Face-Off: Mass Effect 3 Special Edition on Wii U

Eurogamer's Digital Foundry take a look at Mass Effect 3 on the Nintendo Wii U and compares it to the other console versions.

[StanSmith]

Better than PS3 but just behind the 360. Pretty good for a quick port on new hardware!

[Computersaysno]

Pretty good :( what for a port onto 7 years newer, more expensive hardware?

I'd say not.

"but across the overall run of play it's somewhat disappointing to see a vintage 2005 console with slower GPU and less RAM match and indeed exceed the quality of the experience found on the brand new Nintendo hardware.

Regardless of the fact that the game has been farmed out to another developer, and irrespective of the state of the current Wii U toolchain and the overall lack of experience the studio would have had with the console, the fact is that a true generational leap in power - even the 2x to 4x jump represented by the Digital Foundry PC - would be reflected in a much higher level of performance than we see here."

Bingo.

[StanSmith]

It's a port that was done in a few months. What do you expect? Had this have been given longer to cook, it would have released in a better state.

Had this been given the full dev cycle that Mass Effect 3 had on Xbox and PS3, it would have no doubt came out better on WiiU. For a company to port this and achieve good results in a few months is pretty good in my opinion.

[Computersaysno]

It's a port that was done in a few months you say.

O rly.

EA hinted at it in June 2011. It was basically confirmed over a year ago, in October 2011 AT THE SAME TIME AS ALL THE OTHER PLATFORMS when they said a next gen platform i.e Wii U. http://mynintendonews.com/2...

So what do I expect? I expected that a brand new console that costs more than a 360 would be able to at the absolute bare minimum match an ancient 7 year old machine.

My sentiments are precisely reflected in the article, that there IS NO EXCUSE about tools, or developers, or time, or anything like that why really this game should be the best console version.

NO EXCUSES ACCEPTED. As the article pointed out that the cheap digital foundry PC reflects a good leap in comparison to the aged consoles.

Regardless of ANY of those factors, Wii U should be beating up the other consoles but it can't because there is no leap. Not even a babystep. It should be the best version but its not even the best console version...

So before you start off with this bunch of crap about development cycles and time when the game has probably been coming to this machine for 18 months you might wanna think twice.

Lets not have these excuses and accept that Nintendo have built a HD machine to compete with PS3/360 7 years after this current gen began. Except it costs more and is not any better in any aspect.

I really think they have another gamecube on their hands, I can't even see why anyone other than core nintendo fans would go out and buy a Wii U now instead of a PS3 or 360.

[StanSmith]

You want to learn to calm down. Getting all annoyed over my post above.

Also, since when did EA hinting at a release, mean it was in development?

We don't even know the full specs of the WiiU, or how it will overcome it's bottlenecks. Too many people are jumping the gun, ready to spell doom and gloom on this site.

I expected no less though, I called it weeks ago in one of the "Vita is doomed" articles. Can't wait until PS4/next xbox release when all this nonsense begins again.

Funny how everyone jumped on the PS3 at launch too isn't it? You know, when despite being more powerful, it's ports were well behind the 360 versions.

[Imalwaysright]

"It's a port that was done in a few months" How do you know that?

[Computersaysno]

I am perfectly calm, but your excuses are inane. You want to learn to wake up to reality.

Since when did hinting it was coming then confirming it was coming over a year ago mean it WASN'T in development? Do you think EA 'a few months' ago suddenly remembered they were making it for Wii U?

You are grasping at straws. It is plainly obvious this has been in the works for well over a year. All indications back me up and refute your claim.

Please give up and don't trot out the 'few months quick port' crap again with this game. Its obviously utter nonsense when you look back at it. Especially when you read reviews that say it obviously wasn't a quick port.......

Funny how you attempted to change the topic to something completely irrelevant to avoid the fact your post was called out.

If you honestly think that this inferior Wii U version that has been in the works for ages running on 7 year newer more expensive hardware is 'pretty good' then you are hopefully in the tiny minority.

But then this is also STILL beside the point, as digital foundry pointed out. Regardless of any mitigating circumstances, it is highly disappointing.

This is a completely different situation to 6 or 7 years ago, when two similar performing machines came out close together to compete.

No idea why you think such irrelevance has a place in this discussion.

[StanSmith]

I attempted to change the topic when you called me out? Erm...

"I expected that a brand new console that costs more than a 360 would be able to at the absolute bare minimum match an ancient 7 year old machine. "

"Regardless of ANY of those factors, Wii U should be beating up the other consoles but it can't because there is no leap. Not even a babystep."

