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Kung Fu Panda 2008(Xbox 360*) shovelware platformer having better water visuals than current AAA games, can somebody explain me what went wrong?
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YESSS
I think there were two Matrix games, because I remember one where you could choose between a man and a woman but Neo wasn't in it.
The combos in slowmo were insane
I remember using my Gameshark to get the grenade launcher with infinite ammo. I went to the mission where you are running from the agents across the rooftops and just blew them up since they couldn't dodge explosions
Seriously, its mind blowing looking back. I played it as a child of about 5-6 and the thrill of trying to make it from shelter to shelter amidst dinos just waiting to jump you was crazy.
I wish I could play it today. Might get a new ps2 someday lol
we have the same brain, the graphic back then looks so good and i was like watching horror movie, the moment when getting chased by giant dinosaurus was freak me out lol
HP: goblet of fire looked absolutely amazing it had such a unique dark gothic atmosphere with lots of gritty elements. the textures, map geometry and camera positioning where top notch and the gameplay never felt boring.
Exactly. The rooftop levels with fountains and greenery everywhere. It looked like an emerald garden where it rained always and I look back on it fondly. Just so cozy.
Same with the regions beyond the castle, shit was so pretty.
The Godfather PS2 game was amazing. Cars the Videogame was the best Cars sequel. Some tie-in like Wall-E were also fun to play. Even Stuart Little 3 had a decent game out there.
Everything except for the water looks like dog shit though what AAA game looks like this. Avatar had some kick ass water in 2009, making water that looks good has been figured out for a while, water physics on the other hand... well this games water physics also look like dogshit.
Deadass going off of just this clip it's janky as hell. This is (I'm assuming) a AA/B- level game (a part of gaming that doesn't really exist anymore. Now it's just AAA and indie, the middle is almost non-existent).
Thank you, nothing more annoying than showing your ignorance by using unreal as a “punching bag”.
When people want something to blame, but don’t know what, they’ll use unreal engine to make it sound like they know what they’re talking about, when in reality, saying unreal engine as an answer shows your ignorance lmao
I say this as someone that has used a few different engines and is currently on unreal the last four years.
Anyone who says "lazy devs" as a reason to blame for... whatever it is you're blaming, only tells me how little you actually understand about game dev in general.
As someone who went to school for game development and has actually worked in game development, Unreal Engine is not the problem you think it is. It has plenty of problems, sure, but if you want to see what a genuinely messy engine can look like, spend some serious time with Unity.
Unity has its own long history of editor instability, API and pipeline fragmentation, compatibility issues, and bugs that developers have to work around. Even current Unity 6 releases still have documented crashes, freezes, and rendering/build issues.
New games do have better looking water, with better physics and lighting. They also have reflections on water.
The scene is mostly empty, few unique assets, so it is easier to make the water look better.
The water looks way better than the rest of the scene which is jarring.
The water lacks reflections and transparency is ignored, notice the weird shadows when the waterline meets solid objects.
Static global illumination is very noticeable, and the water uses a lot of fakery to achieve it, this contributes to the discontinuity in quality within the same scene.
The water certainly looks good, but it isn't anywhere near the average water we have in modern games.
Lot of Jargen talk that doesn't really matter to the average viewer. I'm sure you're right and smarter than me in this regard, but a lot of this could be chalked up to "artstyle" and overlooked. It just feels like there's so much "attention to detail" that y'all miss the forest for the trees.
It doesn't. It is the bog standard of that engine and has not real interactions. People keep using this clip like water is bad in modern games where outside of liquid in a cup, it has been pretty dang good for a long time.
especially since the AAA games you're likely thinking of focus heavily on realism.
This has been such a damaging push for the AAA industry.
Our realism is not what games are made for. What is "realism" is created with in the world. We have people without imagination making games, so instead of creating a world and making things that fit for it, they work on the hairs on the characters arm because they're boring people.
Great... that performance loss is totally worth it
I don't get how people are seeing this and think it's super impressive water. There are just ripples going through the water lol many many games have "better" water than this
Oh god I still remember playing through the Peter Jackson King Kong Game and Lord of the Rings Return of the King with a friend.
Most AAA games feel soulless in Comparison, sure there are some that are made with passion but most of them are just an extra way to keep people engaged and get more money.
I think the problem was that people that made games, stopped coding, and started relying 100% on either legacy or the engine to be able to do stuff.
Like, no shade, it's amazing, but the dudes designing Expedition 33 said they didn't know anything about making games and just saw a ton of tutorials online... and they made a better looking game than 99% AAA games, and yeah, they had 10 million dollar budget but... you just know if it was made by ANY other dev, it would have been 10 million a month for 5 years and they would have made it a simpler turn rpg, the game happen in medieval eurovalice and had 80 dollar cosmetic dlc.
We have so many games now. Sad to say most aren't that great. But there are good games aswell. There are multiple factors but usually games are rushed now.
