Why AMD's Mantle Matters

AMD's "Mantle" Technology Is One Layer Of The Company's Gaming Strategy | Image Credit: AMD

AMD’s Mantle is a brand new API (Application Programming Interface) designed to significantly aid game developers in crafting games targeted for release on multiple platforms. While its prevalence is yet to be determined, its importance is clear. Mantle is a rally cry from AMD to developers, and a crucial consideration for PC gamers choosing their next graphics card.

We know the PC gaming market is healthy, but the success ofMicrosoft's MSFT -0.9% Xbox 360 and Sony's SNE -3.26% PlayStation 3 widened the gulf between console-driven developers and PC-driven developers. PC ports of multiplatform games have taken longer to reach the market, and have often been lackluster in quality. The easy money was on console versions of AAA game releases, so that’s where the majority of developers focus their primary resources. The games industry is a business, after all.

In the past, what’s been so appealing to game developers about consoles is the benefit of accessing the lowest levels of hardware and thus yielding the biggest performance gain. Chips like the PlayStation 3 Cell Processor are complex and it literally took years for developers to tap into its raw potential — see Naughty Dog’s The Last Of Us as direct proof of that.

When it comes to PC development many studios consider DirectX to be bloated and limited. Microsoft and Sony can write APIs and programming tools that are much thinner and lighter. This is precisely why we see delayed PC ports, and why they frequently arrive at retail lacking the stunning graphics fidelity a powerful PC can provide.

Simple logic leads us to the conclusion that with similar architecture across PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, bringing console titles to PC — and vice versa — will be a simpler, less resource-intensive task. It’s likely that day-and-date multiplatform releases will be a stronger possibility. But that’s not the entire picture.

A slide from DICE's presentation of the Mantle API

What Mantle does is further leverage that uniform architecture, allowing game developers tighter, more flexible control over a game engine’s utilization of memory and hardware components. DICE, the studio behind Battlefield 4and one of Electronic Arts’ most influential developers from a pure game engine standpoint, argues that the industry needs console-style access and performance while keeping scalability and the capability to run on a wide variety of PCs.

Both DICE and AMD insist that the learning curve for developers is exponentially smaller, and the performance gains for Mantle-enabled games can lead to serious improvements in graphical fidelity as well as smarter usage of CPU cores.

DICE engineers say they’ve been “talking to the graphics vendors for years” about solving the great PC/Console divide, and that Mantle is the solution. The endorsement seems more than lip service. EA and DICE are putting their money where their mouth is, betting on Mantle in their Frostbite game engine, and implementing it in big-budget games like Battlefield 4, Need For Speed Rivals, Command & Conquer, Star Wars: Battlefront, and Dragon Age Inquisition.

EA and DICE are giving Mantle a serious endorsement

The benefits extend to next-generation console gamers as well. Mantle ensures that optimizations from the console version of a game are brought to PC, but the inverse is equally true.

AMD claims Mantle was created in collaboration with several developers, but why haven’t we heard about them? It turns out DICE and EA have a timed exclusivity agreement from a PR standpoint, but an AMD representative assured me we’ll hear about several more developers and their Mantle-powered games in November during AMD’s APU13 conference.

Still, it’s not a stretch to conclude that in such a competitive industry, developers want bleeding edge tools that make their jobs easier. If DICE proves that Mantle brings practical performance gains and easier porting of multiplatform games like Battlefield 4, perhaps Crytek will want access for the next installment of Crysis. Activision may want Infinity Ward and Treyarch to tap into Mantle for Call of Duty. Ubisoft for their Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Splinter Cell franchises…

In the end it’s AMD’s job to further foster relationships with developers and make Mantle the norm versus the exception. If they can do that, AMD could have a serious edge in the next-generation PC graphics card shootout.

Mantle capabilities will be enabled in any “Graphics Core Next” AMD graphics card, including select 7000 series GPUs, and the brand new R7 and R9 series which release this week (stay tuned for reviews of the R7 260X, R9 270X, and R9 280X).

'Beyond: Two Souls' Review: Paranormal Interactivity

Paul Tassi, Contributor

Beyond: Two Souls isn’t a game. Not really. Like its predecessor Heavy Rain, it’s best described as a lengthy interactive movie, a sort of choose your own adventure tale that requires almost no knowledge of traditional video gaming going in. To some, it’s a boring series of quick time events. To others, including me, it’s an incredibly unique and engaging way to tell a story that blends the best elements of film and gaming.

