Thank you for mentioning Gears of War. Not every game has to be GAAS to be fun. My buddies and I still play this game and the community, although not as big at launch, is still going strong. Not to mention, for the price of one game, you get Campaign, MP, Horde mode, Survival Mode and heavy emphasis on co-op. I wish more games had this.
Agreed, but as Jon stated, the problem isn't that they can't make the multiplayer modes, it's just that they aren't as profitable and depend on initial sales.
I expect that to at least partially change with Gears 6 (Halo/Forza), Gears 5 came right at the tail end of the shift, similar to fighting games that are now starting to have service elements, Tekken 8 being the only exception.
No john do not apologize, that Forza vs GT7 Video was amazing! I watched the previous one so many times and this one is even better. it is clear who the winner was and I am glad you stuck to your guns and said who won. People are going to be toxic no matter what so do not go by that when thinking about making a video. You did the right thing and the video was amazing. I have over 200 hours in Forza Motorsports 7 and part 8 is just not up to par. They really droped the ball. I can all but guarantee that something happened behind the scenes during development. Look what they were able to achieve on the 1.3 teraflop Xbox One vs the 13 teraflop Series X, something went seriously wrong.
Absolutely agree. I'm neither a GT or Sony fanboy but the latest Forza is an embarressment. I suspect Dan Greenawalt not being at the helm might may have had something to do with it's hopelessness.
I agree GT won, but I think people trying to justify their console purchase need to chill. It was a fun experiment and I love comparisons like that video. GT is just objectively more detailed and accurate to life. Forza looked so dull and lifeless, much less detailed. And despite having some RT looks more artificial and rendered. Like how in the 360 era everything on Unreal engine had that GOW dirt color lol
I feel he is only apologizing to save face with MS. Seriously, the issue isn't that GT7 won its that very clear and obvious points in GT7's favor were treated as frivolous things... cars and tracks being modeled correctly isn't a frivolous thing in a simulator.
The video tried too hard to be "neutral" to protect Xbox fanboys I feel. Nobody should have to be protected from the very clear truth that GT looked so much better in so many areas. You should instead demand better from Xbox
It didn't need to be "as a service". I would gladly give my 70 usd for the next iteration of it. Like the previous one, I'd play like 2 months of it and eventually I'd be done, after 2 months of awesome experiences.
Wasn't Factions created when developers and publishers were trying to figure out how to stop people from trading in single-player games days or weeks after buying them? The idea was if you tack on a multiplayer mode then people would be more likely to not trade in the game. Another example of this strategy was when Dead Space added a multiplayer mode to like Dead Space 2 or 3.
My theory was/is that basically if you buy a multiplayer game you tent to have friends that you want to play with. Dont get me wrong, you have friends online but based on some fun multiplayer experience you are more likely to convince one or two other friend to go buy this or that game and they are more likely to buy it.
The best one that comes to mind is Ghost of Tsushima. The multiplayer addition was free, no MTX and not extremely deep but deep enough to have a blast with friends. I actually sank a lot of time in the multiplayer modes with my friend.
It is not as black and white as that. For one Naughty Dog has focused on solely narrative single player games for much of the last decade and a half. The gameplay loop of that is vastly different from a multiplayer game and there is no guarantee that they can make a good multiplayer game (I mean Sony have purchased Bungie because of that reason). Secondly and perhaps more importantly, is their game engine ready for it? Naughty Dog uses a propriety in-house engine for their games and I seriously doubt they have anything extensively coded for multiplayer. Think about it, connectivity, latency, servers, hackers, security, proper communication systems (VOIP). Unless a studio is using a game engine that already has that stuff pre-coded (Unreal being a great example), Naughty Dog will have to spend a lot of resources coding and maintaining that code base. I suspect that was the reason why CDPR also dump the RedEngine for Unreal. There was a lot of talk early about Cyberpunk having a multiplayer/CO-OP component but the challenge of writing extra code in a single player focused engine for multiplayer was probably a step too far. Certain game engines are built for multiplayer. Unreal, Unity, Snowdrop being good examples. There are also examples of studios doing a poor of it too. Bethesda, the Creation Engine and Fallout 76 comes to mind.
Conversation about tlou and live services was so wholesome! I don't remember the last time I've heard such a ...balanced discussion about video games. Or any topic regarding mass entertainment.
Yeah buddy! That's one of the reasons I love this channel. As long as I've been watching they are amazing about getting us gaming news without jumping on bandwagon of hate or fanboy-ism.
when you were talking about what/which older games did better . 2 games came to mind 1:- Farcry 2s Fire spreading and destruction 2 :- F.E.A.R.s Enemy AI which were uncannily good at flanking and taking cover .
Naughty Dog MP modes were awesome since Uncharted 2 (+ 3/4/factions), their multiplayer focused team is super talented. So im quite dissappointed that we probably dont get a Naughty Dog MP mode/game this gen. It offered a lot of value for me, I probably spend + 50h in each of their mp modes.
The worse part being these modes got gutted on the re-releases and port version of these games, time is running out to be able to continue playing them.
I'm sorta panicking rn. Never got into Factions, because at the time I didn't really play much online. But I always knew that it was a fantastic mode. End of last gen I really got into multiplayer games. I waited for TLoU 2's MP mode to catch up on Factions and well, it didn't ship with it. No problem, I thought, there's a stand-alone MP coming. I rather wait for that than catch up in the 'old' mode that already only has a fraction of the player base it once had. Now it's not coming and I am very worried I missed my chance to ever experience any TLoU MP mode as it was intended. Is it still possible to find games in TLoU Remastered (PS4)?
I still think Uncharted 2 is one of the best multiplayer games ever made. No idea if that core team is still around, but I'm sure they're not done yet.
The ‘which older games have more advanced features’ question was really good. I’d love to hear more examples, never would have thought about the MGS2 rain thing but that’s insane to think about
What annoys me about that is the question was likely about games made since Driveclub not before Driveclub additionally everything MGS2 does with rain Driveclub also did. Rain and snow are simple particles the motion blur in Driveclub turns snow into streaks of light while rain is also transformed based on factors driven by motion blur. Lakes and flags and other particles are affected by wind with and without rain being part of the picture. So, John bringing up MGS2 was just odd.
If Jim Ryan had not stepped down as CEO, we would not have seen the realization that an online game would take all of their resources. It was Ryan's strategy with an emphasis on online and thank God with his departure Sony came to their senses and shifted their focus from online.
the multiplayer section (the last of us) was one of the best topics on here in a while interesting takes from everyone and surprising ones from rich didnt think he cared
I absolutely loved factions mode on my ps3 in 2013. The original game was quite short(relatively) and so it served a perfect after game way to express yourself in that world. It really felt like hide and seek with brutal death around every corner.
Titanfall 2 was a perfect "single player campaign" while also being a FANTASTIC multiplayer game. It's a shame they haven't been allowed to build on that with Titanfall 3. Apex is Titanfall ascetic without the actual the spirit of Titanfall + its lacking the Apex Mercenary ethos that the battle royal borrowed its name from. 😂
There may come a day when Richard doesn't quickly gaze at his monitor to double check the edition number of the weekly show during his introduction section... but today is not that day
Re: GT7/FM - graphical comparisons are one thing, but what about the physics? It always seemed to me, surmising, that post-360 FM3-4 and given the relatively limited CPU of last gen, they were very much prioritising the graphics in FM5-6-7, possibly at the expense of processing of higher physics/vehicle-handling fidelity. I completely ditched playing FM7 early on in frustration because I couldn't stand the handling, or lack of it IMO. FM8 very much upgraded the physics & tire modelling from FM7 - and playing right away I could feel the difference and improvement in driving and car handling Is it possible for this gen, with greater CPU, Turn10 has consciously decided to favour processing higher physics fidelity and car handling, rather than 'peak' graphics this time in FM8..?? This if nothing else makes me want to engage in the driving, exploring handling limits and capabilities of all the cars, racing, hot-lapping etc., far more than FM7 did - even if the overall game package and experience could stand some improvement with future iterations/updates. (Not yet played enough of the GT games to make comment on the quality of their physics/handling, relative or otherwise)
I love the idea of frame generation that doesn't have to wait for both frames to be rendered first and then add latency. I think Intel's approach is how people thought DLSS 3 already works
The visor effects in Metroid Prime still hold up super well today, and I can't really think of many other games that even attempt that sort of thing. Stuff like raindrops across the glass when you look up, and Samus' face being momentarily reflected in the glass by explosions or other bright flashes. It's the kind of thing I would've loved in Halo Infinite, had that game actually featured more than a single biome.
