Technology

These are the hands that ruined a movie

What the hell do you call this? Good grief, it looks like someone took a dump and sealed it between the two layers of this BD-50. This is one of the worst high definition transfers I've ever seen, and it reflects very badly on Disney that they thought it was in an acceptable state for release. I'm not convinced that any additional commentary is necessary on my part: just look at the pictures, as they do a more than adequate job of conveying the sheer awfulness of this disc.

Gangs of New York
(Buena Vista, USA, VC-1, 38.8 GB)

It's okay to emote, you know

Over the last few days, I've been playing a game I got the previous Christmas but, for one reason or another, never really devoted much time to, until now. The Witcher is based on a series of Polish fantasy novels by Andrzej Sapkowski, about which I must confess I know next to nothing. I am, however, told that they are phenomenally successful in their homeland, spawning a film and television series, comics, card games and now a PC role-playing game.

On the face of it, the game is not unlike any number of other CRPGs. Based on the Aurora Engine developed by BioWare for Neverwinter Nights, it features a tried and true combination of character building, item hunting, monster-whupping and plot development. It's in respect to the latter that The Witcher distinguishes itself. Most fantasy RPGs have a fairly black and white view of the world, usually pits noble humans, elves and dwarves against irredeemable, bloodthirsty orcs, ogres and the living dead. This isn't entirely surprising when you consider that almost all fantasy worlds are ultimately derived from JRR Tolkien's writing, which had an "us vs. them" mindset to an even greater degree. As much as I enjoy games like Baldur's Gate and Diablo, therefore, I often find myself drawn to the ones that try to do something a little different. Planescape: Torment, one of the best games of all time, did that by situating the game in the wildly unique and imaginative Planescape universe, which is devoid of traditional elves and goblins, and also by allowing the player to create a morally grey character whose actions and behaviour would have lasting implications on how he was treated and how the story unfolded. Seemingly minor decisions the player made at the beginning of the game could come back to bite him/her later - the Butterfly Effect, if you like.

I'm not going to suggest that The Witcher is the new Planescape: Torment. It's far too clunky and awkwardly written (a by-product, I suspect, of the fact that I'm playing an English translation of a game originally written in Polish) for that. Planescape: Torment didn't exactly have the most wonderful gameplay mechanics either (it used BioWare's Infinity engine, whose combat system always seemed somewhat counter-intuitive, particularly in comparison with action-oriented CRPGs like Diablo), but its writing was first-rate, particularly for a computer game, and it, in conjunction with the evocative graphics and Mark Morgan's moody score, helped suck the player into the world. In comparison, The Witcher's mechanics seem rather unwieldy, while the world depicted definitely feels closer to a pastiche of Tolkien than something as original as Planescape, with the usual vile beasts and ale-swilling dwarves (complete with cod-Scottish accents, of course, since for some reason people have got it into their heads that all dwarves hail from my part of the world).

It does, however, appear to take the notion of the Butterfly Effect philosophy of game design to the next level. Seemingly insignificant decisions can open up entirely new avenues, while at the same time closing others off. There is also a commendable effort, on the part of the writers, to create a feeling of moral ambivalence, in that no ideology, race or decision is defined as unwaveringly good or bad. In the first chapter, for instance, there is an incident in which you have to choose between siding with some pitchfork-waving yokels who want to burn the local witch, and aligning yourself with the witch in order to fight off her assailants. This was by no means a straightforward decision. The locals were clearly stupid, violent and led astray by a corrupt priest, but at the same time ample evidence existed to suggest that the witch might very well have been up to no good. Champion of the underdog that I am, I decided to help out the witch, although, given that I then had to single-handedly defeat a horde of armed yobs, I suspect I chose the tougher path. The point is, though, that the game provided me with a moral dilemma and, instead of going with the easier option, I opted for what that felt more ethically acceptable. That, to me, is the essence of good game storytelling.

Clinging to the flotsam

Recent reports about the closing of Flagship Studios may have been premature... but that's about as far as it goes. After four days of silence, the company has finally put out an official statement on the matter, claiming that, while the bulk of the staff have been laid off, the studio still exists as an entity and has retained the rights to its games. As per DIII.net:

San Francisco, CA (July 14, 2008) -- Flagship Studios has announced today that despite rumors to the contrary, the company is still operating.

