X05: Quick impressions

• BlimBlim
• Wednesday, October 5, 2005 | 9:57 PM
• 89 comments

PC Xbox 360 PS3

I'm finally back from the X05. I do not have as much videos as originally planned because of a very busy schedule today, but still there should be enough footage to keep my PCs busy with encoding tomorrow. So while I'm working on the videos, here are my quick impressions of the games there.

Kameo : The games looks even better than during TGS, thanks to self shadowing and depth of fields effects! Kameo is now my most anticipated title (with PGR3) for this launch. I would never have thought this possible just one month ago.
PGR3 : The build we got to play (2-3 weeks old) still had a few framerate and texture streaming issues, but the gameplay was as good as antipated. If you liked PGR2, you'll love PGR3. Can't wait for a finalized version !
PDZ : I have mixed feeling about this game. The gameplay seems very solid with some very nice coop features, some levels look great, but there also some very strange "art" issues, especially with how the characters look. For me, this one is a Wait&See title.
Top Spin 2 : The game was running at 60 fps on the showfloor, with some nice graphics. The gameplay was still a bit buggy, but otherwise it was very good.
Amped 3: They killed my Amped ! Amped 1&2 have been some of my most played titles on Xbox, and this Amped 3 is simply a different game. The mountains are huge now with a good framerate, but I'm not sure I'll actually want to play on them anymore...
King Kong : Activision should take some notes. For a port from a Xbox game, this 360 version looked very nice ! The art direction is excellent as expected, and the gameplay seemed quite tight.
Oblivion : Looked as nice as excepted, but it's difficult to get an idea of how it will play in just a few minutes
Condemned : The game was running quite well now. It seems like a more "intelligent" game than your average FPS, with some very nice gadgets and effects. Very oppressive atmosphere, not unlike Se7en.
Full Auto : Just a few seconds are enough to understand this game. A quite mindless but very fun racing game. It was running at 60 fps with some huge framerate drops, but the devs still have some time to fix this. A very likeable game.
Test Drive Unlimited : Much better than the horrible TGS demo. This game is full of excellent ideas, making it (I guess) the first MMO-racing game. Very nice concept, and it looks like the devs will actually manage to pull it off. A game I will try to follow as closely as possible until its release in Q1 2006.
Fifa 360 : The graphics are nice, but something is off with the players lighting. Otherwise it's still Fifa, some people will like it, others will hate it.

I'm about done with the games I've been able to play. I'll update this news if I have forgotten some. Overall I think Microsoft managed to have a very nice game sho, with lots of nice titles being playable and enjoyable.