Gadgetory

the console wars is closing to its end we have four rounds ago and the ps3 is in the lead with the single point round nine is up next and in this round I'll be making an in-depth comparison between multi-platform games I'll be analyzing the games in terms of graphics and performance so get ready for yet another very exciting round of the console forms I know what you're thinking it's common knowledge that xbox360 titles have been superior compared to their ps3 counterparts in the past but has that changed after three years surely game dopers have figured out the kinks of the ps3 by now because exclusive games on the ps3 are starting to look fantastic I know a lot of you are going to pull the Uncharted 2 and God of War 3 cards in the comments but the fact of the matter is that the majority of games released and sold on both consoles are multi-platform games so no matter how good exclusive games may look don't expect any compensation points from exclusive games in this particular round but let's cut the chatter and get to it the first game we're looking at is one of my favorite games of last fall Rocksteady Studios surprise it Batman Arkham Asylum if you've played Arkham Asylum you know that it looks great on all platforms but some are their graphical and performance difference between xbox 360 and ps3 versions let's find out at a quick glance you won't notice much difference but when taking a closer look we notice that the Xbox 360 burner has slightly better anti-aliasing sorry I mean anti-aliasing I got some flack for my pronunciation in the GP around potato patato I think you got what I meant so the slight anti-aliasing on the Xbox 360 soft and some of the rougher edges but apart from that the games look almost identical there is some subtle screen tearing in both versions of the game but nothing that will take away from the gameplay experience but a major difference that repeats itself in pretty much every game in favor of the Xbox 360 are black levels previous to owning both consoles I watched some comparison videos of the two consoles and I always notice that the ps3 versions of the games look a bit lighter in terms of contrast I assume that this was the settings or connection issue but the fact of the matter is no matter what the connections be at HDMI or component super white and RGB expand switch on or off on the ps3 the Xbox 360 video signal always seem to have better black levels and this translates into deeper looking shadows and better overall color depth on the Xbox 360 if you have a higher-end TV you may be able to compensate with your TV settings but I for one was not able to match the levels of black I see on the Xbox 360 with the ps3 so keen-eyed video files like myself will enjoy slightly better black levels on xbox 360 of games but the difference isn't anything to write home about because it's also a matter of taste Batman Arkham Asylum looks great on both consoles in fact it's hard to spot any significant differences but I would say that the framerate feels slightly smoother during intense fight scenes on the Xbox 360 overall Xbox 360 takes Arkham Asylum but the differences are so subtle that I cannot recommend both console versions of the finest Batman game made to date modern warfare 2 is undoubtedly the biggest multi-platform game of recent times the game is sold over 15 million copies since last November and is on the track to being the best-selling game of all time so how do the ps3 and xbox 360 versions stack up for the most part Infinity Ward has done a fantastic job technically on the game it's almost flawless on both platforms a minor complaint against both versions is that the game runs at a sub AC resolution but thankfully the anti-aliasing cleans up most of the rough edges both versions of the game seem to have identical textures but the Xbox 360 is better black levels bring out more contrast and detail out of the textures it also seems that the ps3 version of the game is a bit more subtle in the lighting effects Department the Xbox 360 version has gloom lighting throughout the game where the ps3 is missing the effect completely the differences aren't massive but again it's a clear victory for the Xbox 360 next up is Dante's Inferno visceral games received some praise for the last game the excellent dead space their new game Dante's Inferno is I think a pretty solid game is an action-packed hack and slash with some religious undertones the game only has two major flaws firstly the game at its core keenly resembled the first two god of war games and secondly launching a game that pretty much looks and plays like God of War a mere month before God of War 3 is released is in my opinion an utter waste but in any case I have to say the visceral games had done a fantastic job on the cross-platform release of Dante's Inferno it's one of the very few games that look practically identical on both platforms the textures the shader effects the framerate the amount of aliasing is pretty much the same on both consoles and I really can't make a distinction here so graphics and performance wise Dante's