Gaming Blacklight: Tango Down Hands-on Preview

Blacklight lists wallhacks and BSODs as key features. Now, Joe explains why.

http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/pc/2010/05/23/blacklight-tango-down-hands-on-preview/1

 

So bad it does not get scored?

Wait scratch that I thought this was the review of a game that you had already previewed.

 

i wouldn't want to take my helmet off in shattered horizon...

in all fairness tough. the models are bad. and it could use some AA, especially on the guns, no?

 

wow, no dedicated servers? have devs not learnt there lesson?

 

I fell sorry for the UE3, I really like this engine, but this game looks horrible!

 

More like they already know how unlikely people will play it, hence they're saving on unneeded expenditure.

 

A siamese catfish ate my graphics card...

 

All games based on the Unreal engine I've tried has looked like this. Six shades of gray.

 

After watching my neighbour (a computer science student) trying out the Unreal Engine 3 SDK, I can tell you it has a lot more potential than this. Vivid colours are easily achieveable.

It looks kind of like the developers have tried for some kind of financial optimisation where their production costs are low enough that if they make minimal sales they'll still make a profit...

 

About how grey it is, I read an article a while back (mainly about Halo 3), that was quite interesting.

Personally, I think Halo is a good looking (console) game, but lots of people give it **** for looking crappy. I could never figure it out, but one guy decided to find out. Turns out, lots of colour distracts you from detail. If you knock own how vivid the colours are in Halo 3, it starts looking a lot more detailed.

It raises the question of whether games like Killzone and Gears for go the use of bright colours simply because it emphasises detail. I mean, going for the feel (humanity at an end etc) is hard without looking pretty opressive and dull, but surely if that really was the reason, there would still be some bright colour usage in Gears. As far as I can tell there were never any "Wow, pretty..." moments in either Gears, and the fact there are no one offs with beautiful scenes suggests it is more than just an art direction decision.

Unfortunately, this game's graphics outright suck, so going for dull and grey colours just emphasises the detail, or lack there of.

 

Thats not true, what about Mass Effect? That game looks awesome and has lots of colors

 

Hmm. I think there's a mix of style and graphical fidelity to take into consideration, sure, but I don't think it's as clear cut as you seem to imply - especially because you're dealing with subjective and easily swayed attributes. TF2, for example, is very colourful and, in a sense, looks very detailed. In another, it doesn't. Crysis is quite colourful too and packs detail in by the armful. On the other end of the scale, MW2 has plenty of detail, but no colour.

In the end, it's subjective - but to me, detail and colour are separate entities. Colour comes from a stylistic choice or approach, whereas detail comes from a plentifulness of assets and items. You can put lots of grey items into a world to make it look detailed, for example, so long as they are done in enough depth - such as in System Shock 2.

 

In-built wallhack? really?

 

The in-Built wallhack sounds similar to the Farsight in perfect dark on the N64 which was an excelently implimented "wallhack", have many fond memories of playing multiplayer on the N64 with 4 people panning in and out looking to snipe the others through the walls, with the slap happy bots running around trying to get you

 

I think I like it best when the game reviewed is terrible. It makes a much more interesting read.

 

Not impressed, looks terrible, so bland and lacking detail. Surely they can do better?