| LordTheNightKnight said: "Dead Rising is an evidence of over confidence in an engine that was just "scaled up" to be able to handle that kind of game. Many of the features were not optimized properly and that is because of the lack of time and budget for the port to be made. You cannot just "add" a feature without reviewing the full engine and game code. It's an iterative process that just couldn't be made for Chop Till you Drop because of time and budget restrictions. RE4 Wii edition is a polished GC version with the PS2 extras. There was no new features, just improvements." 1. You are wrong about lack of budget. Capcom has said the budget was almost as high as an original game of that scale (some of you don't agree with the results, but that does prove it was not a cheap cash-in), so money had nothing to do with it. 2. You are wrong about time as well. The development was well underway when the game was first announced, and it was even delayed two months. And don't tell me that was not enough. Capcom has also stated that re-releases do take less time because they have a final result, where original games take a hell of a lot more planning. 3. What the hell do you mean by features not optimized? The gameplay worked. Do you mean some of the effects? I'll give that, but that's also due to the fact that they were trying to squeeze assets from a massive game onto the Wii, and no one had done something like that before. It was lack of experience with remaking HD games on the Wii that affected the development more than time and money. The PS2 port of RE4 gets praised, but what they forget is that Capcom knew both the GC and PS2 inside and out by then. That is not the case with either the HD systems (most of their big stuff is promised for games that are coming out later) or the Wii. 3. And "optimized" or not, the scale is still larger than RE4 could ever pull off. Note that any area in that game tends to get more sparse the larger it is, while the sparse areas in Chop Till You Drop were more due to consistency in the design with the first game. Other areas were loaded with objects in the background. Compare the houses in the village area with the shops in any one of the plazas. I should know. I've played RE4 loads of times, and the areas are beautiful, but the best detail is reserved for smaller areas, while CTYD still has loads of different shops in areas that dwarf half the areas in RE4. You state you work for a software company, but you still seem to be making assumptions on these games, rather than deductions and research (I outright asked Capcom about some of those things). And if you've every worked on porting a program, or rewriting it for less powerful systems, you should know all the things that can affect the quality. |
As a developer from a software company I tell you that most of the PR and interviews and stuff does not really match with a finished product, it does not reflect the reality behind the messages and emails and any other means to tell the game journalists. It is very rarely that when they say reflects on the finished product.
Chop Till you Drop is not a quick Cash-in, because many of the gameplay mechanics were done right and it shows they focused on the gameplay elements in order to deliver a good experience. I give them credit for improving the gameplay over the original. However, I analyzed the game and it does not match the claims you state about the same budget.
"Capcom has said the budget was almost as high as an original game of that scale"
What does a gamne of that scale mean? As high as the original Dead Rising? Obviously no. As High as a Re-relase (aka Port), it was high but not enough.
"The development was well underway when the game was first announced, and it was even delayed two months"
how well in development did they say? public image and reality in software development are not as trasparents as many believe. Time has a cost to the devloper and publisher. So a balance must be kept in order to meet the requirements of a product (this case, the game). In Chop Till you Drop you see the focus on the game was on these points:
- Change the gameplay and controls to resemble Re4 Wii, wich was a proven gret control mechanism.
- Scaling down the 3D objects and textures to optimal point: good textures and a decent poligon count to make a rich environment.
- General code optimiozation (game, and graphic engine) through a general iterative process
- Serious debug and testing to guarantee a good framerate and a bug free experience
For a re-release, these aspects are "good enough" to make the game good like what we have in Chop Till you Drop. But other key items were missing:
- take the Re4 graphic engine and start the iterative optimization process, not just to use all Wii resources but to use them more efficiently.
- Totally review the game design document to meet the requirements and the hardare/software limitations
- a totally separate game code optimization with another iterative process to us the engine, the AI, controls and other key elements efficiently.
As you can see, the last three steps are more leaned towards an original game than a re-release, and these require a lot of time and more money, or the same time, hire more people and more money. With this perspective, you see that the budget and time for Chop Till you Drop was not enough.
The two months of extra development were mostly beacuse of gamer's reaction towards the number of enemies on screen and finifshing the debugging process while they were at it. They couldn't get more. The game is excellent but in general fails to achieve what the original games have done. I see a lot of trust for the RE4 engine but it didn't met their initial expectations and had to be worked on.
Chop till you Drop is a good gamea and it playe bettr than the original, but it does not refelct their statements and room for improvement can be found easily.
