Dan Greenawalt told us to expect near-CGI visuals :PGo read my comment again and Milhouses reply to this very point. There are many reasons for different people to be interested in a game. For those who bought into the fake Turn10 hype, propogated by fans, that is one reason. For those like myself who are thinking they will buy maybe 10 games and want the best gang/buck out of those 10 games that is another reason. History tells us there will be a number of car sims released this generation, so the gamer on the budget who wants the best of all worlds needs to consider their options. Of course the early adopters feel a responsibility to defend the platform they already invested in.There are better looking racers already out there as well, not to mention PGR4 was in that last and is now confirmed to blow FM2 visuals away. Last gen already showed us Turn10 will have some sim competition.

Anyhow, always enjoy the glossing over of my positive gameplay comments + the "FM2 is the best looking game ever" and "PGR4 is dissappointing in the graphics" posts by some of you. Carry on. (Of course Op you have been a bit more fair about the FM2 graphics lately so that isn't at you, just all the cross over posters who forget, gasp, some of us read both threads! muwahaha)

Btw, FM2 (again!) is looking like the killer sim at this point. Toca 3, GT5, and everyone else has a lot of work to do to challenge Turn10's simulation engine and features. It just looks like crap. That may or may not matter depending on what is important to you in a game. I want cake and icecream ;)

I already answered sich silly comments in the other thread. You can disagree with my points of improvement there. Needless to say, after watching the video and dissecting the graphics, you can see a lot of subtle improvements.

And basically what you are saying PGR3 = PGR4 (or not even), and FM2 > PGR3. And yet the PGR4 screenshots lacks all the crap going on in FM2 -- @#$%@#$ up bloom, no iris effect, aliasing EVERYWHERE (edges, textures, shaders, you name it it has it), virtually no post prosessing effects (DOF, MB), horrible AF levels, sparse particle effects, horrible reflection quality that is misbalanced, bloom in the reflections looks like a freaking nuke is going off which totally @#$@# up the entire balance of the car paint saturation.

But yet, PGR4 looks worse than PGR3, and FM2 > PGR3.

Next we will repeat the, "But FM2 has more cars on track" that keeps cropping up in both threads.

Btw, on that PGR4 shot you are dissing: Did you notice the difference in time of day? That makes a HUGE difference in the still shot lighting quality. Also note how subtle, and realistic, the HDR highlights on the car are. Nevermind the subtle light saturation through the clouds with excellent occlusion, the freaking car is actually reflecting the subtle light variances very, VERY well wheras the PGR3 shot has full on "high noon" lighting. The video does an excellent job of demonstrating that the above screenshot in PGR4 has a lot going on in regards to the paint shader and reflections, that can be subtly missed at such a shall angle with the lighting conditions being shown.

Of course it is missing the nuclear explosion bloom and white dots all over the place and "scrape the jam from my eyeball" aliasing all over the place to emphasize its bloom, so I agree, FM2 is kicking its butt. No one does bloom like FM2!

And for good reason...

Turn10 basically started development on 360 hardware. The game has been in full active development since late Spring 2005, with the first 360 beta hardware getting into dev hands in late spring/early summer. By definition by the handful of developers I know "1st generation" software is typically reserved for software that began life, and did most of its development, on non-final hardware.

The hardware has been out and about for nearly 2 years and in consumers hands for over 18 months. It may be Turn10's first 360 game, but it is represenative of 2nd generation software, not 1st.The most dissappointing parts are the cut content. Tracks, cars on course, etc. The graphics which you commented on are dissappointing only for 2 reasons for me: Turn10's continued crap/misleading PR, and the fact it is 1st party and I have taken issue with MS's role as a first party in the past--something they struggle with internally (fwiw: there are powers that be that would like to see MS be more profitible by adopting the EA model instead of the "quality first/only" model). It IS an issue, and the MS corporate environment does NOT help this. Thankfully Bungie is stubborn and is like its own little world, because to this point MS has NOT had luck with their first parties because of these struggles. Look what has happened to a number of internal MS teams. FASA anyone? How about the number of studios they bought and then had to shut down.

