WingedKagouti on 28/10/2008 at 11:09
Quote Posted by Thirith
However, when it comes to creating a credible world, graphics are important - the engine (or rather how effectively it's used) is important, as is art design.
And that can be done right and wrong in almost any engine, 2D or 3D. It's consistent and thoughtout art design that works here, not how high quality the textures are, the resolution of the game, bloom, anti-aliasing, shadows/lighting, pixel shaders or whatever else you can pull forth from the feature list for high end cards.
The game engine should of course support whatever features is required by the game (eg. shadows in a stealth game), but anything beyond that is wasteful and the resources spent on making additional features work could be spent better trying to improve performance and stability. Does it really matter if we can see the nostril hairs of enemy soldiers?
Quality art design means that you can use mid-late '90s technologies and make something that draws the player into the game world.
Thirith on 28/10/2008 at 11:17
Absolutely, but that's not the same as saying that graphics are unimportant.
To me, this is like comparing, say, The Phantom Menace and The Empire Strikes Back. Technically, the former is much more accomplished, while the latter is more basic. However, Empire knows much better how to use its visuals whereas The Phantom Menace presents the audience with a cacophony of SFX.
One of the things that, if used well, makes a game world feel that much more real is good real-time lighting (see STALKER). Bad, or badly used, lighting automatically makes things look more like a cheapo stage set. And that's something that does depend on computing power, at least to some extent.
Matthew on 28/10/2008 at 11:20
SWIV 3D - the first game I saw running on a 16-bit computer and it made my jaw drop.
Rebel Assault (don't laugh) - the game that convinced me to buy one of these fancy-schmancy PCs.
Malleus on 28/10/2008 at 12:03
Crysis: It may be overdone, but it looks awesome and it's still believable - when I'm standing on the beach watching the sun reflect on the waves listening to the water, it feels like I'm there, I almost want to jump in the sea to escape from the heat of the sun. No other game accomplished this.
Splinter Cell: The shadows. When in that first presentation, I saw the character walking under some railing, and seeing the shadows crawl on his body just sent shivers down my spine. I've never seen anything like that before. The play of the shadows is one of the reasons I keep replaying the game.
gunsmoke on 28/10/2008 at 12:38
PC GAMES=
FarCry,
Max Payne 2-The Fall of Max Payne, (I just got through playing this a week ago, and even to this day, it's gorgeous. I have always been able to run it full-on w/every feature enabled @ 1280x960 w/full AA/AF. The engine is smooth as silk, too. Love the physics.
Fable-The Lost Chapters, (I used to just sit and watch the grass sway. The only game that Bloom is highly appropriate for. It looks weird w/out it.)
FEAR,
Serious Sam, (The amazing wide open vistas, and the god-rays)
Chaser, (the shaders and reflective surfaces, as well as the jaw-dropping sequence where the space station explodes and rains down on the ghetto)
Thief: Deadly Shadows, (I was so immersed. The lighting/shadowing really brought a life-like feel to the levels. The bug eyed models, and terrible animations just took too much away from it).
CONSOLE TITLES=
Silent Hill 2- Amazing, even to this day. Perfect visuals for the game.
Splinter Cell- These games are always at the forefront of graphic beauties. (I guess the Rainbow Six 3 games should be lumped in here too, as they share technology as well as style)
Painkiller Hell Wars- Proved the orig. XBox was still a capable system in 2006.
Final Fantasy X- When it was released, the game dropped jaws 'round the world.
Perfect Dark- W/the 4MB memory exp. it was awesome. The lighting and textures were the best the N64 created.
Suffering(Xbox ver.)-I only had a PS2 at the time, I gobbled this title right up and loved it. I soon afterward saw it @ a friend's house on Xbox, and couldn't believe the improvements. I had to get one. Glad I did, I still play my Xbox 3-4 times a week.
Sorry it's long. But these are the ones that have always stuck out to me (at least the ones that weren't mentioned to death). Several of the previously mentioned titles, like Blade of Darkness, were also amazing to me, but saved you from my repeating them.
mothra on 28/10/2008 at 12:48
thief
stalker
the witcher
vurt on 28/10/2008 at 12:50
Quote Posted by Andarthiel
Neverwinter Nights - After the 2D Iso era of RPG games this was one of the first to bring RPGs into a 3D environment and I salivated over this game when it first came out.
I remember beeing very disapointed with the Lego-graphics of this game when it came out, it was very much behind compared to other 3D games released at the time (Morrowind, Arx Fatalis - for example). NWN2 is also very bad looking imo, the lightning is crap, for example.
Games that has impressed me graphically over the years would be
Last Ninja
Doom
Donkey Kong Country
Super Mario 64 (looked awesome even compared to what was out on PC at that time)
Rebel Assault
Morrowind
Far Cry
Theif Deadly Shadows (great artwork and shadows)
Oblivion
Crysis (on higest settings + 4x AA is gorgeous but needs a 4870x2 or similar)
WoW (great artwork and animations, other MMORPG's like WAR or LOTRO cant even compare)
GTA IV
Fable 2 (some of the best artwork i've seen)
Gears of War (crap game though, boring levels and boring gameplay but can really looks stunning at times.)
I'm sure i've missed quite a few.
Volitions Advocate on 28/10/2008 at 13:37
I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that the Images around the net for Colonial Marines aren't "bullshots" because if they aren't that will be one insane looking game.
Koki on 28/10/2008 at 14:12
Quote Posted by Matthew
SWIV 3D
Man I used to play the demo all the time.
Need to dig out a full version from somewhere.
Matthew on 28/10/2008 at 14:14
Oddly, I have no idea why I said SWIV 3D, as I meant to say the original SWIV. SWIV 3D convinced me to upgrade to a 3D-capable graphics card, though.
