I had a thought today that I would like to ask of the 70+ members of VGC that own Lost Odyssey for Xbox 360:
Incase you did not know, Lost Odyssey uses the Unreal Engine 3, from Epic games - an all-in-one middleware engine. It encompasses alot of various aspects of game development, and makes it "easier" by some accounts, to make a game. Of course, there are various snags along the way for non-native UE3 Developers (ie, developers outside of Epic studios) - framerate drops, snags, and wierd occurances tend to happen, even with good Q&A.
However, graphical snags aren't my point of focus. For those heavily involved in playing X360 games, there are, quite frankly, alot of games that use UE3 - moreso than probably any other console right now (and probably the same amount for PC games). A notable trend seemed to develop out of most of these games: "they all look the same" - Gears, Army of Two, BioShock, Frontlines, Halo Wars, Stranglehold, Rainbow Six, and others all have very similar art styles.
Then Mass Effect comes along, heavily using UE3, and (atleast to me), in some areas, looks pretty diverse from the UE3 library of colors - the Citadel, most notably is colorful in many areas, with vibrant trees, and the like, straying away from what UE3 is about.
Then comes in Lost Odyssey: not only a game that has nothing to do with shooting, but a Japanese RPG. My question is (for those that have played the game alot): Does Lost Odyssey break the "trend" of grey-filtered UE3 games? Atleast from what I've seen, LO is vastly different, taking use of many great colors, and straying away from what UE3 typically does.
If so, it gives me hope for the other JRPGs that are using UE3. Last Remnant is Square Enix's first game with UE3, and from what I read last year, Square was very happy with aquiring it as a developer tool. Also, another JRPG for the X360, Magna Carta 2, has licensed UE3 as well...If LO broke the curse of dull-looking games, I think this a good thing for developers wanting good middleware, but maybe more inventive than we think.
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