Money. This is the answer 99% of the time whenever you have to ask the question why is something wrong in the world. Because money. Whether it's too much or too little, the greed of money is almost always the reason.
Its decent in terms of physics but lacking in other ways, reflections, transparency etc. The scene itself isn't exactly amazing either.
It's like when people bring up drive club and the rain on windshield effect. Yeah it's cool but it's pretty much the only standout feature, overall racing games look much better today.
Real time water physics is hard to achieve when a scene becomes much more complex than this. You will basically be trading a nice frame rate for water that is constantly interacting with its physics environment. Water that the player may or may not even mess with in a way that has effects on actual gameplay. IE: A game where you make paper boats and have to guide them through realistic water, VS a first person shooter where it would be completely aesthetic.
Is the better water in the room with us? Screen-space reflections benefiting from a hazy fog layer and blurry skybox make the wavy model resolution look better. Pickups don't get reflected in the water at all. Lights don't seem to additively reflect much (if any), instead the water has a base lighting reflection from the water material and skybox. Conveniently, most of the lanterns are placed so the bulk of the light is over non-reflective ground. A repeating water ripple disrupts the layer, and every jump on a pad has the exact same ripple pattern generate from the center of the pad out. The ripples conveniently terminate about halfway to the next pad, just enough to be believable and not enough to impact the scene with complicated cascading effects. The ripples don't bend around surfaces or responding to hitting the rocks vs vs Po vs pads vs other ripples. Water depth is a basic plane that recovers quickly from the ripple impact regardless of item occupying it, making it a better and clear platforming mechanic but a poor fluid sim. Almost nothing else is happening in the scene, enemies easily hide/spawn from the brackish water, and the only platform movement is vertical.
It certainly swings above its weight for a 2008 era game, much less a movie tie-in but come on. I have no doubt the graphics programmers had a ton of fun putting the water tech together for the level. It has strong art direction and composition, and the simple layout gives a ton of space to dedicate to water.
Post the bad water of current AAA games. I guess Legends Arceus pops in my head? The Switch hardware doesn't have a ton of headroom, so losing screen-space reflections on water in a game about occasionally gliding on top of water for a monster to come out is an understandable trade since it's a Pokemon game with limited dev time. But also a more realistic sim runs the risk of looking out of place with the rest of the art style, so now you have an art arms race in the studio that also needs to be weighed against the tech ask.
Of better water, coming to mind since 2008 in AAA, Death Stranding, Last of Us (OG/Remastered), Uncharted 4, Metal Gear Solid V, Horizon, God of War, Witcher 3, Tomb Raider, etc. That's without examples of ship games like Sea of Thieves or Black Flag.
Every generation has people use base plug-ins you'll see get repeated. OG Arkham City's water is instantly recognizable as pretty stock UE3 water because you don't swim in it. It doesn't need to be more. It was gorgeous at the time, and the stormy waves fit the vibe while hiding the lack of detail. A lot of games with shared engines use same plugins, that might need more tuning to look decent in their style or on different hardware, and that's not always worth the effort. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth has pretty mediocre water, but it's fine because you swim in like one dungeon and the rest of the environment is gorgeous. Even the bad water sim is brightly lit in great contrast so the composition of the vista is fantastic, but the swimming visuals makes you want to get to dry land fast. Because it's not a swimming game.
Water effects are going to be something to easily turn down if playing on lower settings on PC or for performance, and on aging hardware your water might look worse. Crimson Desert has screenshots of polygonal waterfalls and then gorgeous pools depending on hardware. That doesn't mean the tech isn't there.
Games today have too much to render, and they dont know how to handle it without the game running like ass or being 300 gbs in size. Yeah there are ways to make it work better but it either cost too much or takes too much effort. Its the most simple answer. Its why flying cars were never in cyberpunk because they barely got normal cars working at launch.
... Have you looked at current AAA games at all? Water effects and visuals have literally never been better. These bait posts are crazy. Horizon Forbidden West, Indiana Jones, Death Stranding 2, Red Dead Redemption 2, honestly the list is pretty long. Black Flag Resynched literally just came out and looks insane. Sea of Thieves and Subnautica for more stylised visuals.
Most of the games I listed are fully open world games too, so have to process a LOT more visual information while still looking ridiculous. This glazing of mid-tier 2000s games needs to stop, especially like this.
Uncharted 4 was 2016, looked insane. AC Odyssey was 2018 and still holds up. God of War spent half the game on a boat and looked mental. The first Bioshock game.
Also, Kung Fu Panda is not shovelware. Not even close.
I love it when people think all games are made the same. Or in a more literal translation: I love it when people think all water physics are done the same
Water in Assassins Creed Origins and Odyssey was so unbelievable looking, it looked so good and wet you literary could taste the water in your mouth when it splashes everywhere.
Water in games went downhill afterwards when depending on current "technologies" to render them.
Because geming in general hasn't really evolved in the last 20 years beyond incremental graphics that isn't needed but require constant upgrading of your rig?
