14 DAY TRIAL // Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time is one of those games that can boast a high framerate amongst their achievements. Its developer, Insomniac, has faced the issue of having to choose between graphics and a perfectly smooth gameplay, and it has chosen the second so far. But that might change forever, as the company sees the market more attracted by eye-candy.
"One of the long-standing sacred cows here at Insomniac is framerate. We've long viewed a solid framerate as both a sign of a quality product and professionalism as developers. It's always been point of pride in our work and considered an extremely serious part of our development process," Insomniac developer Mike Acton posted on his official blog. But times change and people need to try and adapt if they want to remain in this competitive business.
"However, during development, there are hard choices to be made between higher quality graphics and framerate. And we want to make the right choices that reflect our commitment to providing you with the best looking games out there. To that end, our community team did some research into the question of framerate. The results perhaps confirmed what I've known for a long time, but found it difficult to accept without evidence," Acton said. Their team decided to do some actual research and ended up with a result that brings bad news for high framerates.
Gamers and critics alike seem to be less impressed by a smooth gameplay that never staggers and a lot more by flashy graphics and eye-blinding effects. Right not, framerates are "important, but not critically so. When there is a clear choice between framerate and improved graphics, graphics should win. The correlation with review scores is clear." And they don't plan to ignore what their fans prefer. "It means that framerate is still important to us here at Insomniac, but it's not on the same pedestal it was before. And Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time will probably be Insomniac's last 60 fps game."