"It is with deep regret that I must announce that Flagship Studios has laid off most employees. However, the core management and founding team members are still at Flagship." said Bill Roper, CEO of Flagship Studios. "The past five years have been an incredible experience for us, but unfortunately, we couldn't sustain the size of the company any longer."

Flagship Studios owns the rights to all its technology and IP, including Hellgate: London and Mythos. Due to the current situation, Flagship will not be taking any new subscribers for Hellgate: London, and all current subscriptions will not be billed.

Flagship wishes to extend their heartfelt thanks to those that have supported the company and games over the past five years.

Regardless of which side of the fence you're on, I don't think this development can be considered to be particularly good news. It smells suspiciously like a last ditch attempt to hold on to their property, and, although I'm first and foremost in favour of artists being allowed to have control over their own work, whether the results are good or bad, part of me feels that it would be better for the game in the long run for it to be handed over to someone else. With only a skeleton crew left at the studio, I highly doubt that we will be seeing any ongoing content updates (such as the 2.0 patch, currently in beta on the test server) any time soon. In any event, their reputation has been so greatly tarnished, partly because of false information being reported by several major gaming news sites as fact, and partly because of the reality of the situation (bugs, lack of content updates, general lukewarm reaction to the game itself), that, barring divine intervention, which of course is a fantasy, there's no way they're going to bounce back.

Really, this is just prolonging the inevitable. I will, however, be holding off on my planned Hellgate/Flagship autopsy until we have more definitive news about what to expect from the game and the company in the future.

Gaming in living colour

Well, the decidedly neutered 2008 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is under way, and, as Lyris reports, Microsoft are set to shovel yet another selection of derivative and/or colour-sucked titles out on to the Xbox 360, along with some big news in the form of their ensnaring of the previously Playstation 3-exclusive Final Fantasy XIII. For me, the only upcoming games that have any pulling power whatsoever are Diablo III, Starcraft II and Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 (in roughly that order), only the latter of which is being shown at the expo, so none of this really matters from my perspective.

And yes, Anephric, you were right, Gears of War 2 is considerably more colourful than its predecessor. How strange that this paragon of brown and grey now looks comparatively saturated among the current Xbox 360 line-up.

Right now on the gaming front, I'm keeping track of the ongoing developments (or lack thereof) regarding the closure of Flagship Studios and what this will mean for their two games, Hellgate: London and Mythos. In spite of the hyperbolic and at times downright unpleasant statements from various commenters (yes, I'm sure you spending $50 on a disappointing game justifies personal attacks on the people who made it and jubilation over them losing their jobs - not), Flagshipped.com is providing by far the most comprehensive rundown of the situation. (For a slightly less vitriolic version, try Voodoo Extreme.) With the developers seemingly in hiding, unwilling to make any public statements on the matter, there's no real way of knowing what's going to happen in the near future. At least the game servers are still up at the moment, although it's anyone's guess how long that will remain the case.

On a brighter note, I received the retail version of the PC port of Capcom's Devil May Cry 4 (or, as I'm apparently supposed to call it, going by the entry created in my games control panel, DEVIL MAY CRY 4) today. So far, it's pretty good fun, but I remain unconvinced that gamepad-style gaming is for me. To be honest, I find the process of mashing buttons on a crudely shaped lump of plastic clunky and unwieldy, and would be far more at home with a traditional keyboard and mouse combo. I suppose I'm just a died-in-the-wool PC gamer who can't change his ways after all these years, but I still wish Capcom had offered the option for PC gamers to play the game with the keyboard and mouse. I can't imagine it offering any problems, and I'm sure it would have been quite straightforward to use the mouse for camera movement and the W-A-S-D keys for character movement.

Oh, and, while I was out shopping today, I picked up a couple of World of Warcraft figures at HMV - a steal for a fiver each, particularly given that the two that I was able to find, Valeera Sanguinar and Thargas Anvilmar, are both out of print. (Personally I'd rather have had a Warlock, but they didn't have any left.) The pair of them look rather fetching perched on top of my (extremely dusty) audio decoder.

Birthday bash

Thank you to all of you who wished me a happy birthday yesterday.

A couple of you wanted to know what sort of swag I managed to bag, and the answer is that, on the actual day, I didn't get many presents. This is because my parents had already given me some money towards the new computer I put together at the end of May, so in effect I already had my main present. Still, I did pick out a couple of smaller goodies, including the Kane's Wrath expansion set to Command & Conquer 3 and the Eye of the North expansion set to Guild Wars, both for PC. I also snagged an Xbox 360 controller, given that I've come to the conclusion that playing combo-based action games like Devil May Cry 4 with a keyboard isn't the best idea.

