Texas Ace
Teh Acester
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Video Game Chatter
- Thread starter Texas Ace
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Texas Ace
Teh Acester
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http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/02/13/mlb-a14-the-show-might-be-ps4as-best-looking-game
MLB ’14: The Show Might Be PS4’s Best-Looking Game
With its graphical splendor lighting up your retinas, it’d be easy to miss all the refinements being packed into this year’s version of MLB ’14: The Show on PS4. But it would be a shame if you did, because the small handful of new features we’ve seen so far look really promising, especially if you’re a big baseball fan with a small window of free time to swing lumber with.
First up is Quick Counts, which is designed to significantly shorten at-bat times. Using pitching and batting data from the last few years, the first three pitches of every at-bat are simulated, so you take over at a key point late in the count. The folks at San Diego Studio insist this isn’t an arcade easy mode though, just a way to get straight to the pivotal moments of every pitcher/batter duel. While it does apparently affect the occurrences of Ks and walks, the resulting scores have remained in-line with real-world norms.
TV-style presentation has been a real strong point for the franchise over the last few years, but some subtle tweaking has been done here too. Lots of new conversation points have been added to the already-stellar commentary, but in those rare instances where you get dead air, the camera jumps right back to gameplay instead of lingering. The cherry on top is the new Player Lock, which allows you to assume control of a single ballplayer, and play only the plays they take part in a la Road to the Show, except you can do it any mode. All this stuff is optional of course, so you can still settle in for the fully authentic experience The Show usually delivers if you’d like, but it’s nice to know that if life is only affording you 15 minutes to play, you can still get a full game in.
These are but a few of around 50 new features and refinements you’ll see in both the PS3 and PS4 versions of MLB ‘14. Another sweet addition that fans have been clamoring for is the ability to transfer save data from year to year. While last year’s data won’t import into this year’s game, everything you achieve this time around will stay with you going forward, even if you switch from PS3 to PS4. WHat’s also impressive, is that unlike some other sports franchises, the inaugural year on a new system won’t mean taking a huge step back in content. The PS4 version of MLB ‘14 the show will have complete, 100% feature parity with its PS3 counterpart, so you’ll get the very same comprehensive baseball sim that you’ve come to expect.
Except a lot prettier. One look at these screenshots should be all the convincing you need. Every single stadium has been rebuilt from the ground up, and so has the entire lighting engine. Gone are the days of generic hair decals; some players feature thousands of individually modeled hairs. Even the crowd has seen a huge boost in detail. Each crowd member has a higher poly count than the actual players in the PS3 version, and with all that extra RAM, they’ve pushed the number of different faces from 48 to 300. By next year, they’ll have added another zero to the end of that figure. The days of creepy families of octuplets watching as you swing for the fences are numbered.
Even with all the eye candy, San Diego Studio is still targeting native 1080P at 60fps. The dev team is still optimizing so that could change, but they feel confident they can hit it by launch day, which will be April 1st for the PS3 version, followed by a May release on PS4. Be sure to check back for more info about MLB ‘14: The Show’s new features in the coming months.
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Bob Roberts
Professor StinkFinger
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I'm not sure I'm ready for Alexi Ogando in that much detail
Smitty
DCC 4Life
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I'd like to love the Show but last time I bought it I just couldn't hit. I don't expect that's changed.
Also... I tried one of the infamous games... The one that Sony gave free as a reward for the network being down. I did not love it; in fact I only played a couple hours and never went back.
Also... I tried one of the infamous games... The one that Sony gave free as a reward for the network being down. I did not love it; in fact I only played a couple hours and never went back.
D
Deuce
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The Show is great and hitting just takes some getting used to. You can't expect to take on a skill that's all about timing and placement and hit .300 right off the bat.
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EZ22
The One Who Knocks
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Sure, what's your gamer tag bro!?
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I'm curious as well. Always looked like a bad ass game to me. I think the concept has a ton of potential.
Texas Ace
Teh Acester
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Agreed.
It had a God of War-ish look to it but based in Ancient Rome. That combination had winner written all over it.....but the reviews were pretty meh.
Still, some developers strike out or come up short their first time around, but then make a much better project the next go-round - just look at Assassin's Creed.
Here are the scores from various gaming sites:
IGN (6.8) - Ryse has an entertaining story and sky-high production values. The gameplay that’s there isn’t bad – it just stops in its tracks before it gets anywhere near close to demanding.
Joystiq (5.0) - Ryse: Son of Rome falls into the trap of your typical launch game: it does well to show off the power of the system, but it's slim on substance. Production value aside, Ryse is short, easy and lacks the punch of other action games. For all of it's pomp and flash, Ryse: Son of Rome is a shallow bore.
Gameinformer (6.0) - When I show my friends what Xbox One is capable of graphically, I’m going to pop in Ryse. The visuals are breathtaking, but the gameplay flips on a dime between being legitimately fun and downright bad. There is no middle ground. It’s very much the extreme of both.
Gamespot (4.0) - Ryse is all sizzle and no steak, a stunning visage paired with a vapid personality. Everything from the leveling system that's so painfully easy to complete (and so devoid of any impact on the game that it might as well not be there), to the story that does little to flesh out its lead characters beyond puerile notions of revenge is a testament to how little Ryse can back up its gorgeous visuals with anything more than a shallow set of fisticuffs.
Gametrailers (7.0) - Responsive controls and steady momentum will keep you engaged in Ryse’s constant war-making, but repetition unavoidably dulls the edge.
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This is exactly what I think about. I played Assassin's Creed a long time ago and got pretty bored of it very quickly. Just seemed too repetitious. I finally decided to give it a second chance with Black Flag and have been nothing but thrilled. Some of the missions are still pretty repetitious but there is so much to do outside of those missions that has made it an excellent play.
Texas Ace
Teh Acester
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Yup.
AC1 was boring and very repetitive, but AC2 was a very very good game. I'm not a huge fan of the series so I didn't put much time into the following AC games, but Black Flag is great.
That franchise is a prime example of a developer having a good foundation but just needing to figure some things out with trial and error.
I would imagine that Ryse is a very flawed game like AC1 was, but I think they have something to build on and if given the chance, I think they're going to make a much better game the next time around.
Some people knock the hack and slash genre, but it's not easy to make great games for that game type. God of War is probably the standard right now, but there have been solid games like Castlevania: LoS, Dante's Inferno, etc. that didn't get scores higher than a 7 because there just wasn't enough substance to them.
I personally liked both of those games, but the point is that it isn't as easy to make a great game for the genre despite what people think.
Texas Ace
Teh Acester
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For those of you who still have Last of Us, the DLC came out for it today.
It's based around Elly and how she came to that point in the story where Joel meets her.
Being a huge fan of this game, I'm looking forward to playing some new content for it.
It's based around Elly and how she came to that point in the story where Joel meets her.
Being a huge fan of this game, I'm looking forward to playing some new content for it.
D
Deuce
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Sweet. I just started the game a few weeks ago and am halfway done. Nice to know I can go right into a new story.
Texas Ace
Teh Acester
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Deuce
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It's really good, but I was expecting it to be based on everything I read previously.
BipolarFuk
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I can't ever get any alone time for that. :(
Texas Ace
Teh Acester
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Deuce
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No it was a game I looked forward to since Schmidty first posted a youtube clip of its trailer a long time ago. I just never went out and got it and ended up getting it for Christmas. By then, everyone else had already beaten it and confirmed what I thought it would be.