As Union soldiers stepped out of the Cornfield at dawn, September 17, 1862, Confederate troops unleashed a horrific volley. The single, bloodiest day in American History had begun in earnest. For the next four hours the Cornfield was the center of a storm of lead, iron, and flame as Federal soldiers from the First and Twelfth Corps clashed with Lee's men. The Cornfield changed hands again and again as both sides attacked and counterattacked. One soldier remembered: "The air seems full of leaden missiles. Rifles are shot to pieces in the hands of soldiers, canteens and haversacks are riddled with bullets, the dead and wounded go down in scores."
More than 25,000 soldiers fought in and around the Cornfield. By 9:30 a.m. thousands of them lay dead and dying. Confederate Gen. John Bell Hood wrote: "It was here that I witnessed the most terrible clash of arms, by far, that has occurred during the war." Union Gen. Joseph Hooker remembered that "every stalk of corn in the northern and greater part of the field was cut as closely as could have been done with a knife, and the slain lay in rows precisely as they stood in their ranks a few moments before. It was never my fortune to witness a more bloody, dismal battlefield."
Iron Soldier 720p
The latest bloody skirmish begins here. Seven more cross-platform releases are appraised for your feverish attentions across the next few pages, backed - as usual - by the best range of comparison assets on the internet. That'll be full 720p and 1080p HDMI 24-bit RGB screengrabs, and h.264-powered 1:1 precision videos.
Before we begin proper, let's kick off with a bit of good news. 2K has just updated BioShock with a brand new patch for the disappointing PlayStation 3 conversion of the game. The numerous promised bug-fixes have all materialised, but better than that, the vastly annoying blur effect has been substantially reduced. What blur there is now appears to be down to the reduced sub-720p resolution and, alas, this combined with the wildly variable frame-rate remain. More details on the befores and afters at the author's blog.
The videos in this feature have come out pretty well, but if you feel the need to watch extended, downloadable versions running at the full 720p 60fps, check the Digital Foundry Blog in the next day or so.
Collapsing frame-rates (even on the vehicle-selection screen - that must have taken some work), zero anti-aliasing, pared-down lighting and missing environmental detail... were it not for the fact that Baja: Edge of Control does indeed run at 720p on PS3, we'd pretty much have the full house of cross-platform calamities. The solitary act of redemption is the inclusion of upscaled 1080i/1080p support.
The real problem both versions of the game have is that the competition is staggeringly superior compared to this lame effort. MotorStorm and its sequel effortlessly wipe the floor with it, while both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 owners can enjoy Black Rock's brilliant Pure. Neither game has the openworld environment that Edge of Control proffers, but who actually wants or needs sandbox gameplay when it's bereft of fun?
A horse can carry on its back only half the amount it can pull on a cart. However, unlike carts and other wheeled vehicles, horses and other pack animals can travel almost anywhere a soldier can go on foot.
Pulling ambulances was one of the most important roles of draught horses. They could quickly transport injured soldiers from casualty clearing stations to field hospitals. Along badly shell-damaged roads, it would have been a very uncomfortable way to travel.
Wood was a vital resource for lining trenches and providing shelters for men and animals. It was used for the duckboards that enabled soldiers to cross the shell-scarred and muddy landscape. It was also used for railway sleepers on the narrow-gauge railways that transported troops and helped keep the Army supplied.
So, clearly, it would seem that these soldiers were up against an enemy that was higher than they were, as if they were in a fortress, as if there were some sort of siege situation, and that these soldiers of Mentuhotep were attacking some kind of fort and people were hitting them from above, raining down arrows, throwing rocks.
-After the battle was won, Mentuhotep II declared himself king of the entire country, reunifying Egypt at last, and he is believed to have had the soldiers buried above his own mortuary temple as a sign of honor. 2ff7e9595c
Comments