"Lets not have these excuses and accept that Nintendo have built a HD machine to compete with PS3/360 7 years after this current gen began. Except it costs more and is not any better in any aspect.

I really think they have another gamecube on their hands, I can't even see why anyone other than core nintendo fans would go out and buy a Wii U now instead of a PS3 or 360."

THAT is what the second part of my comment was referring to. I was pointing out that you and I do not know it's full specs. So claiming it's inferior to PS3/360 is opinion at this point in time.

Also, I'm not making excuses for Nintendo at all. Sure, I'm buying a WiiU on launch, but I still own a 360 & PS3. I'm buying it for what it is, not what it will be when the next gen offerings from Sony and Microsoft release. I don't give a stuff what Sony and Microsoft shove in their boxes, as I'll be buying them too, so WiiUs "inferiority" means nothing to me.

In regards to my quick port comment, while I can't back up my claim, you can't either. When EA hinted that ME3 was coming to WiiU, they could have only been in the discussing stages. Nothing is concrete just because it was hinted.

[Computersaysno]

Yes, you changed the topic when I called you out. My other comments were not directed at you or apt to your initial post/the article.

There is no real relevance to what people thought of PS3 6 years ago against 360 compared to what they think of Wii U so many years later when the situation is completely different, namely, Wii U is supposed to be a next gen console to that machine (PS3 wasn't) and the likes of Nintendo have the bare faced cheek to say it'll stand up graphically to Sony and Microsoft's next machines when it doesn't even beat their current (now very aged) machines fully. Thats some crazy claim there from Nintendo.

You pointing out about its full specs is also now extremely useless. Clearly you can't read what I have said nor what the article says.

"Regardless of the fact that the game has been farmed out to another developer, and irrespective of the state of the current Wii U toolchain and the overall lack of experience the studio would have had with the console, the fact is that a true generational leap in power - even the 2x to 4x jump represented by the Digital Foundry PC - would be reflected in a much higher level of performance than we see here. "

What more do you want? If Wii U was really significantly more powerful it would have been known by now. The inferiority here, the AC3 inferiority. None of the other games are leaps ahead. Completely regardless of mitigating factors, a significant leap (just even twice overall) would have been seen at launch.

It is again obvious now that Wii U is not significantly more powerful than current machines. Insignificantly more powerful, probably, but no leap. None.

Your comments indicate that you are unaware that De Nile is not just a river in Egypt.

In regards to your quick port comment, you can't back up your claim AT ALL. Not with even a hint of evidence, and it stands against the evidence (albeit circumstantial and logical) that says EA had this on their radar for over 18 months and it was confirmed over a year ago. That usually means they didn't just knock this thing up in a few months.

Using the assertion that because we don't have the confirmed day development actually began on it to validate your statement is horrendously weak.

Its not good that you would still deny this while it makes your quick port claim look like nonsense.

A climb down from your initial comment that this is a quick port in a few months would serve you quite well, and possibly regain yourself some credility in this thread that has rapidly evaporated.

[kabala]

Remember when the 360 came out? Remember games like Gun, King Kong, Tony Hawk, Madden? Didn't think so but to refresh your memory those games where marginally better than their ps2/Xbox counterparts hell madden was worse but look how the 360 and PS3 is now. Give it some time please.

[jmc8888]

People have to remember you can't code for a game until you have a dev kit. They probably didn't have a dev kit until right around Mass Effect 3 shipped. Maybe the last month or two, which would have been in late 2010. That's also if they got a REALLY early one, which weren't anything like a Wii U, just running the software that could make the games..and a very early version of that no less.

Also it IS important that it was a different team, because it means they didn't readily have the same resources available to them. It's like rewriting a story someone else wrote.

The game was made with 360/PC in mind, which is also why it runs best on those systems. They are very similar, which is another reason why the 360 got so many of the better versions of games.

They were trying to port it, using a new system, and new software, with less talented coders, that didn't necessarily want to change all the code written before it. Lots of how things interacted remain the same as the 360 version, which means there are areas of the code built for the 360's limitation that the Wii U can do better, but would be very costly and time consuming to do so. So it was more of a cut and paste, and see if it works, rather than coded for any of the advantages the Wii U had. It was different people that couldn't just contact the guy somewhere else in the building to help them out if something went wrong, so I'm sure they tended to be more cautious of making major and core changes to the code.

People need to remember that the 360 had slowdowns as well, and usually it tracked WHERE the slowdowns were for the Wii U. There were a few others, but in all that footage it was pretty rare. That to me, is an indication of being built around the 360's framework.

