Killzone 2 VS Gears of War 2 through the eyes of a programmer

[jetrii]

MikeB said:
Have you even looked into how the Killzone 2 game engine operates? Killzone 2 cannot be done in a similar manner with the Unreal engine.

Yes, I agree Killzone 2 has better designed assets, but also higher quality assets, higher quality graphics and audio.

Trees? Motorstorm: Pacific Rift and Uncharted have great looking trees.... But it would have been out of place in this world created for Killzone 2.

Killzone 2 provides a high level of destructability, amazing lighting (hundreds of independent light sources on screen at once and even implements some raytracing effects), realtime generated cutscenes, advanced movie techniques like full screen motion blur where every pixel has a direction / speed, audio well above anything the 360 can provide technically, etc.

Sorry, but Killzone 2 is technically well above what Gears of War 2 provides apart from just better designed assets.

 

Of course it can't be done in a similar manner with the Unreal Engine, it is a different engine. However, it is my educated guess that a very similar version can be done on the Unreal 3 Engine with the effort that was put into Killzone 2.

As far as assets, that is entirely a matter of personal preference. What you consider to be quality may not be considered to be as good by others. Personally, I think Killzone 2 has a fine art direction, but I also believe that some of the assets in MGS4, GoWII, and Uncharted are higher quality. No one game is the king in every single category, and honestly, it doesn't have to me. Killzone 2 is impressive enough as it is.

Personally, I would have like to have a few scenes with nice vegetation and trees, just because they're in a war doesn't mean you can't stop and smell the flowers! 

Although Killzone 2 does have an interactive environment, quite a few of the destructions are actually prebaked and depending on what you do, it will break in one of several pre-designed ways. This is not true for the whole game, just parts. Killzone 2 doesn't have raytracin, it has raycasting, something which a few games have. Raytracing is a whole different ballpark.

Killzone 2 uses full screen motion blur very well, but it's been features in dozens of games already. It is not new, although it is nice that they added their own technique to make it look a bit different.

That's fine, you're allowed to have that opinion. I think Killzone 2 looks great. Not as great as you think it does, but still great.