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SvennoJ on 07 August 2015
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As I said in the other thread, it's impressive technology yet they have to be careful not to follow the same route as RF Armageddon. Total destruction is not enough as a new gameplay mechanic.

(Eurogamer face-off)
As it stands, Red Faction: Armageddon is a decent enough shooter, but one that fails to really live up to its potential. Clearly, the GeoMod technology is worth evolving still further for future Red Faction games - but it's evident that any evolution in the destruction really needs to be matched by an equivalent boost in the ingenuity of the game design. In the here and now, Red Faction: Armageddon is a solid game, but not an outstanding one.

RF Armageddon thought total destruction was sufficient to popularize the series, instead they went bankrupt.


Besides that you have people already calling Crackdown 3 out for not looking all that great, and I expect it to be toned down further to get all the mayhem to render fast enough in the final version. It's not by chance that Crackdown 3, a mostly cell shaded game, is getting this tech. For example the producer of Saints row was asked about adding total destruction for next gen (ps4/x1):

Here’s the issue: we would still have to make compromises to the graphic fidelity by still sharding it up and making it so they can break apart and all these pieces.

“My suspicion is that if you looked at another game coming out that didn’t have that technology, that their buildings would look so superior to ours, the gamers would still look at it and say, ‘Wow, what’s wrong with Saints Row, why does it look so horrible? I know the buildings come apart but you know.’

“It’s tough to communicate, and we always had that problem even on Red Faction, that there’s no easy way to clearly communicate that yeah, the graphics may not be as amazing as these other cutting-edge games, but look at the engine. Look at all these things things it does. It’s just when you’re looking at a screenshot, or when you’re looking at a trailer you just kind of look at it and it’s like, ‘Nah, it doesn’t look as good as some of these other games that are out there’.

“There’s a reason for it but at the end of the day I don’t think gamers necessarily care. It’s just, My suspicion is that if they saw a Saints Row game that didn’t look nearly as good as the competition that’s out there, that they would just feel bad and say, ‘What the hell’s happened to Volition? What the hell’s wrong with that? The city just looks awful compared to what I’m seeing in these other games because of the destruction.

“With the kind of competition that’s out there I think, I suspect it would almost be impossible to do it and still remain competitive visually.”
http://www.vg247.com/2013/08/12/a-fully-geo-mod-enabled-saints-row-is-literally-impossible-in-this-gen-says-volition/

Ofcourse that was without off-loading the cpu to the cloud, yet the rendering problems remain the same.



It's a common theme in modern games. Increase realism in one part reveals the ageing gameplay in other parts.
Plus how will they handle all the debris on the ground. Spawn points and objectives getting burried, people getting stuck. Or other immersion breaking effects, like in the demo the person playing pushes a huge concrete block out of the way while running.

In the end is it worth the trouble.
- Good internet connection
- Only in multiplayer
- Tons of resources allocated to the destruction at the cost of ...?
- Limited insides of buildings since it all have to be able to fall apart

It's very cool technology. Yet it looks like a game made around cool tech, instead of tech made for gameplay.
It will be fun for a while, playing dominos with buildings, yet I'm curious to see if they can add lasting appeal to it once the novelty wears off.  Not much point in king of the hill, capture the flag etc gameplay if everything can simply be blown up. Although simple run and gun death match was enough to keep me busy when I grew up, so maybe it is enough.