Finally, the Blu-ray release of Gangs of New York arrived the day before my birthday, so I decided to throw it into the present pile just for the heck of it. Ultimately, I'm glad it wasn't a "proper" birthday present, because the transfer really is absolutely horrible - every bit as Robert A. Harris and Xylon have said.

Damn your eyes!

In a previous post, I briefly mentioned that certain members of the online fan community had reacted with dismay (that's a polite euphemism, by the way) to Diablo III's richer colour palette as compared with its predecessors. Today, I want to expand on this issue.

Colour in games is a subject I've touched on before. To put it simply, I think there isn't enough of it. The trend, these days, is to go for grim, desaturated visuals in games, presumably because the developers are under the mistaken impression that using a colour palette comprised exclusively of brown and grey makes their product seem more mature and "serious". The games industry has a rather irritating habit of aping Hollywood rather than breaking new ground of its own, and I suspect that what we're currently seeing with games like Gears of War (in my opinion one of the most visually unappealing games released in recent years) is an offshoot of this. In filmspeak, "desaturated" has come to equal "raw and gritty", and game developers, thinking that "raw and gritty" beats "fun and escapist" any day (despite the fact that any game's first goal, surely, is to be fun to play), have latched on to this grim aesthetic.

I've already demonstrated the visual decay of the Unreal Tournament franchise, with the latest instalment, Unreal Tournament III, sucking all the saturation and joy out of a franchise that once prided itself on its arresting design and frankly excellent use of colour. Thankfully, there are people who understand that not everyone wants to play their games exclusively in brown and grey, with the recently released Community Bonus Pack 3 serving as an excellent example of what the game should have looked like from the outset. Here, a group of fans have taken the tools made freely available to them with the game and have created levels which, frankly, blow their official counterparts out of the water in terms of aesthetics.

Someone else who gets it is Brian Morrisroe, art director on Diablo III. Here is what he has to say on the subject of visual design:

There's a certain amount of grit and realism that we want to bring to the game, but it's important to take the player into a fantasy realm. That's what we're really all about here, is exploring that idea of giving you something you've never seen before. If we simply took photographs and just applied that to a bunch of polygons, that's really not us doing our job, so we really wanted to explore and push this idea of bringing a unique, different look to the Diablo III universe.

Quite. Rob Pardo, Blizzard Entertainment's Vice President of Game Design, expands on this when talking about the game's colour design:

If you look at Diablo I and II [...] they obviously have the Gothic look to it, but [...] they weren't very colourful games, and one of the challenges we wanted to take with Diablo III was could we add colour but still maintain that Gothic dark feel? [...] I think we want to take [...] dark as an emotion rather than actual colour art choice, and I think that's something that took a long time to get to the point that we're at now - like, I think we've probably gone through at least three pretty major art direction shifts until we got to the point where we're on stage, because I think it's really difficult to pull that off, but we're really happy with the look of the game now.

This is all well and good, and I must say that, from watching the gameplay trailer and looking at the screenshots, and perhaps most importantly from listening to what the people in charge of the game's look have to say, any fears I might have had that they didn't know what they were doing quickly evaporated. Yes, the original Diablo is a tense, atmospheric exercise in mood, and much of its success in that regard an be attributed to the desaturated palette and heavy use of shadows, but that doesn't mean that this is the only way to achieve that mood. Rich colours can be just as effective at conveying terror. Just ask Dario Argento:

Unfortunately, none of this seems to have occurred to the armchair game designers currently throwing their toys out of the pram over the new game's art style. The web, in particular Blizzard's official Battle.net and unofficial diii.net forums, are awash with people reacting with horror to the game's frankly lovely graphics. Petitions have sprung up and angry gamers have threatened to boycott the game unless Blizzard alters the art style to make it look exactly they way they want, while the less articulate have resorted to calling the graphics "gay", "cartoony" and "childish".

