Australian Gamer Feature :: PS3 vs XBOX360 Games

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PS3 vs XBOX360 Games

AJ compares Call of Duty 3, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, and Tony Hawk Project 8 on both systems using screenshots to show the differences.

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I thought it would be a pretty difficult task to objectively compare PS3 games and 360 games. Afterall, I’ve had my 360 for a little over 12 months now, I’m practically in love with the thing. Just ask my wife what I looked like after seeing the Red Ring of Death appear last week! In the end, I just had to sit down, put a copy of the game in each console, and do my best to compare the two.

The Graphics

At first I expected to see the PS3 crap all over the 360, afterall it’s newer and it’s shinier , so it must be better! However, to my surprise, all of the games I compared look better on the 360 than they do on the PS3. Sorry to ruin the suspense.

The other thing that seems to be a common thread between these titles is the frequent framerate issues the PS3 has that the 360 doesn’t. I can’t really show that in a screen shot, but both Marvel Ultimate Alliance and COD3 have distinct drops in framerate, particularly during fast moving sequences or heavy effects sequences with explosions and the like (although the 360 version of MUA drops frame occasionally as well). It is much less noticeable in Tony Hawk, but still crops up. It’s not a huge problem… but can get kinda irritating when you’re going from one console to the other. Other than that, there are some minor graphical differences which are neither here nor there.. .they’re just “different”. These screens show Tony Hawk on the PS3 with a very heavy High Dynamic Range effect (the bright sunlight), which is substantially more visible than on the 360.

Note the excessive flaring

Much more sensible HDR lighting effects

Similarly, Call of Duty 3 tends to look more “flat” or washed out on the PS3 than the 360. Again, not a big deal, and if you weren’t looking side by side, you wouldn’t even notice. The 360 overall just gives the game a darker more unpleasant feel to the war, instead of looking like a Mario game.

Foreground characters far too bright considering they’re in a Truck.

Much less washed out

In a nutshell, the main problem lot of PS3 games (that we’ve looked at) that are ported from the 360 suffer from fairly similar issues. Most noticeably, the games feature lower resolution textures than their 360 counterparts.

Take a look at this shot from Call of Duty 3. Now I would challenge anyone to spot the difference if you happened to walk past these in Harvey Norman, but when compared side by side, there is a minor difference.

Although barely noticeable in this low res screen, distant textures blur.

In comparison the Xbox 360 textures maintain resolution at greater distances.

It is much more noticeable in Tony Hawk Project 8. Notice how the 360 version has nice textures from wall to wall, but the PS3 textures go to a blur in a short distance?

Take special note of the road, the driveway and the grass across the street…blur!

Textures maintain their, even in the distance.

This is fairly typical of a game that has been ported from 360 to PS3. The foreground is almost identical, but while the 360 displays nice crisp textures way off into the distance, the PS3 starts blurring almost immediately. How is this possible? Surely the PS3 has more power? Well, there are several possible reasons for this. Some would contend that the PS3 graphics processor is less powerful than that of the 360, meaning that the larger textures just cannot be rendered in the volume they can be on the 360. Whilst that is quite possible, there is a far simpler explanation.

Why? Well, without getting too technical, 1080p just requires a shit load more memory! Just by comparing how many pixels are on each screen you can start to see the problem. 720p is 1280 x 720 pixels or 921,600 pixels, whereas 1080p is 1920 x 1080 pixels or 2,073,600 pixels. The astute among you will have already noticed that is more than double the number of pixels. So before we even start, the PS3 needs more than double the memory to display an image as the 360, regardless of what is actually being displayed. Whats worse than that, is that to upscale a game that is natively 720p to 1080p you obviously need to have both of them in memory at the same time! The end result is that the PS3 requires three times as much video memory to let you play Tony Hawk as the Xbox 360 does. So whilst the PS3 may well be 3 times as powerful in theory, it doesn’t count for much when upscaling a game from 720p. In actual fact, the amount of memory we are talking about isn’t all that much, but when you’re already pushing the limits of the hardware, it is enough to make a difference. So what does that mean for your game? It means less memory is available to store things like textures. The end result is that your “current” range of PS3 ports have lower quality textures than their 360 cousins because of the extra resolution.

Of the three games tested, Marvel Ultimate Alliance is graphically the most similar of the games. There is very little if anything to suggest one is better than the other. Flicking between the two versions will yield very few differences.

