Gaming Lego City: Undercover The Chase Begins Hype Thread

[granville]

I'll also add that while the console Lego games animate the cutscenes using the in-engine character models, no handheld versions have done since Lego Batman on PSP. The handheld versions instead opt to use pre-rendered video clips that were recorded from the console versions. Now this wouldn't be a big deal as the console versions do have better graphics, but there are two issues with that. First, using video clips instead of rendering your cutscenes in real time using the ingame engine is a big waste of space. Using the ingame engine to animate cutscenes uses far less data that could instead go towards more actual game content. The second problem is probably again more inherent with them using the inferior DS engine, but the character models just aren't as good as the could be. Even compared to the older PSP Lego games, the models just aren't as good. Especially the character faces.

Take a look at one of the PSP Lego games before they started using the dumbed down DS engine. While the graphical concessions are apparent (and it's certainly not fair to compare them to the open world games of today), I still have a lot of respect for the developers putting effort into getting the console versions running on the less powerful PSP hardware. In some ways, these earlier Lego games on PSP actually clearly look better than the newer ones-

Very clear. It's sad that they cannot make a better engine for the 3DS, I mean the 3DS has better graphics than the PSP, so I'm sure it will be awesome if they could make an engine to match the 3DS's capabilities. Yup, they are lazy indeed.

Apart from all this, what game size would this be? The 3DS cartridge max is 8GB, do you think it will be like about 7GB?

Not sure how big it would be. If they actually really ported the console version to the 3DS in a graphically scaled back manner, the game certainly wouldn't be as large in size as the Wii U version. One element that would no doubt be compressed heavily are the textures. Not just out of technical necessity due to weaker 3DS hardware, but because it doesn't really matter to have uber high res textures anyways on such a small low res screen. A lot of the scaled back visuals in general would certainly take up considerably less space than they do on Wii U. I'd imagine the sound would be compressed as well.

And as I mentioned above, the cutscenes would likely be in-engine and not take up as much space as the pre-rendered cutscenes they're using in the current 3DS game.

I do wonder how large in size Lego City on 3DS actually is though. I get the feeling it's not using a very massive cartridge. Previous Lego games were all only on 512MB cartridges.

 

[Jiehfeng]

Yeah, the cut scenes are like videos pasted into the game.
And yeah, it could be about 2GB cause it's open world for one reason, and definitely way bigger than the previous 3DS lego games. Bigger than LEGO batman 1 or 2 even.
Would be interesting to see how this will turn out.

 

[Jiehfeng]

Currently, regular devs can't access those cartridge sizes, only those who are in close contact with Nintendo can. The biggest cartridge out there is 4GB and used for RE:R. Nintendo has stated that 8GB is the potential maximum for future games, that is until somebig name developers decides to use them. Bigger carts are more expensive and won't be an option until they're in large scale production. This game will more than likely be on a 2GB cart.

Big companies eh? Like Ubisoft's assassin's creed games for instance?
Looking forward to see what game would take up 8gb space.

 

[Jiehfeng]

Sorry for the triple post,
do you think the load times are long like the WiiU?

In the start. you can see a little long loading screen.
If there are long loading times, what's the cause, why can't TT games manage this?

 

[Rizsparky]

Woohoo!
New gameplay video showing off the free roam in the game. Really nice design.

I'm double hyped.

Impressive, kinda hyped

 

[Ergo]

What do you mean?

I mean that coming from a world of Turok (N64) and Daytona USA (Saturn) these draw distances are nothing in comparison, i.e. hearing people go on about it gave me the impression it was on that level--literally a wall of fog, 30' ahead (or, in Daytona's case, just straight-up pop-in).

In short: after expecting utter horror, this is waaaaay better than what people were going on about, at least in my older gamer brain.

 

[Eerpow]

Yeah, the cut scenes are like videos pasted into the game.

Cut scenes take up less space if they're in-game because they use assets and such that already are in the game data. A video file contains a lot more extra information. That's why games with lots of pre-rendered cut scenes are so huge, some of the DS's biggest game carts are for Professor Layton and Ni No Kuni for example. I bet that half or even more of LEGO City 3DS game data consists of only video files because of this.
Any idea how big the Wii U game is?

Unlike what I've seen of Undercover that Batman game seems to suffer from framerate and vsync issues, quite a lot. Sure that wouldn't be a problem on the more powerful 3DS if they used the same engine. Even if the engine Undercover uses isn't as good, at least it doesn't suffer from those problems, so maybe we shouldn't complain much.

I don't care much if they use sub dreamcast quality models in games as long as it doesn't take away from gameplay, but I'm really picky when it comes to framerate however.

 

[Jiehfeng]

I mean that coming from a world of Turok (N64) and Daytona USA (Saturn) these draw distances are nothing in comparison, i.e. hearing people go on about it gave me the impression it was on that level--literally a wall of fog, 30' ahead (or, in Daytona's case, just straight-up pop-in).

In short: after expecting utter horror, this is waaaaay better than what people were going on about, at least in my older gamer brain.

