EA extends Unreal Engine partnership News

Pop goes the texture!

So we have to endure another medal of honour with yet more plastic troops?

Epic should double the price of the Engine for them too.

Please no.... Am I the only one that truely hates the look that engine generates?

*sighs*

Les - another one right here. Some games manage to generate a good art style and look okay (alright, one game - Shiobock), but most games just look ugly and bland and have a horrible, horrible grey art style.

Not the engines fault. I've played around with the engine a fair bit and really it can do anything, it's just devs choosing to copy what's been done. UE3 can definately produce stunning, non gritty, non gears style stuff, but since Epic took the route with the engine most developers seem dedicated to ripping it of, rather than spending time with the engine and doing something unique like the Bioshock team did.

Any reason why this article is on the RSS feed twice?

"Les - another one right here. Some games manage to generate a good art style and look okay (alright, one game - Shiobock), but most games just look ugly and bland and have a horrible, horrible grey art style."

To be fair - that's a pretty common thing with Current-Gen games regardless of whether they are Unreal driven or not.

Either that or Nuclear Bloom.

@Les & Triggerhappytel - I don't like the look of many UE3-based games either, mainly because they're synonymous with texture pop in, tearing, lack of anti-aliasing and framerate issues, e.g. Lost Odyssey and Mass Effect, and there's a tendency for some games that use it to look incredibly bland and samey, e.g. Turok, Blacksite: Area 51 and Hour of Victory, etc. The only two UE3 games that have really impressed me graphically have been Gears of War and Unreal Tournament III, ironically both from Epic! LOL

Dunno whether the engine is really suited to the consoles really, especially the Xbox 360 where it's lack of a standard HDD must surely be a hindrance. Take a look at Lost Odyssey and watch how it judders and jerks as it loads data during the pre-battle cutscene and even in the ingame cinematics. I'm not sure all the issues are down to poor development myself, I believe it's an engine that runs better with lots of physical memory which makes it better suited to the PC IMO.

P.S. Was BioShock an UE3 game 'cos that was a gorgeous-looking game despite the texture pop in issues?

I personally thought Unreal Tournament 3 looked bloody excellent. But then that's just me, and I was playing it on PC, not on PS3.

Shiobock

A pint of that, please!

I rather I saw a lot less games using the Unreal Engine 3 as they are all starting to look the same.

Darren wrote: "P.S. Was BioShock an UE3 game 'cos that was a gorgeous-looking game despite the texture pop in issues?"

Yep.

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/08/29/biosho...

Why don't they buy Epic instead?

Thanks for the confirmation, Yaz. I guess it shows that in the hands of the right developers, great-looking games *are* possible with the UE3. :)

They might as well attempt to buy ms or blizzard.

"Why don't they buy Epic instead?"

Shhh! Don't give them any ideas...

Anyway, if this was on the table I'd suggest MS would step in to defend one of their greatest and most profitable partnerships, although since they didn't do so with BioWare I wouldn't bet on it.