The cascade transition between these elements of the scene are also less aggressive than the other consoles, too - a somewhat strange situation, especially considering that these parts of the game are filled with bandwidth-heavy alpha textures, used for the foliage and trees. That said, in more densely packed forest areas the greenery remains completely intact, while higher-resolution shadowmaps are also found. It's possible that some of these differences - particularly in terms of textures - are attributable to the streaming technology, with higher-quality artwork failing to load in. Lower-quality texture-work is also visible on the ground in these parts of the world, showing that Vigil Games has had to make a number of compromises to get the game up and running on the Wii U when dealing with expansive scenes. The light-shafts present on the other formats are replaced by a more simple glow effect, water splash effects are less complex, while trees have been culled from some of the more wide open areas of the game.
"Wii U looks to offer the bulk of the existing Darksiders 2 experience, though some detail has been pared back while other elements are slightly more refined than the PS3 and Xbox 360 games."Įarly reports cited missing trees and lighting in the Wii U version of Darksiders 2 and we find that to be the case in the final game too. Beyond this there are only a few points of difference between Darksiders 2 on the Wii U and the other consoles some of these are pretty significant, if only contained to specific areas.
Some scenes appear sharper and more jagged than the other consoles, while others look to be a close match the results are purely down to how well the algorithm catches and smooths over the offending edges.Īs a plus point, we find that specular highlights appear slightly more prominent on the Wii U on some surfaces where the edge filter fails to blend away texture details. In terms of basic image quality, Darksiders 2 on Wii U renders in the same 1152圆40 resolution as the 360 and PS3 versions, with a rather basic edge blur filter present in lieu of a more effective anti-aliasing solution.
There's also a meaty quad-format comparison gallery to check out too, which pits all three consoles up against the PC version of the game running at a matched 720p. We kick off our analysis with a look at the Wii U and PS3 versions of the game in our head-to-head video below, complete with Xbox 360 and PC alternatives. So the question is whether Vigil Games has succeeded in achieving that goal of parity, or whether we're looking at another disappointing multi-platform Wii U release that sees brand new 2012 technology failing to match the graphical accomplishments of the vintage 2005/2006 current-gen stalwarts. Instead much of the development time would be spent finding innovative ways to use the Wii U's GamePad to enhance the core experience. so we're not going to have to make any visual concessions at all". Associate producer Jay Fitzloff told Eurogamer back in May that the Wii U has "plenty of horsepower.
With the new Wii U version, Vigil Games stated that Darksiders 2 would take full advantage of Nintendo's system from a gameplay point of view while matching the graphical accomplishments of the PS3 and 360 versions. The latter was a basic port, combining the best features of the 360 and PS3 versions with the ability to run at higher resolutions and frame-rates: by default the best experience, but a little disappointing in the DirectX 11 era. In terms of platform parity, we came away reasonably satisfied with Vigil Games's work on the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of Darksiders 2, although we felt that console gamers were let down by heavy tearing, while PC gamers had to suffer a lack of customisable graphics settings.