It’s a well known scientific fact that PCs are better than consoles for gaming. They’re not just better by a little bit, they’re better by a lot. Better in every way imaginable, and some that you can’t. That’s how much better they are.
Let’s take Ubisoft’s upcoming Assassin’s Creed: Unity for example. The PC version features a number of improvements and optimizations thanks to NVIDIA, and as you’re about to see, they’re a pretty big leap over the console versions of the game. Some of these features include…
- HBAO+ (Horizon Based Ambient Occlusion): think deeper, richer colors, with more realistic occlusion and better performance than more traditional methods of ambient occlusion.
- TXAA (Temporal Anti-Aliasing): a highly efficient method of anti-aliasing that reduces flickering and produces much smoother images.
- PCSS (Percentage-Closer Soft Shadows): this technology is especially interesting, as the math actually dates back to 1987! It’s only now that we have the processing power to do this in real time. With this enabled, you’ll see interactive real-time shadows with softer, more natural edges.
But I have a feeling you don’t just want to hear about these things, you want to see them in action. So here’s a brief demo video from NVIDIA presenting these features, and a few I haven’t covered, such as tessellation. If nothing else, it’s going to be a very pretty looking Assassin’s Creed.
This is undoubtedly the best looking Assassin’s Creed game Ubisoft has ever produced, but… they can still do better. If you’ll allow me to nitpick for a moment, I would like to point out that the ropes in the game could use some work. Let me explain…
If you’ve been following the various trailers, you may have noticed Arno running along various ropes. The assassin’s have been doing this in many of the games, but have you ever noticed that the ropes are absolutely rigid? They have zero flex when Arno steps onto them, and I find it quite jarring. I think a bit of flex and bounce would look fantastic. The game is done and ships in just a few weeks, but Ubisoft, if you’re reading this… please keep this in mind for the next game.
Assassin’s Creed: Unity arrives on November 11th, 2014, for all major platforms.
