jennyferminh

Star Wars Battlefront is going to be a big deal. This long-awaited follow up to the PS2-era franchise is set to launch within a month of Star Wars Episode VII, and the nostalgia alone will inevitably propel the sales sky high. Over the last couple of days, EA has been running a beta test of across the PS4, Xbox One, and PC, and I’ve been watching it closely. Now that the public has had an opportunity to see first-hand what DICE has been working on, let’s examine how this beta holds up from a technical perspective. Of course, the final release may be significantly different, so take everything here with a grain of salt. Let’s start off with the bad news: the PS4 version is only running at 1600×900. It’s definitely disappointing, but as you can see above, the end result still looks fairly solid. The visual fidelity is roughly on-par with the “high” settings on the PC build, but the pop-in is substantially more noticeable on the PS4. While the game still can’t quite maintain a solid 60fps frame rate in some areas, there is hope. The dips are smaller than we’ve seen in previous builds, and it’s not unusual for developers to be optimizing performance right up until release day — sometimes months after release as well. Weirdly, the split-screen multiplayer actually halves the target frame rate to 30fps, and renders two views at 1920×540 (making a complete 1080p picture). After spending so much time enjoying Metal Gear Solid V at 60fps, I’m a bit spoiled. I think I’ll pass on this mode all together. If you want a better look at how the game holds up on a small map, check out this extended footage I captured directly from the PS4. Just make sure to crank the quality setting to “1080p60″ on YouTube for the best results. Over on the Xbox One, the situation isn’t quite as pretty. It’s stuck at just 1280×720, and the Digital Foundry breakdown shows exactly how poorly it stands up to the PS4 version. While the lighting effects and textures are nearly identical across platforms, the significantly lower resolution on Microsoft’s console is a hindrance when you’re dealing with long-distance enemies. Even with the compromised resolution, the Xbox One version still drops frames more often than the PS4. Keep in mind, this is still just a beta. It’s theoretically possible that DICE will be able to offer a rock-solid 60fps by the time the November 17th release date rolls around, but I’ll remain skeptical until I see it for myself. As for the PC version, our own Joel Hruska recently examined how well this beta performs in the real world. As long as you’re using even a modest discrete GPU, you won’t have much of a problem running at 1080p. Obviously, you’ll need to invest in higher-end cards if you want to play at higher resolutions, but these results seem promising. Technical issues aside, how does the game hold up? Exactly how’d you’d expect. I played around online and offline, and I didn’t much enjoy myself from a gameplay perspective. The visuals continue to impress (especially the way the engine handles light), but the moment-to-moment gameplay feels a little dated to me. It doesn’t help that this genre isn’t my cup of tea, but this beta doesn’t play as well as other recent first-person shooters either. The mobility improvements we’ve seen with Advanced Warfare and Titanfall aren’t fully represented here, so the movement always felt a little sluggish in comparison. But if you’ve been waiting a decade for a Star Wars shooter, this seems to be a competent — if slightly bland — execution on that idea. As it stands, I can’t recommend pre-ordering this game — especially on the Xbox One. Wait until reviews hit, see what problems still exist on day one, and then make your purchasing decision. After the buggy nightmare that was Battlefield 4, you can’t be too careful, right?

http://www.cinemablend.com/images/sections/93167/The_Witcher_3_93167.jpgThe Witcher 3's success this summer with gamers and critics showed CD Projekt that there's still a significant audience for single-player games out there, visual effects artist Jose Teixeira said in a new interview. Teixeira pointed out in his chat with MCV that the game really bucks a number of trends in the gaming industry: If anything, The Witcher 3 proved the point that players are more interested in longer games. Now, especially, you hear so many people talking about how the triple-A games industry is there and nobody wants that experience anymore, and here you go – a nice, well-written single-player experience. There’s no multiplayer, there’s no microtransactions; you get a game, you play the game and enjoy the game, and it’s a great success. CD Projekt's approach to DLC is very different than many other developers' as well. Instead of releasing a series of small premium DLC packs for The Witcher 3, they're releasing two large expansion packs. The first, Hearts of Stone, launched earlier this week. Teixeira said that the early feedback from players has been very positive: There’s definitely people asking for game expansions. We were very happy to prove that there is still a market for these types of things. Some of the comments we’ve had from players after playing the first expansion is ‘you guys totally broke the system – you’ve just released something that has more content than many full triple-A titled releases for a fraction of the price. It’s crazy. While Witcher 3's success does prove that single-player gaming is still desirable, I'm not sure it's going to necessarily stop the trend toward multiplayer, free-to-play, mobile gaming and microtransactions. Games like The Witcher 3 are always going to be outnumbered by smaller, cheaper games loading with in-game purchases. Lord knows how many mobile games EA cranked out in the four years between Witcher 2 and Witcher 3's release. Plus, a new match-three game is a lot easier to make and less risky than a single-player RPG. Still, I'm glad that even as the market is flooded with forgettable games designed to make quick money, someone's still making more ambitious projects. Not many developers can make huge, quality single-player games but I hope the few that can keep doing so for a very long time.