Section 8: Prejudice Now Out On XBox 360

[Sjosz]

Obviously.
Good for them. Doesn't help me in the slightest though, lol.

Why couldn't they reduce details for splitscreen? Other games manage it too somehow. "Performance reasons" only goes so far to explain things. If they really wanted to they could have had a splitscreen mode but for some reason they thought it wasn't worth the trouble.
They're probably right. Splitscreen play is dying now that everyone seems to prefer playing online.
Too bad in my case though as I'll have to be one of those few lost sales now they calculated as not bad enough to make it worth investing in the development of a splitscreen mode.
I say "too bad" and I mean it, because I liked the demo of the original Section 8 and I most likely would have like Prejudice - I just won't buy either since they're worthless to me without splitscreen functionality.

Split-screen running on a single copy of the game requires the game to render the entire game twice, making any memory budgets for levels and things looking good twice as small to run at the same capacity as one player playing online.

 

[Hideinlight]

Does the pc version have LAN at least. Would also like split-screen on the PC version. Haven't seen a single pc game with a non hacky well implemented splitscreen option. For instance Portal2 and UT3 just needed a bit of dev support to make it a full fledged feature.

Online is pretty is useless if there's not enough players in your region, and the hacking in online FPS is out of control.

 

[Severin]

This looks like it could be a fun game, tho most reviews I have seen point out that the controls are laggy and unresponsive. (well not as responsive as they should be)

Any comments on this or is the issue being exagerated ? I will pick up the game anyway as the multiplayer looks like my sort of thing and the price makes it worth the punt but this does concern me.

 

[xMurphyx]

Split-screen running on a single copy of the game requires the game to render the entire game twice, making any memory budgets for levels and things looking good twice as small to run at the same capacity as one player playing online.

I know.

 

[Spiney]

making any memory budgets for levels and things looking good twice as small.

Not really, you just render the same data into two viewports as viewed by 2 cameras.
Otherwise you'dd need to have duplicates of every bit, which is extremely inefficient. In splitscreen you'dd just render the scene twice per frame, at half the total pixel count per screen. Ofcourse there's a lot of overhead involved by having to render two scenes per frame, and bandwidth usage is higher.
But it's not as dramatic as effectively halving everything.

I think it more has to do with having to optimize splitscreen implementations across multiple platforms, which might have just been too much work to consider -- and such was rather spent elsewhere.

 

[Vaginal Epiphany]

Does the pc version have LAN at least.

Yes.

Also, controls are perfectly fine on PC, some people seem to have issues getting used to them on the xbox.

 

[Dark Pulse]

Does the pc version have LAN at least. Would also like split-screen on the PC version. Haven't seen a single pc game with a non hacky well implemented splitscreen option. For instance Portal2 and UT3 just needed a bit of dev support to make it a full fledged feature.

Online is pretty is useless if there's not enough players in your region, and the hacking in online FPS is out of control.

I believe it will have LAN, yes. No split-screen on PC either.

This looks like it could be a fun game, tho most reviews I have seen point out that the controls are laggy and unresponsive. (well not as responsive as they should be)

Any comments on this or is the issue being exagerated ? I will pick up the game anyway as the multiplayer looks like my sort of thing and the price makes it worth the punt but this does concern me.

Well, I won't be getting the 360 issue so this won't be an issue for me, but from what I've heard, the controls aren't really laggy or unresponsive, more like "sticky" and taking a bit to get used to. It's an intentional design, however - given that there's a good deal of Z-Axis combat, it's best to have things "stick" somewhat as opposed to being too loose and impossible to hit anything.

 

[Vaginal Epiphany]

There was a LAN section in the beta server browser so I'm pretty certain. Also I believe they confirmed it in some interviews as well.

 

[KDR_11k]

Wouldn't surprise me if GFWL was part of the deal necessary to get onto XBLA, I hear that service is extremely restrictive but they probably couldn't afford to pass on those sales. Without a major publisher backing them up they won't get the best conditions out of MS.

Not really, you just render the same data into two viewports as viewed by 2 cameras.
Otherwise you'dd need to have duplicates of every bit, which is extremely inefficient. In splitscreen you'dd just render the scene twice per frame, at half the total pixel count per screen. Ofcourse there's a lot of overhead involved by having to render two scenes per frame, and bandwidth usage is higher.
But it's not as dramatic as effectively halving everything.

I think it more has to do with having to optimize splitscreen implementations across multiple platforms, which might have just been too much work to consider -- and such was rather spent elsewhere.

Games only render the parts of the game world that are within viewing distance of the player, since the maps in Prejudice are huge it's very unlikely that the two players would see the same scene from different angles, they'd look at completely different parts of the map.

 

[Spiney]

Wouldn't surprise me if GFWL was part of the deal necessary to get onto XBLA, I hear that service is extremely restrictive but they probably couldn't afford to pass on those sales. Without a major publisher backing them up they won't get the best conditions out of MS.



