In particular, the latter has been enthusiastically discussed among gamers following a comment from EA spokesperson Tammy Schachter, who recently tried to justify EA titles being sold at a price higher than the equivalent Xbox, PlayStation 2 and GameCube counterparts. However, it's worth remembering that EA are not the only guilty party in this scenario, with Activision having come under weighty criticism for their Xbox 360 titles as well. Whereas the EA games were mostly different but had a severe shortage of content, a lot of the Activision game are direct ports of their corresponding 'last-gen' versions.
Regardless, when we were given an opportunity to take some of the games for a spin, we were never going to refuse. Earlier this week, we were invited down to Activision HQ and were able to take their launch line-up for a spin. We were able to get an extensive hands-on with Tony Hawk: American Wasteland, GUN, Quake IV and Call of Duty 2. And here's what we made of them all...
Tony Hawk: American Wasteland
Unfortunately, neither of us who attended here were particularly big Tony Hawk fans. Personally, I’ve never even owned one of the games. Judging from what we saw and played, this is unlikely to change. Gameplay-wise, the game is identical in terms of content, when compared to the last-gen versions. The only real difference will be noticed by those who played on either Xbox or GameCube, but not on PS2. Since the white and black buttons have been replaced by a pair of shoulder buttons, we are reliably informed that this makes the game much more convenient to control. From what we played, we could imagine that it would be a bit more difficult to pull off a few of the moves on a different controller scheme.
However, the supposed next-gen graphics were extremely disappointing. Apart from some nice effects (lights reflecting off the street at night etc.), there's simply no discernible difference from the current generation. In fact, it could almost be said that the game looks worse. The character models don’t look any better - some even more ragged than before - and the lip-synching was completely off. The environments were very solid and well constructed, while some of the structures looked pretty well done. However, the end result is a game that is almost identical to its current-gen brethren.
Hmm... we've seen this before
GUN
Having played through the entire version of GUN on the Xbox, we found that the Xbox 360 version goes pretty much the same way as THAW - it's identical content-wise, with graphics to more or less match current-gen copies of the game. Oddly, the control scheme has endured a major reshuffle when compared to the Xbox version, but the game is still the same. To its credit, the character models were much better when compared to those in THAW, and there was some impressive texture work on the sides of cliffs and caverns, and on the inside walls of some of the buildings. Other than these noticeable differences, the graphics comparison is quite negligible.
Oddly, it seemed that the Xbox 360 was taking the games and showcasing some of the ugly imperfections in the graphics. At times, THAW didn't look right with the animations and there were clipping issues, as there were with GUN. At one point, we could see through our horse as we rotated the camera. Simply, it's not something that we expected on a next-gen system. It wasn't all doom and gloom however, and things did get a bit better...
Spot the difference
Quake IV
The Xbox did a reasonable job of bringing PC games – particularly FPSs – to the consoles. Doom 3 and Half-life were both very commendable ports with some solid technology behind them. The Xbox 360 is obviously meant to be much more powerful then its predecessor, so porting from a PC now should make the games look a whole lot better. In this regard, Quake IV doesn’t disappoint.
Quake IV on the PC was a solid, old-style, run-and-gun shooter that looked brilliant. Built using the meaty Doom 3 engine, it’s easy to compare the great leap that was taken between Doom 3 on the Xbox and Quake IV on the Xbox 360. Simply put, the game is a major step-up from what it could’ve been on the Xbox. Everything from textures to models to the environment are a great leap and exactly the kind of thing you'd expect to see running on a high-end PC. However, for some reason (and Quake IV is not the only perpetrator) a lot of the texture work looked a tad 'plastic-y', especially where metal and human skin textures appeared. The only other downer was that the frame rate was somewhat erratic. It didn’t get to a point where the game was unplayable, but it has been a major talking point across the media. Unfortunately, it may not be resolved before the Aussie release.
As for the game itself, the development team was headed by Raven Software, a studio with a sound track record with getting shooters from the PC onto consoles. Quake IV is a very faithful port with most of the action intact. However, it remains to be seen whether it’s had the same cuts that were forced upon Doom 3. We had a good time with our running and gunning, but the game did suffer from a serious lack of a melee attack. The title was at least helped a bit by the inclusion of checkpoints. While it hardly seems like a reason for buying an Xbox 360, Quake IV looks like it may be a decent option for those who are unable to get it running on their PCs.
Quake IV looks a lot like the PC version
Call of Duty 2
The first thing about Call of Duty 2 is that it’s not a port of the console versions (sub-titled Big Red One). It’s actually a port of the PC version and, since its release alongside the US 360 launch, it’s been the best seller and receiver of the highest acclaim of all the titles currently available. Our hands-on time with Xbox 360 games now stands at a tally of seven, and Call of Duty 2 easily stands out as one of the best.
Firstly, the gameplay is intuitive and enjoyable. We took the split-screen multiplayer and a bit of the single player for a spin and the results were very good. For those who don’t know, the game takes a few twists in that you don’t have a health bar, you only can carry the two weapons and you don’t have a cross-hair while moving but it all comes together very nicely. The action is greatly intuitive with little icons indicating the positions of things like live grenades and the whole duck-and-cover aspect of such games works well. There’s nothing particularly new or revelatory here, but it’s all executed well.
The most impressive part was not only the superb graphics, but the fact that the audio provided such a brilliant accompaniment. Call of Duty 2 looked and ran as if it were being played on a high-end PC. The environments were great to look at, and were crammed with plenty of detail and realism, as were a lot of the animations and gun models. However, the audio really blew us away. In the split-screen multiplayer, we were able to hear bullets whizzing past our heads, as they were shot from across the map. This epitomised how well the general presentation of the game has come along. From what we saw, the single-player is unlikely to keep us going for a very long time but the multiplayer component looks like it will keep people coming back for more. Call of Duty 2 is not quite looking like a killer app, but it has the essentials nailed down to make it easily one of the better Xbox 360 titles.
Now THIS is more like it
All in all, it can’t be said that any of these four games are bad games. However, the appeal of THAW and GUN are going to fall apart in three areas:
1. The fact that they are identical ports of current-gen games. As we make the leap forward, people are rightly expecting more from their games.
2. They look almost the same as their current-gen cousins. In some respects they do look better, but they definitely lose out on novel appeal.
3. There aren’t many people driven by common sense that are going to pay more for a version of a game that is identical to one that can be bought cheaper.
Quake IV is hardly going to be a reason to own an Xbox 360, but it is a decent option as a secondary title for people who can’t run it on their PCs. Call of Duty 2 was by far the most accomplished, but the sceptics will still have it out for the game, possibly for being not quite 'next-gen' enough.
Keep in mind that it still is the beginning of this next generation, and occasionally we're quick to forget that all three current systems had very similar teething problems. We are confident that by the time the following holiday season comes around, a lot of these issues will be rectified and there may even be reason for some to hold off that PC upgrade. Unfortunately for us, the wait for March 23rd has just become a little bit longer.
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