grandmaster • Comments

• Digital Foundry seeking contributors

• grandmaster 21/06/2011

  Article has been updated - ideally candidates would be based in the UK or North America (USA/Canada). Reply 0

• Dance Central - first 15 minutes

• grandmaster 04/11/2010

  Has it got David Brent's comic relief dance? Reply 0

• Sony "surprise" sequel reveal this week

• grandmaster 03/03/2010

  Surely Twisted Metal... Reply +3

• Gran Turismo 5

• grandmaster 15/12/2009

  If the captures look fuzzy it's because it's typically thought that the 1080p mode of GT5 runs at 1280x1080 expanded outwards as opposed to full-on 1920x1080. Reply +1

• DigitalFoundry- Assassin's Creed 2 time-lapse video

• grandmaster 28/11/2009

  Yup, all three pieces of music are taken from the game. The AC2 soundtrack by Jesper Kyd is truly excellent. Reply 0

• grandmaster 23/11/2009

  @filreed - that'll be because Ezio can't sit still on anything other than sloping surfaces by the look of it. Reply 0

• Crackdown 2

• grandmaster 23/11/2009

  Crackdown was recently patched to allow for HDD install. Reply +5

• DigitalFoundry- GTA IV Time-lapse: 15 Days in Liberty City

• grandmaster 04/11/2009

  @zomoniac - the 1:14 thing... it's worth remembering that one day of game time is 50 minutes in real-time, which explains why some pedestrians stay where they are for so "long". Reply +1

• DigitalFoundry- Uncharted: The V-sync Difference

• grandmaster 21/09/2009

  With a one-frame or two-frame lag an LCD or HDTV could have v-sync correction built in, yes. Reply 0

• Updated! Crysis 1080p60 Grail Quest

• grandmaster 14/07/2009

  Max settings on Crysis DX9 are "High".
  
  Regardless, the Quad SLI stats posted earlier on in this thread, not to mention the Crysis Warhead video posted on here previously (set to Enthusiast) does suggest something is up with your mega-rig. Reply 0

• grandmaster 14/07/2009

  The playlist has been fixed now :) Reply 0

• Sky High

• grandmaster 29/05/2009

  Some nice ideas but apparently it's streaming at 1mbps. Assuming Microsoft is using VC1/WMV that ain't gonna look pretty. The SD content on the Live Marketplace is supposed to be DVD quality but it's nowhere near. In fact, the whole concept of DVD quality at 1mbps is borderline-laughable. Reply 0

• Retrospective: Black

• grandmaster 05/05/2009

  I`m going to have to disagree that the secret documents you could collect were a weak point, I thought they were great for the little references Criterion threw in there. Astronomy SETEC. Project THOR. Top stuff.
  
  Yup, even the 'crime they didn't commit' that got the A-Team banged up is mentioned in one of the Intel collectables! In fact, all that is missing is a homage to Shadow Company from Lethal Weapon. Reply 0

• grandmaster 04/05/2009

  Weirdly enough, I was playing this just yesterday on 360 (disc copy). The most jarring things about it are the lack of run and jump buttons and the fact that iron sights isn't 'where it should be'. Frame rate is rock solid at 30fps - more than any 360/PS3 FPS I've played. In places, the graphics still hold up today. It is an incredible technical achievement.
  
  In terms of destructible scenery, the likes of Killzone 2 etc don't get close. The amount of stuff you can blow up is really what sets this apart from any other game. It's like the last 15 minutes of Commando in video game form. Black 2 is the best shooter that's never been made.Bearing in mind the advances made since then, it would be fascinating to see how Criterion would push the genre. Reply 0

• Dreamcast: A Forensic Retrospective

• grandmaster 01/02/2009

  All of us who had to deal with Sega Europe at the time knew the machine was doomed. Not because of the games - the launch line-up was brilliant - but because the marketeers were trying to one-up Sony in terms of 'mainstream' PR and rapidly disappeared into their collective rear-ends.
  
  Not only that, but there was a genuine, conscious decision at Sega Europe to turn its back on its heritage, particularly its Japanese output. Anything that could be linked back to the Saturn days - anything - was seen as an embarrassment. This did lead to some great second party development, but they simply didn't know what to do with the majority of the Japanese stuff they had to deal with.
  
  The fact that the ads had no game footage or screenshots spoke volumes. The machine's key advantage at launch was that the games looked so much better than the PS1's... but you'd never have been able to tell from the marketing.
  
  Sad, sad days - so much optimism after the Japanese launch and the early reveals of stuff like MSR - but the bottom line is that it wasn't Sony that killed the Dreamcast, it was Sega trying to copy them. Reply 0

• grandmaster 01/02/2009

  Did the Dreamcast really stiff at launch in Japan as Dan suggests?
  
  It was the only way to play Virtua Fighter 3 at home, and at that point in time, that would've made the Dreamcast a hugely successful launch, surely? Reply 0

• Skate 2 unlock option on PSN and Live

• grandmaster 23/01/2009

  Codemasters have been doing this for years via premium rate phone numbers and via PayPal payments on their website. Reply 0

• Editor's blog: EG records 100% growth

• grandmaster 16/01/2009

  My suggestion would be also be mobile based: bespoke apps for iPhone/iPod Touch and smartphones. Reply 0

• Fable II Post-Mortem

• grandmaster 11/12/2008

  Interesting interview but the lack of follow-up questions is infuriating. Just as an example, Molyneux talks about DLC1 but the interviewer doesn't then ask the obvious question about DLC2 - what is it? when's it coming? The whole thing almost reads like an email interview when the video proves it wasn't! Reply 0

• MS will block NXE preview blaggers

• grandmaster 30/10/2008

  I have NXE. There is a noticeable speed improvement installing to HDD from DVD. Not surprisingly the gains are exponentially linked to loading time. A game with 10-11 second loading time (eg Call of Duty 2's levels) will come down to 8-9. A game like Assassin's Creed or BioShock can see 10-15 second speed increases (eg 45 seconds down to 30). Oblivion is another big winner.
  
  Combined with the more pleasant decibel level, it's an excellent feature and I can safely say that all my 'main games of the moment' will be installed to HDD rather than running from DVD. Reply 0

• "No plans" to fix PSP-3000 scan lines

• grandmaster 22/10/2008

  The UK:R pic is extracted from a thread on the Official PlayStation US forum. This one: http://boardsus.playstation.com/playstat... Reply 0

• grandmaster 22/10/2008

  The picture on UK:R looks pretty damning: [link url=http://www.ukresistance.co.uk/pics5/psp3000-shit-screen.jpg
  ]http://www.ukresistance.co.uk/pics5/psp3...[/link]
  
  Looks as though the screen is interlaced! Reply 0

• Exclusive: WipEout HD interview

• grandmaster 16/09/2008

  Zone is still in the review build of the game. What was 'binned off'...? Reply 0

• PlayTV

• grandmaster 29/08/2008

  My question would be: how much is an average hour's worth of TV in terms of disk space? I take it that it's actually just dumping the freeview MPEG2 stream onto the hard disk, in which case, 45 minutes of BBC1 should be about 1.5GB.
  
  The only way it could run games smoothly while recording is by simply spooling the data across as opposed to re-encoding it, which is probably why it won't run the streams directly on PSP.
  
  If it is going to record Freeview HD, you're looking at around 9GB per hour!
  
  /me strokes 18GB 1080p BBC HD version of Raiders of the Lost Ark... Reply 0

• Exclusive: First play of new 360 controller

• grandmaster 21/08/2008

  what's Jack Black doing behind Johnny at GC?
  
  Johnny - you've lost the neeeews! Reply 0