This time around Quantic Dream has recruited two Oscar caliber actors to bring their newest story to life. Beyond: Two Souls stars Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe, and this marks one of the only times I’ve heard it said that a game “stars” anyone at all, despite an increase in quality voice acting. But this is how the medium evolves, and Quantic Dream is at the forefront of the movement.

Page is Jodie, a girl with a gift or a curse, depending on how you look at it. When strange events start happening around her as a child, her parents shuttle her off to be studied by Nathan Dawkins (Dafoe) who works for the government’s paranormal research division, presumably alongside an unseen Mulder and Scully.

Unlike the four-pronged Heavy Rain, you’re only controlling a singular character in Beyond, Jodie. But in a way, you’re controlling two. Jodie’s gifts don’t stem from innate telekinesis, but rather a floating spirit joined to her since birth named Aiden. Picture a balloon permanently tied to you forever, but the balloon is an otherworldly entity who doesn’t always play nice. Aiden and Jodie have come to an understanding over the years. The spirit will do his best to help Jodie out when she asks, or protect her when she’s in danger, but he has been known to throw his tantrums and is described as a “lion in a cage” when Jodie’s asked if she can actually control him. Where Jodie goes, Aiden must follow, and the spirit makes her a target by a government who wants to use her powers for their own agenda.

The game has you controlling Jodie in different fragments of her life, all mixed out of order like a novel with its chapters scrambled. There are scenes when she’s a six year-old having imaginary tea parties in her room, and ones where she’s a twenty-something hardened CIA operative breaking terrorist’s necks. It can be confusing at first, keeping track of what happened when, but once you learn that the loading screen is actually a timeline, it helps keep things straight in your mind. Only took me half the chapters before I figured that one out. Some “missions” are no more than five minutes, while others like Jodie’s bout with homelessness and a lengthy stay on a Navajo ranch can last nearly an hour and a half, and begin to drag.

Far and away the most striking aspect of the game is the beautiful performance capture used to ensure the film actors were indeed worth recruiting. Yes, it’s true other games have similar systems now, but no one does it like Quantic Dream. You’re literally watching Ellen Page act her heart out onscreen, and Jodie might actually be the best rendered, best acted video game character in the history of the medium as a result of the technology. The other characters might not have had quite as much time devoted to their mo-cap, but all are still leagues better than anything you’ll find in other games. This sort of tech allows a game like Beyond to have an emotional reach beyond compare, and this is like looking into the future, hoping for the day when all games achieve this level of realism.

But this is still a game, after all, and it’s not just one ten hour cutscene. Well, it kind of is, but it’s up to you as the player to shape the events as they unfold. As Jodie, interactions have even been simplified since Heavy Rain’s myriad of quick time events. Though there are some sequenced button presses, most actions, from simple interaction to intense combat, are all performed through flicks of the right thumbstick. Any object you can interact with has a white dot hovering near it, and if you flick that direction, you’ll enter the interaction cutscene. Combat uses a similar system a little different. During action sequences where Jodie is fighting or running, the game will shift into slow motion, and the player must move the stick in whichever direction Jodie is moving onscreen. Successful pairing will allow Jodie to land a punch or hurdle an obstacle, a failure will have her get smacked or fall on her face. I much prefer this system to pressing random buttons in combat, even if at times it’s hard to see exactly which direction Jodie is supposed to be moving.

Controlling Aiden is a completely different story. By pressing triangle, you shift into “ghost mode,” as it can best be described. You can float freely around areas, passing through matter with ease, but you have to maintain a certain arbitrary distance to Jodie. As Aiden, you can interact with the world in useful but limited ways. His primary move is “the bump” which has players latching onto an object and flicking both sticks down to have him do something as mundane as topple a stack of papers, or as powerful as flipping an entire car upside down.

Aiden’s other powers including healing injuries, triggering flashbacks from objects or bodies, choking enemies to death or most interestingly, possessing them. A possessed enemy can be used to aid Jodie, like a police officer who can let her out of containment, or a soldier who can execute his brethren so she can slip by, and it’s the most interesting mechanic in his arsenal.

