First and foremost I'd like to bring to your attention the new blog header I now have. Sexy, right? Really brings out my user page. I didn't make it, nor was it someone any of you know. A friend of mine made it for me, and did a pretty good job expressing my love for PS3.
But that's not what am here to talk about. I am here to talk about a rather interesting topic, Nvidia's RSX Reality Synthesizer. I assume most of you know what that is, or even have a basic idea of it. For those who may not, it's the unique graphics processing unit (fancy for video card) located in the PS3. It has a dedicated memory of 256 MB. May not seem like much but it certainly seems extremely capable of churning out realistic, gorgeous, and simply hypnotising high defintion gaming.
256 MB of memory... What has that shown us? Let's start with what we first saw. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Resistance: Fall of Man, Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction, MotorStorm, and others. All of these had excellent graphics, each unique in its own way. But at the time of their release, the 360 had by far much superior visual capabilities with the likes of Gears of War and Condemned keeping gamers busy.
That is a phase that lasted all the way till June 2008. "Why does that ring a bell?" you ask? Because in that month, we witnessed what might be the game of the decade. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. This was the best game visually at the time of release. Not only that, but easily the best game at the time of release but that's another the story. The matter I am focusing on right now is the visual aspect.
Could you have ever believed that such a highly-detailed face could be rendered on your own PlayStation 3 system? I suppose not. I can recall that EVERY time I played it, I would just stop playing and stare at the marvel that is MGS4. But it didn't reign supreme for long as the PS3 hasn't yet proven its mettle.
More often than not, we still got the unusual feeling that something wasn't enough. And were we right? Or were we just being greedy? No. We were merely demanding our rights.
Soon, that was answered by Naughty Dog who announced Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. But it had only been announced, and barely any details were given. Just a few not-so-clear screenshots here and there. Then we got to see gameplay videos, conferences, it all began to breathe. And to further show-off, they handed us our share of the game with the beta which was opened to the public only months afterwards.
And how many of you were not absloutely wowed? Most of us were left speechless (one of which was myself). We just played it in shock. The question that was going through my head was, "Is this some kind of illusion or is my PS3 actually running this?"
And time flew and soon I had my own copy of this terrific game. And yet again, I was wowed even further.
Just look at the above-postedimage very carefully. Look at all the details. First look at his shirt, the way it bends. And the shadows just around his body. And the shadows everywhere in the world. Textures, focal blur, lighting, it's all too good. And it stays true to its quality all the way down to the last minute that you'll squeeze in impatience out of it. Impressive, am I right?
And today as I went through some video game websites, there was a source that called Uncharted 2 "the benchmark of console games." And that was soon followed by a statement ushered that Heavy Rain will "blow" it away. I can only imagine. Having looked at all the gameplay videos that statement is not far from the truth. But how far will it blow it away may I ask? With only under a month left, I can't wait to further test the RSX's capabilities.
From where I see it, the PS3's visual capabilites just keep on expanding without knowing boundaries. So here I am to ask, following the release of Heavy Rain, will we be "blown" away by any other unexpected title? I certainly hope so. And as I leave, I leave you with one more image to enjoy.