The reaction, from some people, has been so extreme that the subject of this negative response was even broached in an interview with Brian Morrisroe and producer Keith Lee. Mercifully, Morrisroe's response was a polite but firm "fuck off":

Diablo II had some very vibrant colours in it, and that's something we wanted to play up, and [...] something we really wanted to continue to explore was how can we use that colour, how can we use that vibrancy to really establish a mood? If you look at a lot of pop culture out there, colour is used to establish emotional states, and that's something that we've studied over the development of the product. [...] We pick our palettes accordingly, so although it might seem vibrant, the contrast levels, the dark and light values that you're seeing within the game are still within the realm of the universe that you know, but we're just adding a bit more colour to bring out an emotional response from the player.

The thing is, what the complainers seem to be forgetting is that, if the vibrancy offends their eyes so greatly, it's easy enough to dial down the saturation either on their monitor or within their graphics card's control panel, in order to get something more akin to what they're looking for. Once colour has been removed, however, it's incredibly hard to add it back, and turning up the saturation control doesn't make shades of brown and grey any less brown or grey. There seems to be an expectation among some people that Diablo III should both look and play exactly the same as its predecessors, which I honestly don't understand.

"She's terrible!"

...well, not very good, at any rate.

In the UK, last week, ITV released its first batch of Blu-ray titles, among them classics like Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's Black Narcissus and David Lean's Great Expectations - something of a departure, as I'm sure you'll agree, from the usual slew of third-rate action spectacles that invariably end up being released in high definition. Eager to see what ITV was capable of, I picked up a copy of their release of Baz Luhrmann's first film Strictly Ballroom.

It arrived this morning, and I'm disappointed to have to tell you that the results are considerably less than stellar. It appears that an old master has been used - a rather grimy one, and one that has been subjected to an alarming amount of grain reduction, sucking most of the fine detail out in the process. While it constitutes a noticeable improvement on the frankly pretty shocking American DVD from Miramax, that's hardly the greatest advertisement for the Blu-ray format, and ultimately I can only really recommend this release to absolute die-hard fans, or at least those with less than discerning tastes.

Strictly Ballroom
(ITV, UK, VC-1, 18.2 GB)

Softly, softly

This morning, I blew the dust off my Diablo and Diablo II CDs (remember when games came on CDs?) and went for a spin with both of them. Watching the Diablo III gameplay movie got me thinking about the ways in which the gameplay mechanics have changed since the original Diablo in 1996, and what this might mean for the third instalment.

Diablo

The first game in the series is a pretty basic game on the surface. One of the hallmarks of the Diablo series as a whole has been its straightforward gameplay mechanics, stripping away a lot of the daunting complexity of a traditional role-playing game and combining what remains with fun, satisfying action elements, but this first outing is the most simplistic of the lot. The multiple act, multi-dungeon structure of the second and, it would seem, third games is nowhere to be found; nor are the weird and wonderful character classes like the Necromancer and Witch Doctor. Instead, players get to choose from one of three broad fantasy archetypes - a Warrior, a Rogue or a Sorcerer - and do battle in a single, multi-level dungeon, descending gradually deeper into the earth.

In many ways, though, simplicity is its greatest strength. This is a game that knows exactly what it's meant to do, and more importantly, so does the player. Right from the beginning, you know that your mission is to make your way deeper and deeper underground until you ultimately face and defeat the Lord of Terror himself, Diablo. The tone is remarkably consistent: everything is dank and murky, swathed in shadow, and the atmosphere is incredibly foreboding. This feeling of dread is achieved in many ways, and it's not just the gloomy visuals and highly evocative sound design. Movement in Diablo is rather slow-paced, meaning that, should you be overwhelmed by insurmountable odds, running away is rarely an option. And it's easy to be overwhelmed, particularly if you play the rather frail Rogue and Sorcerer classes. If you aren't looking where you're going, chances are you'll find yourself slap bang in the middle of a pack of angry monsters, in which case it's often game over. This ensures that you're constantly on your toes, gingerly creeping down each corridor and round each bend, mindful of the fact that you could, at any moment, be signing your own death warrant.

Diablo II

Superficially, Diablo II is a direct continuation in every way. It retains the same basic premise and gameplay mechanics as its predecessor, but I can't help feeling that the developers changed the tone in a subtle way. With the first Diablo, it quickly became clear that people liked doing two things: killing monsters and collecting loot. So, thought the designers, let's give the players more of what they want. Let's throw in more monsters and more loot, and let's have people get to the monsters and loot quicker. To lessen the wait between dispatching one group of enemies and the next, players were given the ability to run, which had the immediate result of doubling (at least) the speed at which the game was played.