Tomb Raider 2013 has an excellent multiplayer component that still works in 2023, its takes some time to find a game, but the fact that the servers have been supported for so long is commendable.
I am so sad we don't have many high interactivity games these days. Playing Tear Down made me feel like a kid again. It was as much fun as when I played Red Faction for the first time as a kid. Then the talks about all the Crysis interactive environments.... Man, we need to have those games come back. Instead we have companies pushing Ray tracing which doesn't change how games play at all.
I agree with you. And I think it's super boring because it's just graphics and does nothing of value for the actual gameplay. Often I can't even see what it adds to the game besides noticeably tanking the performance. But it shows that the marketing hype works because ray/path tracing is the reason for all the sales of the ultra expensive GPUs. And on top of that we get the same AAA games over and over with little to no innovation, only they're now bloated with a 100GB install size and needs a $1999 GPU to run like it should.
In defense of Minecraft: when you buy Minecraft Java, you own the game. You can run your own servers, you can mod your game how you want. You can even play on modded servers. Once you buy the game, you can play it for however long you want without paying it again. I like the Minecraft business model IMHO.
I would even re-buy Minecraft on Steam if that ever happened, just to do 100 % achievements, but with the version handling it probably wouldn't really work greatly if they decided to put it on Steam.
Man there was something special about the God of War 2018 reveal. The live orchestra, the explosion of the crowd when Kratos stepped forward out of the darkness, how good it looked and that it was a genuine surprise. Probably won’t be recreated again.
I think it's totally fine to poke at the lacking aspects of very good games, referring to the Forza vs GT7 video, Gran Turismo despite some missteps has aimed to be a "professional" racing sim, for lack of a better word, it's not completely realistic there's certainly an approachability to it but in terms of quality of the content they're almost going for museum quality, as its direct competitor Forza Motorsport has compared well to GT, it had to match GT in quality so that you weren't missing out by buying an Xbox and it's done that very well for 2 console generations, but where Polyphony have continued to strive for excellence Forza, despite this being a big reboot of the franchise, has faltered in some relatively minor ways, but the quality they both set requires getting out the magnifying glass when talking about and comparing them. The emphasis of the video and of general comparisons is that the lacking aspects are minor and shouldn't prevent anyone from enjoying either game, but Forza does have one very big problem, the UX is among the most boring i've ever seen, GT wants you to bathe in cars and motorsport, it wants you to pass driving tests and pay for a car wash and save up credits forever to buy a one of a kind vintage car you will never use, instead just zooming in on all its fine craftsmanship and pretending you can smell the leather while listening to smooth jazz and drinking wine, Forza has a Netflix inspired interface and some races, just like the one that came before it... it could use some soul, it doesn't need to be a music festival like Horizon it just needs to have _something._
Glad you mentioned the E3 2003 Half Life 2 demonstrations. I was only 18 at the time and I while I loved videogames I didn't really follow videogames coverage, but seeing that HL2 stuff is the catalyst that made me obsessed with videogames and videogame technology, and as someone who didn't game on PC I went out and got an Xbox just so I could be ready to play HL2. Little did I know it would be at roughly 15 FPS.
Playing with fire is actually a good idea with an oled screen. That's because both oled and fire are organic. And as we all know anything organic is automatically good.
GT still has 2 things that make it stand out. The VR mode that needs no comments. Sophy, who does incredible work to make the game experience the best possible, they really love GT!
Multiplayer games and smaller online game projects do make money, they can even make a lot of money. But AAA studios want GTA V money, not Battlebit money. They dont care about making a game, they wanna make profit its that damn simple :)
Hi! 10 year Senior Environment Artist in the game industry here - you are 100% right in your comments about the rain in MGS2. Rain is way oversimplified and not really art directed anymore. It's all just super basic particle effects that are really dull and straightforward. There is something to be said about being pigeonholed by workflows and I think that's a very good example of that happening with relying on particle effects so much. That's not to say you can't do good, well directed rain with PE, but a lot of games don't go that extra mile.
Around 18:00 or so you guys mention adding hats to multi-player games. Not only did The Last Of Us Factions MP have hats but it also had masks and helmets(for when you bought armor) you could buy for your characters like in Team Fortress. And you were able to wear all 3 at the same time, although some helmets were so big that they would cover your hats and masks. My favorite was choosing the Hunter faction and going in to matches with no hat because there was a chance your character would be wearing their hoods from their jackets which looked cool with certain masks.
This live service craze always existed, even in the early 2000. The difference is that it was relegated to specific genres like MMORPGs and Korean F2P lobby-based multiplayer games. The difference is that now publishers realized that they can do it with any genre thanks to the success of titles like Destiny.
Yeah, going back to a lot of those Korean F2P games I played way back when, there was a lot of stuff which wasn't even *pay* to win, but RENT to win, you didn't even get to keep the item beyond a limited timescale!
The Intel ExtraSS approach is essentially what I have been asking for with DLSS 3.0 and I also left several comments towards that degree on this channel. There is a demo video in the supplementary material, if you haven't seen it Alex. I haven't read all of the paper just yet, but it's sounding very promising - how didn't Nvidia get to that solution too.
Intel, Nvidia and AMD all did. It's still in research phase and I'm confident that we'll hear more about it soon. Maybe DLSS 4.0 will be that, followed by XeSS 2 and FSR 4.
Same. Or more specifically, I was hoping they could separate immediate-response elements like a third-person PC in the center of the screen to be rendered normally, but render the rest predictively. It looks like maybe that's what they're doing?
One of the reason for the death of E3 was that Walmart, Bestbuy, Target and so on don't sell that much physical media, and that was the actual thing E3 was originated for, not the fans but for outsiders to see what they would be buying.
Fans who cry when they see their game vs GT7 lose, but if it were a winner would even mock PS5 saying that it is a shit console. We all already know each other here. So keep crying with GT7 and PS5 for a long time, while enjoying your own favorite games, whether on your favorite console or PC. No problem.
I have over 300+ hours, by far my most played game, in Uncharted 4 Mutiplayer. It's excellent and beyond fun with friends. So it's dissapointing to acknowledge that we may not get Single Player games that have a nice tightly-contained Mutiplayer attached with them without being Live Service black holes!
I for one am thrilled that tacked on multiplayer modes in single player games are finally a thing of the past. Just focus all the available dev time and budget on the single player mode that most people are buying the game for. So many games wasted resources on multiplayer that nobody played back in the PS360 days as well as the early PS4XB1 days. Good riddance to that stupid business model. Uncharted 4 is such a strange pick too. It was terrible. All it took was one look at their monetization model of multiple kinds of fake coins to get me to run far away. Super predatory and gross. Uncharted 3 had a much better model where anything to buy had a simple real money price, you paid that price if you wanted the thing. Also didn't help that Uncharted 4 was on PlayStation 4, where PS+ for then $50 a year was required to play online. Why do games still have predatory monetization when everyone's already paying a subscription to be allowed to play? Go get your money for server upkeep and patches from Sony, Naughty Dog. What is the point of a required subscription to play online games if not the upkeep of said games?
I don't know if people played a different game but totk was sub 30 all the time for me basically every time with ultra hand and with any larger fight especially if vehicles are involved
“Games as a Service” games should probably just be called “Temporary Games”. I also find the lack of any kind of “ending” makes them feel a bit weird in terms of moving on from those games. I usually have to just quit those GAAS games when I’m sick of them, and it doesn’t feel anywhere near as good as completing a great single player game and shelving it.
The color or lighting is an artistic choice not technological superiority. I don't know why DF is making that as the reason to elevate GT over Forza. In actual gameplay and all the different modes, I think Forza is amazing and frankly better in many ways especially with weather. Turn 10 has nothing to be ashamed of. Also they are ignoring GT7 has 18 months of support vs 2 months at the time of Forza. Forza deserves more credit than its being given.
