Intrepid hmd fans when last we met thegameveda was waxing lyrical about wearing the ST1080 and swinging a light sabre , no this was not some childhood fantasy come good but a portent of how I would spend my 4th day of ST1080 ownership.
*Warning spaces may be left after or before punctuation to annoy blog Trolls ...
Today is the day I finally got round to testing console gaming . The more astute amongst you will of course notice my Xbox 360 is upside down in the above picture , frankly I find it works better this way making less of a jet engine swallowing a herd of mooing cows noise than normal. You will also notice the Kinect sitting in the corner which will play a leading role in today's adventures with the ST1080.
Switching on the Xbox you will be surprised to be able to read every word of text and see every line ,word and icon . This 2d performance is most impressive when compared with the Sony HMZT1 which makes you work to read text.
As a proud owner of a ST1080 you are going to want to set your Xbox to 1080p , and whilst in the settings you will see that the 360 detects the ST1080 as a 100" display.This is is also a good time to plug in your Kinect .
Naturlich I here you say... And now Minority Report fans we are controlling the 360 using the ST1080 display , hand waving and voice control, and you thought you would be using gloves... ahh those loveable Scientists ... ( yes I Trolls I know its! meant to be Scientologists)
To continue our cyberpunk antics we will resort to a little gaming sadomasochism by spinning the Star Wars Kinect game in the 360. Star Wars Kinect is the most disappointing Star Wars game in the history of Star Wars games, quite possibly the most disappointing game of all time.
However the Rancor stage does allow us to to test full body tracking , and as I turn my head wearing the ST1080 so does the Rancor ,and so does the image coming from the 360.It is not long before I am jumping stomping throwing clapping and generally trashing Mos Eisely all without anyone knowing what I am doing. The light weight of the ST1080 means I can do all this with only short term injury to my ego.
Next I tried the Pod racing stage , and this is very impressive with the ST1080s 100 inch screen size , of course it would be better if the game moved faster than a Sarlac Pits digestive system...
Lastly I tried the abysmal Jedi part of the game , why ..? because it is there ... and no the experience was not improved in any way whatsoever...
Now what I am really testing for here is the ability for us to wear the ST1080 whilst using something to monitor body movement not just head tracking.
And I can say because of the weight it is actually great , now all we need is a Kinect game that is worthy of the St1080 and wait ... the Kinect update for Skyrim is coming soon...
Test 2 on the Xbox 360 is the one that I found most immersing and I am embarrassed to say it is from another kiddies game. The ST1080 gives you a 100 inch screen very close to you so the experience even with none 3D content can be close to the feeling you get with IMAX ,you know where the ones where they have you getting vertigo at the top of a roller coaster and then it plummets taking your lunch with it..On Kinect there is a game where you get this feeling all the time , no not Kinect ride but would you believe Disney Land Adventures. Playing the Peter Pan level and flying around the Houses of Parliament you get that amazing sense of vertigo ,and then you have the mine cart level to take care of your lunch. Again the weight of the ST1080 allows you get away with playing this Kinect game , using the HMZT1 in this situation is out of the question unless you sprinkle some fairy dust on it and think many happy thoughts of course..
The 1080p resolution also comes into it's own when you play a game with a detailed HUD display. The Sony HMZT1 struggles with such games , like it does with PC text. With the ST1080 I can see every detail and read very instrument and text read out on the HUD of a game like Ace combat 6 , toggle map displays and look around the fov without any distortion.This bodes well for flight sim fans.
Now let us turn to 3D gaming on the Xbox 360 : Halo Anniversary looks cool in 1080p none 3D as a full 100 inch screen stretches out before you. Switching to frame packing 3D turns the 100 inch into a box 60 by 30 inch . That is a lot of border , the experience is now like sitting at the back of a small cinema with massive black borders surrounding the screen. The 3D effect itself is awesome , beyond side by side that you see in games like Crysis 2. When the gun first pops into Masterchief's hands it really pops into your face.
Pop out effects are superior with the ST1080 , the HMZT1 has them too but it seems to blend the pop out back into the background image perphaps because of the lower res and richer colour range.
Try as I might I could not fool the 360 into scaling the output , the ST1080 itself could not scale the picture.
This is greatly disappointing , and occurs on a number of games across both the PS3 and Xbox 360 , ones that you are going to want to play and can do with more pain on the HMZT1 .
Halo Anniversary,Uncharted 3,Crysis 2,Kill Zone 3 all run as a small box in the centre of your ST1080 screen.
Trying to change 3D method does not help only frame packing and top bottom options are selectable . Even when you select side by side outside or inside the game the games revert to a small frame packed box.
Console 3D games run at a lower resolution and frame rate as the machines cannot handle higher Res 3D.The irony is the ST1080 can but because of the lack of scaling in software i.e. the games themselves and the ST1080 itself these games are frankly unplayable in 3D on the ST1080 .Until smd tell us how.
I was about to give up and go back to being a Rancor when I stumbled on Avatar the game , this is the first game that worked full screen using Side by Side 3D. And the effect is pretty amazing more effective than the film even, on console there is a frame rate drop but this is not the ST1080s fault.
I am going to have to contact smd about setting up 3D gaming on consoles.
At this stage I would recommend holding on to your Sony HMZT1 if you are into console 3D Gaming.
It is a shame because the weight , comfort , and 1080p res let you play a variety of games from jumping around with Kinect , to detailed none 3D games. Ones you could not play with comfort or without causing great discomfort on the Sony HMZT1.
If smd get back to me with a solution to the small box 3D game ST1080 problem I will update this part of the review. Quality wise the 3D is excellent it just needs to live in a box larger than just over a third of your 100 inch ST1080 display.
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