Fatal inertia initial impressions

[JABBERJAW]

I borrowed someone's xbox 360 and got fatal inertia. Initial play, I was kinda eh, it's ok, then I tried out the faster speed classes with somewhat upgraded ships and things really picked up. this game is more than fast enough and the physics are pretty good. Ship design is gaga, but overall a pretty good game. the weapons are pretty decent(i thought it would be complete crap), and how they affect the ship are pretty cool.

One complaint. In the weapons race mode, you do not pick up any good speed boost weapons if you are in first place(sound familiar). THis is the mode that should feel most like wipeout. Luckily, there is another mode called velocity where you pick up speed boosts or missle like things, so there is not bs there. Think I'll send them an email for the ps3 version regarding the "cpu assist" on the best mode. Without that, I would give this game quite a high score.

Very hard when you start moving in the higher speed classes

[Mad-Ice]

Mmmm, it does sound okay! I saw an interview some while ago with the game running in the background. This guy really broke the game down to the ground! He didn't like the physics at all and there was too much debris on the track to have a good floathing race. Can you tell us more about the physics of the ship, how it is handling? Because from the ingame footage I saw it handled like fusion in the open areas!!!!

Thanks in advance

[Lion]

I thought this game was more jetplane type racing? ie: not attached to the track in any way, just involved flying through some hoops or something.. am I way off the mark?
if the above is correct, then I wouldn't expect track debris to be a problem.

[supersocks]

At first it was hinted by developers that it was supposed to be pretty much direct reincarnation of Slipstream 5000 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuGBRlyMROY) (save for physics and weapons enhancements) but at some point they supposedly decided to stick more with the ground.

Which is a shame.

[Rapier Racer]

Wasn't this game originally supposed to be a PS exclusive? They went from that to cross platform then to PS3 version available in 2008??? Screw Fatal Inertia and its developers. :-

[JABBERJAW]

It is ground based, when you let the pitch control go, it floats back towards the ground, and you have to control the pitch alot up hills and down. The hoops are just where the track goes. I would say it controls more like wipeout than quantum redshift. You can go over falling debri if you are ready for it.The debris comes from people shooting the environment. There are a lot of modes, so you don't even need to play it that way. Don't believe some reviews, some said it was way too slow, and they obviously played the first level and that was it. The same thing happened for QR with some reviewers

[Dr. Angryman]

@ Rapier Racer: Well, according to reveiws, the game sucked anyway... on the Xbox 360. That might mean that KOEI will improve its game in time for the PS3 version, thus the PS3 version might be better. Good news for Sony, bad news for Microsoft.

[G'Kyl]

I don't think that's gonna happen. The only reason they had to delay the PS3 version is because the damn thing is even damn harder to program. Don't get me wrong, I love them both (consoles), but as long as developers won't figure out how to make PS3 games as good looking (better even, considering the price) as their 360 counterparts one must conclude that MS built the better piece of hardware.

Ben

[Lion]

apparently, the problem is generally that developers use the 360 for the initial stages "oh, we'll get the grunt work done on 360, then port to PS3" and the act of porting IN THAT DIRECTION is a hell of a lot harder than expected.
From what the developers of the upcoming burnout have said.. it's not so bad going the other direction, and as long as you are writing specifically for the PS3 hardware, the results can look incredible (apparently burnout is better on PS3 than 360 in it's upcoming incarnation)
for first party studios like studio liverpool, this isn't a consideration, as PS3 is the only target... unless the engine's meant to be scalable to PSP and/or PS2

[G'Kyl]

unless the engine's meant to be scalable to PSP and/or PS2

Is that even possible? I figure there must be a reason why 360/PS3 versions differ largely from any other simultaneous release...

Ben

[JABBERJAW]

When given a chance, the game doesn't suck. Imagine playin only wipoeut vector speed and then writng a review, because that is what you are getting with some of these. Some of the reviews said the wipeout formula is old(NOOOO) and outdated. Some said it played just like wipeout with no identity, some said you should play Gotham racing instead(UH, don't think so). IF someone wants a futuristic or just a really fast racer, gotham certainly wouldn't be the choice.

As far as the games that are better on xbox, epic didn't make the unreal engine as good for ps3 as for xbox(or it was too hard to use), so every game that used that engine had some problems, However sony game epic some money to fix up the engine correctly(or so I read). Maybe Rob could verify this.