It is COMPLETELY fine to criticize. It's not okay to take personal shots at people but it is more than acceptable to say you don't like something, you don't think it's good or you DO think it's good.
About Forza not being the leap it was meant to be, i think thats part of the problem, and is specially weird with the big development time and how barebones it is as a game, specially looking as they have some bugs that were present as back as Forza Horizon 4 like Matte materials looking glossy in some cameras, makes you wonder how much has been really reworked. Just to be clear, i like way more driving in Forza, and i think if it wasnt such a technical mess in pc it would be super fun, but the game really is barebone and not that much of a leap looking at previous games, specially content wise.
I don’t understand why games these days don’t all have great HDR. It’s been around long enough now and unlike RT it’s not demanding. Yet we see so many games that don’t manage to do HDR at all or at least not well. Good HDR can make a huge difference. I used to not care about it at all but then I saw it done well and on an OLED and now it’s one of the more important things to me.
During the first section abount multiplayer I kept thinking about Armored Core 6. They do offer the thing you all mentioned - smaller scale simple multiplayer mode without seasons, battlepasses etc and it's bundled with the game for free, I wish you mentioned them, they deserve a shout out.
As a long time Forza Motorsport fan, I completely agree that they dropped the ball. I would be disappointed if this was a normal 2/3 year development cycle. The fact that they had 6 years and said "From the ground up." so many times makes this a lot worse. I think Microsoft needs to come in and mix things up at Turn 10 a bit.
I can't believe I fell for the hype. Remember Turn 10 had all these promotional videos about how they've improved the paint etc? The decal page STILL HAS XBOX ONE AND FORZA 2 DECALS. They literally changed nothing.
It's such a shame with that Forza GT comparison. I've never had a chance to play GT so naturally I've become a fan of forza but I knew what the result was going to be. I can't imagine how different the result would have been if Forza actually released what was advertised instead of being cut back to such an insane degree Edit: and Alex is spot on with the post processing. The color grading and tonemapping itself also changed a ton from the early trailers, which is strange as it shouldn't even be a performance concern
I bought GT7 because I didn’t want to wait any longer for FM8, as more game footage was shown I became less and less interested in FM8, I could see some visual flaws. I’m glad I didn’t wait. I tried and still play FM8 here and there but it definitely lacks a lot of the visual polish of GT7, the cars feel good on FM8 and if you didn’t have a choice to get GT7 then I’d say FM8 is good enough but coming from GT7 it makes Motorsport look like a downgrade in many ways, car models are of low quality in comparison, lighting and color reproduction seems plasticky and washed out and it’s a real shame because FM8 could’ve been the prototype for the best simcade on consoles.
@@Michael-jr3gzin a visuals comparison? They showed full quality ray traced reflections, insanely dense environment quality, awesome global illumination, etc, etc. GT7 would still win in realism and car models, but the earlier pre release footage of FM8 was undeniably stunning. Obviously that ended up to be impossible to achieve, which is a massive problem with their marketing.
@@existentialselkath1264 dude please don’t waste ur time with this guy he’s a well known troll that goes around saying the same childish stuff about Xbox he has other accounts named Michael as well.
Again, my issue with the FM vs GT video is that it’s so obviously slanted in favor of GT, with this iteration of FM being such a misfire and universally panned release(plus GT finally getting their shit together too). And the way John then tries to act all unbiased and objective while not even addressing this fact just comes across as super disingenuous and dishonest. (After looking at some more FM footage, heck, even the track, the time of day and the car pick honestly feels slanted in favor of GT imo. Not to mention FM23 actually looks worse than FM7 in a lot of cases) This should just have been a GT showcase, and then maybe a similar video for Horizon(which is the more graphically impressive game in the series now) instead of this very fanboy-y vs stuff.
It's not that weird considering European and Japanese audiences do still bother to move their asses out from their sofa, while US audiences won't, at least not in the numbers required to keep the E3 profitable for both the organizers and game publishers.
@@Floating.Point. e3 sold out every year it was opened to the public. Before 2016, e3 was only opened to industry personnel, journalists and retailers. It finally opened to the public in 2017 and immediately sold out of public tickets and every subsequent e3 did the same. Also publishers don't make money from conventions unless they organize the convention themselves. Publishers pay the organizers for booth space depending on the size and location and don't receive any monies from the organizers. The conventions is just a marketing opportunity for publishers so they can drum up sales in the future
Because Gamescom was always opened to the public,while E3 was for a long time just for people in the industry. Cologne is also super well localized,with a bunch of rails from all over europe coming to it,also the city has more to do than just gamescom.
I’m interested in DF doing something where they look at game features beyond the visual standards and more into things like games that have physics that stay, bodies that stay, effects that don’t just flash away in an instant. For example while Avatar looks amazing on console at least it has what I call an issue with object permanence. Crashing helicopters will vanish before they hit the ground, disappearing as if they were never there, amongst many other similar issues with both objects and effects, such explosions that appear and vanish in an instant. It’s a Floaty feeling impermanence. An example of the opposite of this kind of feeling would be something like red dead redemption. I feel like so few games do this well. And for me it’s just as important for immersion as creating a detailed landscape
Haha two guys, they can ask Santa for any gift, both have a 4090 and... One chooses another TV and the other chooses an old GPU card haha that was the best part of the podcast
Come on now. You know full well that's there's a remake of the PC port that'll be in time for the remake of Left Behind of Us 2 Remastered Master of Puppets. Just in time for the Uncharted Outtakes Remaster
Yes, finally. We have reached the remake singularity. It's too expensive, too risky, and takes too long to make new games. So now Naughty Dog is in a perpetual cycle where the only viable project to sustain the company is remaking the same game.
You guys are not seeing what really happened here. Sales of Last of Us 2 were way below expectations. They couldn't afford to take this gamble. They are running out of cash. Money isn't cheap anymore.
Yes, I agree. Part 2 sold well, but definitely underperformed. Now 4 years of resources wasted for MP, also gone. Lots of upfront costs funded by Sony with no end product, so very literally wasted money. Part 2 remaster is a low cost way to bring in cash in the meantime. Part 3 will be a huge risk for them too. Part 3 will not sell well initially because many fans are pissed with Part 2. It’ll be make or break for the studio.
1:24:27 Going back to what alex mentioned, about games often having standout effects when they are core to both the rendering tech and the gameplay loop, the first thing that came to my mind was the clouds in ace combat 7 like, burning shores came close in some ways but I think no game is yet to render clouds the way AC7 does, both the scale and quality of the rendering and the physicality and interactivity of them, the way ice and water builds up on your plane as you fly through them, it still looks spectacular
Driveclub did something similar on one of the Chilean and one of the Indian tracks. Clouds could fog up the ground making driving difficult or impossible because they'd come down to street level. Pretty neat. As for cloud interactions MSFS 2020 also does that stuff with clouds they don't look as nice close up as AC7's clouds do, though.
About effects: since around mid 10s PhysX based dynamic particles were basically not used. Even more famous in terms of destruction stuff like Control or recently Robocop are nowhere near stuff like Batman Arkham PhysX usage or Borderlands 2.
Finally an appretiator of PhysX. Truely futuristic stuff. A shame we didn't see more games use it. It could have improved SO MUCH if they made it open-source, but it's Nvidia, so i guess we'll have to find alternatives ourselves. Games today indeed struggle to match the particle effects that PhysX was capable of...
@@FollowingStorm0 always was a HUGE fan of it and still is. Such a shame to see modern games being praised for particle effects which are inferior to games from late 00s(!).
@@FollowingStorm0 it is super weird...especially now that Physix can run on AMD hardware and on CPUs in general, more people could benefit from the quality generated via that framework. Physix is the reason why I worry about a lot more games becoming DLSS and reconstruction dependant...what happens if Nvidia changes strategy and drops the ball or changes completely the way approaches this stuff?
as a person who is neutral towards both consoles, I really can't understand how people are still arguing over which is better. Its genuinely embarrassing. That being said it made me really happy seeing most of the comments were pretty reasonable, and I think it shows how well you represented both games. Amazing video, John.
