Sounds fair and reasonable mostly, but... forgive my lack of technical savy, but what is the relevance in the hypothetical scenario of 'switching game engine' for the two game and running the result as a comparable?

The author mention this twice I didn't see where he went with it... :(

Ah, sorry. I meant to say that the lack of screenshots as the game isn't out yet, so you can't make a fair comparison yet. But it would be really nice of you to update this once the game is out

This analysis seems to fairly unbiased but at the same time incredibly weak , I don't think you have to be a programmer to recognise that.

"As you can see, the organic matter does not look so great. As you introduce bumps, round objects, and surfaces into a game, the power requirement to make it look good jumps up. It is very simple to make square edges look good but round edges take more power. Now, I've played the Killzone 2 demo and although there are some broken surfaces with rough edges that do look pretty good, they are pretty minimal throughout the demo."

Assuming everything that you say is true , you still not taking into consideration the number of animations occuring at the same time , on screen enemies , on screen activity , physics , audio etc etc.

You say that Killzone 2 has an easier to develop art style than Gears Of War 2 , that sounds stupid art style is only one of the many considerations a developer would have to make when developing a game.

"f killzone 2 were running on its engine on the PS3 and the exact same game on Epic's engine on the Xbox 360, I have no doubt that Killzone 2 would look better on the PS3. However, the difference would not be by much. Due to its smaller OS, the Xbox 360 has more memory available to it than Killzone 2. Killzone 2 on the PS3 would probably have a bit more going on on the screen at the same time but the Xbox 360 version would have higher resolution textures."

I think your overstating the memory advantages the 360 has over the PS3 if there actualy any at all , your making assertions with little to know justification . IIIRC the ps3's ram isn't a straight forward as saying the 360 has % more memory than it . they have very different architectures. You also create a fallacy , you said something to the effect of "killzone 2 could run more things at the same time than the 360 , but the 360 can run less things with better textures " Surely your saying the same thing and not proving anything ?

"
Yes, Killzone 2 does have a very advanced engine and it does make great use of the Cell processor, however, it mainly looks the way it does because of the art style. Not only did it take the safe path, but it also (in my opinion) selected a superior color palette. Based on what I saw from the demo and other Xbox 360 games, I think that it *can* be done on the Xbox 360, it would just take as long as the PS3 version. If they use procedural synthesis, it would take longer. If they don't, it would have to ship on multiple DVDs. "

I'm also calling BS on this , your basicaly saying the limiting factor in making Killzone 2 is the number of DVD's you'll be putting the game on ....Wtf ?. "If they don't it would have to ship on multiple DVD's" implying that if they did it would only ship on 1 ?

Very interesting look of the game. I've never looked at it this way, but it makes perfect sense. Great post.

As usual, since this site is about 80% pro-sony, SDF is already on the attack!

It was to try and take the technology out of the discussion. A lot of people attribute Killzone 2's graphics to the Cell processor. Although it does play an important role, I wanted to emphasize the important of the art direction. Killzone 2's art direction and level design lends itself to techniques which make the game look good but don't require as much power as a game such as Gears or Resistance.

Ah I understand, I actually thought that was just common sense but I guess some people might not get it, I know that a great deal of KZ2's look can be attributed to optical illusion and is not 'superior graphic' in the sense of 'I own you and you baby monkey' Crysis, but I still think that GG has done an amazing job. Magicians after all, are just superior charlatans.

Wait i thought he said no stupid animated gifs... O wait thats your fanboy flag waving to everyone so we can see you comming...

Anyway back to a civilized discusion. You know I never paid attention to the way games use geomety to create the world. Very interesting points you made. One of the many reasons why they might have gone with more simple shapes and lines is the amount of particle effects going on in the screen. GoW2 did have alot of terain deformation, and explosions, but other than that it felt like a cleaner world. In KZ2 Ive seen alot of junk flying around, and dust in the air it seams. Im sure thats very hard on the smaller GPU in the PS3. So maybe they decided to cut out alot of the more complex shapes and geomety so they could pack more explosions and particals in with out bogging the PS3 down.

I hope I answered all of your concerns. Let me know if you have more, I am more than happy to address them.

Guerilla Games did use a lot of tricks in Killzone 2. However, I really like the fact that they did as It squeezes more visual out. There is an image in which the character is climbing a staircase with a mirror behind it. Guerilla Games forgot about the mirror because the staircase didn't show up and the back of the staircase wasn't textured. As you walk around, it gains the texture before you see it. In games like Crysis, everything is real. Games like Killzone 2 take more time to develop because these tricks take time to do.

I am not saying it's cheap or anything, it's just another way to develop games.

In Killzone 2 Guerilla emphasize on what PS3 can do better - animations and physics. They are just great. On the other side they choose the best art style and color palette to save graphical power where ever they can using dark colors, fogs, sand storms and bunch of simple geometry objects that looks complex. This is why Killzone 2 looks good in motion, not in static pictures.