i'm gonna buy two copies (for real), so don't worry about me.

True, but there's only so much a higher resolution, AA and texture cleaning can do. A point was made of this not being an emulated version but a rebuild for current gen technology. Always better to write in the processors native instruction set than try to build a virtual one on top and interpret through that (ie. emulate).

That being said, it occurs to me this could also end up being a tech-demo for the ZoE3 rendering engine. At least in the sense that they could potentially port sections of the engine from the HD remake into ZoE3.

Here's hoping...

Oh god yes...

I can see it now, Nostalgia orgasm.

Am I looking forward to this?

Yes.

Will I buy it?

Obviously.

Has Kojima met my expectations with his announcements?

No.

Don't get me wrong, ZOE HD Collection sounds fun, on paper at-least. But I can't help but feel this could end up being a brush-off in the sense of "Well, couldn't find time to make a sequel, but here's a shiny new HD version of the same game you played over a decade ago! We good!?". Considering the insane amount of time ZOE fans have patiently sat on their hands while Kojima Productions milks the Metal Gear Solid cow completely and utterly dry (I mean, seriously, a game about RAIDEN?), I think we deserve more than this. No, I didn't expect a full-blown ZOE3 trailer, or even a teaser. But seriously Kojima, would an official announcement, maybe a logo on a freaking t-shirt or something, been too much to ask? I would have been content with "ZOE3, officially announced for *insert vague release date here*" accompanied by a title, a concept piece or SOMETHING to assure me that ZOE3 is more than just Kojima's "It will happen 'one day'" project, and that production HAS begun. That he IS serious about creating ZOE3 beyond a simple mentioning here and there. It would have really been nice if we had gotten, at the bare-bottom-least, a sense of when this "one day" release for ZOE3 is. I seriously don't understand why we couldn't even get that much. It's not like if you announce a game you have to suddenly IMMEDIATELY release it THAT year. For cryin' out loud, SquareEnix trailers usually leave me thinking "Well, that'll be a fun time in about 3-4 YEARS", yet I STILL bought Final Fantasy XIII despite the fact it took FOUR YEARS between its trailer (2006) and its release (2010). Is the production schedule over at Kojima Productions really SO busy that you couldn't take 1 - 3 years to make a game you KNOW is going to sell well (for crying out loud, look at Metacritic, the ZOE Revoltech sales, the insane amount of money spent on random ZOE swag on eBay and the massive obsession gamers have with giant robots to begin-with) and let Metal Gear go rest its sore and chaffed utters for a few years? What worries me the most is that Kojima keeps referring to this "new project" he wants to work on, which does not relate to his previous works and will be "scandalous" for the gaming community, which leads me to think that he is all pumped up for that, and is basically planning on throwing everything else on the back-burner while simultaneously baiting the ZOE and Snatcher fan-bases with "Oh, yaknow, one of these days I'll get around to doing that."

Look, Kojima, I like you, I really do. But seriously guy, either have the stones to come out and tell us "Guys, the ZOE series is over. I'll sell you HD collections and Special Editions, but there will not be a sequel" so we can begin to set aside money for those Prozac prescriptions , or MAKE THE FRIKKIN' GAME ALREADY!

*Phew* Outta my system. Oh well, at least ADA breifly reappeared. Now go over to my other thread so I can give you money, guy. ={P

Well, it could also be a sign that Kojima is going to work on it in a near future. He might be releasing the HD Collection as some sort of heads-up for the fans and to enlarge the fanbase. Who knows, assuming he does, in fact, have two teams working simultaneously (remember that he only has two announced projects, right now? FoxEngine and MGS Rising), I suppose he'll start working on ZoE3 when Rising is released, and on the new game when they finish FoxEngine. That is, if ZoE3 won't use the FoxEngine, in which case he'll focus all of his attention on the engine when Rising is released and, after it's finished, he'll probably put the two projects moving.

Well, I have realized something else, buddy. IF THE ZOE 1 ENGINE WAS USED FOR ZOE 1 AND 2, what if it will be used for ps3? And what if simply porting ZOE 2 actually expanded the use of the engine to the new-gen console without having to re-do everything again?


Think about it, man.

All that the ZOE2 engine was lacking is a proper physics engine, and a shaders upgrade. According to my ZOEOA team, these tasks take less than a month to implement. So either my friends are pure coding geniuses, or Kojima productions is just lazy.

Anyway, I think it's a good idea to port the ZOE2 engine to ps3 because it had more expansion than zoe1:

*versus mode allows you to use other orbital frames in the story, therefore opening up chances to do the storyline for various characters in the game

*it has an excellent shader art: (Btw, after studying the engine, it actually has NO CELL SHADING! I REPEAT, NO CELL SHADING! All they did was simply how the models fully textured, removed all of the shadows, and then they added a pre-baked reflection surface that moves whenever the character moves ever so slightly(This fake-shader technology has been used for years)

The real lagging culprit behind this game was actually the particle effects:
*smoke effect contained 15 hi-res, sliding & rotating black blobs
*explosions had animated particle sliding explosions rather than still images, and used a shader for the lens-warp effect.

*the explosions also had smaller independent "sparks" which came out in clounds and stayed hidden between "clouds of smoke"


I could explain further, but I'm afraid you will be too lazy to read all of this.

So fake shaders= higher performance

Maybe they're just lazy, yeah :B not like a physics engine was a priority, though. Even without that, it still came out pretty kicking awesome. But yeah, they might implement that on ZoE3. It would be a disappointment if they didn't.


Now THIS is a surprise! I always thought it was a legit shader and not a pseudo-shader. Would be cool if they actually created a real shader for the third game, though. I'm pretty sure the PS3 has more than enough power for that.


Actually, this doesn't surprise me at all. In fact, I was pretty sure this would be the nº1 reason for it. It just so happens that most of the framerate issues would pop when lots of explosions and such were on-screen, so it makes sense.


But yeah, if all they need to do is porting and updating the ZoE2 engine, then I guess they might start working on it after MGS: Rising is released. Or maybe a year later; they're probably going to scan the sales of the HD Collection first.

Dude I know how the ZOE games work. I've taken them apart, analyzed every graphical detail, texture, and footprint. The only reason I can't make a clone of it on PC is because I lack coding skills.

Uh... are you assuming I doubted that? Or was it just to say that they're actually simple and easy to work on?

Not exactly. i'm just stating that my information is legitimate.
Also, the main reason ZOE models cannot be easily extracted from the ZOE game is because the models are layered:

first layer-
Green blob that has an animated texture (what you see though the armor as glowing neon"veins".

second layer-
the actual "armor" that is over the green blob. The lines you see glowing are actually linear holes in the "armor" from which you can see the glowing blob from.

third layer- jehuty's "shiny coating" or pre-rendered and manufactured reflection shader(modified to look like anime cell-shading).