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

[jetrii]

Angel_DwK said:
So basically your saying that killzone 2 looks better but GeoW2 was harder to develop..


Damn trees!!

Haha, don't let Guerilla Games hear that, they will hunt you down and force you to watch their GDC presentations! Killzone 2 was more difficult to develop due to the Cell processor and new engine they wrote around the processor.

bobobologna said:
I think it's also important to note that Gears of War is a TPS and Killzone 2 is a FPS. Killzone 2 seems to have better character models, especially if you find close up screenshots. Gears of War 2 doesn't need the extra detail because you will almost never find yourself viewing an enemy from that close. In addition, Killzone 2, being a FPS, needs to render a gun model and it's animations. It might be a small difference, but there is a difference between what each game needs to do.

I think it's pretty pointless to argue about organic vs inorganic art assets when you completely fail to mention things like particle effects, lighting, animation, and physics, all of which play a part in a game's graphics and graphics engine. Not to mention that Killzone 2 has per pixel motion blur and could result in some people believing the game has blurry textures based on certain screenshots.

It's depressing that the eyes of a "programmer" focus solely on organic vs inorganic art assets instead of the technology powering the game engines and what each game engine is doing. Are you really a programmer? A real one that has worked on real games?

This is just a guess here, but did you read the entire thread (I know it's a lot!) and post or simple read page 1 and post? All of these questions have been addressed but I will do it again.
I wrote this for non-technical people to get a brief understanding then I supported it with technical data(page 5) for those that a more technical explanation. Killzone 2 does have great particles, lighting, and other effects, but they are fake versions of what most games have that were achieved using hacks and tricks. This is by no means bad as it gives the impression of the real thing, they just require a lot less power but more development time to do. For example, Killzone 2 doesn't have HDR lighting, they use tricks to fake it. Halo 3 uses a lot of power to have amazing HDR lighting. Bungie could make a new level, add a few lights, and boom, the HDR would take care of the lighting. In Killzone 2, they would have to go through each light and optimize it for the location in which it is in and maybe even prebake some of the effects on textures.  

To put it simply: Game looks good, Game takes a lot of power, Games takes a lot of time - Select 2

Most developers select the first 2, Guerilla Game selected the 1st and 3rd one and were able to make the game look amazing. Duke Nukem developers selected the last 2!

I've already stated that I worked on games briefly and now do simulation programming at Lockheed Martin. Also, I am well aware that Killzone 2 uses a lot of motion blur and I can assure you, I know the difference between motion blur and blurry textures. 

EDIT: I decide to split the replies, I don't want to have a giant wall of text