I played Munch's Odyssey today (1 Viewer)

[Camp]

Played on a demo unit Xbox. The gameplay was better than expected. The interaction between the two controllable characters could yeild interesting results. The real problem was the graphics. They didn't impress me in any way. Screen shots I had seed of this game looked much better than the actual thing. Really disappointing from a graphical perspective but more fun than I had expected (which is, of course, more important).

 

[Kelley_B]

Yep, I too was really unimpressed with Munch. Too bad they only have about 3 more weeks to work on it.

 

[Joel Mack]

I agree. I was at EB yesterday picking up "Devil May Cry", and played Munch's for about 15 minutes. It was interesting, but didn't appear to be anything the PS2 couldn't do. Not a wise choice for a demo game, I think.
The controller, while large, felt pretty good, though.
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"The internet is a place where people from all over come together to
bitch about movies and share pornography."

 

[Morgan Jolley]

To tell the truth, still screenshots at high resolution are no doubt going to look different on crappy TVs. Stick that game in a good HT with 5.1 and high def and it will probably be a different experience.
Though I'm not sure how much the gameplay would be improved.

 

[Joel Mack]

Stick that game in a good HT with 5.1 and high def and it will probably be a different experience.

Maybe they could stick a little sign on the kiosk: "Sure, it looks like shit, here, but if you have a good Home Theater setup, it's great! Buy one now!"
That'd move some units.
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"The internet is a place where people from all over come together to
bitch about movies and share pornography."

 

[Gary King]

The real problem was the graphics. They didn't impress me in any way

That's not too surprising. Munch was originally a PS2 game, which was ported to Xbox so that Oddworld could use higher-res textures and anti-aliasing. When I spoke with Lorne at Gamestock, he mentioned that Munch wasn't really going to use the Xbox's advanced graphics features too much, if at all.
They're also using NetImmerse, which is a pretty crummy graphics engine (DX7, not the best performance, etc.).
The TV will play a role in image quality, but even on the world's best HDTV, Munch wouldn't be a showpiece for eye candy. It looks nice, but nowhere near as nice as DoA3.

 

[Kelley_B]

They are using the NetImmerse Engine? I can see why it doesn't look that great then.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Joel-
What you said is the exact reason why I think the X-Box is too powerful. If you don't have a good HT system, then most of it goes to waste.
Some have said that if the console can do it out of the box, then the games will take advantage of it. Hmm...DVDs are programmed for DVD-ROMs, DTS, DD, and many other features, yet a lot of people can't take advantage of some of those abilities. Why not just make games that take advantage of abilities for consoles that you can buy separately (like the DVD thing for X-Box)? This way, the console is cheaper and you get what you want. They could make $5 upgrade discs that just put in some lines of code to the firmware or something.

 

[BrianB]

They are using the NetImmerse Engine? I can see why it doesn't look that great then.

Which is why it's so 'funny' when they claim they switched to the XBox because the PS2 couldn't handle their 'advanced technology' & graphic techniques...
We all know it's because of the money hat they were given.
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Nothing In Particular

 

[Kelley_B]

We all know it's because of the money hat they were given.

That Penny-Arcade comic is great! And you are probably right, I wonder if Lorne will be at E3 this year wearing his money hat?

 

[Dave F]

What is the NetImmerse engine?
-Dave
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DVD List
"The page you are looking for is here no more. Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore.'"

 

[Gary King]

Dave,
NetImmerse is a cross-platform (PS2, Xbox, PC, maybe Mac, etc.) game engine, like Criterion's RenderWare or id Software's Quake 3 engine. Game developers license the engine and then build their games around it, which allows for easy portability, quick development, and a rather mile-high view of the hardware - instead of worrying about sending polygons to OpenGL, developers just create stock character objects and put them in the engine's scene management hierarchy.
Unfortunately, NetImmerse is about 2 years behind the technology curve (maybe even more), and wasn't terribly well-written to begin with.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

I remember Lorne Lanning saying that Munch was gonna be on the PS2 because nothing available was powerful enough. Then, he goes and says that the PS2 is too hard to develop for, even though the game was over half done. Now, the game comes out being less than what it could have been on the most powerful hardware available.
Lucky for me, I learned to not care about what he says since he decided to switch to the X-Box. I say that we consider Munch as just another third party game instead of a big launch title. Lets focus on Halo or DOA3, at least those games are doing something with the hardware.
I personally think Lorne is one of those artsy types who whines too much.