Topic: The Two Towers GC - Video worse than PS2??

[DavidBeoulve]

I have read in one review on Epinions.com that said that the GC version of "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" had crappy video... it was overly compressed and actually cut in order to fit on the GC disk.

I can't, however, find anything to verify this. Every review I have read on the game speaks of no difference here, though online reviews have gotten really bad since, oh, 1999.

Does anyone know what the REAL differences are between "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" on GC and PS2?

My thanks in advance.

[SearanoX]

The Gamecube version sports better graphics than the PS2 version (but not quite as good as the XBox), has a smoother framerate, and slightly more compressed video.  It's barely noticable, though.

If you're planning on buying this, you're probably safer buying The Return of the King.  It's a superior game in every way.

[DavidBeoulve]

Ah ho ha!!

I'm a fanatic, that being a person who redoubles his efforts while loosing sight of his original goals... so I must have every quasi-decent Middle Earth based game.

That said... videos are definately NOT cut, just compressed mildly?

I'll definately grab RotK but I'm not sure if I'll pick up the PC or GC version. Thoughts on that anyone?

[SearanoX]

I don't own the game, but I've played the Gamecube version.  I'm basing most of my information from reviews because I didn't play it for all that long.  I haven't heard anything on videos being cut for it, however.  Just compressed, like I said.  It's not as bad as what's seen in most games as well.

The Return of the King also uses DivX video compression, so you can get very high resolution video (DVD quality) with very little space required.  

[kennyb27]

I have to say, if you were to compare the video in Two Towers and Return of the King on the GameCube, the ROTK is easily superior (obviously due to DivX).  I found the compressed video in Two Towers to be much more apparent after playing ROTK.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Feel the might of DivX.

[Infernal Monkey]

It's nice to see a developer actually make good use of DivX. Although Enter the Matrix used it, the quality was that of a Sega CD game. Nice and smooshed up in a pissy letterbox, too.

But yeah... Two Towers FMV was rather crap compared to the PS2 and Xbox's. Return of the King is spot on, though.

[KDR_11k]

I'd go with the PC version unless you have a dislike of PC controls. The PC has better graphics, faster load times and its games are cheaper. You don't have to be afraid of cut videos as well.

[SearanoX]

Gah...don't go with the PC version...and I say that because EA hates the PC with nearly everything.  Unless you have something uber to run their games on, you'll be seeing bad performance throughout - and even if you have a supercomputer, there's still about a 25% chance they'll run badly.  On multiple games from EA I get horrible framerates, even though I average 90 fps with max details + bots on Unreal Tournament 2003.  They don't even develop games for the PC anymore, aside from The Sims...and even that's moving to consoles.  Everything else, be it Need for Speed, their random sports games, or Lord of the Rings, they all run and control badly.

So, yeah...that's why you want the console versions of their stuff.

[Uglydot]

All of my EA games, NFS included, run fine on my pc, and it is nothing super.

[SearanoX]

Let's see...

• Pentium 4 2.5 @ 2998 MHz
  
• Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB
  
• 512 MB RAM DDR333 @ DDR400
  
• 40 GB HDD @ 7200 RPM
  
• Windows XP Home (optimized for gaming)
  

I think that should run everything fine...yet it doesn't.  On Need for Speed Underground, I can only run it on lowest settings...highest, and it goes down to 15-20 fps - which it shouldn't.  Their other games run a little better, but not as well as they should.

 

[Renny]

"...EA has implemented a new compression format that actually removes frames of the FMV sequences in favor of quality. The end result is far better, and all three versions experience a slight jumpiness in the movies because of it. GameCube, though, seems to have some more frames removed. So it is jumpier at points."

From IGN's head-to-head [Insider required]. If that's quoting too much take it out. So basically the GCN version's FMV is of slightly lesser quality.

[KDR_11k]

Hm, okay, it's been ages since I played a game from EA. When will they start to make interesting games?

SearanoX: If you haven't done that yet, you should run a spyware scanner. Also, isn't it somewhat weird that Windows doesn't seem to get faster if you throw a faster computer at it?

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

HUSH, you're revealing the reasons why gfx companies see themselves fit to charge $300 on high-end video cards...

"You won't get REAL ULTIMATE performance unless you use OUR CARD: the MEGA-DADDY FX with 512mb DDR RAM."