Aiden is meant to introduce a sort of puzzle aspect to the game that wasn’t really found in Heavy Rain (not to mention the potential for multiplayer), but I’m not sure his implementation is a total success. Though the game professes to be about choice and consequences, it still feels largely on the rails, and Aiden’s uses in particular feel restricted. It’s never made clear why some enemies can be possessed, while others can only be killed and still more can’t be touched at all. Bumping, choking and possessing become rather mundane game mechanics when done repeatedly, and there isn’t often a feeling that you’ve done something particularly clever. You’ve just floated around long enough until you’ve figured out what the game wants you to do.

That doesn’t mean Jodie and Aiden’s relationship doesn’t make for some fantastic in-game moments, however. Most memorable for me is the intro mission where a grade-school aged Jodie has Aiden float into an adjacent room and read flashcards and topple blocks. But when the researchers demand more, Aiden starts flipping tables, breaking glass and smashing file cabinets. Go crazy enough and you can even start choking the poor research assistant in the room.  But it’s up to you how far you want to take things.

Another example of a similar scenario is not long after when preteen Jodie is invited to a girl’s birthday party on base. After initially playing nice, the kids eventually turn on Jodie, “the slut witch,” and lock her in a closet. Once Aiden lets her out, you can choose to exact revenge or leave. It’s fairly obvious what most will pick, and terrorizing a group of asshole teens with Aiden is the most fun you can have with the spirit in the game. Things take a dark turn, however, when you’re given the option to stop knocking around furniture in the locked living room, and bump a candle into a set of drapes to move things to another level. Again, the question is how far do you want to take this?

The way the game deals with choice and consequence is interesting, but I’m not sure it entirely achieves what it’s going after. Some choices like the ones above will have obvious consequences, but others seem to the lead to ultimately the same outcomes. I also take issue with presenting failure as a “choice” in the game. Truth is, if you hit the majority of the quick time events, you will likely have a similar story to most other people outside of a few obvious, binary choices. The game prides itself in not being able to “fail,” as if you mess up, the story simply moves in a slightly different direction. For example, I evaded police on a train while my wife got caught in her playthrough. The difference became that I had a fight sequence on top the train while she had to escape from a locked car. Both scenes were only about five minutes, and both took us to the same place, running through the woods, and the rest of the story played out the same.

But what happens if you fail everything, which would assuredly send the story in a wildly different direction? The problem with that is that barely any players will purposefully botch nearly every quick time event, which is what’s required to truly make you “lose.” The prompts are simply too easy this time around, and anyone with even a moderate amount of video game experience can handle most of them even on the harder “I play games regularly” setting. If a fight scene has six slow-motion prompts for the player, it seems like you’re allowed to botch 3-4 of them and still win the day. Asking gamers to purposefully throw a game seems like a weird way to present “choice,” but that’s what most will have to do if they want to see Jodie’s story take alternative turns, given how easy it is.

Heavy Rain and Beyond both have their share of mysteries, but Beyond is lacking a large, central one like “who is the Origami killer?” Rather, it’s only a smattering of little questions, like why did Jodie leave the CIA? What’s the deal with her family? If there’s one central question, it’s “who is Aiden?” but I figured it out with a few hours to go, and my wife guessed it within 45 minutes of starting her game. Not exactly a Shyamalan twist. Rather, the ghost world simply exists, called the “Infraworld,” and Jodie and Aiden must do their best to prevent the various governments of the world from opening Pandora’s Box which is full of dead souls and scary transdimensional monsters.

The game shines brightest in its quieter moments, as the action really isn’t all that special once you’ve gotten the slow-motion flicks down, and missions with gunplay almost seem like a joke. Rather, I much prefer the aforementioned interview or birthday party, or one sequence which tasked me (Jodie) with getting ready for a date in under an hour. Between trying to clean the house, cook dinner and get dressed, all the while having Aiden try to sabotage me, it was more intense than any mission that had me brawling and shooting.