In terms of technology two spring to mind: the Euphoria natural motion in GTA4 is still unmatched (as is it's complex AI simulation) that even GTA5 failed to better. GTA4s world felt like it would carry on even if Nico wasn't on screen (Plus the car damage model was better than 5 as well + the water simulation was better too). The other was the the real-time deformation model Lucasarts built for Force Unleashed and the sadly cancelled Indiana Jones game that allowed metal, wood and glass to break and deform dynamically coupled with the Euphoria natural motion meant battles would develop far more dynamically. (I remember reading one developer interview where they were surprised by the AI enemy that managed to break some glass and use the hole as a foothold to climb up to fight Indiana on top of a moving tram car). I'm hoping we see a return to that kind of dynamic simulation that's been sorely lacking in modern games.
Games like Destiny 2 have shown that even after a largely successful period (10 years), games as a service will always be a huge risk due to many factors. Look at the recent layoffs and delays for the Destiny 2 Final shape DLC, in this case due to poor upper management ignoring the wishes of the playerbase.
@KurtQuad i never put that many hours into them, but always played the newest expansions at release. The most recent one was a chore to get through, I'm not sure if I'm just on Destiny burnout, or the game just sucks now.
The statement about people sticking to a few online games really hit home. Multiplayers is what essentially sucked the fun out of gaming for me over the years. I loved my time in Ark, Rainbow Six Siege, Sea of Thieves etc., but it was always annoying I had to move on or play alone because my partners moved on. I try to stick to singleplayer nowadays, but it's hard whenever a cool multiplayer hits.
ASW is indeed extrapolation. For VR the interpolation is not viable due to latency. Asynchronous Spacewarp is the old Asynchronous Timewarp, which just shifted the whole rendered frame based on the latest data from the sensors. ASW had that and also added the motion vector stuff for moving the pixels within that picture in the extrapolated frame similar to DLSS3.
Question of the decade In GTA VI can we finaly see small tree destruction after vehicle impact. Gta V had immortal trees even a 2 inch tree can destroy your car truck😂
The question devs always have to ask themselves is: "are both the work required and performance impact, worth the extra immersion/gameplay opportunities?". Especially compared to other systems. For me personally I'd like to see improved a.i. or better (Ray Traced) 3d audio, like in the old days, in any game as compared to volumetric clouds, destruction and many others things that have improved over the years.
Regarding question 2: I fully agree with bugs taking away points from a game's score. If it's rare enough but really bad bug that only one reviewer encounters, making them give the game a 4 when everyone else gave it a 9, then the bad score will be diluted by the vast majority of 9/10s once you take the average. It's a bit trickier with unknown indie games where they might only get a couple of reviews, but it's not a problem with big games.
John so here's the thing right, Forza may be a decent looking game, fun to play at times, but call a spade a spade. Forza had six years to develop, and came out in this state. GTSport vs FM7 with one of the cars detail and geometry, you noted in GTSport had higher quality due to development time, but totally gloss over the development time with FM2023 vs GT7. Calling out things about the game that its competitors does better isn't calling Forza a bad game, just putting the devs on notice. So when the next game comes out with the same issues thats been in the past 3 games, they aren't taken lightly.
When talking about the old type of tacked on MP side of the SP games people tend to forget that the purpose of those was to keep people from reselling their game discs, as digital sales eclipsed physical discs the resell was less of a problem for the publishers, hence no need for the MP.
what's sad is that GaaS multiplayer games don't have any deeper gameplay or customization, really, than older and simpler titles. Halo Infinite was barebones at launch, Fortnite for the longest time was one map. MP games used to release map packs all the time and small updates. Not sure how "GaaS" implies all of this extra effort when the only extra thing I'm getting as a customer is a "battle pass" which is just a (usually awful) progression system of cosmetics
I don’t think anyone really has matched the style of Goldeneye 64’s bullet impacts on walls with dust and debris, even after it became easier to do technically. It was mind blowing at the time.
Don't even go there with the whole "Forza Motorsport won't have a sequel and will be an evolving game" thing. This is the same Microsoft that said Windows 10 would be the last numbered version of Windows remember and then released Windows 11 with Windows 12 on the way! There absolutely will be a Forza Motorsport 2 at some point but it may not be in 2 years time like the previous games.
Alex's face at 17:08 when Rich mentioned Marathon was hilarious.
the eye roll lmao
Dude turned into Raiden
I normally listen rather than "watch" the video while working. Thanks to your comment, I didn't miss that reaction. Brilliant.
Holy crap biggest eye roll ever haha
that eye roll, hahahahaha
"Everybody is obsessed with _monthly_ _active_ _users_ and _engagement_ , the two most *toxic* terms in the industry right now"
Preach, John!
Thank you for mentioning Gears of War. Not every game has to be GAAS to be fun. My buddies and I still play this game and the community, although not as big at launch, is still going strong.
Not to mention, for the price of one game, you get Campaign, MP, Horde mode, Survival Mode and heavy emphasis on co-op. I wish more games had this.
GAAS? What’s a GAAS if u don’t mind my asking. 🤓
@@-MaXuS- Games As A Service or Live Service Games
Agreed, but as Jon stated, the problem isn't that they can't make the multiplayer modes, it's just that they aren't as profitable and depend on initial sales.
Yeah well wheres the BOTS, they force you to buy games with gold these days, ugh!
I expect that to at least partially change with Gears 6 (Halo/Forza), Gears 5 came right at the tail end of the shift, similar to fighting games that are now starting to have service elements, Tekken 8 being the only exception.
No john do not apologize, that Forza vs GT7 Video was amazing! I watched the previous one so many times and this one is even better. it is clear who the winner was and I am glad you stuck to your guns and said who won. People are going to be toxic no matter what so do not go by that when thinking about making a video. You did the right thing and the video was amazing. I have over 200 hours in Forza Motorsports 7 and part 8 is just not up to par. They really droped the ball. I can all but guarantee that something happened behind the scenes during development. Look what they were able to achieve on the 1.3 teraflop Xbox One vs the 13 teraflop Series X, something went seriously wrong.
Absolutely agree.
I'm neither a GT or Sony fanboy but the latest Forza is an embarressment.
I suspect Dan Greenawalt not being at the helm might may have had something to do with it's hopelessness.
I agree GT won, but I think people trying to justify their console purchase need to chill. It was a fun experiment and I love comparisons like that video. GT is just objectively more detailed and accurate to life. Forza looked so dull and lifeless, much less detailed. And despite having some RT looks more artificial and rendered. Like how in the 360 era everything on Unreal engine had that GOW dirt color lol
I feel he is only apologizing to save face with MS. Seriously, the issue isn't that GT7 won its that very clear and obvious points in GT7's favor were treated as frivolous things... cars and tracks being modeled correctly isn't a frivolous thing in a simulator.
The video tried too hard to be "neutral" to protect Xbox fanboys I feel. Nobody should have to be protected from the very clear truth that GT looked so much better in so many areas. You should instead demand better from Xbox
@@daverudaJohn was also right that Forza Horizon pisses all over both GT and FM too
I don't really play Forza or Gran Tourismo but: I was really impressed by the quality of the Video especially how close the camera angles are matched.
I wanted to post this, but you took the words out of my mouth. Excellent video
i wish they added the HDR and the VR aspect of GT, those two are top notch.
Only complaint is that GT7 was held back, still enjoyed the video
I spent at least 200h in factions, so sad to hear there won't be a successor. There was a lot of potential for improvement.
It didn't need to be "as a service". I would gladly give my 70 usd for the next iteration of it. Like the previous one, I'd play like 2 months of it and eventually I'd be done, after 2 months of awesome experiences.
@@Cinetyk yeah. Imagine the concept of this game but with giant maps and monsters
@@Cinetyk yeah. Imagine the concept of this game but with giant maps and monsters
Wasn't Factions created when developers and publishers were trying to figure out how to stop people from trading in single-player games days or weeks after buying them? The idea was if you tack on a multiplayer mode then people would be more likely to not trade in the game. Another example of this strategy was when Dead Space added a multiplayer mode to like Dead Space 2 or 3.