Unfortunately, this had the effect of stripping away a lot of the tension. The ability to run made it possible to stage a hasty retreat should you stumble into the middle of a gaggle of bloodthirsty monsters. In other words, you could afford to be more reckless, which in turn made the game more of a clickfest than ever before. Add to this a reduced emphasis on dungeon crawling with the addition of wide open outdoor maps, and the game not only lost a lot of its tension, it more or less completely removed the feeling of claustrophobia. Likewise, much of the atmosphere created by the first game's moody locales and limited colour palette fell by the wayside thanks to the sun-scorched deserts and lush green jungles which players found themselves exploring. Put simply, Diablo II was a lighter, brisker, less tactically-oriented game than its predecessor.

Now, I love Diablo II. I consider it one of the greatest games ever created, and despite being eight years old, it remains permanently installed on my hard drive, and I continue to sink countless hours into frying skeletons to a crisp and beating zombies to a bloody pulp. When I want to whittle away a few minutes, or indeed a few hours, without having to tax my brain too much, chances are I'll be reaching for the Diablo II CD. But, if I want a deeper, more immersive, more mentally taxing experience, it's the original Diablo for me.

Diablo III

Flash forward to the present day, and Diablo III has just been announced. Now, without any hands-on experience with the game, and with numerous changes no doubt due to take place between now and the release date, it's impossible to be sure of anything, but, with the help of the screenshots and particularly the gameplay trailer that have been released, it's possible to speculate as to how Diablo III will compare to its predecessors in terms of atmosphere and gameplay style.

While watching the gameplay trailer, it's abundantly clear, right from the get go, that the designers are intent on stressing the quantity factor, throwing massive hordes of monsters at the player, to be dispatched in a highly visceral show of splattering blood and squelching sound effects. So far, so Diablo II, and it's also clear that we're once again going to find ourselves playing in a combination of tight indoor and crowded outdoor environments. The official list of features states that players will explore the world of Sanctuary (with an emphasis on world) "in gorgeous 3D", which suggests another globe-trotting yarn. No tightly-controlled Diablo I-style focus this time round, then.

That said, much of what has been stated and demonstrated in the gameplay trailer suggests that the developers are intent on pushing for a return to tactics rather than simply wading in and popping potions while spamming one or two spells. There appears to be a commendable emphasis on enemies working together to bring the player down, using their skills in conjunction and therefore requiring the player to use all the abilities at his or her disposal in order to survive. That gets my heartfelt approval, given the extent to which Diablo II is populated by cookie cutter builds relying on only a couple of overpowered abilities.

Likewise, I commented yesterday that the new game seemed to herald a return to the gloomy, foreboding atmosphere of the first Diablo. This is a particularly impressive achievement given that the colour palette is more saturated then ever before (something which has, rather predictably, already drawn its fair share of professional whiners who hate the notion of the game coming in colours other than black, grey and brown). Perhaps not surprisingly, this is only really evident in the interior levels, with the outdoor areas seeming lighter and breezier, but, provided there is plenty of dungeon crawling, I have no complaints about that. Particularly impressive is the sense of scale: at any given time, it's hard not to be impressed by the high walls and expansive nature of the maps. This is especially evident when traversing higher ground, given that the truly 3D nature of the new engine allows the player do look down at areas below him or her, shrouded in fog and shadow. Sound design will, I suspect, once again play a key role in maintaining a dark mood, and I'm crossing my fingers that Blizzard are able to get Matt Uelmen, composer for the first two games, to once again provide the music.

Universal's House of Horrors: Part 3 of 3

Eventually, all good things must come to an end. This is the third and final part of my exposé into the seedier side of high definition transfers, concentrating on the less than savoury excretions steamrolled by Universal on to HD DVD. (See here and here for the previous instalments.) As I approached the end of the alphabet (I went through the discs alphabetically), I discovered something quite shocking: there are actually a couple of discs in this line-up which look pretty good! But let's not get ahead of ourselves...

 
Lost in Translation
(Universal, USA, VC-1, 14.6 GB)

More indistinct, middle-of-the-road bla that doesn't make me want to kill myself, but at the same time is the sort of disc I'd immediately hide if someone asked me to show them what the HD formats were capable of.

 
Red Dragon
(Universal, USA, VC-1, 19.9 GB)

What happened here? By some bizarre twist of fate, they actually managed to mint a pretty decent-looking copy of this film. The flaws on display here - ringing, mainly - probably came from the optical printing process rather than from any external meddling. I've thrown in some extra images this time round because it's actually reasonably pleasant to look at.