In my eyes, the story is just alright for most of the game, but the acting and animation make it worlds more compelling than it would have been without them. It doesn’t feel like you’re playing a character, it feels like you’re living them, and that’s a distinction Quantic Dream games have that others don’t. The end of the game deals with some particularly deep issues regarding life, death and what lies beyond, and more than once did I find my heart caught in my throat as I was forced to make incredibly difficult choices I knew I wouldn’t be able to take back. It’s a powerful finale, and one I won’t soon forget.

Quantic Dream has made a fantastic video game here, even if you’re hesitant to classify it as such. I think these sorts of titles exist in a dimension between games, books and films, and it’s something we really need more of. Making them too easy sort of defeats the purpose of interactivity, and I wish there were more choices I actually knew I was making. But the gorgeous animation, incredible musical score and fantastic performances from its A-list actors makes it a solid, memorable experience overall.

Platform: PS3
Developer: Quantic Dream
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Released: Oct 8, 2013
Price: $60
Score: 9/10

5 Reasons Why You Should Buy A Wii U

The Wii U has become a much better proposition for gamers.

Nintendo’s Wii U has been in a sort of generational purgatory since its launch last November.

The hardware is more powerful than current generation consoles like the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, but not by leaps and bounds. And the system’s horsepower looks less impressive when standing next to the upcoming Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles from Microsoft and Sony, set to launch this November.

But the hardware isn’t the real reason the Wii U has struggled since launch. The real problem was a lack of really compelling, system-selling games.

For a variety of reasons, including the fact that this is Nintendo’s first foray in HD graphics, a lot of the heavy hitters haven’t even been released yet.

(For an in-depth look at what the Wii U did wrong, including why it should have been called the Super Wii, read my post on the subject.)

Still, almost a year into its life the Wii U has largely come of age, and it’s become one of my favorite video game consoles on the market today, and one of my favorites period. Here are three reasons why I think this holiday season is going to be the perfect time to buy a Wii U (or Super Wii!):

1. You can’t find games like this anywhere else.

The Wii U only launched with a smattering of games, and none of them managed to really grab my attention besides Ubisoft’s marvelous ZombiU. But all that’s changed over the intervening months.

Lego City Undercover is LEGO’s take on Grand Theft Auto. It’s probably my favorite LEGO game (in years) and one of the funniest games of 2013.

Pikmin 3 is a delight both to play and to simply gawk at, with its charming characters and lush, colorful landscapes. It’s also a game that makes you think and plan in weird and wonderful ways.

The Wonderful 101 is a brilliant action game that is quite literally like no other game I’ve ever played. And it’s really hard.

And the cross-platform platformer Rayman Legends makes full use of the Wii U’s touch gamepad in ways that are absolutely fundamental to the game experience.

Top this list off with the HD remake of Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, perhaps the most stunning HD remake ever, and you have a remarkable line-up of games that you simply can’t find anywhere else.

Sure, you can play Rayman (which was originally a Wii U exclusive) on Xbox 360 and PS3, but it’s not the same game without the touch-screen gamepad, especially in co-op.

2. The Wii U gamepad gets better and better. And makes more and more sense.

I’ve said previously that Nintendo should have devoted more of its manufacturing budget to internal specs and not an expensive second-screen gamepad.

I’m not so sure anymore. The way the gamepad enhances many games is hard to deny.

In fun mini-games in Nintendo Land, the second screen makes it possible to play hide-and-seek style asymmetric games where players see different things on the TV and the gamepad.

In Wind Waker HD and other titles, the gamepad serves as a great map and inventory management system. ZombiU took full advantage of this, making the simple act of rummaging through your pack a lot scarier. When it comes to any game that uses inventory or maps, the Wii U gamepad is just enormously convenient. What the system really needs is an ambitious roleplaying game that really focuses on inventory management and map-making.

The Wonderful 101 has some really clever puzzles that make use of both screens at once, and more and more games are utilizing the feature. The Wii U version of Rayman Legends built its entire concept of cooperative play around the gamepad, and it’s surprisingly intuitive and fun.

And cross-platform title Disney Infinity takes full advantage of the touch screen as well, making the game’s world-building features much quicker and more fluid.

But perhaps the best—or at least my personal favorite—feature of the gamepad is being able to play games on the small screen. This not only frees up the TV, it means you can plug the Wii U in anywhere (next to your bed, for instance, or in a room with no TV) and play to your heart’s content.

