Just Cause

Holy mackerel this game is awesome. It seems like there are a lot of doubters of the Xbox360 around here but in the last month or so a lot of the big time games coming out are becoming as exciting as the possibilities for independents which first got me so interested in the 360.

The fact that every game has a demo over XBL is great! Sure the PC has had this forever but it's not quite the same. As for the game, jeez it's like GTA a bit but on crack. Graphically it's stunning (I think it may actually look better than Battlefield 2 maxed out but maybe not ;), huge vistas which are bump mapped and completely shadowed with HDR lighting that looks nice. The best part about it all though is you can go anywhere and you've always got a parachute available. Great fun! After taking out a whole hacienda I promtly jumped in a car and drove toward the end of a cliff where I subsequently got into stunt position and base jumped off the roof. My car continued down the hill toward a busy intersection, however I headed out over the water into the peaceful skies (with pleasing sound effects to match). Just then I spotted a boat in the crystal blue waters which I wanted to try so I free fell into the water to go grab it. Just then though I realized I could swim into the depths of the water and exlore. Good thing to because a helicopter came by and blew up the boat, which then sank to the bottom of the bay I was exploring.

I could go on and on. Next gen games are getting awesome and the best part is everyone's been given a free shot at the technology. I'm really surprised more people around here haven't gone nuts over XNA or Xbox 360. Ah well, I'm having a lot of fun with it!

I went around a few shops last night looking at X360's-

One thing I've noticed is that I'm yet to see a steady framerate- its like watching FMV skip a frame every second or so- Please tell me that it's just the games they've got on show?

Either way, I want to get one- more for prospects than anything.

This game is awesome! I'm not sure about the stutters most of the games run about 60 FPS constantly though sometimes it dips with too much detail. Full Auto is the one game that seemed to do what you mention though. It is certainly worth having the system for demos alone! And of course Geometry Wars:)

I have to say it does look good :)

I wan't to like the X360- it just reminds me so much of the PC sometimes! I may decide to grab one of the base units on payday.

> One thing I've noticed is that I'm
> yet to see a steady framerate

Well I've yet to witness a single X-Box game not to suffer from this problem of inconsistent frame rate during play. X-Box to me always did seem more like a PC in a console box than a console in a console box.

I haven't noticed any glitching while playing a game, *but* I have seen glitches/skipping when it's reading from the DVD (like streaming video)... and that occurs on almost every game I've seen (on intros etc.)..

I used to play multi player games round my mates house on his X-Box, in that time I've witnessed it totally hang 4 times on various games. One game we hadn't saved for like 30 mins, I've seen the skipping DVD before, you sometimes get that on other consoles tho, although of course all the time even on new X-Box conseoles. I've also seen other funny stuff like during the cut scenes of halo, it changes camera angle, 0.25 seconds later the characters suddenly jump into view and then another 0.25 seconds all the shaders pop on to the otherwise garoud shaded meshes.
Sometimes my PS2 comes up on the boot screen in green because the Scart lead has half come out the back of the monitor. But on X-Box, it's like that all the time. :) Although it's coincidental, it just feels to me like a Microsoft product, not properly tested but released anyway.
And why do you need to set the clock each time you turn the console on? I'd only buy an X-Box to get it chipped to play MAME on it, but I have a PC so no need too.

There are only few games that run 60fps, all games I have run 30fps and some are stuttering as a bonus. Dead or alive, Burnout, Ridge racer are 60 fps games what I'm aware..games I have, PGR3, tombraider, FN3, Condemned, are 30fps

I actually feel that a *big* factor of the whole graphics scenario is the framerate- 60fps is smooth and undistracting, 60fps then one 30fps or one 15fps frame every second or so distracts and I find it highly annoying.

The presence of these things is the exact reason I don't already have an X360.


Anyway, Sorry for posting about it Jeremy, Looks like i've turded on your thread again!

Currently downloading (for the second time, GameSpot decided to upload a bad exe, using FileFront now), hopefully it does play well, my only disturbance is the fact the PC demo version has none of the graphical bells & whistles the XBX360 verion sports...

Wont be touching the final product on the PC version if the developer doesn't include them in the final, as I may as well just pickup the PS2 version instead.

[EDIT] Alright, had a quick playthrough of the demo (I feel like editing the game files so I can freely roam around and glitch the game up or something).................

Game ran around 22FPS on average on my system here @ 1024x768 with all the game graphical settings cranked (no AA/AF settings to be found though)....dipped a bit in some areas, my system be the following though, which I believe this game really should run a bit better on my system with regards to what I'm see'ing this game run at compared to other games have pushed it for better/similar FPS results...

AMD64 3600+ (2.21ghz, not much in ghz, but still, gotta love that 1mb L2 cache)
2gb DDR2 RAM
256mb GeForce6800 GT

Demo was "ok" in my books, lots of little niggles I had with it though...mainly controls (really, really hard to judge where the heck you're going when you turn on your parachute, and vehicles slip/slide too much), some unrealistic things (like being able to destroy a concrete barrier by having my jeep run into it at 0 miles per hour), oh, and the bloom filter, AGH....


And some piccies...

You cant really tell what's going on here without see'ing it in action, because I basically took this boat, drove it at max speed, and somehow managed to collide head-on to another ship, which drove me miles underwater.....oddly enough it only took seconds for me to resurface.



This game's drawing distance sure puts Far Cry to shame...that's me hanging from an un-manned helicopter there.
(didn't know helicopters had an auto-pilot in video games also ;/, as I was expecting it to spiral out of control and crash downwards)



Bloom filter at its worst, which seems to be all the time in this game whenever your camera is remotely facing the sun.
(that and all the modern cars in the game give off an unnecessarily bright sheen reflection)





If I were to sum things up though, all I'd say is, someone should put that dev. team in charge of the next Pilotwings.

I just played the PC version. It's definitely not up to the 360 version in terms of graphics. The machine I played on wasn't the most powerful PC though. It still looked good, but the 360 version seems to go a few extra steps in texture quality, shadows (even the leaves on trees cast them as well as self shadowing), among a few other things. The game also doesn't seem to play quite as well on the PC ... the parachute just doesn't seem to go as far for one thing. Overall though it's a pretty cool game. I'd definitely love to see another Pilotwings game using the new beefed up hardware and physics. I suppose this game has that going on a little which is why I like it so much ;)