 
Seed of Chucky
(Universal, USA, VC-1, 14.5 GB)

"Inconsistent" is the order of the day here. This one alternates between really looking pretty close to excellent and smelling like last week's milk. Again, I've thrown in a few more pictures for this one, so you can get some idea of just how radically different the quality can be from one shot to the next.

Universal's House of Horrors: Part 2 of 3

Yesterday, we plumbed the depths of the depressingly underwhelming Being John Malkovich, the improbably soft Brokeback Mountain, and Cat People, one of the worst-looking discs released on either of the HD formats. Incidentally, yesterday, I told Blu-ray users that they had transfers like these to look forward to once Universal started rolling out its catalogue titles on the format, but it turns out I spoke too soon. Blu-ray already has a Cat People of its own: The Longest Day, from 20th Century Fox. Click here to see what happens when John Wayne has a nasty encounter with the grain-sucking machine.

 
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
(Universal, USA, VC-1, 17.3 GB)

Another big steaming lump of cack from Universal. What are they actually thinking?

 
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
(Universal, USA, VC-1, 19.7 GB)

This one is actually quite a bit better than the others, but still falls short of acceptable standards. Ample evidence of filtering is present at all times. Really, you need to compare this with the horrendous standard definition DVDs from Criterion and Universal before it even begins to look halfway passable.

 
The Game
(Universal, USA, VC-1, 23.6 GB)

Actually, you know what? I've seen a lot worse. At least this one still looks like film, albeit film of the rather murky, ill-defined variety. I could be wrong, but maybe this is just what the movie looks like? Either way, it's a hell of a lot more pleasant watch than Cat People.

Universal's House of Horrors: Part 1 of 3

All right, you're thinking, I've seen it all. I've marvelled at the exceptional level of detail in Spider-man 3, I've been wowed by the fantastic grain reproduction in Silent Hill, and I just can't imagine an image that looks more all-round perfect than Ratatouille. Well, gentle readers, I present tonight, for the viewing pleasure of the hardened technophile, an inside look at the other end of the spectrum: the transfers so repulsive that you'd actually go out of your way to make sure people didn't accidentally see them and somehow "get the wrong idea" about high definition. Over the course of the next three posts, I'll be delving into Universal's swamp of catalogue releases, and we'll be asking ourselves how some of these travesties actually made it out the front (or back) door in the first place.

Attention, BD fans: don't go celebrating the assimilation of Universal into the Blu-ray umbrella just yet. This is what you have to look forward to.

 
Being John Malkovich
(Universal, USA, VC-1, 18.9 GB)

To be fair, this is already a really dingy, unappealing film to look at, but it shouldn't look this bad.

 
Brokeback Mountain
(Universal, USA, VC-1, 21.1 GB)

This one isn't even a catalogue title, so why in the name of all that is pleasant does it look like this? Nincompoop reviewers talk about the amazing landscapes on display as if that somehow means the transfer is any good.

 
Cat People
(Universal, USA, VC-1, 19 GB)

This one looks like someone took a giant dump on the disc stamper and then had it pressed. People won't actually believe an HD transfer can look this awful until you show it to them. This is pretty much as bad as it gets.

Look what arrived this afternoon

Straight from our friends in the People's Republic of China, we have the first check discs for the upcoming release of Andrzej Zulawski's La Femme Publique. This will be the first commercially released DVD for which my brother did the video transfer (as well as other assorted tasks), and we hope to be able to give you a release date soon.

Some screenshots to whet your appetite:

More information about the project is available here, or visit Mondo-Vision.com for a sneak peek at what else is in the pipeline.

Anyone want a new computer?

Before I go to the trouble of listing it on eBay (and incurring their usual fee), would anyone like to make me an offer on my previous computer system? The components are as follows:

- Shuttle SD32G2 Socket 775 case/motherboard/power supply/proprietary cooling system
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.4 GHz) dual core CPU
- 2GB Kingston 667 MHz DDR2 RAM (two sticks of 1 GB)
- Asus DVD Burner DRW-1814BLT
- Sapphire Radeon X1950 Pro video card (512 MB)

Now, obviously you'll need to add your own external peripherals (monitor, keyboard, etc.), and it doesn't come with a hard drive, so you'll need to add that too, but otherwise this is a fully functional system, and one that is surprisingly quiet and powerful, despite its small size and tightly packed components. If you're interested in making me an offer I can't refuse, email me at whiggles[at]ntlworld[dot][com].