It’s typically just a matter of clicking a button (or tapping the screen) and you have a portable system built right into the console.

3. The price cut makes the Wii U a much better deal.

Right now you can buy the Wii U Wind Waker bundle for $299 (at some retailers; the price varies.) That’s the 32GB model. The same model cost $349 at launch, and didn’t come with Zelda.

In other words, the system is not only more affordable now, it’s also got a much better catalog of games with many more games launching in the very near future.

The Wii U is $100 cheaper than the PS4 and $200 cheaper than the Xbox One. And while there’s no denying that both those systems will have their own advantages and unique features, as more and more must-have games are released, and more developers take advantage of the second screen, the Wii U will hold its own.

Unlike Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo doesn’t charge for online gaming either. That doesn’t help much if all your friends play your game of choice on Xbox or PlayStation, but if you only play online occasionally it can be one more way to save some money.

No equivalent to Xbox Gold or PlayStation Plus exists on the Wii U which can be seen as an advantage or disadvantage—PS Plus is an especially good deal in my opinion, thanks to monthly free games—but budget-minded gamers and families may enjoy dodging a subscription fee.

4. Nintendo is still the best system for families.

Like past Nintendo systems, the Wii U is a great choice for families, and especially for families with younger children. Nintendo simply has more games that are good for kids, and the gamepad only enhances that accessibility for young children.

It’s important to note that this doesn’t mean Nintendo games are easier. Quite frankly, the Zelda and Mario franchises are often more challenging than many so-called “adult” or “mature” games on the market.

But the fact remains that many of Nintendo’s exclusives remain appropriate for children, and the Wii U’s unique gamepad makes many cross-platform titles easier for kids to play. Disney Infinity and Skylanders and even Rayman Legends are more intuitive for kids on the gamepad, and can be played remotely on the smaller screen which is a nice added benefit when parents and kids (or siblings) are fighting over the TV.

Simply put, Sony has ultra-violent exclusives like The Last of Us and God of War, and Microsoft has exclusive shooters like Halo and Gears of War, none of which are particularly appropriate for children. At all.

And while you can play violent games on the Wii U—Call of Duty, Batman,etc.—the system’s exclusives tend to be appropriate for all ages. Donkey Kong Country games are super tough, but there’s no blood and gore.Zelda has great dungeons and tricky puzzles, but you never pull a harpy’s wings out or cut up aliens with a chainsaw.

5. Nintendo has a strong lineup of games just around the corner.

Finally, we get back to the future. To the “last but not least” of this post.

I mentioned some of the better Wii U games that have already come out up above in #1. But that’s just a piece of the portrait.

This holiday we’ll see the release of Super Mario 3D World, Wii Party U, and Wii Fit U, as well as Sonic Lost World and Mario and Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games.

Next year is looking even better.

Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze, Bayonetta 2, Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Bros. and the new Xenoblade entry are all headed to Nintendo’s new system in 2014—and these are just the games we know about. All of these games look incredible, and each is a Wii U exclusive. (Actually, I’m not that into party and fitness games, but the rest look incredible…)

Third party support for the Wii U has been disappointing, but Warner Bros., Activision, and Ubisoft all have great looking titles coming to the Wii U, from Batman: Arkham Origins to LEGO Marvel Super Heroes to Skylanders: Swap Force to Child of Light and Watch Dogs. Not to mention Call of Duty: Ghosts.

You can get these on both current and next-gen systems from Microsoft and Sony, of course, but there’s no denying that the Wii U is getting some important third party support even after many publishers have voiced concern over its install base. And many of these cross-platform titles have an advantage on the Wii U thanks to the gamepad. (I’m always curious to see how developers integrate this, especially in third-party games.)

(An increasingly long list of indie games are heading to the Wii U as well, not to mention the re-releases of classic Nintendo franchises on the eShop.)

~

Now, these might not all be compelling reasons for every video game consumer. Consumers have reasonable doubts about the Wii U, and many are still confused as to what exactly the system is (a lot of people thought it was simply an add-on for the Wii, for instance, partly because of marketing and partly because Nintendo should have named it the Super Wii….)

If you’re not a big fan of Nintendo’s first-party games, the Wii U isn’t going to be the best choice for you. If you play mostly first-person shooters, you’ll be better off with a different system (PC, I’d argue.)

