Killzone 2's release date announced

Yesterday, we reported that Killzone 2 would make a special appearance on G4TV's X-Play tonight. During the show, X-Play revealed two new weapons which include the Bolt Gun and Flamethrower. However, most importantly, the show revealed the official release date for what may be the most anticipated title of this generation. That date? February 27, 2009.

While the rumors going around assumed the release date would be on the 17 of that month, it seems estimates were off by ten days. It's not only a relief to finally have a release date nailed down, but to actually realize that this game is going to come out and soon. It feels like forever since that first rendered trailer made its appearance at E3.

Everyone mark down the date on your calendar. It's almost time to go to war.

 

http://www.psu.com/Killzone-2s-release-date-announced-News--a0005620-p0.php

 

Downie responds to issues regarding Killzone 2 preview code

Guerrilla Games Q&A Manager Seb Downie has issued a response over on the Official PlayStation Forums in regards to the various complaints gamers have made on the latest preview code of Killzone 2.

"Hi folks,
I am getting a bunch of complaints about some things in the preview code and just wanted to clear this up for everyone.

Dialogue
The dialogue and voice-acting was not yet final and was placeholder for that build. Has since been improved a hundred times over.

Natko
Natkos face had a shading glitch in that build making him look a little weird and plastic. Has been fixed since.

Grain filter
The grain filter is still there. But the video compression is removing it. Looks better on screen.

Blood Meridian
Blood Merdian has been pulled forward in the level order compared where it was a year ago. As the weather become more violent throughout the game, the level of wind was too much for the second level of the game. This also has to do with it looking a little more 'blue'.

Sev and Narville's hair
I think this is a truely silly thing to bring up. I think you guys should all post pictures of your haircuts for me to mock.
One of the screenshots I have seen of him today make it look a bit strange I agree. The light catches his head and makes it look a little more blond/yellow. Is otherwise just really closely cropped."

http://www.psu.com/Downie-responds-to-issues-regarding-Killzone-2-preview-code-News--a0005623-p0.php

 

And as an added bonus.. Killzone 2 only uses 60 percent of the SPUs power !

http://www.psu.com/Killzone-2-only-using-60--of-SPUs-overall-power-News--a0005629-p0.php

 

Holy shit !.. this is all some awesome news :P i can't wait for the game ! :D it's gonna be epic! .. also with the 60 percent usage announcement.. imagine god of war 3 .. oh yeah.. or when they get to a later point where they are able to use the most of the spus.. awesome stuff ! insane !

Further game engine optimisations can bring down the 60% SPU load figure considerably. So potentially there should be even more headroom to do additional stuff.

Current processor loads can be easily determined through benchmark software, but future wizardly coding optimisation cannot be quantified.

I think games like Killzone 2 and God of War 3 will have an effect on 3rd parties, if they release games running badly on the PS3 they will start to look horribly incompetent and lazy in many people's eyes.

I am looking forward to what the Crytek guys can come up with on the PS3, I think they are too ambitious on the technical front to not try to rival other games on the PS3.

MikeB said: Further game engine optimisations can bring down the 60% SPU load figure considerably. So potentially there should be even more headroom to do additional stuff. Current processor loads can be easily determined through benchmark software, but future wizardly coding optimisation cannot be quantified.

Very true. You never used this logic when talking about 360 games though. I remember you were always mentioning that Kameo used the three cores as supposed proof that the 360 had been tapped. Then when I or others pointed it out, you'd downplay the same argument which you're now using.

 

Cool, so that list that was supposedly going around that mentioned known issues with the preview build was true.

Good, I was really hoping we wouldn't get stuck with that voice acting.

MikeB said: Further game engine optimisations can bring down the 60% SPU load figure considerably. So potentially there should be even more headroom to do additional stuff. Current processor loads can be easily determined through benchmark software, but future wizardly coding optimisation cannot be quantified.

 

that is true :p .. truly people who say the cell is nothing more than a commen processor needs to learn what a processor in particular does. (such as advanced ai and handling multiple tasks at once)

 

 

@ your other post

I hope so :p well i think that farcry 2 wasn't exacly that, but who knows, it might be another team who makes crysis (which is le shit(in a good wayXD) visually)

 

oh yeah, not to mention uncharted. That game with those visuals were able to stream everything with no framerate issues or anything of the like. That is truly amazingly well scripted engine. It's obvious it was designed around the cell :p

@ NJ5

Actually it was the opposite until someone pointed out Microsoft's tech sheets to me detailing actual processor utilization. I thought there was way more headroom initially.

Well if launch games already tap 85% of available CPU resources from all 3 available cores, there's not a lot of headroom for the long run. That's all I stated in this regard, I also said I thought Gears 2 will see a nice upgrade from Gears 1, but from here on we won't see much improvement (other than maybe harddrives becoming mandatory or games spanning several discs, etc).

Further code optimisations become harder and harder to realize when you've already done more and more optimisation. At some point it's just too difficult and not cost effective. IMO the 360 is at a point of its lifecycle, no more major gains are to be expected.

MikeB said: I think games like Killzone 2 and God of War 3 will have an effect on 3rd parties, if they release games running badly on the PS3 they will start to look horribly incompetent and lazy in many people's eyes.

Konami already made other 3rd parties look bad when they released MGS4. But yea i think the devs that complain at how hard it is to make games on PS3 are just lazy and/or suck at it.

@ Staude

Far cry 2 wasn't done by Crytek, I didn't think Far Cry 1 was that great neither. I was more referring to game engine design, they are good at creating multi-threaded game engines.

MikeB said: Well if launch games already tap 85% of available CPU resources from all 3 available cores, there's not a lot of headroom for the long run.

Unless a lot of those CPU cycles are wasted due to lazy and wasteful coding (who knows, maybe they made the game in Java... j/k). You could easily admit that possibility since it was an early title.

All I'm saying is let's have a little consistency in these debates. As George Carlin says:

"Let's not have a double standard here, one standard will do just fine."