Any excuse to press PrintScreen

Attention, readers: here's your eye candy for the evening. These screen captures come from the DirectX 10 version of the Devil May Cry 4 demo for the PC, the full retail version of which is due out on July 11th.

I'm considering picking up a copy, although I suspect I'll need to get my hands on a compatible gamepad beforehand, as the keyboard controls in the PC version are counter-intuitive to say the least. Case in point: you can control both the character's movement and the camera position. In most PC games played from a third person perspective, you'll use the W-A-S-D keys to move the character and the mouse to move the camera. Not so in Devil May Cry 4, which has no mouse support. Instead, you use the cursor keys to move the camera, which, when you're trying to move the character (using the W-A-S-D keys) and perform attacks (using the I-J-K-L keys) at the same time, is about as absurd and infuriating as things can get.

I can't see a goddamn thing, Jim!

The Kingdom on HD DVD is an example of what I would call the second tier of Universal's HD output. At the very top, you have titles like The Bourne Ultimatum and King Kong: recent releases which, barring any instances of compression artefacts, are as perfect as HD gets. There's no sign of filtering, edge enhancement, noise reduction or any other unwanted tampering. Then you get titles like Mr. Bean's Holiday and Eastern Promises, which still look very good, and appear to have come from excellent sources, but which introduce a layer of digital manipulation, usually a light sheen of filtering.

In the case of The Kingdom, there is clear evidence of ringing, particularly visible in the first shot. This is the thin, sharp, high frequency type usually associated with straight edge enhancement rather than the thicker, blurrier sort you get with filtering, so my theory is that someone sharpened this transfer. The fact that the credits text is also affected shows that this took place at the very end of or after the DI process: in other words, the editor wasn't simply being fed a bunch of pre-sharpened footage. (Sometimes you'll get transfers where the film-based material has been tampered with but the credits themselves are problem-free.) Theoretically speaking, therefore, it should be possible, one day, to go back to the source and get a "clean" master.

Trying the get clear screen captures of this disc was tough given the nature of the camerawork. The film was produced by Michael Mann, and the director, Peter Berg, seems to have attempted to replicate his, ahem, style by constantly shaking the camera around like a stoned monkey. The result is that the whole film is essentially one long jittery zip pan, so I found myself limited to the more serene, static moments, which are few and far between. Broadly speaking, it looks better in motion, although it does tend to make you feel seasick. Did I mention I hate this look?

The Kingdom
(Universal, UK, VC-1, 18.6 GB)

HD Image Quality Rankings updated

I've performed some updates on the HD Image Quality Rankings page, moving several 8/10-rated titles down into the 7/10 bracket. Among these are several of the more noticeably filtered Warner titles, along with such disappointments as The Simpsons Movie and Sony's somewhat unjustly lauded re-release of The Fifth Element. Two titles have also been pulled out of the prestigious 10/10 category and moved into the still highly impressive 9.5/10: Silent Hill, for having slightly elevated blacks (which can be corrected using the brightness control on your display, which you shouldn't really have to do), and King Kong, for some minor compression artefacts.

It's something of an indication of how good the best high definition transfers look that I am actually currently in a position of having to demote less impressive transfers. I consider this to be very good progress, given that, for the most part, even the best-looking standard definition DVDs were still heavily flawed.

Get 'em while they're still lukewarm

I know I said I wouldn't buy any more, but with the silly prices HD DVDs are going for in various stores, I thought it would be a shame to pass up the opportunity to pick up some mega-cheap titles. HMV.co.uk is currently selling off a whole bunch of titles for as little as £4.99 each, a steal when you consider the AV quality of some of them. I snagged King Kong, The Kingdom and Stardust, all of which popped through my letterbox this morning.

I watched The Kingdom this evening. An eye-pleasing transfer from Universal - not one of their best, but, when you consider how dreadful some of their releases look, particularly their catalogue titles, it could have been a hell of a lot worse. Actually, barring a small amount of ringing, it actually looks very nice, with a very pleasing amount of detail and commendably little artefacting, despite the amount of fast cutting and shakycam on display. I also found it a rather interesting film too, at least until it decided to abandon its loftier aims and turn into an old fashioned Men & Guns™ car chase/shoot-out extravaganza. That, and the constantly jittering camera made me feel fairly seasick.

