Actually, the top three are probably Full Sail, The Guildhall at SMU (something like a 94% placement rate in their field of study), and Digipen (unless you count quantity, then ITT and the AI schools have it).  The ITT Tech's and a lot of the other game design schools even have people teaching that have no actual industry experience and I know people that were actually approached to teach at one of the Art Institutes directly after graduating!  They don't care about making good developers, they really do just want your money.

As I said, good developers can come out but that's not due to the school's.

And I'm glad you agree ITT Tech is horrible, I was actually worrying all evening I was going to piss you off (been out the past few hours) for saying that and come off as an insensitive ass. :-p

And while Killzone 2 probably does use higher poly, I doubt they user the uber high poly versions they use for normal mapping in game.  That would be pretty silly.

 I think you guys are getting confused between the game controls and the actual "feel" of your character.

In most shooters, you can walk around with a huge gun and still move at full speed and jump around with ease. In CoD1 (PC only), you can barely jump at all, and wielding a big gun will make you move alot slower.

As much as I like the CoD series, I like CoD1's overall feel much more. Your character feels heavier, abit slower. The guns have alot more recoil - shooting someone at a distance with an automatic is a challenge. You can't just hold down the trigger and hope to get a kill. When CoD2 came out, they threw recoil out the window. Because of that, the bolt-action rifles in CoD2/5 became really weak online.

From what I've heard, KZ2 does a really good job at making you feel the weight and feel of your character, which I really love! Compare to somethin like HL2 (I played it on PC) - when you're moving, the camera is completely still.....it makes you feel like you're kinda just rolling around on wheels. Even worse, look at the carbine in Resistance 2 - you see the gun shaking when you fire, yet there's absolutely no recoil and the screen doesn't move a single bit....it really doesn't give you the impression that you're firing a gun.

As for controls, the thing I notice the most when playing different FPS's on consoles is the sensitivity and whatever system the game uses for aiming - I'm playing Fallout 3 right now and the lack of ironsights feels kinda lame. While console controls are pretty bad for FPS, I really hope they don't make it way too easy to handle the recoil like all the new CoD games.

@Twesterm

No need to get offended at what you said, I have been saying the same exact thing for the last couple of months of me being there. It is true about the whole people not being qualified thing. They hire students right after they graduate to teach. I had to put one teacher in his place because I know more about photoshop then he will EVER know, I had been using it since I was in 7th grade. I also know way more about games then him for he only plays games on his PC. What does he know of the advantages of console gaming, or how console gaming grosses way more money then PC games.

As for the K2 vs. GeoW2 models...
KZ2 probably is not using 50000000000polys on a single model. Thats just crazy. But from a modeler's standpoint, KZ2 most assuredly uses more polys then the models from Gears of War 2. I even looked up some videos of this "Worm" thing someone mentioned, as well as some other videos of the game. All I see is basic modeled shapes, really shallowly done with super hires textures on them. Now dont get me wrong, the game is beautiful. Yet Killzone 2, with it's higher poly count, and comparable if not better texture quality, visibly outshines Gears's graphics.

Or maybe its because I have been looking at polys all day, budgeting them within my model. LOLz

I mean look at the last three gifs I posted in a previous posts (not OP ones). In those you can visibly see the finer details, details Gears simply lacks. The ground in the one when he is holding the handgun is trully drool worthy. I can visibly and believably tell that that is muddy black dirt during sunrise/sunset time of day. Its not just a stupid poly count that makes KZ2's graphics better then the rest. Its the combination of poly counts, hires textures, lighting, physics, scenery, shadow depth,etc that makes the more graphically appealing game.

And I dont mean to pick on gears but gears is heralded as the 360's finest work. So I find it more suiting to put there best with our best, so far at least.

@Parasitic

I agree with a lot of what you are saying with bringing more realism to shooters. One small thing tho...

You gotta think of the type of game it is. Realism works best for games that are actually made to imitate life to the T. COD is one so that point is valid. R2 has some life immitating moments but falters at certain points, but recoil is not one of them.

Think of it this way. You are Nathan Hale, a part human part chimera half breed. You have some sort of super strength to you, hence you are able to just smack chimera in the head and kill them. Or if you remember the first level when you are escaping the underwater base, You see Hawthorne fucking knock a chimera out with his bare hand. Not having recoil is not that strange because Hale has super human control over his aiming. Hes stronger and can handle the recoil better then a normal human. This I think is why it lacks recoil because Resistance one HAD recoil.

I honestly didn't "feel" Nathan's strength at all. Actually, CoD5 almost gives you the feeling that you're controlling some beefed out guy on steroids, and it really shouldn't. The reason: you can fire every machine gun easily without using the bipod. That definitely takes some strength to do.

Another example of the "strong guy" feel: look at the main guy from Resident Evil 5. He's massive. In some vids of RE5's gameplay, you can see him doing some serious punches, sending guys flying.

If they really wanted to give the feeling that Nathan is one tough guy, he shouldn't be toying around with small guns when he supposedly should have the strength to fire a machine gun from the hip with ease. It's one thing for a story to say you're controlling some all-powerful hero that happens to be earth's last hope (I got so bored of that), but it's a much bigger challenge to actually back it up and really give you the feeling.

As for R1, I did notice that the Carbine felt alot beefier - I liked that alot, but I also noticed that the bullets move ridiculously slow.

My computer is having a seizure...
I think loading up my Joker gif should blow this entire thing up...

@Batman....WTF?
LOL Killzone may not be The Joker awesome, but it's close. Yea so please dont crush all of our computers with massive Joker gifs hahahaha.......Why so serious?

@Parasitic

I guess, its all in the eye of the beholder.

heh, I just get a little offended when people start talking about the ITT Tech's and AI's (and even the random colleges that offer game design degrees) because they really ruin the reputation of gaming schools.  There are good game design schools out there but they usually only graduate about 20 or so people per class so they don't get noticed nearly as much as the ones like the ITT Tech's that graduate many more.  People see and hear about those bad programs much more so the good schools unfortunately get lumped in there with the bad ones.

I can't speak for places like Digipen and Full Sail, but at least with places like Guildhall we generally graduate and have about the same experience as two year veterans (not my words, but many opinions of many industry professionals).

Anyways, enough whoring.  I'm not upset about people talking down about Gears 2.  I love the game but in now way deny it has its own problems or there are better looking games.  I actually think KZ2 looks pretty fantastic, I'm just waiting to get my hands on it.

And actually, thinking about KZ2 gameplay, I've been really interested to try the FPS cover system. I'm playing through R:FoM right now and I've been thinking the whole game I would love to be able to actually take advantage of cover the whole time (since duck is worthless) like in Gears and hopefully KZ2 cover will work well.

LOL no no way man. I'd say between 10-20 K on a char, and a normal map is Quite possibly slapped on aswell. Infact it makes the most sence if it is since it would allow them to use sculpture programs for their details. But it's still way more then gears since it mostly relies on bump and normal maps combined with specular maps a lot more.

You guys are lucky though. It costs a fortune if i want a game designers education over here, which i do. So far everything i know is selftought from crafting my own total conversion game.