That is a great theory and has a lot of weight, would be a food topic for someone to explore and expand on.
Now people buy digital so there is no need of that
My theory was/is that basically if you buy a multiplayer game you tent to have friends that you want to play with. Dont get me wrong, you have friends online but based on some fun multiplayer experience you are more likely to convince one or two other friend to go buy this or that game and they are more likely to buy it.
@@VictorAugustussadly we rent digital games now.
Yeah but they also added multiplayer to Uncharted 2 and 3.
My favorite E3 memory is when Miyamoto came out on stage in E3 2004 with a Master Sword and Shield and said “I AM NOT LINK… BUT I DO KNOW HIM.”
Alex is spot on about games having multiplayer as well as single player, lots of studios still do it. It just naughty dog quit, it’s just that simple.
The best one that comes to mind is Ghost of Tsushima. The multiplayer addition was free, no MTX and not extremely deep but deep enough to have a blast with friends. I actually sank a lot of time in the multiplayer modes with my friend.
@@Sosman93 exactly
@@jcdenton41100 so you fed into the bs? Got it.
It is not as black and white as that.
For one Naughty Dog has focused on solely narrative single player games for much of the last decade and a half. The gameplay loop of that is vastly different from a multiplayer game and there is no guarantee that they can make a good multiplayer game (I mean Sony have purchased Bungie because of that reason).
Secondly and perhaps more importantly, is their game engine ready for it? Naughty Dog uses a propriety in-house engine for their games and I seriously doubt they have anything extensively coded for multiplayer. Think about it, connectivity, latency, servers, hackers, security, proper communication systems (VOIP). Unless a studio is using a game engine that already has that stuff pre-coded (Unreal being a great example), Naughty Dog will have to spend a lot of resources coding and maintaining that code base.
I suspect that was the reason why CDPR also dump the RedEngine for Unreal. There was a lot of talk early about Cyberpunk having a multiplayer/CO-OP component but the challenge of writing extra code in a single player focused engine for multiplayer was probably a step too far.
Certain game engines are built for multiplayer. Unreal, Unity, Snowdrop being good examples.
There are also examples of studios doing a poor of it too. Bethesda, the Creation Engine and Fallout 76 comes to mind.
@@jcdenton41100 you did, they said they’d release it along side Lou 2. It was clear they didn’t know what to do and cancelled the project.
Conversation about tlou and live services was so wholesome! I don't remember the last time I've heard such a ...balanced discussion about video games. Or any topic regarding mass entertainment.
Yeah buddy! That's one of the reasons I love this channel. As long as I've been watching they are amazing about getting us gaming news without jumping on bandwagon of hate or fanboy-ism.
when you were talking about what/which older games did better . 2 games came to mind 1:- Farcry 2s Fire spreading and destruction 2 :- F.E.A.R.s Enemy AI which were uncannily good at flanking and taking cover .
Naughty Dog MP modes were awesome since Uncharted 2 (+ 3/4/factions), their multiplayer focused team is super talented. So im quite dissappointed that we probably dont get a Naughty Dog MP mode/game this gen. It offered a lot of value for me, I probably spend + 50h in each of their mp modes.
The worse part being these modes got gutted on the re-releases and port version of these games, time is running out to be able to continue playing them.
I'm sorta panicking rn. Never got into Factions, because at the time I didn't really play much online. But I always knew that it was a fantastic mode. End of last gen I really got into multiplayer games. I waited for TLoU 2's MP mode to catch up on Factions and well, it didn't ship with it. No problem, I thought, there's a stand-alone MP coming. I rather wait for that than catch up in the 'old' mode that already only has a fraction of the player base it once had. Now it's not coming and I am very worried I missed my chance to ever experience any TLoU MP mode as it was intended. Is it still possible to find games in TLoU Remastered (PS4)?
I still think Uncharted 2 is one of the best multiplayer games ever made. No idea if that core team is still around, but I'm sure they're not done yet.
@@MofaGames It's like 10$ digitally. I'm sure you can still find it for a fair price physical as well.
The ‘which older games have more advanced features’ question was really good. I’d love to hear more examples, never would have thought about the MGS2 rain thing but that’s insane to think about
What annoys me about that is the question was likely about games made since Driveclub not before Driveclub additionally everything MGS2 does with rain Driveclub also did. Rain and snow are simple particles the motion blur in Driveclub turns snow into streaks of light while rain is also transformed based on factors driven by motion blur. Lakes and flags and other particles are affected by wind with and without rain being part of the picture. So, John bringing up MGS2 was just odd.
I'm so glad this channel exist and actually teaching the audience how the industry works
If Jim Ryan had not stepped down as CEO, we would not have seen the realization that an online game would take all of their resources. It was Ryan's strategy with an emphasis on online and thank God with his departure Sony came to their senses and shifted their focus from online.
I think it's the inverse. The accountants saw it wasn't going to work a while ago and he kept saying "Have faith" and it ran out.
Until March
Sony need to steer clear of those horrible games as service gamepass models. If anything make a readjustment back to their roots
As an Xbox owner, I can say that the gamepass contains more single-player games than multiplayer games
I can't wait for the Forza Motorsport 9 vs GT8 video!!
the multiplayer section (the last of us) was one of the best topics on here in a while interesting takes from everyone and surprising ones from rich didnt think he cared
GT ALWAYS HAD BETTER GRAPHICS, BUT THE ACTUAL PHYSICS ARE TRASH COMPARED TO FORZA ITS THE WAYS IT'S PRETTY MUCH ALWAYS BEEN.
I absolutely loved factions mode on my ps3 in 2013. The original game was quite short(relatively) and so it served a perfect after game way to express yourself in that world. It really felt like hide and seek with brutal death around every corner.
@@mattwill63True, but what on earth does that have to do with the comment you replied to, and why is it in all caps?
@@mattwill63bro
always bet on Rich having great taste
I think the difference with Respawn is that they were first a multiplayer focused studio that then shifted to making single player games too.
Titanfall 2 was a perfect "single player campaign"
while also being a FANTASTIC multiplayer game.
It's a shame they haven't been allowed to build on that with Titanfall 3.
Apex is Titanfall ascetic without the actual the spirit of Titanfall + its lacking the Apex Mercenary ethos that the battle royal borrowed its name from. 😂
yes the heads of infinity ward left and almost half the dev team left with them @@cowboylou
@@cowboylou MW2 is still the game I spent most time in. It seems so simple compared to what they put in multiplayer nowadays...
There may come a day when Richard doesn't quickly gaze at his monitor to double check the edition number of the weekly show during his introduction section... but today is not that day
Re: GT7/FM - graphical comparisons are one thing, but what about the physics?
It always seemed to me, surmising, that post-360 FM3-4 and given the relatively limited CPU of last gen, they were very much prioritising the graphics in FM5-6-7, possibly at the expense of processing of higher physics/vehicle-handling fidelity.
I completely ditched playing FM7 early on in frustration because I couldn't stand the handling, or lack of it IMO.
FM8 very much upgraded the physics & tire modelling from FM7 - and playing right away I could feel the difference and improvement in driving and car handling
Is it possible for this gen, with greater CPU, Turn10 has consciously decided to favour processing higher physics fidelity and car handling, rather than 'peak' graphics this time in FM8..??
This if nothing else makes me want to engage in the driving, exploring handling limits and capabilities of all the cars, racing, hot-lapping etc., far more than FM7 did - even if the overall game package and experience could stand some improvement with future iterations/updates.
(Not yet played enough of the GT games to make comment on the quality of their physics/handling, relative or otherwise)
@25:23 I am always delighted to hear Rich’s amazing vernacular. I have never the term “rude health” before and had to pause to look it up.
Classic British term that
I played GT7 with PSVR2 and a wheel.. it was so intense. Forza Horizon does looks really good
Always look forward to these as part of my routine on Mondays 👍
... except that it's Tuesday.