So it just goes to show, that not all games are ported as effectively as some. Of the three games tested, Tony Hawk suffered the most damage in translation to the PS3 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance suffered least. But even in the worst case, the difference is barely noticeable unless you are intent on doing side-by-side comparisons.

Controls

So enough of graphics. You’re never going to look at these side by side anyway. The second most noticeable difference between games on these two consoles are the controllers. It really is down to rumble vs motion sensors and whether you prefer the PSOne controller over the Xbox 360 controller.

Let me get this off my chest immediately. Tony Hawk without rumble is HORRIBLE. Whenever you are doing a manual or a grind, you rely heavily on the rumble to alert you off your impending face plant. With no rumble you are constantly forced to watch the meter instead of watching where you are going. Ok, now that I’ve gotten that off my chest…. The lack of rumble in COD3 and MUA are really unnoticeable for the most part. I think the rumble is something that really only contributes to games which require some sort of precision so as to alert you when you’re “off”. Racing a Ferrari, grinding a skateboard, aiming in Table Tennis, getting shot in the back etc. Basically, anything which cannot be displayed effective on screen needs rumble. I don’t care what anyone says, it is a MAJOR down point of the PS3.

Leaving the rumble behind, the next major difference is the SIXAXIS controller and its motion control. Realistically, third party titles aren’t going to be the best example of what the motion sensitive SIXAXIS controller can do, so don’t get too disappointed with what you’re about to hear. The controller in each of these three games has been added very much as an afterthought. Call of Duty 3 does a very good job off adding immersion with the controller, and mimics a fair part of what was achieved with the Wii Remote for Nintendo’s little white box. Little elements like driving vehicles, grappling with enemies or using melee attacks are made more interesting with the motion controller, but the events are fairly infrequent and don’t contribute much to the overall feel of the game. It really has just been added as a novelty, although a fun one at that.

Conversely, the motion control added to MUA is frequently more of a hindrance than help, and you will invariably switch it off before the end of the first level. It is supposedly designed to help you throw items, do special moves or can be thrust forward for rush attacks. The problem is that it rarely works as intended, and is never any easier than just pushing the damned buttons! Ok, maybe the button combos are a bit harder, but hell it IS a button mashing fighter, what’d you expect!?!?

Tony Hawk has a configurable set of controls for the SIXAXIS. You can turn it off (which you will choose), you can set it to control all your balancing tricks like manuals and grinds, or you can use it for all the tricks in the book. Technically speaking it does work ok, but to be honest, you’ll find the game a whole lot easier using the normal controls.

Extra Features, Missing features and Other Stuff

So, you’ve come this far and you’re still not convinced one way or the other? Well, this is my last chance to help you out. This is basic “what’s missing from my version of these games”.

If you are playing COD3 on your PS3, you’re missing out on voice chat and your character won’t “rank up” like it will on the 360. On the other hand, if you’re playing on the 360 you won’t get the nifty motion controls for the event sequences like driving and melee and wrestling and other fun stuff like that! One often overlooked feature of the 360 is the fact that it remembers how you have your controller set up from game to game. One thing I hadn’t realized until playing COD on the PS3 and having to reset the game to inverted Y axis, even though I had already done the same in Resistance! The 360 remembers these things in your profile! Oh, and the 360 has Achievements...

If you’re playing Tony Hawk on the PS3, you get to enjoy playing it on the PS3! If you’re playing on the 360, well you get to play multiplayer on Xbox Live and put your name up on various online leaderboards, but that is about the only difference. Having no online mode on the PS3 is pretty big omission, and will disappoint a lot of people. Probably the single most annoying thing about Tony Hawk on the PS3 is that it takes nearly 3 minutes to get from putting the disc in to loading your game and playing. For some strange reason you cannot skip the damned intro! Oh, and the 360 has Achievements!

If you’re playing Marvel Ultimate Alliance on the PS3, you’re missing out on the new downloadable characters…although they may come to the PS3 as well. If you’re playing on the 360, you won’t be getting 7.1 Dolby Digital (but does anyone really have that anyway??). Both versions of the game feature online co-op mode and are otherwise identical. And, yes, the 360 has Achievements!!

Conclusion

So that about wraps it up. So far if you’ve read this whole feature you’d probably be inclined to steer clear of the PS3. I’d have to say I hardly blame you if you’ve only used this review to decide. But don’t give up just yet, these early ports are not even close to showing off what the PS3 can do. In the coming weeks I’ll have reviews of Resistance, Ridge Racer 7 and Formula 1 CE to try and change your mind.

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