John | 
January 25, 2009 | 
“…what do you prefer; performance or quality?”
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| Release: 09/16/08 | n/a | n/a | Release: 09/16/08 | |||||||||
| ESRB: Teen |
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Head2Head – Star Wars Unleashed Length: 00:03:51 Darth Vader and his apprentice unleash a galaxy of hurt in the Star Wars Unleashed. Watch the video and image comparisons to see who will turn to the dark side. |
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We sat down with LucasArts newest epic Star Wars Unleashed. LucasArts has been hard at work on this title for a while and hoped to push this new series with extreme Jedi powers introduced to us back in Star Wars Jedi Knight Outcast and Jedi Academy. Overall this is a good looking game and although slow with a some levels that stretch on a little too long, there’s a good story. Like usual PS3 had an initial install while Xbox 360 jumped right into the game. Load times were relatively the same on both consoles and were masked under cutscenes so the typical gamer would most likely sit through them to get the full story and not realize they’re actually sitting through loading. Once we got into the game the consoles started to show their true colors.
With the Xbox 360 the overall textures are slightly better. Once again it was obvious that PS3 got gimped by being another port. However, the cutscenes looked almost identical. But just before we broke out the winner’s cake for Xbox 360 we started to notice the frame skipping. And boy was it bad. The 360 would skip frames almost everytime you moved from one room to another. When you attacked or did anything fast, frames would drop. On the PS3 we barely lost any frames and it almost never skipped or froze. This is when we brought the big debate cake out and began a food fight. The question became what do you prefer; performance or quality? The Xbox360 was a better looking game, but the PS3 ran better.
So why would a game run better when it’s ported onto another console? We’ve rarely ever seen a case like this so we all had to sit down and really think about why the PS3 ran better.The best answer came in the installation. If the Xbox 360 had the same installation like the PS3 there’s a good possibility the game wouldn’t have to load levels and textures as often off the disc.
| G R A P H I C S | ||
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With Missing Tie Fighters, and better textures, Xbox 360 beats PS3 hands down. |  |
| P E R F O R M A N C E | ||
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With an unbelievable amount of frame skipping and lights missing from time to time the Xbox 360 gives up performance easily to PS3. |
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| C O N T R O L | ||
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The controls are identical. |
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| L O A D I N G | ||
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PS3 has an install while Xbox 360 does not. Load times between levels are comparable, but when the Xbox 360 drops frames EVERY time you walk into another room, you start appreciating PS3’s install. |
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| O U T C O M E | ||
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When it comes down to it this game should be determined by your preference. Do you like performance or quality? If you want performance, the PS3 is the steady winner. If you want quality, the Xbox 360 is the winner. We feel that quality can only go so far. When everything looks good but frames drop drastically, you’ll wish you went with performance. And that’s why we decided to side with the PS3. Slow and steady wins the race. | |
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I think that these features are rather nice, because many people that are interested in the game can choose which version suits them best. Slightly better graphics or a performance that is a tad better. I only hope that no one is going to use these features to start a console rant on the site. I hate it when people go shooting that consoles are good or bad with now solid arguments. Someone should just choose the consoles that fits him the best and has the most games that the person in question likes.
But to be ontopic, I have chosen the PS3 version, because it’s not very nice if you have a game that looks fantastic but is unplayable because of a constantly dropping framerate. That’s not the case with this game, but it’s just an example to show why I choose for performance over graphics.
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Yeah I agree. The PS3 one is better because I choose performance over quality. A game that looks good but plays like crap isn’t even a game so performance is the clear winner for me. I’m not against the 360 though.
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@Mythanics
I agree with you completely. Graphics to me can only go so far, but keeping a steady frame rate is priority to me. Developer’s theses days seem to think that looks are more important than gameplay. If the game can’t keep a steady frame rate then the developers need to remove whatever features it takes to keep the gameplay intact throughout. Take Assign Creed for example the game looks awesome but the constant screen tearing and frame rate drops killed the games overall rating.
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I prefer quality of graphics, not performance.
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well sometimes i agree with you, but i prefer just a not so bad graphics than a bad performance, i really hate bugs, the game stop playing or lagging, it doesnt matter the graphic if i cant enjoy it
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What you just said is what I was exactly thinkinh. I have to disagree with spoiledboobs completely on this one.
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
Poorly-rated. Like or Dislike:
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your an idiot.. read your own comment and if you don’t agree you are a bigger idiot.
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Does anyone know if installing the game completely to the 360 fixes the hiccups in the framerate?
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Yes it will be fixed. I really think it’s unfair that an install on 360 isn’t even considered here. sorry for the bad english
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I played the 360 version and can’t remember having framerate issue at all. If they were there, clearly they weren’t that bad.
I don’t think this is a PS3 winner, especially now that the game can be downloaded to the drive.
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The comparison is based off what is MANDATORY to play this game. There was a mandatory install on the PS3, while there wasn’t one for the Xbox. I only have 2 gigs free on my Xbox so installing the game to see if the frame rate is better is not only hard to do due to the hard drive limit, but also a pure waste of time.
Gotta say, while normally I choose Performance over quality, I think this article is wrong about the 360’s performance. I’m a big PC gamer so I’m pretty hardcore when it comes to framerates, and playing Force Unleashed on a 360 isn’t bad at all. I never encountered visual tearing, I never encountered slow load times, I never encountered lag of any sort.
The game runs smoothly and looks great.
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oh come on this is clearly biased this game is awesome on the 360, I saw it on a ps3 and it looks like ass, how can you reach such a verdict and still be able to look yourself in the mirror?
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I agree mostly, this game looks much better on the 360 and I only had the frame rate issue once near the beginning, never had it again, and I have both consoles, however, the ps3 version does have much better smooth flooring and reflection effects, the wood effects could have been much better though
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Hey I guess the Ps3 “has” to win from time to time
Game is awesome <3
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the 360 version looks so mutch better! and now you can install it! this should be retested with an installed 360 version, and then the 360 version will win!
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I’m a multi platform gamer like a lot of you guys, but I have to say the refresh tearing on the 360 version of this game at the time of launch was horrendous. It was so bad, I traded my 360 version and got the PS3 version instead, which I felt was superior in this instance.
At the end of the day, which version one prefers comes down to preferences and tolerance for different forms of aliasing etc, but to me the PS3 version was clearly better due to performance.
I have to admit, I played the game when it first launched so I have no idea if this issue was ever addressed in a software update.
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hahahahah lensofps3fanboy
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I think the graphical differences that being quite a bit better is why I prefer this on the 360. The performance in no real way took ANYTHING away from a beautiful looking game.
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I have to say I played this game two times all the way through and didn’t notice anything wrong with it on the 360. I recently sold my console to buy a PS3 to try the other exclusives and help a coworker out since he only has a PS2(he’s never experienced a next gen console). I hope SWTFU2 is equal in graphics. This is just nasty, honestly it looks like you’re taking screens of a PS2 version. The textures are awful. You can’t even see the cracks on the floor in the first screen. I would be embarrassed if I was a developer of that game for that system.
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This was a bad head to head, took off points because the version of the Xbox 360 in the grating performace, but this is completely wrong, because it copied the game to the hd of the ps3 and not copied the game to the hd xbox360? that is to copy the game for the xbox 360 hd’s performance is greatly improved, there is no frame skipping when the game is copied to the hd, this assessment is wrong, it should be done again, now with the game copied to a hd xbox 360 and xbox 360 will win with better graphics and performace equal to the ps3!
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head 2 heads are done on the basis that games are not installed on the 360 hard drive. not every 360 has a hd and this h2h was done before games could be installed.
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