RED53DEVILS on 03 January 2009
I am quite sure we are all well aware of the E3 2005 Killzone 2 Trailer, the one which had many people deep in thought as to whether it was pre-rendered or indeed actual gameplay, yes that infamous trailer that has caused a fair bit of controversy over the years...Has the actual Killzone 2 surpassed it?
Looking at the current build of Killzone 2, the Dec 08 "preview" build, which is actually as old as October 08, it is clear that it looks very impressive, in fact "very impressive" might be an understatement considering the game is the paramount of console graphics.
Does the current Killzone 2 build look better than the CGI or pre-rendered trailer?
Personally I think the atmosphere of the E3 trailer is no match for the actual Killzone 2, from the gloomy, repellent appearance of the Helghan nation, to the dark and gritty look of the violent Helghast soldiers, these all create a stellar atmospheric experience that trumps the E3 trailer.
Animations can be argued, some might say the animations of the ISA soldiers are better than the actual Killzone 2 ISA soldiers, as they look more fluid, but then you could also say that the death animations of the Helghast are much better in the actual Killzone 2 than the CGI trailer, by way of the complex combining of physics impulses and mo-capped animations. However in my opinion the animations of the E3 trailer are better, this is simply down to the fluidity of these said animations, some of which blend more realistically than in the actual game.
The next stage of the comparisons is the lighting, it is quite clear that the lighting in Killzone 2 is about the best in console games history, from the internal lens reflection to the hundreds of fully dynamic lights in a single Killzone 2 level, lighting is a major part of Killzone 2's makeup that allows it to look as stunning as it does, the E3 2005 trailer had little to no lighting and indeed just falls flat in comparison to actual Killzone 2 gameplay.
Character models, I think it's safe to say that the E3 2005 character models are not without fault, that said, I think that they look better than the actual game character models, why? simply because the pre-rendered character models have gastronomically high texture resolutions, and an immense amount of anti-aliasing, however Killzone 2's actual character models are not far off, they do look stunning and clearly have better facial textures than the E3 2005 trailer where people's faces had a plastic look.
Screen Effects, this no doubt is miles better in the actual Killzone 2 gameplay, with fullscreen motion blur, internal lens reflection and lens flare, depth based colour and true geometric particles that collide with the ground realistically after an explosion, to the soft sand particles slowly drifting past your screen having been picked up by the wind. It is clear to all that Killzone 2's deferred rendering engine makes for an unbelievable looking game. And effects wise the actual Killzone 2 is superior.
Overall?
In my honest opinion, I think that overall Killzone 2 does surpass the pre-rendered E3 2005 trailer, the overall combination of the effects, lighting, atmosphere, audio and character models of the actual Killzone 2 takes it that one step ahead of the CGI trailer, indeed some aspects of the CGI are superior to the actual Killzone 2, but overall the current build looks superior to the Pre-rendered trailer in my opinion.
and I cannot wait to get my hands on the game. luckily I wont have to wait too long.
Note: While you may disagree with me as to whether Killzone 2 looks better than the CGI trailer, I commend Guerrilla Games for creating a game that can actually hold it's own when compared to a pre-rendered CGI trailer, not many games can do that.
http://badassgamer.blogspot.com/2009/01/has-killzone-2-surpassed-e3-2005-cgi.html
