fall of man
Latest
Sony apologizes about Manchester Cathedral ... again
Sony has apologized again, this time "unreservedly," to the people of Manchester and the Church of England for the depiction of Manchester Cathedral in Resistance: Fall of Man. In response, the cathedral has created a set of "sacred digital guidelines" and the Very Rev Rogers Govender said, "We still fear that the next buildings to be cloned for virtual desecration could be a mosque, synagogue, temple or other church." There is no word if money changed hands, but according to the Manchester Evening News Sony did admit to "using the images" of the cathedral without permission. Sony also placed an apology advertisement in the newspaper to the people of Manchester. The newspaper then shows its gratitude by calling Resistance a "bloodthirsty game." Dr. David Reeves, president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, said, "We have offended some of the congregation by using the cathedral in our science fiction game. It was never our intention to offend anyone in the making of this game, and we would like to apologize unreservedly to them for causing that offense, and to all parts of the community who we might also have offended." So, does this mean the Church of England is over wanting money, or was that just done under the table? [Via NextGen]
You think you're good at Resistance? Prove it.
Sony and Insomniac Games have just announced that they're collaborating with GameStop and GamePlay for the first official Resistance: Fall of Man tournament. And this isn't some wussy tournament either -- no, this is a serious 5 week MARATHON of Resistance skill. According to an e-mail circulated to PlayStation Underground members, registration for the tournament will start June 18th (next Monday), so excited fans should be fast on the refresh button come the next work week in order to sign up for a coveted position.There are two different competitions going on, a single player (aka Deathmatch) competition, and a team competion consisting of 3 on 3. Either way the reward pay-out is pretty damn generous, for first place in the single player competition you are rewarded the following: A Sony Platinum DVD Dream System, a $500 dollar GameStop giftcard and $1000 dollars cash. And for the Team game, each member of the winning team gets the following: A Sony Platinum DVD Dream System see above comment), a $500 dollar GameStop giftcard and $500 dollars in sweet, sweet cash. Not bad, not bad at all. Of course, you need to be good enough to get first place -- and it sounds like you're going to have a LOT of competition. Think you can do it?[Thanks mccomber!]
Sony says sorry to Church of England
Sony has apologized to the Church of England about any offense that may been caused regarding the use of Manchester Cathedral in the game Resistance: Fall of Man. Sony says, ""It was not our intention to cause offense by using a representation of Manchester Cathedral in chapter eight of the work ... If we have done so, we sincerely apologize." Sony confirmed the letter is legit and says that they also offered to meet with the Church to discuss their grievances. The Very Rev. Rogers Govender said they'll accept the offer to meet, but says they've still got issues. Yeah, like where's their money? The Church of England went into this for a payday. Originally the Church started off saying they were shocked that a "place of learning, prayer and heritage [was] being presented to the youth market as a location where guns can be fired," but in the end, it just comes down to money. Sony's letter did make one point very clear. There is no connection between "contemporary issues in 21st century Manchester and the work of science fiction in which a fictitious 1950s Britain is under attack by aliens." We'll see what happens after Sony meets with the Church. Ethically, the final outcome should be announced publicly considering the Church made such a public stink in the first place. Update: We did contact Sony to receive the full contents of the letter abridged by the AP. They informed us they are not making the letter public. Sony also said, "We believe that our letter adequately sets out our position and we look forward to showing the Cathedral authorities the game in its full context." Update 2: The Sony letter as reprinted by the Church of England found after the break
Resistance padding files only 420MB per region [update 2]
[Update 1: We got our answer. The entire thing is blown way out of proportion. There are still padding files, but they're a relatively meager 420MB per region. 2: We've removed the original headline which read "Resistance = 17.75GB of garbage?" We've maintained the original post below for accountability, but remind readers that the speculative remarks about the game's size aren't accurate.] Resistance: Fall of Man was billed to be the defining game for why Blu-ray exists in the first place. Resistance developers Insomniac stated that the game took up 22GB of space and that all those bits and bytes were necessary to make the game work. It would seem that ripping the disk in Linux shows otherwise. A NeoGAF forum member by the name of squatingyeti posted a long list of padding files on the Resistance disk; the padding took up approximately 17.75GB of space. Padding is frequently used to push data to the outer edges of the disk to improve read times, but Blu-ray is supposed to be a constant read over the entire disk. It's possible that the data isn't fully true and we would like to see some confirmation; however, if this report that 81% of Resistance is just empty filler and could fit on a single-layer DVD is accurate, will this put a hole in Sony's claim that Blu-ray is absolutely necessary this generation? The padding isn't needed to make the read speeds any better and (if true) is a lame way for Sony to justify Blu-ray for gaming.
Why does Resistance take over 20GB? Glad you asked...
Ted Price from Insomniac has humored himself by reading the theories everyone has offered as to why the upcoming PS3 title Resistance: Fall of Man will take well over 20GB. Now, he's tired of that and wishes to tell us why. We'll just toss up the whole quote so no word can be twisted on our behalf.Ted Price explains: "Consider that even with compression, each of our 'levels' (or loaded areas) has more than 300 megs of unique data. And keep in mind that we're also streaming data during level playthroughs. It doesn't take too much level data before you've gone past what can be stored on a dual-layer DVD. And between single player and multiplayer we have a lot of level data (over 40 different large loaded areas) – yes, more than will fit on a dual layer DVD."Also mentioned is the fact that all game movies are in more than one format, multiple full language tracks, and a fist full of extras. That clears that up, sort of. Kind of. Mostly. Should they have focused the storage space more for AI and less on extras, different movie formats, etc? If you could arrange the game's focus in terms of memory space and features, would you have done it any differently?
Resistance: Fall of Man gets some more press
IGN sat down with some of the guys at Insomniac games to talk about a few loose ends regarding Resistance: Fall of Man. Not all loose ends are tied up, but some questions are answered we've been waiting for. Here's a summary: To run a 40-player online match of exploding awesome, they downed the frames per second to 30 and focused more on "running with artificially high latency and packet loss" to make sure the system can handle the numbers and also to look good while doing it. Playing as either hybrid or human has distinct advantages and disadvantages -- not just a skin swap. You can disable tilt-sensing if you want, but other uses for it are still under wraps. All HD modes, including 1080p, will be supported. Framerate is locked at 30 fps, AC3 and ATRAC3 for audio codecs (aren't those the codecs Sony uses to restrict piracy? This Sony Vaio seems to recall it as such...) There will be both nonlinear and more restricted levels to explore and move back and forth through. Some restricted areas force you to go ahead so the suspense and such keep you glued to your seat. There is a stealthy aspect to smaller corridor areas, but the large battlefields will take some bravery and loud explosions. So, experiment with your play styles! Now, if you check out the interview at IGN, on the last page there are a few very amazing answers to some amazing questions. They're too fantastic to even try to summarize, but they talk about how Resistance could not have been made on any other system (20GB size aside) and some misconceptions about programming for the PS3. Check it out, leave your thoughts. This game is shaping up to be a fantastic title.
New screenshots: Resistance: Fall of Man, Frontlines
Here are a few screenshots of the PS3 launch title Resistance: Fall of Man. Look eerie enough for you? Either way, it's hard not to love the dynamic environments and grungy atmosphere. But do you think Frontlines: Fuel of War looks that good?[Resistance: Fall of Man][Frontlines: Fuel of War]
