News EA: 'We haven't killed Mirror's Edge'

I still haven't finished Mirrors edge yet. I got stuck at a part with about 8 armed swat members in a subway station. I know I had to jump on top of a train but I kept getting shot. How far away is that from the end?

 

Uh, no. I generally don't speed run games. Half Life 2 took me several hours and I've played it about 5 times. Plus it came with CS:S which I spent 100's of hours in. That was well worth the money.

Mirror's Edge on the other hand, was ABOUT running. I went through it quickly because doing it slowly doesn't make sense. I loved what was there, it was just over so quickly for me. If it took everyone else longer, good for them, they got more enjoyment. I was just sharing the experience I thought most people had, not trying to boast.

 

Wait...what? The Frostbite sound engine is imo, fantastic. I was genuinely amazed when I was moving down the hill on Arica Harbour (playing with headphones on) and a tank fired its main gun a few ingame feet from me.

Also afaik Frosbite's sound engine is almost universally recognised as fantastic. But maybe there's something I'm missing :s

 

Haha that puts me bang to rights I was actually going to talk about (what I thought was) the reverb as one of the positive things, it gives casual audiophiles like me a sense of reality.

I'm sure you're right too about sounds dropping out, even with the max number of voices enabled there are too many sounds on even a 16 player battlefield for it to cover them all. But that is a criticism that can be levelled at all games, I can't remember where I noticed dropout recently (possibly Dawn of War 2) but it was a little dispiriting to hear.

DICE (if you read their Battlefield blog) have been very keen to stress their belief in the importance of sound in BC2, and they do put a lot of effort into it. Perhaps (and probably not as they haven't demo'ed it at all, unlike the graphical shininess) they will improve the sound bit, but I think they are more concerned with the sounds rather than the way it is generated - the vast majority of end users will appreciate that enough.

 

The answer will be "turn it into a first-person shooter."

This is the answer to absolutely all questions at the moment. Game not previewing well? Turn it into a first-person shooter. Old franchise you want to revive? Turn it into a first-person shooter. Shopping at Tesco boring? Turn...

You get the idea.

 

I LOVED the first mirror's edge, it had some flaws but to me they were few and far between. I loved it so much that after I sold my xbox I bought a copy on steam just so I could play through it a few more times. I just wish the DLC was on Steam. . . still waiting on that one. I hope they do right with mirror's edge 2 whenever or however it gets it's way into my hands.

 

ya I want a second ME but like them I agree I dont want them to half ass it, so I will wait for a good quality game.

 

hehe http://paultan.deviantart.com/gallery/109570#/d1zov9t here's a photo of the sequel

 

Combine the feeling of movement, jumping, landing, falling ... with Vuzix Wrap 1200VR glasses in 3D ... and Mirrors Edge 2 ...

omgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomg

Make it so.

 

That applies to recent, well-received game series as well, cough Mass Effect 3 cough.

 

Not on my current rig I won't
Anyway, they practically gave it away in the steam sale, that's why I bought it
Don't remember the price but it was well under 5$

 

Wow! That would be good if they ever do make it to market. Can't count the number of 3d glasses I've seen previewed that never appear. With the lower cost and higher resolution of miniature displays this tech is LONG OVERDUE. I used to have the IO-Systems PC3d that was rated at 800x600. It wasn't too bad but suffered from internal reflections because the front optics didn't have anti-reflection coating. When I raised the issue with IO systems they pretended to be interested for a while and then ignored me. I sold my glasses on eBay. I got a pair of Vusix low res glasses but they are good for very little. Image quality pretty awful.

 

If he now does not deliver a Mirrors Edge 2 I will kick him in his balls.

 

Oh, yeah, it's a problem with all software-based sound systems; Frostbite's just an example. Max number of voices on most games with software sound tend to be really low, something like 16. The old Audigy sound cards could do 64 in hardware, the X-Fis can do 128 (either DS3D or OpenAL.) Creative's new Core3D should handle about the same (if you're wondering why I'm only mentioning Creative, it's because they're the only ones working on sort of game audio-specific ASIC. And before someone says "I'm nevah buying Creative ' cause my best friend's cousin's uncle's gay lover's dog walker said they suxxorz!!!" keep in mind those Core3Ds are gonna be soldered to a lot of motherboards in the near future, starting with Gigabyte's.)

(The worst games were back in the days of ports from the original Xbox. With only 16 voices available, you would really, really, get some odd situations in games, like watching two NPC talking, then having their voices cut out but their lips keep moving because a truck pulled up.)

I know they did. But there were better ways.

BC2 sounded good, but its sound as a viable tool for the gamer was fairly useless, in terms of positioning. Granted, most people don't have the hardware make proper use of a sound system's 3D buffer to accurately position sounds (with something like CMSS-3D) but it's nice for those who can, and doesn't preclude the sound playing on lesser hardware. For really accurate sound, useful sound in gaming, you have to go beyond simple 5.1 and use HRTF and crosstalk cancellation. And a desire to simulate soundscapes, not movie soundtracks.

Then again, DICE used EAX/OpenAL for BF 2142, so I'm sure they had a reason for changing over: the most obvious one being that Frostbite started out as a console engine, not a PC one, and none of the consoles have any hardware acceleration worth speaking of. It's ironic that they make a big show of the visuals being engineered for PC with BF3, but ultimately, it'll still be running a console sound engine, designed for living rooms and home theatre systems.

 

Which vuzix glasses did you have? I've wanted some for a long time but the res has always been too low - or at least I assumed it was too low. It's fine to market them as 'like watching an 80" screen' - but if it's an 80" screen with a 320x240 res ... kinda seems a bit wrong However these new 1200VR's sound good and my rig will power them in 3D with no issues. The virtual reality feeling with the head tracker brings back old memories of similar to these:

 

I have the old Vusiz AV920. The resolution is very low and the image quality very poor. Far below that of my old IO-Systems PC32 (800 x 600). You certainly couldn't game with the AV920. Looking at the spec of the warp 1200vr the res isn't very high really (852 x 480). The image these things produce isn't spectacular and certainly not like a massive theatre screen, more like you're looking at small screens magnified. With the advances in mini display tech I would expect something much better than I've seen so far. All the really good stuff is reserved for professional (military/medical) use. Perhaps it's time to find a lightweight computer monitor and suspend it from the ceiling on a cable. Then attach it to your head.

 

Gee, a computer game, targeted at home living rooms.
Yeah that's a great fault I see right there Wonder how the Dev's did not see that coming.