@@fcukugimmeausername not in the US OF A lil bro
I love the idea of frame generation that doesn't have to wait for both frames to be rendered first and then add latency. I think Intel's approach is how people thought DLSS 3 already works
The visor effects in Metroid Prime still hold up super well today, and I can't really think of many other games that even attempt that sort of thing. Stuff like raindrops across the glass when you look up, and Samus' face being momentarily reflected in the glass by explosions or other bright flashes. It's the kind of thing I would've loved in Halo Infinite, had that game actually featured more than a single biome.
Only thing i was sad about with the Metroid prime remake was the missing lighting effects from shooting projectiles in the dark
I love when DF talks about they're E3 Days. Please make videos about that!
The Forza vs. GT video was great, it's just obvious which game has had more man-hours put into it
Tomb Raider 2013 has an excellent multiplayer component that still works in 2023, its takes some time to find a game, but the fact that the servers have been supported for so long is commendable.
I am so sad we don't have many high interactivity games these days. Playing Tear Down made me feel like a kid again. It was as much fun as when I played Red Faction for the first time as a kid. Then the talks about all the Crysis interactive environments.... Man, we need to have those games come back.
Instead we have companies pushing Ray tracing which doesn't change how games play at all.
I agree with you. And I think it's super boring because it's just graphics and does nothing of value for the actual gameplay. Often I can't even see what it adds to the game besides noticeably tanking the performance. But it shows that the marketing hype works because ray/path tracing is the reason for all the sales of the ultra expensive GPUs. And on top of that we get the same AAA games over and over with little to no innovation, only they're now bloated with a 100GB install size and needs a $1999 GPU to run like it should.
1:16:42 Rich playing with his wedding ring breaking hearts, sorry ladies I'm taken!
That ring gives +10 to charisma
I imagine also Polyphony really had to balance alot in the engine, because in PSVR2, Its looks and plays stunning...
In defense of Minecraft: when you buy Minecraft Java, you own the game. You can run your own servers, you can mod your game how you want. You can even play on modded servers. Once you buy the game, you can play it for however long you want without paying it again. I like the Minecraft business model IMHO.
I would even re-buy Minecraft on Steam if that ever happened, just to do 100 % achievements, but with the version handling it probably wouldn't really work greatly if they decided to put it on Steam.
You guys are legends, no matter the topic your pov is always interesting to hear.
Honestly I dont play any video games. I just love to watch very competent people.
Obsidian's Grounded started with 13 people and passed 10m players not long after lunching from alpha. They do not get enough flowers.
Grounded is great
Your views, ideas and conversation are so rich, grounded and delightful to watch. Appreciate all your work and you as human beings! Happy holidays!
Man there was something special about the God of War 2018 reveal. The live orchestra, the explosion of the crowd when Kratos stepped forward out of the darkness, how good it looked and that it was a genuine surprise. Probably won’t be recreated again.
I think it's totally fine to poke at the lacking aspects of very good games, referring to the Forza vs GT7 video, Gran Turismo despite some missteps has aimed to be a "professional" racing sim, for lack of a better word, it's not completely realistic there's certainly an approachability to it but in terms of quality of the content they're almost going for museum quality, as its direct competitor Forza Motorsport has compared well to GT, it had to match GT in quality so that you weren't missing out by buying an Xbox and it's done that very well for 2 console generations, but where Polyphony have continued to strive for excellence Forza, despite this being a big reboot of the franchise, has faltered in some relatively minor ways, but the quality they both set requires getting out the magnifying glass when talking about and comparing them.
The emphasis of the video and of general comparisons is that the lacking aspects are minor and shouldn't prevent anyone from enjoying either game, but Forza does have one very big problem, the UX is among the most boring i've ever seen, GT wants you to bathe in cars and motorsport, it wants you to pass driving tests and pay for a car wash and save up credits forever to buy a one of a kind vintage car you will never use, instead just zooming in on all its fine craftsmanship and pretending you can smell the leather while listening to smooth jazz and drinking wine, Forza has a Netflix inspired interface and some races, just like the one that came before it... it could use some soul, it doesn't need to be a music festival like Horizon it just needs to have _something._
We just wanted Factions! Nobody asked for it to be a live service game! Alex is right on the money. Just give us fun multiplayer modes.
That Link's Awakening DX HD thing is great on the Steam Deck Oled at 3X or 4X. Kudos to the creator
Glad you mentioned the E3 2003 Half Life 2 demonstrations. I was only 18 at the time and I while I loved videogames I didn't really follow videogames coverage, but seeing that HL2 stuff is the catalyst that made me obsessed with videogames and videogame technology, and as someone who didn't game on PC I went out and got an Xbox just so I could be ready to play HL2. Little did I know it would be at roughly 15 FPS.
Be careful of burn-in on that OLED behind you, John.
It's okay, you just have to play Burnout on it from time to time.
Playing with fire is actually a good idea with an oled screen. That's because both oled and fire are organic. And as we all know anything organic is automatically good.
Kudos to Alex for mentioning G3 (the Vai/Satch/guest guitar extravaganza) 🎸 🤘
"Seasons are actually seasons", Rich with an absolute gem of a quote
GT still has 2 things that make it stand out.
The VR mode that needs no comments.
Sophy, who does incredible work to make the game experience the best possible, they really love GT!
For the best rain I still think it has to go to RDR2, actual physical drops instead of white lines that 90% of games use these days
Multiplayer games and smaller online game projects do make money, they can even make a lot of money. But AAA studios want GTA V money, not Battlebit money. They dont care about making a game, they wanna make profit its that damn simple :)
Supporter Q1 could make for a good video. Pointing out and examining really well-executed effects in older games.
Hi! 10 year Senior Environment Artist in the game industry here - you are 100% right in your comments about the rain in MGS2. Rain is way oversimplified and not really art directed anymore. It's all just super basic particle effects that are really dull and straightforward. There is something to be said about being pigeonholed by workflows and I think that's a very good example of that happening with relying on particle effects so much. That's not to say you can't do good, well directed rain with PE, but a lot of games don't go that extra mile.
Around 18:00 or so you guys mention adding hats to multi-player games. Not only did The Last Of Us Factions MP have hats but it also had masks and helmets(for when you bought armor) you could buy for your characters like in Team Fortress. And you were able to wear all 3 at the same time, although some helmets were so big that they would cover your hats and masks. My favorite was choosing the Hunter faction and going in to matches with no hat because there was a chance your character would be wearing their hoods from their jackets which looked cool with certain masks.
This live service craze always existed, even in the early 2000. The difference is that it was relegated to specific genres like MMORPGs and Korean F2P lobby-based multiplayer games. The difference is that now publishers realized that they can do it with any genre thanks to the success of titles like Destiny.
Yeah, going back to a lot of those Korean F2P games I played way back when, there was a lot of stuff which wasn't even *pay* to win, but RENT to win, you didn't even get to keep the item beyond a limited timescale!
The Intel ExtraSS approach is essentially what I have been asking for with DLSS 3.0 and I also left several comments towards that degree on this channel.
There is a demo video in the supplementary material, if you haven't seen it Alex. I haven't read all of the paper just yet, but it's sounding very promising - how didn't Nvidia get to that solution too.
Intel, Nvidia and AMD all did. It's still in research phase and I'm confident that we'll hear more about it soon. Maybe DLSS 4.0 will be that, followed by XeSS 2 and FSR 4.
Same. Or more specifically, I was hoping they could separate immediate-response elements like a third-person PC in the center of the screen to be rendered normally, but render the rest predictively. It looks like maybe that's what they're doing?
One of the reason for the death of E3 was that Walmart, Bestbuy, Target and so on don't sell that much physical media, and that was the actual thing E3 was originated for, not the fans but for outsiders to see what they would be buying.
Alex's face when Geoff's SGF was mentioned was perfect.
Fans who cry when they see their game vs GT7 lose, but if it were a winner would even mock PS5 saying that it is a shit console. We all already know each other here. So keep crying with GT7 and PS5 for a long time, while enjoying your own favorite games, whether on your favorite console or PC. No problem.
I have over 300+ hours, by far my most played game, in Uncharted 4 Mutiplayer. It's excellent and beyond fun with friends. So it's dissapointing to acknowledge that we may not get Single Player games that have a nice tightly-contained Mutiplayer attached with them without being Live Service black holes!