Stair-stepping ahoy!

On Wednesday, I finally got round to watching The Orphanage on Blu-ray. I knew next to nothing about the film beforehand, so was very pleased to discover an excellent piece of work, definitely one of the best horror films I've seen recently and every bit as good as, if not better than, the other recent film to bear Guillermo Del Toro's name, Pan's Labyrinth (although he mere produced The Orphanage, which was in fact directed by a fellow called J.A. Bayona). I highly recommend checking out this film if you haven't seen it yet - an imaginative and highly effective take on the "spooky old house" and "creepy child" sub-genres.

The Blu-ray release, unfortunately, is marred by the fact that it appears to have been taken from a source with a horizontal resolution of less than 1920 pixels. A certain blockiness is evident throughout in diagonal edges, which take on a stair-stepped quality: look, for example, at Fernando Cayo's nose in Shot 7 and Mabel Rivera's cheek in Example 9. Basically, it's like a less extreme version of the effect visible in Warner's early so-called "1080i upconverted" transfers. It's not dreadful, and it's somewhat ironic that the end result actually looks somewhat better than the full 1920x1080 The Golden Compass in all its noise reduced glory, but it's disappointing nonetheless. New Line's HD output, so far, has been pretty problematic to say the least, and it's a shame (but not entirely surprising) that reviewers haven't been picking up on these faults.

The Orphanage
(New Line, USA, VC-1, 26.1 GB)

My compass is pointing to DVNR

New Line were caught red-handed applying grain-reduction techniques to their Blu-ray and HD DVD version of Pan's Labyrinth, and ever since, the more observant of us have been keeping close tabs on their treatment of films in high definition. The good news is that The Orphanage, about which I shall be posting later today, managed to escape from their clutches unmolested, but The Golden Compass has not been so lucky. Posters at the AV Science Forum were quick to pick up on a waxy appearing affecting several shots, along with the pictures to prove it. None of this was conclusive, though, particularly given that some of the shots posted looked absolutely fine, so I decided to get hold of a copy of the disc to judge for myself.

My copy arrived the previous Saturday, and, having now gone through it with a fine toothcomb, my overriding impression is that two things are going on here. First of all, certain actors, particularly Nicole Kidman, have been fleeced with the same technology that assaulted Johnny Depp's cheeks and nose in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and Milla Jovovich's face in Resident Evil: Extinction. As unpleasant as the results are, this is ultimately an artistic choice employed by the director and as such is not something for which we can blame the technicians who encoded the disc.

Secondly, however, a fairly heavy grain reduction pass appears to have been applied to the entire film. I have no idea whether this was done to the original DI master, or specifically for the Blu-ray release, but either way the results are somewhat less than pleasant. This is something that can't really be conveyed with static screenshots, but the grain has stopped being moving detail and has instead become something more akin to a static pattern imposed upon the image. The process also appears to suck fine detail from objects such as walls, fabric and the actors' skin, resulting in an image that, much of the time, looks pretty synthetic and unappealing. It appears to be present throughout, but the fact that its severity seems to vary on a shot by shot basis (compare Daniel Craig's face in Shots 4 and 5) suggests to me that this was done on a per-scene basis at the DI stage.

This is not a bad-looking disc, per se, but it's also pretty far removed from what film looks like. Perhaps this was what writer/director Chris Weitz intended for his movie, but, if so, his is not a taste that I share.

The Golden Compass
(New Line, USA, VC-1, 24.1 GB)

A bit of good news on the sound front

The latest Windows Vista beta driver for Creative's Audigy, Audigy 2 and Audigy 4 series sound cards (available here) re-enables 5.1 audio for me in Hellgate: London (for some reason, I was previously restricted to stereo only for this game in Vista). Given that the last official Vista driver release for this card was in March 2007, it's something of a cause for celebration that Creative have finally done something about supporting their older cards.

You know, the more I think about it, the less reason I have to keep my fancy new X-Fi Prelude card. Barring EAX 5.0 support and Dolby Digital Live encoding (currently broken), it doesn't really offer me anything that I'm not getting with my aged Audigy. I think I'll wait and see if their next set of drivers fix the DDL problems I've been experiencing. If not, I think I'll just offload it and stick with Old Faithful.