I figured everyone would be pumped up for GRAW but I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Burnout.
Anyone have it? If so, how is it? I'm thinking of picking it up but I'm wondering how the graphics have been tuned up from the XBOX/PS2 Versions. I am a bit worried that it will just be mildly touched up much like alot of the sports titles that we're out at launch we're.

Got both.

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=495984

I got this and graw... played more burnout last night... its just amazing... best xbox 360 game out

I'm planning on getting it but none of my local stores have it yet

if I can't get it by this weekend I'll just forget about it until I can play through a few of the other games I already own.

currently "shipping" in my gamefly Q.. should have it next week.. cant wait.

Bought it and GRAW yesterday but still havent opened it(playing too much GRAW!). I also have it coming from Gamefly today so im gonna wait to play theres before i open mine!

been playin it for a few hours now and had the xbox version. It's great especially with live. The sound is so awesome as well as the visuals. Get it! fun game

I got it on wednesday, it's pretty good, there is some slowdown which I found quite surprising. Most of the time it stays at 60 FPS but if you are doing traffic attack or have alot of shit on the screen it will stutter slightly, I don't remember this being in the xbox version. Also, at the conclusion of a crash mode scene when its showing your rank and whatnot(stars + medal), it seems like the GUI menus are going at 1/4 speed, after a regular event the speed is fine. These are minor gripes tho, game is awesome. Put it a few marathon sessions and finished all 169/169 golds + elite rank on all singleplayer missions, gonna try out multiplayer tonight. Add me if you want a friendly game.

DAMN kid... mad props for having the game 3 days... seriously... damn.

I just really love the burnout series. I havn't been able to play my xbox at all since the semester started in January, I think the only time I turned it on was to show my friend Condemned and to download the Full Auto demo. Had a light homework week so I decided to get GRAW and Burnout and play some 360.

I picked up GRAW and Burnout. So far it's a blast. The only thing I don't like is that it's too dark. Even when I jack up my TV settings. I running in 1080i on a 56inch HDTV.

Has anyone else noticed the darkness issue?

Also, one little gripe. This super bright daylight shine thing is getting old fast. Need for Speed uses it, Burnout uses it, and GRAW uses it too. I think some developers think the effect makes the game look more realistic. I think it's annoying, and washes out the details. I mean it looks realistic if you just woke up and ran outside looked at the sun for ten seconds and then tried to drive a car.

I agree. Dynamic Range lighting (bloom effect to the max when going from dark to bright) is so exxagerated that, instead of looking natural, it looks as if you are viewing the game through a camera with a wide iris. My eyes don't get blinded when I walk outside, but my camera does. Sure, our eyes adapt to light, but even when it's bright - we don't notice it as exxagerated as it in in these games. Sure, the light may be really bright when we walk outside, but it just doesn't act right. When you are inside and you walk outside, the lighting difference isn't all that noticeable. With a camera, however, it is. They say the dynamic range lighting is meant to mimick the human eyes iris, but it looks nothing more than a cameras iris. PGR3 has the worst dynamic range lighting in the 'garage' mode. Ugh.

Then again, FOV (field of vision) still isn't being done right in games (if done at all), and it's one of the most important aspects of our human eyes that is overlooked when designing a game. Oh well.
Take my word - when they implement it, it'll work like a video camera's lens, not our eyes focusing onto a certain point.

end rant

It's exaggerated so much that it's like when someone turns a light on in a room when you were sleeping. It really sucks because it takes away from the detail in the game. I truly don't understand how in the hell these developers can think it looks cool.

I've got both G.R.A.W. and Burnout Revenge. Both are great games. I can't wait to spend some quality time with them.

It's the equivalent of the Bevel and Emboss or Outer Glow effects to noobs of Photoshop. Once they get the hang of it, they'll realize how to use it effectively, instead of sticking it everywhere possible.

It reminds me of the early days of lense flare It's worse though because it takes away from visual spender that both GRAW and Burnout have.

i got bored and just rented burnout instead of waiting for gamefly... used one of my 2 monthly game rentals at bbuster since they had it, which makes the game 52 bucks if i decide to buy it, as well as the 25 in store credit i got, and its pretty fun, decent graphics... just glad i didnt really play the xbox one too much besides the time i rented it.

some misconceptions need correcting here.

bloom is NOT HDR.. bloom is a technique used to essentially "spread" a highly contrasting light into the darker areas.. much like a streetlamp on a dark night exhibits a noticeable "aura" ... bloom effectively generates that aura.