Ahh yes.
But actually, I expected this. I knew the fog is gonna be like this cause I watched the 7 minute gameplay video.
I didn't give me the impression, It's better than I thought it would be! I still don't like the fog though, well this is a start for the 3DS.
If the fog wasn't there, the city would be more lively. Cause all the elements (buildings, seats, trashcans etc), cannot be seen except the ones VERY close to you if there was a fog.
If there wasn't a, it would look more impressive, err, how should I put this, more like a city, more beautiful.
And another disadvantage is you can't see what's ahead unless you go there. It wastes time actually.
Say you're in a car chase, the other vehicle is way ahead, you can't see what's further until you get there, if there wasn't a fog, we can see the vehicle far in the roads which would be better in a mission like this.
Or even while walking or driving, you don't know what's ahead, so you may even crash into a wall.

Cut scenes take up less space if they're in-game because they use assets and such that already are in the game data. A video file contains a lot more extra information. That's why games with lots of pre-rendered cut scenes are so huge, some of the DS's biggest game carts are for Professor Layton and Ni No Kuni for example. I bet that half or even more of LEGO City 3DS game data consists of only video files because of this.
Any idea how big the Wii U game is?

I don't care much if they use sub dreamcast quality models in games as long as it doesn't take away from gameplay, but I'm really picky when it comes to framerate however.

The WiiU game is 22GB
And the 3DS frame rate isss, 20fps.

So these are the cons so far:
1. Fog
2. 20fps (not sure if it is a problem)
3. Invisible vehicles and civilians (can be taken under fog)

 

[Jiehfeng]

New Gameplay:

 

[Jiehfeng]

As you can see in that video, some of the cut scenes are actually in game.

 

[Wombo Combo]

So can you run anyone over in the game?

 

[Jiehfeng]

So can you run anyone over in the game?

Yeah, you can, they don't die though, no lego person can die XD

 

[granville]

Cut scenes take up less space if they're in-game because they use assets and such that already are in the game data. A video file contains a lot more extra information. That's why games with lots of pre-rendered cut scenes are so huge, some of the DS's biggest game carts are for Professor Layton and Ni No Kuni for example. I bet that half or even more of LEGO City 3DS game data consists of only video files because of this.
Any idea how big the Wii U game is?

Yes. A rather staggering amount of data in the 3DS games are taken up by the videos. When you've got all the assets already available ingame to use like the console games or even the pre-Lego Indy 2 PSP games, you don't need to use a video. You can just animate everything in real time. It's much more efficient and conservative way of handling precious data. Much more so than using video clips. That extra data can be used for other more important elements like content. Granted the cutscenes won't look quite as good, but these are Lego characters anyways, not important that they have ridiculously high polygon counts (as one can clearly see on the Wii and older PSP Lego games, they scale down quite well to accommodate lower detail hardware).

Unlike what I've seen of Undercover that Batman game seems to suffer from framerate and vsync issues, quite a lot. Sure that wouldn't be a problem on the more powerful 3DS if they used the same engine. Even if the engine Undercover uses isn't as good, at least it doesn't suffer from those problems, so maybe we shouldn't complain much.

I don't care much if they use sub dreamcast quality models in games as long as it doesn't take away from gameplay, but I'm really picky when it comes to framerate however.

There are some issues with the Lego games on PSP, but my point was that it's very clear that there's a lot more effort put into replicating the console experience than there has been since on handhelds. Much more so than in newer handheld Lego games. Which despite their visual downgrades, still can have framerate issues btw, I noticed some in the demos for Lego Batman 2 and Lord of The Rings on 3DS.

The framerate in the video I posted actually seems worse than in other videos i've seen of the game though. I'm guessing the game has the option of using the PSP's overclocking or something, either that or the recording process messed up. But regardless, the game can apparently play better than this as seen in this video for example-


I too am picky with regards to framerate. The issue here though is that the game could likely still have kept a very solid framerate had the 3DS versions of these games had a better engine behind them in the first place. It probably would have eliminated much of the poor draw distance in the game and allowed better character models (and more of them onscreen) and still played more smoothly. It again goes back to the engine, the engine just doesn't look like it was designed for this sort of thing or for more powerful hardware than DS. Its DS roots are clear and the handheld games are being held back due to that engine. I think had they ported the console engine used in the Wii Lego games and this game had used it, the game would have still played at least as smoothly if not smoother than what we have now and had much better draw distance and visuals overall. I don't expect it to look as good as on Wii U obviously, but better than what it looks like right now.

As you can see in that video, some of the cut scenes are actually in game.

Eh, kind of but not really. Those scenes have no voice acting and the characters' faces aren't even rigged for animation at all. You can see the limits of the ingame character models and how they're lacking in detail and animation that even the PSP versions of Lego games used to have. The cutscenes in the voiced parts are what I consider actual cutscenes.

 

[Technicmaster0]

Why do you all think that TT Fusion used the engine of the DS? They had two years to develope the game! Maybe the 3DS is really not powerful enough to handle games like that with a better view distance. It's still a 3DS (and a Nintendo console) that has to handle the 3D effect and it's no Vita (which is more powerful). We can't compare the game with other games because we 1) havn't seen a "good" open world game yet and we don't even own the game yet. Why do you want to judge a game with some bad youtube videos (at least the quality isn't very good)?

