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Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Orange Box PS3: Preview Versus Review

I'm not sure if this fits in with the rest of the really bad PlayStation 3 reporting that the blogosphere has only recently been able to shake, but it must be close.

Witness the horror:

To add insult to injury, and then to pour a salt and lemon juice cocktail into said injury, the PS3 version of Orange Box has received the developmental shaft, according to a recent preview on 1UP. While the PC and 360 versions of the game were largely managed by Valve, the PS3 version was apparently the responsibility of a team at EA. This has led to a number of framerate hiccups and other technical issues which "at best merely hinder game play and at worst make the experience downright unplayable."
-- PS3 version of Orange Box might be 'downright unplayable'

Now witness the stop-freaking-out:

Before you freak, know that in my time playing The Orange Box on PS3, I only encountered a few truly troubling framerate issues. For the bulk of my playtime, the pieces of The Orange Box run fine. Sure, there's more hitching than on 360, but I was still drawn in to the dense world Valve created. The technical issues aren't going to be enough to deter anyone who wants to enjoy Orange Box on PS3. Unless you require your games to never dip below 30fps, you should not strike The Orange Box off your PS3 holiday wish list.
-- The Orange Box PS3 Hands-On

The bottom being an actual review of the published version by IGN, the above being a quote being widely circulated around blogs based on a preview version. Thing is, people, framerate issues with preview editions are as commonplace as air is to wind. It happens all the time - but usually without all the drama. Sometimes those issues don't get resolved, sure, but now that full reviews are out ... the preview is really rather obsolete news, right?

4 comments:

Unknown said...

This is my only way to play HL2, so I'm hoping it turns out just fine. There is also a GameSpy preview out tonight that indicates that things aren't too bad, except possibly in HL2EP2.

Josh said...

For $60 you get five of the better PC games ever made ... especially if you haven't played them before I'd say it would have be a damn bad rendition not to make it worth the money.

Unknown said...

Yeah. I just hate to put a $60 game on my Xmas list and have it be a horrible disappointment. I already have Uncharted, which is my GOTY right now. I could always go with UT3. Did you see all the cool details about mod making for PS3 in the Gamasutra interview with Rein today?

Josh said...

Well, my guess is that the preview shock over framerate was wildly overdramatic - but these games will be just as great next month as this, so might as well wait for some more reviews to hit.

I didn't see that - but now that I can read gamasutra at work, I'll take a peek. I have gotten some discouraging previews from fellow Unreal modders about the state of code Epic has left for us, but I'm saving that for a much later post.