MS has been very cocky as of late in terms of PR (defect issue anyone?) and I think there is room for improvement. As a fan of games I like their platforma lot, as a consumer I see some areas they need to improve -- drastically so -- and it balances out my perspective. They don't get free passes, the same way Nintendo (my long time preference) or Sony don't But not a popular stance on a fansite.

I agree Bingham. I think the graphics are respectible.Yes, and then no. At first, yes. They overestimated what they could accomplish. Hardware issues, wrong technical approach, staffing issues, etc. Whatever it is they missed their mark.

As I noted early in this thread I am ok with that. What I am not ok with is the tone/PR. e.g. Take MSAA. Turn10 knew in Winter that it would NOT have 4xMSAA as *hyped*. Xbox.com let this leak, Turn10 denied it. Then Dan mentioned at GDC variable rate MSAA. Then it became, via GAF of all places, "we didn't lie, replays have 4xMSAA".

So answer me this Turn10: Why not have the decency to recant your PR in a pitpass?

It is dubious to market a game under features and then to change them without noting the concession. I am 100% fine with a game saying, "We are aiming for 4xMSAA" and then later saying, "We are now at 2xMSAA because we couldn't do XYZ with that feature". But when you hype a feature as a HUGE reason your game rocks, and then slither away to gaming-spam-hell (GAF) and "make amends" I find it gross -- especially when you promised near CGI graphics and bagged on your competition (BC of all peeps). And of course it has to be done with class: "For all those who are complaining, you are just haters" - Che. Kudos Turn10 for being jackasses and bagging on a classy act and when you get deserved criticism you call on your legions of fans to carry your day by trolling anyone who is critical as a "hater".

Che knows better. This is an utter abuse of PR and media relations. I called Sony on it in 2005 -- just search the threads where I criticized their blatant use of CGI and their misleading PR spec numbers (note now that even Insomniac is saying Xenos is better hahaha) -- and I see no reason why MS shouldn't be held to the same standard.Yeah, I am cool with that. Which is why I have no problem with the dev team at all. Making games is VERY hard. The issue is a PR one and how it is being presented to consumers.I don't think they lied from the get go. I do believe those were their targets. We can even see times when they were clearly showing those technologies (e.g. real 3D animated grass). They were developing the technology. The fallout is how they handled it. A LOT of devs miss their targets. The first is they rarely PR their game on a list of graphical features -- and keep reinforcing the fact they are coming with "these are an old build without ZYX features". They tend to show gameplay and let it speak. Second, smart devs don't beat down the competition (hurt sales/mindshare) by saying "Our game will look WAAAAY better. Theres was a launch game afterall." And third, most developers take it in stride when they have to make concessions. Look at the new Tom Clancy game, they talk at length in EGM about how they cut features to make the game better and HOW it made it better. Forza has a WEEKLY media/fan site. Yet we hear of all the cuts from GAF or Xbox.com. Like all the cut content. That was from Xbox.com -- Turn10 had no interest in telling us they cut 1/3 of the content. How about 8 cars on track? That was a sly little comment on GAF after they hyped it up -- and to me that is a very, very important feature. I am NOT a "more = better" type. e.g. GeOW with 4v4 is great IMO. But I enjoy racing games with a lot of cars and there is no reason the tracks/gameplay cannot accomodate. It was a performance issue. I understand that.

But that should have been noted at the same place they hyped the feature. Hype: Pitpass--12 cars! Correction: Pitpass--ok guys, we cannot hit 60fps with 12 cars, so we are going to do 8 cars at 60fps instead of 12 cars at 30fps. Sorry for the let down, but we believe this is the best move for the game, which is playing GREAT!

They lack humility and openness and abuse their information management channels to maximize PR. I find that childish, especially when they have an attitude of "us versus haters" and bag on their competition. Let the game do your talking fools!

They would have been way better off just showing a lot of gameplay for months. Hype the sim aspects, the GREAT input and controlls, and the customization/depth. They would have been better off coming clean 6 months ago, "Ok, we had to cut graphics" instead of:

"It is an old build haters".

So all those months we kept getting told here, "Stop being critical. It was an old build" when their final build looks basically identical. So what is the excuse now? Oh, PGR4 looks worse than PGR3... :|

Uhh, well I can teach you how to drift, but I can't teach you how to avoid the grass.