Inferno is a tie I can recommend the game for Xbox 360 owners but for ps3 gamers recommend getting God of War three before you consider Dante's Inferno because it's just around the corner Darksiders is a game that has some of the same flaws as Dante's Inferno it's always tough releasing a new IP when a looming giant of the same genre is launched in the same quarter but in any case Darksiders is a multi-platform game released by THQ and they also did a very good job on the cross-platform release because the games look almost identical the texture the shader effects and anti-aliasing are all equal but to my surprise the ps3 version actually runs a bit smoother than the Xbox 360 version which also suffers event from noticeable screen tearing this is quite a rare result because I have not seen many ps3 versions of multi-platform games run smoother and their Xbox 360 counterparts so the ps3 takes Darksiders for overall better performance the next game is a title that has caused some controversy because of claims relating to a bad port or the ps3 and unfortunately this is exactly the case Bayonetta has to be one of the worst PS reports in recent memory the ps3 version suffers from bland textures a choppy framerate and some serious aliasing some of you may consider the comparing of Bayonetta as unfair as it's known to be a bad port but the fact is the Banat is not the only game that is significantly worse on the ps3 and it's definitely a viable example of what you can expect from some multi-platform games lazy programmers are not ps3 owners will suffer for bad ports more often than Xbox 360 owners Bayonetta is a game that demands a high and constant framerate and the ps3 version does not provide use the sequel to Bad Company was just released in the beginning of March and it looks pretty decent on both consoles there's an astounding sense of realism in the game destructible environments and the colors are nicely desaturated for the rough and gritty visual style of war you see in more epics like Saving Private Ryan the first game was rushed to the market and both console versions suffered a bit from screen tearing and the ps3 version suffered a bit more but I'm happy to say that the sequel has received some graphical and performance improvements on both platforms the game still runs on the same cross bite game engine but everything has been tweaked a bit and the game seemingly runs better and definitely looks better and I'm also quite glad to say that the textures the dynamic lighting effects particle effects and explosion look equally good on both platforms but still I definitely do notice some more screen tearing on the ps3 version of the game I also noticed the better black levels on the Xbox 360 version really added the graphical and visual style of bad company 2 but yet again the differences are so subtle that it's nothing for the Xbox 360 fanboys to boast over but a result is a result in the Xbox 360 version of bad company 2 runs and looks better next up is Need for Speed Shift racing games have always been amongst the best and worst looking games on all platforms you find your console defining racing games and some god-awful piece of crap luckily Need for Speed Shift is one of the best-looking racing games out there and when I saw the TV commercial for Need for Speed Shift I thought wow there's the Mona Lisa of racing games well the actual game turned out to be more of a cheap knockoff but still the game does look good I especially enjoyed the depth of field and motion blur effects that really add to the illusion in speed but which console version of the game looks and performs better and right after that I see the Xbox 360 Burton has better anti-aliasing and the game runs at a higher framerate anti-aliasing on the ps3 is a bit more of a blur effect it really takes away from the sharp curve to cool cars the effect also seems to blur out most of the textures as well which gives a huge graphical benefit to the Xbox 360 bring the lower frame rate of the ps3 burn literally takes away at higher space and it seemed to affect response time of the controls overall the better graphics and stable framerate make the Xbox 360 version of Need for Speed shift hands down the version of choice some of you may remember a couple years back there was some controversy about EA sports games Xbox 360 versions ran at 60 frames per second as ps3 versions ran only at 30 frames per second ps3 fanboys were not happy that were bodies left and right on the eSports got scorched pretty badly luckily fanboys are short in their anger and all was forgotten after ps3 versions started to run at 60 frames per second and oh nine versions of EA sports games so where are we now for three years I'm happy to say that Peter Moores EA team has done a good job making both console versions graphically equal so while it may have been that the Xbox 360 versions of EA sports game were superior in the past the ps3 has now caught up and in terms of performance and graphics the games are now pretty much equal so it's a tie for NHL 2010 Resident Evil 5 may have been released over