I for one am thrilled that tacked on multiplayer modes in single player games are finally a thing of the past. Just focus all the available dev time and budget on the single player mode that most people are buying the game for. So many games wasted resources on multiplayer that nobody played back in the PS360 days as well as the early PS4XB1 days. Good riddance to that stupid business model.
Uncharted 4 is such a strange pick too. It was terrible. All it took was
one look at their monetization model of multiple kinds of fake coins to get me to run far away. Super predatory and gross. Uncharted 3 had a much better model where anything to buy had a simple real money price, you paid that price if you wanted the thing.
Also didn't help that Uncharted 4 was on PlayStation 4, where PS+ for then $50 a year was required to play online. Why do games still have predatory monetization when everyone's already paying a subscription to be allowed to play? Go get your money for server upkeep and patches from Sony, Naughty Dog. What is the point of a required subscription to play online games if not the upkeep of said games?
Same, but I was disappointed by the lack of a co-op story mode ala Uncharted 2 & 3.
I don't know if people played a different game but totk was sub 30 all the time for me basically every time with ultra hand and with any larger fight especially if vehicles are involved
“Games as a Service” games should probably just be called “Temporary Games”.
I also find the lack of any kind of “ending” makes them feel a bit weird in terms of moving on from those games. I usually have to just quit those GAAS games when I’m sick of them, and it doesn’t feel anywhere near as good as completing a great single player game and shelving it.
The color or lighting is an artistic choice not technological superiority. I don't know why DF is making that as the reason to elevate GT over Forza. In actual gameplay and all the different modes, I think Forza is amazing and frankly better in many ways especially with weather. Turn 10 has nothing to be ashamed of. Also they are ignoring GT7 has 18 months of support vs 2 months at the time of Forza.
Forza deserves more credit than its being given.
It is COMPLETELY fine to criticize. It's not okay to take personal shots at people but it is more than acceptable to say you don't like something, you don't think it's good or you DO think it's good.
1:30:00 it's not on the consumer to know why one game is buggy and the other isn't but BG3 having as few bugs as it does is a miracle in my eyes.
About Forza not being the leap it was meant to be, i think thats part of the problem, and is specially weird with the big development time and how barebones it is as a game, specially looking as they have some bugs that were present as back as Forza Horizon 4 like Matte materials looking glossy in some cameras, makes you wonder how much has been really reworked.
Just to be clear, i like way more driving in Forza, and i think if it wasnt such a technical mess in pc it would be super fun, but the game really is barebone and not that much of a leap looking at previous games, specially content wise.
I don’t understand why games these days don’t all have great HDR. It’s been around long enough now and unlike RT it’s not demanding. Yet we see so many games that don’t manage to do HDR at all or at least not well. Good HDR can make a huge difference. I used to not care about it at all but then I saw it done well and on an OLED and now it’s one of the more important things to me.
During the first section abount multiplayer I kept thinking about Armored Core 6. They do offer the thing you all mentioned - smaller scale simple multiplayer mode without seasons, battlepasses etc and it's bundled with the game for free, I wish you mentioned them, they deserve a shout out.
As a long time Forza Motorsport fan, I completely agree that they dropped the ball. I would be disappointed if this was a normal 2/3 year development cycle. The fact that they had 6 years and said "From the ground up." so many times makes this a lot worse. I think Microsoft needs to come in and mix things up at Turn 10 a bit.
I can't believe I fell for the hype. Remember Turn 10 had all these promotional videos about how they've improved the paint etc? The decal page STILL HAS XBOX ONE AND FORZA 2 DECALS. They literally changed nothing.
Loved the GT vs Forza video -- incredible work! Imo Forza's driving feels so good when tuning the gameplay exactly how difficult you want it to be
RIP James McCaffrey, 1959 - 2023. The real Max Payne.
It's such a shame with that Forza GT comparison. I've never had a chance to play GT so naturally I've become a fan of forza but I knew what the result was going to be.
I can't imagine how different the result would have been if Forza actually released what was advertised instead of being cut back to such an insane degree
Edit: and Alex is spot on with the post processing. The color grading and tonemapping itself also changed a ton from the early trailers, which is strange as it shouldn't even be a performance concern
I bought GT7 because I didn’t want to wait any longer for FM8, as more game footage was shown I became less and less interested in FM8, I could see some visual flaws. I’m glad I didn’t wait. I tried and still play FM8 here and there but it definitely lacks a lot of the visual polish of GT7, the cars feel good on FM8 and if you didn’t have a choice to get GT7 then I’d say FM8 is good enough but coming from GT7 it makes Motorsport look like a downgrade in many ways, car models are of low quality in comparison, lighting and color reproduction seems plasticky and washed out and it’s a real shame because FM8 could’ve been the prototype for the best simcade on consoles.
GT7 would still beat flopza regardless
@@Michael-jr3gzin a visuals comparison? They showed full quality ray traced reflections, insanely dense environment quality, awesome global illumination, etc, etc.
GT7 would still win in realism and car models, but the earlier pre release footage of FM8 was undeniably stunning. Obviously that ended up to be impossible to achieve, which is a massive problem with their marketing.
@@existentialselkath1264 dude please don’t waste ur time with this guy he’s a well known troll that goes around saying the same childish stuff about Xbox he has other accounts named Michael as well.
@@existentialselkath1264and GT was not even with HDR, which makes a difference actually
Bioshock always comes to mind when water is involved :)
Again, my issue with the FM vs GT video is that it’s so obviously slanted in favor of GT, with this iteration of FM being such a misfire and universally panned release(plus GT finally getting their shit together too). And the way John then tries to act all unbiased and objective while not even addressing this fact just comes across as super disingenuous and dishonest.
(After looking at some more FM footage, heck, even the track, the time of day and the car pick honestly feels slanted in favor of GT imo. Not to mention FM23 actually looks worse than FM7 in a lot of cases)
This should just have been a GT showcase, and then maybe a similar video for Horizon(which is the more graphically impressive game in the series now) instead of this very fanboy-y vs stuff.
The Q1 - I always think of what Team Silent was able to do with fog in Silent Hill 2 and 3 on the PS2. It still looks amazing by today’s standards.
It's weird that Europe still has Gamescom and Japan has Tokyo Game Show. But US publishers couldn't support E3
It's not that weird considering European and Japanese audiences do still bother to move their asses out from their sofa, while US audiences won't, at least not in the numbers required to keep the E3 profitable for both the organizers and game publishers.
@@Floating.Point. e3 sold out every year it was opened to the public. Before 2016, e3 was only opened to industry personnel, journalists and retailers. It finally opened to the public in 2017 and immediately sold out of public tickets and every subsequent e3 did the same.
Also publishers don't make money from conventions unless they organize the convention themselves. Publishers pay the organizers for booth space depending on the size and location and don't receive any monies from the organizers. The conventions is just a marketing opportunity for publishers so they can drum up sales in the future
@@Floating.Point.considering how huge America is: maybe not everyone wants to go to California for a tradeshow 😂
Because Gamescom was always opened to the public,while E3 was for a long time just for people in the industry.
Cologne is also super well localized,with a bunch of rails from all over europe coming to it,also the city has more to do than just gamescom.
8:21 ghost of tsushima has a simple multiplayer mode that was awesome it's called Legends
I’m interested in DF doing something where they look at game features beyond the visual standards and more into things like games that have physics that stay, bodies that stay, effects that don’t just flash away in an instant. For example while Avatar looks amazing on console at least it has what I call an issue with object permanence. Crashing helicopters will vanish before they hit the ground, disappearing as if they were never there, amongst many other similar issues with both objects and effects, such explosions that appear and vanish in an instant. It’s a Floaty feeling impermanence. An example of the opposite of this kind of feeling would be something like red dead redemption. I feel like so few games do this well. And for me it’s just as important for immersion as creating a detailed landscape
Haha two guys, they can ask Santa for any gift, both have a 4090 and... One chooses another TV and the other chooses an old GPU card haha that was the best part of the podcast
Naughty Dog needs all available developers for The Last of Us Part I Remake Remastered for the PS5 Pro launch
Come on now. You know full well that's there's a remake of the PC port that'll be in time for the remake of Left Behind of Us 2 Remastered Master of Puppets. Just in time for the Uncharted Outtakes Remaster
Yes, finally. We have reached the remake singularity. It's too expensive, too risky, and takes too long to make new games. So now Naughty Dog is in a perpetual cycle where the only viable project to sustain the company is remaking the same game.
