The Cross-Platform Conundrum

Depending upon where you stand as a gamer, you already know that this time in a console cycle is either very exciting, or completely numbing.  The arrival of a new console is heralded with unprecedented media coverage, gamer fanfare, and usually a degree of hyperbolic rambling that make the new machines seem powerful enough that they could be ushering in the Singularity.  Of course, this same level of fervor can be looked at with a certain degree of bemusement too.  After all, when all is said and done, gaming consoles facilitate your enjoyment of gaming, they don’t create it.  The same way that a set of golf clubs allow you to enjoy golf (if that’s your thing), but by definition, the clubs are not golf.

So then, outside of the mire of information that is flooding our mutual hobby at the moment regarding the ‘new’ consoles, much of what people want to see is reviews of games.  And this is where I’ve had a huge problem this week, and yet again realize why I have ever dwindling faith in the journalistic musings of much (not all) of the mainstream press.  With the Xbox One launching tomorrow, a lot of gamers are probably still trying to figure out which machine they want, and this decision is made very difficult by the lack of cross-platform reviews.

I fully expect that over the next few days, we’ll slowly start to see reviews for specific games getting published, but the fact remains that the reviews should largely be up by now.  Consumers want to be able to look around and figure out what console will work best for them, and without specific software reviews I think that initial decision can be very difficult.  How can you compare Killzone: Shadow Fall and Ryse: Son of Rome?  Quite simply, you can’t.  Certainly, you might privilege a particular genre over the other, but at this point, the fact that many media outlets and Microsoft do not seem to be allowing direct game-to-game comparisons is problematic.

To some, this problem might not be a problem at all.  Some people prefer Sony only franchises, others Microsoft.  That’s fine.  This issue isn’t about those people, in all likelihood they’ve already made up their minds.  No, this is about the people who want to see the best gameplay performance out of titles that appear on both machines.  Which in and of itself is also an understandable choice.  The problem I have is that it seems it’s a choice that (for whatever reason) people are being kept from making.  Sony for their part have had a fairly strong launch since last Friday.  Their first-party software lineup has been arguably mediocre, but third-party support has somewhat made up for that.  Much of that third-party library has also been reviewed.

On the Microsoft front, only the exclusives have been receiving media attention.  In fact, when I was looking at the launch review coverage of one of my own trusted sites, the Battlefield 4 review linked back to the PS4 version.  That didn’t fill me with confidence, and nor should it you.  It is not unreasonable to expect a review to be tweaked to include platform specific performance information.  What is unreasonable (and more than a little suspicious), is that it isn’t available now.  Now, I don’t know any specifics regarding the current embargoes that Microsoft has in place regarding Xbox One coverage, but the mainstream media should certainly be resisting any pressure they might be encountering in order to remain as editorially impartial as is appropriate.

Now, talking about impartiality, I’m sure some readers might be wondering where mine currently lies.  I certainly seem to be lauding Sony and blasting Microsoft, but the truth is, I want them both to succeed.  The best thing Microsoft can do now is let the Xbox One freely compete with the Playstation 4 within the realm of the mainstream media.  If they are confident in their product, chances are gamers will also find that positivity for themselves.  However, if they keep their product cynically outside of the realms of fair (and expected) critical comparison, they haven’t learned as much since their lackluster E3 showing as we may have initially thought.

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Dead Rising 3 and the Potential of Next Gen

Now that we are little more than a week away from the beginning of an entirely new generation of gaming consoles, even a cursory glance at the launch lineup for either machine will likely instill a feeling of familiarity.  While there are a couple of new games that could conceivably represent the start of successful new IPs, the rest can’t help but convey a draining sense of franchise fatigue.  Of course, this fatigue is nothing new, it has now been upon us for several years, and will likely be with us for many more, given the industry has embraced a model of yearly or bi-yearly franchise releases.  It was of great surprise to me then, that one of the games that most appealed to me on a personal level was exactly what I was most disappointed to see – a franchise title.

An important thing for me to note here is that one of the reasons the game caught my eye, is quite a simple one.  The inability for it to exist in the form it does on a current generation console, and as such, this small detail led me to thinking about the five reasons Dead Rising 3 shows great potential for the next generation of gaming.  So with the specific game in mind, let’s get to the list.

