The Changing face of Graphics... (for the none belivers) :P

Mobius 1 · 21 Jun 2006 at 00:32

FEAR has to be the most visually stunning for me, especially when you have the right equipment to run it on a decent setting (plus the atmosphere, theres something about it that makes me feel un easy everytime i play it). Although, half life 2 on my 9550 i thought was bloody amazing. For the amount of power i did have it ran very very well. I say they've got that engine running more or less in perfect tune with most graphics cards capable of running it. Crysis and UT2007 will be a next step forwards in graphics. Especially Crysis, after seeing that gameplay video.

Stellios · 21 Jun 2006 at 01:26

I still think HL2 is still the best looking. Its not the best graphics, but it looks the cleanest and i think it looks the most realistic.

SnipaMasta · 21 Jun 2006 at 01:30

The first Unreal one is actually not the quality of the game, that's the demonstration they made for the super-high resolution textures (S3TC - texture sizes over 2048X10248 resolution!). And the first HL2 one is a promotional picture.

PinkFloyd > If you want Atmosphere, play the Thief series. Particularly the famed Cradle level in Thief 3.

welshtom said:
No game has come close to HL2. Storyline/diversity/textures/playability/Detail/Physics etc.

*Ahem*
DEUS EX.
Storyline: Deus Ex is a far more involving and detailed story, and it's actually revealed more conveniently in the game rather than having the occasional clue in HL2.
Diversity: Half Life 2 barely has any diversity. You have city, Combine, and the beach. Deus Ex has Area 51, Hong Kong, Paris, New York...each usually with it's own set of textures and different style and a very involving soundtrack.
Playability: One way through the game. No alternative routes. Deus ex, however, has multiple ways to solve problems and is (kind of) different each time you play it.
Detail: In graphical terms, Deus Ex doesn't compare for obvious reasons. In terms of the general detail to the environment, there are literally hundreds of newspapers, books, data-cubes etc. that you can read in Deus Ex, compared to a few things you can read on Eli's noticeboard.
Physics: Physics don't make good game play.

jellybeard999 · 21 Jun 2006 at 01:42

HL2 impresses me with its scalability...

FEAR, Quake4 etc etc MUST be played on a high end rig...

HL2 goes from end to end, looking very good on a mediocre rig, and excellent on a uber rig

Sparky · 21 Jun 2006 at 11:28

No mention of BF2

not the prettiest of games but still worthy of a mention.

HeX · 21 Jun 2006 at 11:48

And then, of course, next is CrySis...

Dutch Guy · 21 Jun 2006 at 12:05

HeX said:
And then, of course, next is CrySis...

Bloody awesome if those are real ingame shots :eek:

that must require quite a bit of GPU power though

Stellios · 21 Jun 2006 at 12:06

CS||nuTs said:
No mention of BF2 not the prettiest of games but still worthy of a mention.
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It doesnt scale well. The system it requires is stupid, my 6800 struggle with medium details and it doesnt even look that good.

SnipaMasta · 21 Jun 2006 at 12:15

Those Crysis screenshots look fantastic. The HDR lets it down though (bottom images) - if you look in the real life version you see how light REALLY reacts, in the ingame shot the metal and wood seems to be glowing.

Sparky · 21 Jun 2006 at 12:15

My 7800 handles it pretty well.

Dutch Guy · 21 Jun 2006 at 12:35

SnipaMasta said:
Those Crysis screenshots look fantastic. The HDR lets it down though (bottom images) - if you look in the real life version you see how light REALLY reacts, in the ingame shot the metal and wood seems to be glowing.

And the shadows are too "hard" in th game shots, in real life there are lots of "soft shadows" but unfortunately for a GPU that is very stressing.

rayb74 · 21 Jun 2006 at 13:10

Nice post.

Some of the best games I`ve played are "retro" titles that I still play to this day. Graphics are nice but only garnish.
Good graphics can make a sub standard game better.

Sometimes I just want to have a good game instead of being involved in an "interactive movie" which is the way some games seem to be going.

Vegeta · 21 Jun 2006 at 13:18

Dutch Guy said:
And the shadows are too "hard" in th game shots, in real life there are lots of "soft shadows" but unfortunately for a GPU that is very stressing.

The grass on the picture looks a bit turd also, its like small squares of spiky hair lol.

Dutch Guy · 21 Jun 2006 at 13:29

Vegeta said:
The grass on the picture looks a bit turd also, its like small squares of spiky hair lol.

Yeah, but that doesn't surprise me seeing how grass kills the framerate in Oblivion.

I think they can make it look better than that but that would prolly mean it is unplayable on almost every setup unless you have a FX-62 and CF/SLI

Vegeta · 21 Jun 2006 at 13:52

by the looks of it, it is probably unplayable on most current systems.

PinkFloyd · 21 Jun 2006 at 13:55

Stellios said:
It doesnt scale well. The system it requires is stupid, my 6800 struggle with medium details and it doesnt even look that good.

I found BF2 scales well. The biggest difference is the second gig of ram. playing with one gig you need a monster gfx card to run smooth.
With 2 gig of ram I could run on high settings at 1280x1024 on an X800XL, whilst still keeping high fps

King_Boru · 21 Jun 2006 at 14:00

Graphics may have progressed but the game themselves are getting worse. They just dont play like they used to, with weak to no storyline envolved and samey game styles of current games like HL2, Doom 3, Quake 4 and the like are all very similar. Played one you've played them all.

They just dont make them like they used, bring back the old days of fun games.

The last game which really set my standard was FF7, nithing to date has come close to what that game did for the player.

Just my 2 cents.

King.

Dutch Guy · 21 Jun 2006 at 14:30

King_Boru said:
They just dont make them like they used, bring back the old days of fun games.

The last game which really set my standard was FF7, nithing to date has come close to what that game did for the player.

Totally agree, the Final FAntasy games were interesting because of the storyline, compare that to a current RPG like Oblivion the difference is huge, sure, Oblivion looks better but there is no main character story at all, only stories of people you meet.

Curio · 21 Jun 2006 at 14:42

King_Boru said:
Graphics may have progressed but the game themselves are getting worse. They just dont play like they used to, with weak to no storyline envolved and samey game styles of current games like HL2, Doom 3, Quake 4 and the like are all very similar. Played one you've played them all.

They just dont make them like they used, bring back the old days of fun games.

The last game which really set my standard was FF7, nithing to date has come close to what that game did for the player.

Just my 2 cents.

King.

I don't agree. Maybe games aren't getting more ground breaking as often as they used to, but they certainly aren't getting worse. I used to think that way myself but, after a phase of retro-gaming, I realised that just isn't true - it's usually just the fog of nostalgia that's clouding your vision. And I've been playing computer games since the early 80's

ps. HL2 is one of the best games of all time for me.

LoadsaMoney · 21 Jun 2006 at 15:24

Vegeta said:
The grass on the picture looks a bit turd also, its like small squares of spiky hair lol.

Yeah the grass looks crap, as does the water in the top one, its just a blue splodge still it probably helps with the frame-rates.