A Lasting Remnant of Unreal Engine at Square-Enix
The Last Remnant was Square-Enix's first foray into middleware development with its use of Unreal Engine 3, and many fans like myself had hoped it would be the last. While The Last Remnant was a decent RPG, the game was hidden under a mountain of bugs and at times a frame rate that would make a Powerpoint presentation laugh. But it looks like Square-Enix isn't quite done experimenting with middleware according to a recent interview Square-Enix president Yoichi Wada had with Edge Magazine in which he said that Unreal Engine 3 would be used in future games on a "case-by-case basis."
I'm glad that Square-Enix isn't going to try and shoehorn Unreal Engine 3 into all of its games, I hope that at least they experiment more with the engine before trying to use it again in a game. Square-Enix used Unreal Engine 3 to speed up development by not creating their own game engine, but in the end The Last Remnant could have used a lot more time for bug checking because it had used Unreal Engine 3, and the development time to make the game run smoothly would have been about the same.
Of course, I'm a bit biased since I was already not a fan of Unreal Engine 3. I have yet to see a game made using the engine that doesn't have a ton of texture pop-in and frame rate issues. And that's without mentioning the fact that developers seem unable to create a game with it that doesn't have unnaturally shiny light reflections. And when you look at other middleware software, like say Valve's Source engine, which is far less prone to technical hiccups, it seems odd that Unreal Engine 3 is the default middleware of choice. Maybe I'm the only one that thinks games should consistently run smoothly, but it's a value that I'm going to stand by as long as I play games.
NaviFairy
Posted to Video Games on 31 December 2008
· Comments (4)
Other stuff like this: Square-Enix, The Last Remnant, Unreal Engine 3
Bioshock is the only Unreal 3 Engine game that's consistently stable in my experiences. The Source engine stomps it in terms of stability, versatility and quality (Left 4 Dead is gorgeous on PC).
The biggest problem with Unreal Engine 3 is that developers can't seem to make humans that have skin that doesn't look like it's been coated with high-gloss polymers. Stranglehold was REALLY bad about that (a shame, because otherwise it was a pretty good looking game).
I just played GTA IV for the first time the other day, and I found it remarkably ugly. Mishmash textures and unnatural darkness/glowing up the wazoo. It's not Unreal though, so maybe this is an industry-wide problem.
I would guess the aesthetic grew out of FPSes and how they have to lumacode everything so you can tell that glowstick A is an enemy and glowstick B is some ammo, and all the drab gray crap is just walls, so ignore it. More modestly paced games like RPGs need artistic design, not polygons and light sources.
The 360 consistently wins the graphics comparisons for all the multiported titles, but I don't believe that says as much about the hardware as it does about the laziness of the industry. After all, which game won everyone's award for best graphics? Metal Gear Solid 4, running on its own engine and designed and deployed specifically for the PS3.
Games are so samey these days, and it bugs me to no end.
Of Course Square Enix is not going to use Unreal Engine 3 in all of it's games, they won't have to, once they unveil the Crystal Engine it's going to be the most advanced engine at the time. It's probably gonna have it's rights sold off to other companies so they can also make a Square Enix quality game with the use of it's special engine. Although I wouldn't count on it, Square Enix is going to flaunt it in their new MMORPG that uses it. This mmorpg will be THE Next Gen RPG, Not another WoW or Everquest clone, or one of those shitty Korean level grinding games. It will be a game of true vast depth content an ever expansive world that can be partially/fully automated based on it's game engine alone. Variations and variables present that not only the client sees, but the entire gameworld, with full AI who can interact on a very advanced level while maintaining support of being an ingame character at all times. Shit I'm high right now just thinking of the coolest things I'd like to see in a video game, which my standards have always been very high when in regards to video games. The ultimate critic, I could design the best video game engine possible. Just have an unlimited budget for a team under me to create a video game, as long as they know how to keep up in the content
Wow! I agree so much with this article! I loathe Unreal Engine 3, and it's extremely weird to me that everyone uses it as though it's the Holy Grail of game engines. With the exception of Bioshock and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, every game using it has a choppy framerate, shimmery shadows, harsh lighting and unrealistic-looking skin and textures. Unfortunately, most Xbox 360 games nowadays use this broken engine, which means that most Xbox 360 games look and play like crap. Other engines don't have the problems that UE3 has...why can't they get it right?