@@BLitzRunner77 It's time this developer did something different. Sick of seeing the TLoU universe
Haha, very funny...not
You guys are not seeing what really happened here. Sales of Last of Us 2 were way below expectations. They couldn't afford to take this gamble. They are running out of cash. Money isn't cheap anymore.
Yes, I agree. Part 2 sold well, but definitely underperformed. Now 4 years of resources wasted for MP, also gone. Lots of upfront costs funded by Sony with no end product, so very literally wasted money. Part 2 remaster is a low cost way to bring in cash in the meantime.
Part 3 will be a huge risk for them too. Part 3 will not sell well initially because many fans are pissed with Part 2. It’ll be make or break for the studio.
1:24:27
Going back to what alex mentioned, about games often having standout effects when they are core to both the rendering tech and the gameplay loop, the first thing that came to my mind was the clouds in ace combat 7
like, burning shores came close in some ways but I think no game is yet to render clouds the way AC7 does, both the scale and quality of the rendering and the physicality and interactivity of them, the way ice and water builds up on your plane as you fly through them, it still looks spectacular
Driveclub did something similar on one of the Chilean and one of the Indian tracks. Clouds could fog up the ground making driving difficult or impossible because they'd come down to street level. Pretty neat. As for cloud interactions MSFS 2020 also does that stuff with clouds they don't look as nice close up as AC7's clouds do, though.
About effects: since around mid 10s PhysX based dynamic particles were basically not used. Even more famous in terms of destruction stuff like Control or recently Robocop are nowhere near stuff like Batman Arkham PhysX usage or Borderlands 2.
Finally an appretiator of PhysX. Truely futuristic stuff. A shame we didn't see more games use it. It could have improved SO MUCH if they made it open-source, but it's Nvidia, so i guess we'll have to find alternatives ourselves. Games today indeed struggle to match the particle effects that PhysX was capable of...
@@FollowingStorm0 always was a HUGE fan of it and still is. Such a shame to see modern games being praised for particle effects which are inferior to games from late 00s(!).
GeoMod in Red Fraction has the best destruction.
@@FollowingStorm0 it is super weird...especially now that Physix can run on AMD hardware and on CPUs in general, more people could benefit from the quality generated via that framework. Physix is the reason why I worry about a lot more games becoming DLSS and reconstruction dependant...what happens if Nvidia changes strategy and drops the ball or changes completely the way approaches this stuff?
as a person who is neutral towards both consoles, I really can't understand how people are still arguing over which is better. Its genuinely embarrassing. That being said it made me really happy seeing most of the comments were pretty reasonable, and I think it shows how well you represented both games. Amazing video, John.
The Flamethrower effect in 2001 RTCW is still the best looking 20+yrs later.
In terms of technology two spring to mind: the Euphoria natural motion in GTA4 is still unmatched (as is it's complex AI simulation) that even GTA5 failed to better. GTA4s world felt like it would carry on even if Nico wasn't on screen (Plus the car damage model was better than 5 as well + the water simulation was better too).
The other was the the real-time deformation model Lucasarts built for Force Unleashed and the sadly cancelled Indiana Jones game that allowed metal, wood and glass to break and deform dynamically coupled with the Euphoria natural motion meant battles would develop far more dynamically. (I remember reading one developer interview where they were surprised by the AI enemy that managed to break some glass and use the hole as a foothold to climb up to fight Indiana on top of a moving tram car).
I'm hoping we see a return to that kind of dynamic simulation that's been sorely lacking in modern games.
Very sad this isn't a 2 hour video of Rich roasting The Day Before
Games like Destiny 2 have shown that even after a largely successful period (10 years), games as a service will always be a huge risk due to many factors. Look at the recent layoffs and delays for the Destiny 2 Final shape DLC, in this case due to poor upper management ignoring the wishes of the playerbase.
After 5000 hours between D1/D2 I gave up a over year ago and I'm done. I took over a year off and just couldn't get back into it. *shrug*
@KurtQuad i never put that many hours into them, but always played the newest expansions at release. The most recent one was a chore to get through, I'm not sure if I'm just on Destiny burnout, or the game just sucks now.
I agree that advanced graphical settings should be locked behind a warning, cmd line, or .ini file.
The statement about people sticking to a few online games really hit home. Multiplayers is what essentially sucked the fun out of gaming for me over the years. I loved my time in Ark, Rainbow Six Siege, Sea of Thieves etc., but it was always annoying I had to move on or play alone because my partners moved on. I try to stick to singleplayer nowadays, but it's hard whenever a cool multiplayer hits.
ASW is indeed extrapolation.
For VR the interpolation is not viable due to latency.
Asynchronous Spacewarp is the old Asynchronous Timewarp, which just shifted the whole rendered frame based on the latest data from the sensors.
ASW had that and also added the motion vector stuff for moving the pixels within that picture in the extrapolated frame similar to DLSS3.
Got here 9 seconds after posting. You could say I enjoy these df directs.
My Monday evening isn't complete without a df direct
part of my monday commute!
Question of the decade In GTA VI can we finaly see small tree destruction after vehicle impact. Gta V had immortal trees even a 2 inch tree can destroy your car truck😂
The question devs always have to ask themselves is: "are both the work required and performance impact, worth the extra immersion/gameplay opportunities?". Especially compared to other systems.
For me personally I'd like to see improved a.i. or better (Ray Traced) 3d audio, like in the old days, in any game as compared to volumetric clouds, destruction and many others things that have improved over the years.
Regarding question 2: I fully agree with bugs taking away points from a game's score. If it's rare enough but really bad bug that only one reviewer encounters, making them give the game a 4 when everyone else gave it a 9, then the bad score will be diluted by the vast majority of 9/10s once you take the average. It's a bit trickier with unknown indie games where they might only get a couple of reviews, but it's not a problem with big games.
John so here's the thing right, Forza may be a decent looking game, fun to play at times, but call a spade a spade. Forza had six years to develop, and came out in this state. GTSport vs FM7 with one of the cars detail and geometry, you noted in GTSport had higher quality due to development time, but totally gloss over the development time with FM2023 vs GT7. Calling out things about the game that its competitors does better isn't calling Forza a bad game, just putting the devs on notice. So when the next game comes out with the same issues thats been in the past 3 games, they aren't taken lightly.
Gears of War, Halo, Forza Horizon are all games with great SP and MP
Always look forward to these on a Monday afternoon!
When talking about the old type of tacked on MP side of the SP games people tend to forget that the purpose of those was to keep people from reselling their game discs, as digital sales eclipsed physical discs the resell was less of a problem for the publishers, hence no need for the MP.
what's sad is that GaaS multiplayer games don't have any deeper gameplay or customization, really, than older and simpler titles. Halo Infinite was barebones at launch, Fortnite for the longest time was one map. MP games used to release map packs all the time and small updates. Not sure how "GaaS" implies all of this extra effort when the only extra thing I'm getting as a customer is a "battle pass" which is just a (usually awful) progression system of cosmetics
also there's those coop/looter shooter type GaaS like FO76 or Redfall, but a game with properly balanced coop would be even deeper
There are a lot of pc multiplayer games like battlebit and others
I don’t think anyone really has matched the style of Goldeneye 64’s bullet impacts on walls with dust and debris, even after it became easier to do technically. It was mind blowing at the time.
1:24:37 Need for Speed ProStreet smoke effect still looks awesome for a 2007 game
Don't even go there with the whole "Forza Motorsport won't have a sequel and will be an evolving game" thing. This is the same Microsoft that said Windows 10 would be the last numbered version of Windows remember and then released Windows 11 with Windows 12 on the way! There absolutely will be a Forza Motorsport 2 at some point but it may not be in 2 years time like the previous games.
DF is the cake of the icing in the videogames.
But what UA-cam channel is the marzipan?