5 – The game couldn’t exist on current generation hardware.  It’s okay, feel free to read that again.  It’s idiotically simple.  The one thing that most gamers will think about when the idea of a new generation springs to mind is that it represents a threshold of sorts.  New hardware represents a gateway to gaming experiences that just could not be created on previous machines.  Of all the franchises available on day one of the new console launches, Dead Rising 3 does not have a current generation version that can just be swapped out in a couple of weeks.  If you take a look at Battlefield 4, Call of Duty: Ghosts, or even Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag, these are titles that (while technologically accomplished to varying degrees) are playable on almost decade old consoles.  So while I’m sure it makes great business sense to make your game available on every platform under the sun, it necessarily undermines at least an element of what gamers want to see out of their new hardware – games that push the boundaries of their expectation.

4 – Genre.  In the next generation, it is clear that we’ll begin to see new IPs pop up, but what we don’t see enough of is adaptation, or evolution of genre.  So while Dead Rising 3 IS in essence a franchise title, it stands apart from the other games I have mentioned.  There are several reasons for this, but perhaps above all is that Dead Rising exists in a genre almost entirely its own.  The kind of loosely narrated, time sensitive sandbox that the Dead Rising series offers has not been co-opted by other developers, and as such, its proliferation and familiarity has been kept to a minimum.  What the Dead Rising experience offers – it alone offers.  In terms of the next generation, I very much hope that the example set with this series by both Capcom and Capcom Vancouver (formerly Blue Castle Games) is more widely adopted by the industry at large.  Gamers want unique IP and more diverse genres in their gaming diet.

3 – Resolution and frame rates do not define an experience.  Anybody who is familiar with Press A to Start will know that I have posted frequently about the initial disparities between hardware performance of the next generation machines.  To clarify my position, I believe that any new hardware SHOULD perform significantly better than previous hardware iterations.  However, the issue is certainly more complex than that, and even though I would love to see all games display natively at 1080p and be frame rate locked at 60fps, an inability to meet those conditions doesn’t mean console gaming is doomed.  As such, number 3 here came to be.  It has been clarified within the last couple of days by the developer that Dead Rising 3 will run at a native 720p (hardware upscaled to 1080p), and be frame rate locked at 30fps.  While on paper these numbers don’t in any way indicate superior performance to even Xbox 360 games, advancements made to lighting systems, physics, even particle effects will help define the next generation experience.  I am a huge proponent of the games as art debate, and what you put on a canvas is just as important (if not more so) than what you apply it with.  From what Capcom have shown of Dead Rising 3 so far, it doesn’t in any way look as hindered as its specifications may indicate.  Its art style is great, lighting is atmospheric, and the 80s synth score seems sublime!

2 – A co-op experience.  While co-op is in no way a new thing, it is something that I hope developers continue to embrace and expand upon in the coming generation.  Within the Dead Rising series, co-op has been one of the most enjoyable ways to play, and it’s good to see Capcom Vancouver continue to embrace non-competitive multiplayer experiences.  It’s still somewhat under wraps, but I’m hoping that with the growing interest in asymmetrical mp, co-op will also begin to explore a more individualized form of gameplay.  Whether or not Dead Rising 3 brings anything to the table in this regard has yet to be seen, but it would certainly be welcome.  In the next generation co-op should be about exactly that cooperation, not just two slightly different avatars dropped into the same gaming world to wreak havoc.

1 – Loading, or not.  To date myself somewhat, I remember the transition from cartridge based play to disc.  What I also remember is that while the ability to have amazing quality sound in games was a huge boost, the downside of loading was a very bitter pill to swallow.  Even now, I will periodically play something and the jarring transitions between game and loading screen can completely ruin the immersive nature of a game for me.  As such, the one piece of info about Dead Rising 3 to come out of E3 this year was that the game experience would be seamless – no loading between environments.  Now, of all the things I have on this list, there’s a reason this is number 1.  It might be unrealistic to think that we are again approaching a time when loading could be a thing of the past, but it certainly is an exciting prospect.  After all, Naughty Dog, with many of their recent titles (on current hardware) have certainly limited it to a large degree.  If Dead Rising 3 could actually offer an experience unhindered by the dreaded loading screen, then that’s a next generation experience I could well and truly marvel at.

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