E3 2012: Video Game Design Pushes the Boundaries of User Experience with Luminous and Unreal 4
If this year’s Electronics Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles has shown the gaming community that despite the innumerable sequels dominating the video game expo, new technology is continuing to redefine the gaming experience. So now that we’ve gotten a glimpse of both rendered with real-time gameplay footage at E3 2012, which of the two looks best?
This question is posed as a result of exponential growth of technology. The deluge of programmers leaving game design college have begun to push the boundaries of technology further than ever, but few advances have gamers salivating quite like the Unreal 4 Engine and the Luminous Engine. The developers who created this had to have extensive programming and gaming knowledge as they were charged with redefining the way first person shooter games looked and felt. Skills like this can be learned in college, even prestigious institutions like MIT are now offering game design classes, however these skills must be honed during long nights in front of a screen.
On June 6th, Square Enix debuted the astounding trailer “Agni’s Philosophy” for Final Fantasy Versus XIII. Boasting a cinematic quality, the demo has been hailed by many industry journalists as the most impressive thing to come out of E3 this week. Square Enix displayed the trailer with minor tweaks at different presentations in order to dissuade any doubts that it wasn’t rendered in real-time. The demo is stunning in its use of light; one elderly man in the first few seconds raising his arm against the sunlight appears so life-like that it puts any CG cinematic of the past look primitive.
“…[The] demo video production was created through the lens of the FINAL FANTASY series, where ancient magic and advanced science coexist in a near-futuristic world,” said Square Enix in a press release. The video depicts a life-changing encounter for our heroine, the magic-wielding protagonist Agni.”
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