 

[granville]

Why do you all think that TT Fusion used the engine of the DS? They had two years to develope the game! Maybe the 3DS is really not powerful enough to handle games like that with a better view distance. It's still a 3DS (and a Nintendo console) that has to handle the 3D effect and it's no Vita (which is more powerful). We can't compare the game with other games because we 1) havn't seen a "good" open world game yet and we don't even own the game yet. Why do you want to judge a game with some bad youtube videos (at least the quality isn't very good)?

I'll address a few of your points. The 3DS is around GC/Wii levels, so it's completely fair to say that it could handle a better game engine than what they're showing here. One that is somewhat closer in caliber to the Lego games seen on the normal Wii (and even PS2 and Gamecube). The Wii again has consistently been getting full-on ports of the other console versions for years now, albeit scaled down graphically and physics-wise to compensate for the lesser hardware. But nevertheless there's no reason you couldn't get some of the Wii games running on 3DS.

The most logical and obvious reasons are that porting a DS game to another handheld is easier and cheaper than TT Games personally developing console ports to the handhelds (which again they used to do with the PSP until they probably discovered it was easier and cheaper to just get some B-team like TT Fusion to port their DS versions for them instead). Handheld games by their nature tend to have very small budgets compared to console games in general. While we don't really know exactly what the budget was for the 3DS version, it's very fair to assume that it was far less than the Wii U version (which is one of the Wii U's biggest and more hyped games). And for a less hyped handheld version of a game, they're not going to put anywhere close to the amount of effort into it. It's much easier to port a DS game to the 3DS than it is to port over a console game to the 3DS, even if the hardware in question is completely capable of handling the superior engine. And remember that this happened even with the PSP versions before there were even any open world elements to the games. The PSP games received a very clear downgrade in visuals, content, level design, and physics overall in comparison to how they were before Lego Indy 2.

As you brought up the Vita, one should also mention that the Vita has been receiving ports of the DS versions of Lego games as well. The visuals are somewhat better than on DS, but the ports are missing a TON of the content, graphical assets and effects, and physics found even in the ordinary Wii versions of these games. Thus far the Vita has received versions of Lego Harry Potter 2, Lego Batman 2 and Lego LOTR. Two of those Lego games had open world areas on the consoles that were present in the Wii versions but they were cut out of the Vita version as the Vita versions were ports of the DS versions. Now while the 3DS is comparable to GC/Wii from a hardware perspective, I don't think anyone here or most other places will disagree with the fact that the Vita is a rather major step up from Wii hardware. So ask yourself the same question- why does TT Fusion continue to use the DS engine on the Vita versions of these games when even the Wii is continuing to get ports of the other console versions with open world elements? Is that because the Vita isn't powerful enough? Of course not, hardware capability is clearly not the issue, and neither is it the case with the 3DS version. The answer is that it's easier and cheaper to just port the DS versions of these games to other handheld systems and continue to use the same engine.

 

[Technicmaster0]

However, this is not a "normal" lego game with ports for every console. You can't really compare it to the PSP. The 3DS version shares many things like the map with the Wii U version. Why should it have souch a high budget? But I believe that they can sell more copies of the handheld version because no one owns a Wii U. That could be a reason to give the handheld devs more money.

Jiehfeng posted a link to a interview one page ago:

We've really pushed the 3DS hardware as far as it will go, and I think players will appreciate being able to drive around a full open world on their handheld systems.

I can't say whether it's just advertising or not but they say that they used the hardware as good as they could.

 

[granville]

There have been "normal" Lego games though on PSP, 3DS and Vita that still weren't ports of the console versions. The trend of putting less effort into the handheld versions has been in effect for longer than this game or the other open world Lego games have been around. And again on hardware that is obviously more than powerful enough to handle it. This isn't hard to understand that TT just isn't putting the same effort into the handheld games ever since they discovered they could just port the DS versions to the other handheld system and save time, money and effort. And the downgrades to these games go far deeper than just the absence of an open world as stated before.

Traveler's Tales also claimed back when Lego Pirates of the Caribbean came out that the 3DS version was a port of the Wii version, which it is absolutely not (again it is a port of the DS version). Don't listen to everything they tell you, they're running the hype machine with a pack of lies.

 

[Jiehfeng]

Will have to wait for a review for this.
I still have some small doubts.

 

[Jiehfeng]

I took some screen shots to compare the WiiU from the 3DS.
You can tell how the fog is:

Spoiler

You can tell how the fog is and what is hides. I wish it weren't there.
Thoughts?

 

[Technicmaster0]

Traveler's Tales also claimed back when Lego Pirates of the Caribbean came out that the 3DS version was a port of the Wii version, which it is absolutely not (again it is a port of the DS version). Don't listen to everything they tell you, they're running the hype machine with a pack of lies.

That's the reason why I wrote "I can't say whether it's just advertising or not".