If you thought the days of sub-par PS3 ports of multi-platform games were over, bad news Sony fans, Mafia II on the Xbox 360 whacks its inferior PS3 cousin. At least when it comes to large pools of blood and grass, it seems.
This is according to Elizabeth Tobey, 2K’s Senior Manager of Interactive Marketing, who has confirmed on the company’s forum that, in the graphics department at least, the PS3 version does not perform as well as other editions of the game. She says:
“When designing Mafia II, we optimized for each of the three different systems the game would run on to make sure the core experience was the best it could be. Because of this, there are some differences from one platform to the next. In terms of the PS3 version, I wanted to clarify a couple points you have been asking about: There will not be highly detailed grass or large pools of blood, the cloth movement is less noticeable than, for example, the PC version, and the visual fidelity in the demo is generally representative of what you’ll see in the full game.
Our aim is to make a cohesive and immersive experience and optimize the game for each platform so that it could run its best. And while there are some differences between each version, I’m sure you’ll find that the core gameplay and the heart of Mafia II remains no matter whether you play on PS3, 360, or PC.”
Some people have expressed concerns about the recent PS3 demo, noting issues with frame-rate and other graphical aberrations compared to its 360 counterpart. From the above statement it would appear what’s presented in the demo is what we’ll be seeing in the final product, suggesting the 360 has the edge.
PS3 users will be getting the exclusive Betrayal of Jimmy DLC, of course, but will this be enough to assuage what is yet another sign that, even at this stage in this generation’s life-cycle, third-party developers are still struggling to get the most out of Sony’s black behemoth?
Who knows? Maybe a post-launch patch akin to what the publisher provided for BioShock is a possibility.
Source: GamesRadar
Mr_writer
im sorry but I need to ask. Why do people get their knickers in a twist over this? I have NEVER cared if a 360 version is better. The only people who care are fanboys. People who notice tiny flaws need to get a life. Its like digital foundry on eurogamer half the stuff they chat about a person of the street wouldnt notice. Ive played the demo thought the graphics were very well done and mafia 2 has now been added to my lovefilm. Graphics dont matter unless they are gamebreakingly bad. Or your a fanboy.
gezarelli83
Because people have standards and in the ps3’s case this games performance is way below average for the power of the machine.
yes story is more important but doesn’t mean they should let the rest of the game perform terribly as what is the point of the ps3 having such high benchmark for graphics and performance if they aren’t going to attempt to reach even 2/3rds of the way?
E8_BALL_
thank you, well said
Mr_writer
but we know that 3rd party developers struggle to get the best. You deal with it. The difference isnt massive. As long as the gameplay and story are the same what should it matter? It costs alot of time and money to develop a game. Are YOU going to bankroll every multiplatform game so developers can take their time to maximize the game on each platform?
gezarelli83
now it makes sense as to why sony and 2k struck a deal for the ps3 version to have an ‘exclusive’ dlc at release!
trying to convince people that the ps3 version is the better deal when if the demo is anything to go by the ps3 version is infact a terrible display of piss poor programming.
lucky this game has a good story otherwise people would avoid this ps3 version.
also the ps3 exclusive dlc screenshots had grass and no jaggies so another lie by 2k as one of the developers posted on the mafia forums multiple times that all 3 platforms looked identical to him apart from better graphics on pc and now his posts have ALL mysteriously been removed as has his name from the list of mods. .
aphex187
F*** ’em!
Aimless
I don’t really understand the furore over this, the 360 and PS3 demos are very similar, i.e. neither can hold a candle to the amazingly well optimised PC version. I’m not sure why this has become such a PlayStation centric bit of ‘news’ when both console versions are just as bad as each other.
gideon1451
Yeah, but PC will always reign supreme when it comes to graphical prowess. It can always be upgraded. & if it ever gets to the stage where graphic cards can’t get any better, they’ll just get more of them, like Nvidia’s SLi.
Aimless
The point is that both console ports are rather ugly with aliasing and tearing all over the place, the framerate of each dropping well into the teens, yet people are spinning this like it’s a Bayonetta situation.
E8_BALL_
both console versions are just as bad as each other.
apparently some (cough ps3) are worse than others
as stated in (cough) article
OneShotWook
As with the first one,bottom line is it’s a P.c game,360 is bottom line a mid to low end P.c.Look to devs with some vision about wanting tech to move forwards away from the x86 architecture and you’ll see the likes of I.D softwares Rage and i’m hoping RockStars Agent.
It’s only when we step away from the 20 plus years of x86 architecture dominance that games won’t start to look better on P.c(discounting hundreds of sloppy console to P.c releases).
Clearly companies such as Intel,Nvidia,Microsoft et al are heavily invested in prolonging the dominance of x86 but i have to admire Sony for producing a better technical platform even if they may’ve been a little too early.
jonwaters34
Personally I enjoyed the demo on ps3 and ordered the special edition after this. Cannot wait for this to be released.
Crazy_Del
I’ve pre-ordered this special edition, but after hearing everything about it. I decided to cancel that order and just get the original game from ASDA. Yep it is RDR all over again.
TSBonyman
I enjoyed the demo.
gideon1451
It’s disappointing.
I hoped that by now they’d have started to put in the effort to make use of all the PS3s power.
gideon1451
Thinking about this, how is Crysis 2 going to look then? They have their ‘running on all three platforms [PS3/Xbox 36/PC]’ thing going on, how does that translate? Unfortunately, I think they’ll have used the quick route & we’ll have ended up with a less graphically-supreme version for the PS3 :/
AG2297
If the PS3 version is graphically inferior it will undermine everything they have said. If they want to brag how their game will be better looking than anything else, in particular KZ2, then the PS3 version will need to be on par with 360 at minimum. We have seen whats possible on PS3 (KZ2, UC2 – granted they are first party but Crytek has publicly taken them on) then a superior looking 360 version would be a huge embarrasment to their professionalism and their reputation.
Foxhound_Solid
Very lazy, but what can you do eh?
Is the Mafia any good? Can anyone enlighten me as the premise is cool..spats n tommyguns!
Cool as….