a year ago but I still consider it to be one of the best looking games on both consoles and the game does indeed look great on both the Xbox 360 and ps3 the ps3 version of the game looks slightly less saturated and some textures look a bit softer framerate also seems to take a small hit on the ps3 when action gets hectic I notice very little drop in frame rate on the Xbox 360 version so once again I'm going to have to give this round to the Xbox 360 get ready to get to the chop up because the eternal fight between aliens predators and colonial Orient's continuing this latest installment of AVP licensed games have the tendency to to basically suck there are some exceptions and for the most part AVP games have written it along those lines the game runs on the Unreal Engine 3 which I have to admit is starting to look a bit outdated I'm not entirely sure that the Benjen is the best choice for the dark and brooding environments of the game because everything just looks a bit vague and blurry no matter what the platform we have to decide the winner here and I'm estimated the Xbox 360 looks a bit sharper in most aspects the textures the lighting effects in bump macking on a xenomorph infested walls bollocks sharper on the Xbox 360 both versions of the game run and the stable 30 frames per second but I really can't say that the graphics blow me away on either console so it's a small victory but it's pretty clear if the Xbox 360 take this one as well as you guys have definitely not least is a game that once was the ps3 exclusive that was until Microsoft flash m-series do--it Square Enix and persuaded the franchise over to the Xbox 360 I think Microsoft took out the old checkbook just to prevent the ps3 from having exclusivity of a game that may result in Xbox 360 gamers jumping ship and joining the ps3 bandwagon I think the core audience of Final Fantasy has always been on the PlayStation so I'm pretty sure it's going to sell more on the ps3 but can the Xbox 360 version compete with the once massive PSP exclusive and the short answer is no Final Fantasy 13 is a massive game the game will last you over 50 hours and 50 hours of high-definition graphics including textures we'll take a massive toll on the disk space to be precise the game takes up 40 gigabytes of a ps3 blu-ray disc and you can probably calculate that it's not going to fit over three DVDs which you find on the Xbox 360 version of the game so what they did to fit the game over three DVDs is that the cutscenes are actually running at 576p and upscale to high-def so that's right the cutscenes on the Xbox 360 version of the game are actually running at a sub HD resolution while on the ps3 the running at 1080p and I can tell you that when playing the game off a big 14 screen the differences in detail are significant while the major differences to the games can be found in the cutscenes the transparency and dithering effects on the hair of the characters look much cleaner on the ps3 and it also seemed that there are less shadow effects on the Xbox 360 version of the game so for once it seemed that the Xbox 360 has a mediocre port on its hands Final Fantasy has a history of being a PlayStation title and ps3 fans will be happy to know that they will be getting the best version of Final Fantasy 13 as you guys have no doubt noticed the trend of multi-platform Xbox 360 games running and looking better is still ongoing the ps3 has played catch-up but I can't say that I've come across a multi-platform game that looks significantly better on the ps3 and I don't expect it the Xbox 360 has been widely accepted as the main development platform because of the reason I explained in the GPU and CPU rounds for one the Xbox 360 has the anti aliasing benefit in some games for the embedded dram secondly the Xbox 360 is easy to code for because of the traditional multi-core architecture and third the Xbox 360 was first out of the gate and it has larger market share even though the ps3 could offer benefits like higher detailed textures thanks to storage space of blu-ray developers are not going to be investing money and time into making ps3 counterparts look any better because ps3 game sales aren't matching the game sales of their Xbox 360 counterparts so this may not come as a surprise the Xbox 360 takes around nine and the victory is well-deserved as well the differences are subtle and the gap between the different console versions of games has become smaller the differences are still very real and on the average multi-platform games still look better and run smoother on the Xbox 360 there are some exceptions but those are few and far between the score is now tied up at four in the next round we'll be taking it in-depth look and what the future has to offer for both consoles so stay tuned for the next round and just to clear up some confusion I am in fact non Jon Pro Lakers my name is LP and my TechnoBuffalo content is posted on Jon's channel if you're interested in seeing my content check out my own channel where you can find all my content including the causal Wars catch you later Elfi signing out