I thought they were dressing up these ports with extra effects and stuff, but this is disappointing.
First game I popped in was HL2. I wanted to spin through HL2 for like a 5th time and go through Ep1 again before I hop into Ep2. I figured the 360 would be a fine way to do it. Easy achievement points and what not (more on this later).
First things first, the intro looks fine. The cool intro with the G Man. I always liked that. Still looks as classy and atmospheric as it did the first time I saw it, three years ago. Then I get to City 17 and there's a noticeable image quality hit. The hit isn't huge. If I hadn't been spoiled by being able to play this maxed out on my PC for three years, I could live with it. Still, not quite a deal breaker. As the train stops rumbling and my eyes adjust to the scene, it becomes pretty apparent that there isn't much antialiasing applied. Jaggies abound on the edges of objects. I don't want to say there's no AA applied, because some areas that I know are problematic looking on the PC without AA do look okay. So there's some, but not enough.
Looking around a bit more, and doing a comparison with the PC version, it's fairly clear that they are using lower quality textures in spots. Either that, or the textures are not being processed as much as on the PC. This is clear when you look at some folks' faces. They look muddy, whereas on the PC all the faces are sharp looking. Note that I am talking about incidental NPCs. No names and what not. Barney and pals all have pretty faces. I am wagering that any perceived texture hit is a result of disk space limitations, not processing power.
One final flaw, and I guess this isn't really a flaw, but the age of the game being fully on display: HL2 still looks killer on my 22 inch monitor, but when you take those same 2004 Source Engine models and plaster them on a 50" television set, they don't look nearly as impressive. After some embarassingly extensive checking, I am positive that the character models are identical between the two versions, but spreading those models across more physical inches on a big ass TV makes the models seem, well, like something from three years ago. Which they are, mind you, but they still look, at the very least, adequate on the PC display, but, well, the magnifying glass of the giant Sony television broadcasts the flaws big and loud.
Still, looks better than anything on the Wii. Just looks a bit sad compared to other 360 offerings. Good thing the games are great experiences.
Other changes: It feels like the physics model is a wee bit different. Nothing drastic. I've played through this a zillion times, so I know the feel, but I suppose it could just be that I am used to the mouse. It seems like objects have more weight when you are walking or stepping on them, and sometimes the effect is kind of exaggerated. For example, in the City 17 station, I was walking through a tunnel with a low ceiling, low enough that jumping didn't get me off the ground (more on that in a bit). I tossed a soda can from a machine in front of me in the tunnel, just fucking around. The soda can, on the ground, teensy tiny, made of tin, BLOCKED me. I could not walk over the soda can.
Another change is that you either don't jump as high, or some of the modeling in the City 17 area has had its height adjusted so you can no longer jump on top of things. Since I doubt they went to all that trouble to make the world like 6 inches bigger, I am going to assume that they either tweaked jumping, or that this is also resultant of the possible physics changes.
On achievements, it's a lot of little 5 and 10 point ones. I kind of like Valve's take on them. Rather than make a couple big Clear Level 10 achievements worth 50 points, they made a ton of tiny ones that encourage fucking around with the game, like killing so many barnacles with a single explosive barrel and such. I think that's really cool, because the first time I played the game, those were the little sort of things I'd try to bend the engine to do anyway. There are also story achievements, but they are all not worth many points.
So, right now, the PC version is the better buy: It looks better, it runs on anything maxed out, it costs like 15 bucks less, and you get Peggle Extreme with it. You get achievements on the 360, and the game doesn't quite look as sharp, and your wallet gets a bit lighter. If you gotta pick one, gotta give it to the PC version.
