only to be ported to the PS3. Both of these scenarios are already occurring, but it will be interesting to see how it plays out later on this console generation. I would lean that it will continue to occur; however. . .

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|. . .Only time will tell. . . |
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