HDR stands for high dynamic range and whilst it is possible with floating point frame buffers in current gen hardware it is extremely rarely used as using floating point frame buffers effectively halves the fill rate of the hardware. The difference between HDR and none HDR is simply this... normal rendering stores color values in the range of 0..1 HDR stores them in 0..LIMIT where LIMIT is defined by the hardware limitations... this means that lighting can be more accurately stored and thus post effects can act on more accurate source information ergo they are able to be more accurate and mimic some of the more advanced effects we see in real life.

the effect that has been mentioned in this thread is the exiting tunnel bleaching effect used in NFS:MW and PGR3. This is a fudge that uses the bloom effect to mimic HDR radiance techniques.... the most common implementation of bloom uses a cutoff value above which it will treat pixels as "VERY BRIGHT". These very bright pixels are then extracted to a secondary buffer, blurred in many different ways and then overlayed back onto the main screen to achieve the "spread" we see. Now consider this... if normally the "cutoff value" is say 0.9 (luminance) meaning only VERY bright pixels bloom then we wouldn't see much of an effect... bleaching lowers this value immediately to say 0.3 thus blooming almost the entire screen then gradually returns it back to the normal value of 0.9.... this mimics the way the eye accomodates changes in the dynamic range of light it receives.

HDR will one day be standard, bloom will no longer be an "effect" but will be real based on HDR frame buffers... until then its mostly hacks and limited implementations.

that said - bloom & fake HDR are definitely the new lens flare.

Also - someone mentioned FOV... were you refering to the focal length of a camera or the eye not being respected within games?... this technqiue is called Depth of Field and was first used a LONG LONG time ago in a game called "Outcast"... many games use it these days for dramatic effect and to hide LOD effects in the distance. It should however be noted that the reason it isn't used as the eye sees within gameplay on games is because the designer of the game cannot know where you are looking on the screen.

Thank you m_hael. I truly respect your opinoin. It just is one of the big let downs of this generation(of gamiing, lets keep this in perspective). Don't get me wrong....both of these games look great except....this effect takes away from both. DID THEY ONLY BETA TEST BURNOUT ON AN HIGH END PLASMA HDTV CAUSE MY SORRY ASS 3yro 56 inch Projection HDTV looks like a durd!) From what a I've read, I'm not the only bitch!

I just hope this gets out of thier system faster than lense flare did!

here's to someone else that played outcast!!!

i thought my packard bell was gona choke playing that game

Mine didn't but....gurgl....grugl...BUY>>>>DO THESE DEVELOPERS RELIZE THAT NOT EVERYON PLAYS ON EITHER A 60INCH PLASMA OR A 13 INCH RV?

yeah I talked with the programmers for a while, they had to compromise on a LOT of stuff just to get it out... was supposed to be 3D accelerated but Direct3D couldn't do what they wanted to so they bailed.

good game tho..

m_heal, just reminiscing... what was that software engine called? i think it used the same stuff as delta force another awsome game BTW

I just picked up Burnout yesterday, I havn't played it yet (I decided I'm not playing anything but COD2 until I finish it) but I watched my GF play it for a while, I really can't stand the graphics, the color pallet and various visual effects just make your feel like everything is part of a dream sequence or something.

Having played the NFS demo it's the same way... I just don't get how some people prefer that over what we see in PGR3

It's funny you say you can't stand the graphics, because I found PGR3 dull. I guess I don't take racing games that seriously so I enjoy the 'unrealism' of Burnout and NFSMW.

same here

Bought Burnout Revenge and GRAW the same day, love them both, but have been spending most of my time on MP GRAW. Tonite I'll play BR for a couple two three five hours, rack up some achievements!

Comparing the graphics of BR to PGR3, I think the edge goes to PGR3, but I thought the AI and gameplay in PGR3 was horrible, nowhere near as good as Forza on Xbox. I'll have to wait for Forza 2 for a real racing sim. Burnout is the ultimate stress-reliever for gamers! I need to get moving and unlock the Criterion van and really knock some trailers for a loop!

i like all 3 games (pgr3, nfsmw & burnout revenge). each game's look fits its mood. as long as it does that and it's fun to play, i'm cool with it

Picked up Burnout yesterday.. Not overly impressed with it to be honest.

The handling just doesnt compare to the original xbox version, I'll admit it looks quite nice (especally the paint scrapes on the cars) but it just doesn't do it for me.

And to top it all off, on the second event (the hot lap with the 360 car) it locked my box (but i think thats more an issue with the crappy Hitachi drive my box has - it got so bad I called M$ and they're replacing it for me ) - DOA4 does the same as well.

It will probably grow on me the more I play it, but my inital impressions where that of a poorly converted xbox version