So you can't say irrespective, because it was built with the 360/PC in mind long before they had a wii u dev kit, and only at the end of the development cycle, could they play around with it, but then again, it wasn't THEM that was going to do it, so why would they? It was another team. So yeah would you be doing other people's work for them...from another company?

A PC game that is made for a PC scales with the hardware, so it's apple and oranges. A very piss poor comparison because it isn't running different software, it's running already established format, with game patches and driver updates, that the Wii U doesn't have a benefit of yet, and may not, since there isn't a major issue with the game.

[Computersaysno]

I remember when 360 came out. Even launch ports then ran at more than twice the resolution they did on PS2/xbox. Even on a fairly straight over port 360 won easily, as you would expect. http://photos1.blogger.com/...

You can code for the game on generic PC hardware. Every single game starts out on a workstation PC, eventually then hooked to a devkit. There are two things here, one is that this is Unreal engine 3. The most common, well known, one of the most efficient and scalable game engines around.

This isn't some unknown engine, Wii U isn't some complicated exotic hardware. The second is that Wii U devkits arrived much longer before launch than xbox 360 finalised devkits did, which was incredibly rushed with games running brand new engines. 360 managed just fine to thrash everything going day one. 360 wasn't just running straight over ports of other console games either. The stuff it might have had teething issues with were state of the art HD titles. Not some 3rd version on basically the same engine of a game that initially arrived 5 years ago....

I fail to see this excuse working either.

They were porting onto simple, straightforward hardware, on the most commonly used game engine for the past 6 years. They had well over a year to get the game running on something resembling Wii U specs inside a workstation, and at the minimum 6 months after final devkits went out(they would have preliminary ones before this) getting it tuned up.

It isn't as if they added a whole load of content to the game. The main team at Bioware would have done all the legwork for assets and design, and sent everything across ready to anyone working on Wii U alongside other versions. All they have to do is make it run.

These are professional developers, not some 14 year olds who programmed a clone version of snake on C++.

You can say irrespective. There are no valid excuses. Time in this case is a terrible limp excuse that should not be accepted. Inexperience with the machine should not be an excuse. Hardware definitely is not an excuse.

Wii U version is just disappointing, exactly as the article says.

Regardless of time, regardless of experience, regardless of the toolset, regardless of everything.

If Wii u had better hardware it would beat up PS3 and 360 right now, but it doesn't here and nowhere else.

[PygmelionHunter]

I'd encourage certain people on this site to give a good read to some of the comments posted on the article's page, but I know these blockheads would just keep trolling unsuccessfully as usual...

[maniac76]

Lolz better than ps3, lazy devs. At this point id just buy wii u for its exclusives and its own franchises. For multiplat ill stick with 360 or ps3. Its all good at least we get nin characters in hd,finally.

[EffectO]

Looks like New World Order is 360>WiiU>PS3.

Oh Nintendo

[Xof]

I think you've got that backwards.

[wishingW3L]

but PS3 has always had issues with UE3 so this is not a good comparison. Games like RE6 and the new Hitman actually look the best on PS3 so is more of a variation with the engines.

Some run fine on the PS3 and others like UE3 don't.

[shempo]

bioware said a hundreds times already that the ps3 trilgoy is the best YOU dont believe ? no problem GOOGLE it

anw i dont give a crap about nintendo casual console....all my friends are on psn,live all the games are more than 6 months already out...ppl who bought them all wont buy them again excpt ps3 users for me1 which again CONFIRMED from bioware its the best port of all with kits from me2-3 only the ps3 got this.multiplayer same...why the fck should i start from zero ?

[neogeo]

Well I feel better after reading last night that they got the ram wrong when reading the Samsung pdf. It's fast gddr3 not ddr3. They are saying its clicked around 35ghz..not 12.

[1upgamer99]

Looks good, but I did notice when he steps outside at around 1.35 in the video the 360 looked much better, and the Wii U seemed a little washed. I mean its still a great looking game. I can not wait to see what 1st party epic games are going to look like. Take Galaxy, it was AMAZING looking on the Wii. How much more could they do on Wii U?

[Getowned]

Ports from the 360 to other consoles have always looked washed imo.

[Sharingan_no_Kakashi]

The wii version has better lighting imo. Other than that it's clearly carbon copy.

[Nevers0ft]

I don't see how comparisons at such an early stage of the consoles life-cycle tells us anything useful.

Development teams have to learn how to write for a console and exploit its strengths and avoid the weaknesses... A port of a game by an inexperienced developer (to consoles), done with beta dev kits and toolchains is not how you measure a console.

We're unlikely to get a real feel for what the Wii U is capable of until some time after the launch window.