But it’s a better deal than it was a year ago, and the games on offer are truly unique. Nintendo’s first attempt at an HD system may have gotten off to a rough start, but even though it may not have found its commercial stride just yet, as a gaming system it’s already shaping up to be excellent. With so many more games on the horizon, it’s also shaping up to be an excellent value.

Nintendo Talks Wii U Third-Party Support

Third party video game publishers are still wary of the Wii U, but Nintendo remains confident.

It’s no secret that the Wii U has been fighting an uphill battle since its launch last year.

The problem, which is shared by Sony’s PS Vita and has plagued past systems as well, is a particularly tricky one: A system’s poor install base scares off third-party developers, which in turn leads to less new content, ultimately making it harder to cultivate a robust install base. A vicious cycle emerges.

Some publishers have been quite vocal about their disappointment or trepidation over the Wii U.

Speaking on an episode of Bonus Round at Gametrailers, Bethesda’s Pete Hines was the very definition of outspoken.

“The time for convincing publishers and developers to support Wii U has long passed,” Hines said.

“The box is out. You have to do what Sony and Microsoft have been doing with us for a long time. It’s not that every time we met with them we got all the answers that we wanted, but they involved us very early on, talking to folks like Bethesda and Gearbox, saying, ‘Here’s what we’re doing, here’s what we’re planning, here’s how we think it’s going to work,’ to hear what we thought, from our tech guys, and from an experience standpoint.”

Hines says he’ll focus on developing for systems better geared toward his company’s products.

This is a shame, of course, since an Elder Scrolls game, or Dishonored for that matter, would be really great on the Wii U. Dishonored’s powers would be easily accessible via the touch-screen, and inventory management inSkyrim would be a breeze.

Other publishers have been somewhat more optimistic.

Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg told CVG that Nintendo is having “a rough go” with the Wii U. But they’re hardly down for the count.

“Nintendo has been a great partner for us,” said Hirshberg. “It’s a very successful company but obviously having a rough go with the Wii U launch thus far. I’m sure Nintendo and the rest of the industry wanted a different result for the Wii U, but if we can add to the appeal of the platform then we absolutely will. Nintendo is a company that’s had hardware hits and misses in the past, but it has always found ways to remain completely relevant. It has some of the best game-makers in the world, and I wouldn’t count them out.”

Some in the industry are pinning the Wii U’s hopes to holiday shoppers.

Baird analyst Colin Sebastian said recently that ”the fate of the [Wii U] platform will likely rest on the popularity of Nintendo’s holiday software lineup.” And maybe they have a point, though the Wii U will be competing against two newer, more expensive, very hyped systems this Christmas.

Nintendo’s Scott Moffitt, EVP of Sales & Marketing for Nintendo of America, remains confident about the Wii U and its third-party support.

“We have strong relationships with third parties and have a strong lineup of upcoming games from key partners such as Ubisoft, Disney, SEGA and Warner Bros., among others,” Moffitt tells me, adding that “we realize that we need to continue to build the installed base to demonstrate that making games for Wii U is a good investment. We’re confident that we have the games necessary—both first- and third-party—to have a strong holiday season and expand the audience for Wii U.”

I ask Moffitt if Nintendo doesn’t really need to rely on third-party publishers given their strong first-party exclusives.

“We don’t see this as an either-or proposition,” he says. “Nintendo is in the unique position of being both a hardware manufacturer as well as a software producer. We want Wii U to be the console that every developer wants to publish on. A key way to make that happen is to grow the installed base of Wii U owners, and we know that current Wii U owners are very happy with their purchases.  Our great lineup in the second half of the year will create more buyers, and beyond that third-party support is important to attract as diverse an audience as possible.”

He adds that Nintendo sees 2013 as “just the start of a steady flow of great games coming to Wii U, with lots more to come in 2014.”

But there’s no doubt that Nintendo’s first-party games are at the heart of the Wii U’s appeal.

“In Pikmin 3, you have what might be the only real-time simulation strategy game,” Moffitt says. “It may be its own genre, and it certainly feels unique.

“Similarly, The Wonderful 101 defies simple description. At a time when some people clamor for new intellectual properties, these could be viewed as new forms of gaming.”