Games only render the parts of the game world that are within viewing distance of the player, since the maps in Prejudice are huge it's very unlikely that the two players would see the same scene from different angles, they'd look at completely different parts of the map.

Yeah, if there's streaming of content involved and the maps are huge that might be an issue.

 

[BlackFish]

I hope the PC version turns out well, because I need a new multiplayer shooter that isn't $50

 

[Northrawn]

At least some publishers learned their lesson:

Dawn of War 2 and Chaos Rising used both Steam and Games for Windows Live. After negative reactions from players, THQ and Relic decided to drop Micosoft’s service and release exclusively on Steam. A month after release, the THQ and Relic say that the move has resulted in improved sales, and that Steam features like matchmaking, friends lists, ladders and cloud saving led to an increase in pre-orders and happier players on launch.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/04/21/dawn-of-war-2-retribution-sales-boosted-by-steam-only-release/

Why not others too? Especially since Microsoft itself is now pulishing on Steam ... and that the GFW forums are merged with the XBox forums could be another sign that ... well, all too late if Prejudce still uses GFWL.

 

[Dark Pulse]

At least some publishers learned their lesson:



http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/04/21/dawn-of-war-2-retribution-sales-boosted-by-steam-only-release/

Why not others too? Especially since Microsoft itself is now pulishing on Steam ... and that the GFW forums are merged with the XBox forums could be another sign that ... well, all too late if Prejudce still uses GFWL.

Simple: Those games used both. Prejudice uses only GFWL.

Thus, for them to switch for Steam, they'd have to redo netcode, anticheat, etc. from scratch, as well as switch the achievements system over to Steamworks.

For all intents and purposes, you quickly forget that it's there. Believe it or not, I've not had a single problem with logging in and playing (unlike the first Section 8).

That said, am I a GFWL lover? Absolutely not; I wish they'd switch to Steamworks. At the same time, I'm a pragmatist; the chances of this happening are slim, so complaining about it is mostly fruitless.

By the way, the game's selling quite well from what I've seen. Current Metacritic scores as of this post put the XBox 360 version of the game at 80 from review sites, and 7.8 from individuals.

I anticipate the PC version will do quite well, since most of the complaints of the individuals are either the console's aiming system, or else the fact that they can't join games as parties, neither of which the PC crowd has much of a complaint (or need, in the case of parties) for.

 

[Sir_Brizz]

It shouldn't be that hard to port that stuff over, though, since UE3 technically has hooks for both platforms.

Still, it was probably less work for them to turn S8 into this, then to rewrite a bunch of existing code.

 

[Severin]

Well, I won't be getting the 360 ...

Cheers for the reply.
I should have made myself clearer. I am going to be running it on pc and was wondering if it had the same 'problem' as the console versions. Though from your reply it seems its not an issue or at least not a major one.

 

[Teridax]

From my experience, Steam and GfWL are equally annoying. I'll probably still get the PC version just because it's so cheap.

 

[Northrawn]

Simple: Those games used both. Prejudice uses only GFWL.

Thus, for them to switch for Steam, they'd have to redo netcode, anticheat, etc. from scratch, as well as switch the achievements system over to Steamworks.

For all intents and purposes, you quickly forget that it's there. Believe it or not, I've not had a single problem with logging in and playing (unlike the first Section 8).

That said, am I a GFWL lover? Absolutely not; I wish they'd switch to Steamworks. At the same time, I'm a pragmatist; the chances of this happening are slim, so complaining about it is mostly fruitless.

By the way, the game's selling quite well from what I've seen. Current Metacritic scores as of this post put the XBox 360 version of the game at 80 from review sites, and 7.8 from individuals.

I anticipate the PC version will do quite well, since most of the complaints of the individuals are either the console's aiming system, or else the fact that they can't join games as parties, neither of which the PC crowd has much of a complaint (or need, in the case of parties) for.

You are right that it is probably easier for small devs to stay with it ... and I am in no way wishing them bad luck. Indeed I wish them the best of luck.

Besides, here is something I found on the Codemasters forum:

Bethesda switched over to Steam with Fallout: New Vegas, even though Fallout 3 was GFWL. Brink too will support Steamworks.

THQ and Volition are leaving GFWL over Steamworks with their new title Red Faction: Armageddon. It's predecessor, Red Faction: Guerrilla, used GFWL.

EIDOS is also abandoning the infamous Microsoft's service. Kane and Lynch 2 will be a Steamworks title, even though the first game used GFWL! Of course, this switch may very well be explained by the fact that Square Enix now owns EIDOS(SE's Last Remnant used Steamworks).

2K Games too is disappointed by Microsoft, as Mafia II will use Steamworks, breaking their GFWL usage Streak in big PC games.

Relic just abandoned GFWL in favour of Steamworks for their upcoming game Space Marine! Another bites the dust.

Just copied that over from that fourm. I didn't verify it though.

 

[Plumb_Drumb]

That's what happens when you have a "service" that is prone to not working, especially with MS's own games (of which there haven't been many, lucky for us).