The final game is much improved: the impressive graphical standards at E3 remain, but performance is smoother under load and the general consistency of the refresh is commendable bearing in mind the often insane visuals, especially in multiplayer.
While controller response obviously compares unfavourably to games with 60Hz presentation, the switch to a lower frame-rate allows Insomniac to ramp up the detail and number of characters on-screen, while the lavish effects work is exemplary. This is particularly important since Sunset Overdrive is all about over-the-top action and stylish excess, and a reduction in these elements would radically alter the fundamentals.
On top of that, the developer has given Sunset Overdrive a rich open-world playground, where it's possible to scale the tallest buildings and traverse the entire landscape without touching the ground. While it only takes three minutes to go from end to end, this relatively compact environment allows the developer to fill it out with plenty of detail and interesting locations, providing a wealth of interactive objects with which to combo moves and attacks.
The combination of Insomniac's vibrant artwork and technical flair leads to some incredible views. However, these vistas are let down by the appearance of noticeable level-of-detail transitions between lower and higher resolution artwork, along with some aliasing issues. The 900p framebuffer isn't really at fault here: despite fine details appearing a little soft, scaling quality is generally excellent, leading to well defined sub-pixel imagery and a reasonably crisp presentation.
Instead, the problem lies with the game's post-process anti-aliasing solution, which can leave plenty of jaggies on-screen, leading to frequent shimmering around objects more than a few metres away from the camera. While this doesn't ruin the impressive detail and accomplished effects work, it proves a tad distracting when scoping out far-reaching views from altitude. That said, the decision to render at sub-1080p is arguably the right choice for the game, where the extra power per-pixel is better spent in helping maintain a stable frame-rate while pushing lots of effects on-screen. The movement, consistency and fluidity of the game is worth more to the player than what would be a small bump to the crispness of the visuals.
Full article here http://www.eurogamer...unset-overdrive