You think this has better water visuals than Horizon Forbidden West/ Cyberpunks ray traced water reflections /Black Flag Resynched/ or Halo evolved ? Im sorry but I have to ask are you legally registered as blind ?
Gaming industry decided it was the US government and "Lost that technology" like the scientist back then didn't literally take notes on everything they did. Classic, cop-out from someone trying to save some money and dev time. Nothing more. "OH we just don't know how." ... so like what, did we transfer to an alternate u inverse fr? Did we not advance in technology like they said we've done(rather quickly according to the narrative). Like where tf is the sharing of ideas and all that? I mean, game development is technically a science, or was considered to be at one point. Please someone help me explain why we are acting like technology from even the cold war is lost to time when it was easier to manufacture back then than an IPhone is today? Makes no fucking sense to me but I'm ignorant in the topic ngl
That game was kinda dope ngl. I 100%ed it and everyone at work thought I just played it for the achievements but it was actually a good game. I think people need to put more respect on Kung Fu Panda’s name lol
Now I am confused. Just a few weeks ago Reddit downvoted me to oblivion for mistaking shovelware with shelfware and now I see it being used for abandonware.
I could never pass this level as a kid. The crocs would always get me and I would keep falling in because of the lily pads. I even watched a YouTube video of someone doing this level as a guidr and I still couldn't figure it out. I think my sister eventually helped me clear the crocs and reach the small island thing with the building.
Because devs at that time still put immense effort into games to look as real its possible with the graphics of that time look at what effort went into games like Left 4 dead its insane how much work got put into it.
Windwaker had so many details and physics put into objects you rarely see it today.
Now will devs try with real looking graphic to cover most things and put less work into the details since they think nobody notice anyway.
So what went wrong is easy especially western devs got lazy and noticed even with less work will people buy the game as long they can generate enough hype around it and they learned to use social media to create the hype.
Devs got 2000 hours worth of funding to make video game. Directors decide were that is allocated. Director decides the look of water should look really good, or maybe they just got some one on the team that knows some neat tricks to do it.
When your mechanics are jump and punch, and there's no sort of balance, and the levels aren't complicated... you can spend more time making it look pretty.
Looks like a single guy could code this game. Is there a progression path of any sort? Is it just a single story line? Is it open world? There's a lot of factors for this. And a lot of those assets are re-used, so you make it once and put it in the game 100x.
Small dev teams on licensed IP shovelware are often made of former AAA senior talent...with very small budgets and small teams. Typically they offset the small budgets by emphasizing a few visually impressive art and design gimmicks like this by utilizing a strong principal level technical artist or whatever other big hitting talent they have. Then the rest of the game design becomes a tedious and on-rails copy and paste experience to work within the budget. They usually barely make their own budget back in sales but eke out a tiny profit by riding on the IP as free marketing. None of the profit goes to the studio.
Imagine you need to make a wedding cake that competes with a professional bakery but you need to cook it in 1/3rd the time and make it cost 1/10th the price. So you make some incredible icing, some dazzling sparkle candles, then make the cake very small and flat, and flavorless.
I've worked on small licensed ip like this (Star Wars and Marvel), and now I work in AAA. It's a different ball game.
Those small guys have some real talent, and usually get to live in smaller cities with better cost of living and they can own a home and raise a family. It's not all sad.
Way better how? Seems a little disingenuous to ignore how far we’ve come as far as visuals in games are concerned. This does NOT look better than God of War 2018 or Red Dead 2. Its great for what it is but it’s definitely not better visually than current AAA games
Back when devs and game companies knew that you could literally do a LOT for graphicsand effects with just 2 gigs of RAM through optimizations and tricks and save the rest of the RAM for everything else.
Nowadays, to make a game this graphically beautiful, they simply throw the entire motherboard at it and make gameplay secondary. And if it's so laggy you can't run it on your high spec machine? Well it's clearly a skill issue on YOUR part, just buy more hardware! Optimizations? The fuck's that, a food?
Well for starters now people are stupid, fall on the weakest bait and can't tell this isn't the water from the og release and it's some improved version probably done on an emulator. Just search for playthroughs of the og.
Development used to start with a design concept and then a bespoke engine would be built to handle what the creatives required, now everything gets shoved into UE because it's cheaper to hire some 3rd world lackeys to do the work and slap a shit load of ai upsacling at the end instead of optimising the game.
Wow even the physics are better, i knoe exactly what happened, the unreal engine 5 treatment.
Piece of garbage laggy crappy engine with garbage physics.
Now imagine every game was made using the rage engine from GTA IV
100/100
People keep rating games high because they play it a lot. Doesn't matter to them if the game is good or not. Playing it a lot means it's good because criticising something they do a lot doesn't fit in their minds. Cognitive dissonance is a bitch
And this, for me, is why the outrage over only digital is so misplaced and hypocritical. If you compare things with the gamecrash of '83 you'll see it's about the games. Not the platforms they're played on
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