HL2, where are the revolutionary visuals?

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Cenuij

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HL2 doesnt exactly show off the current hardware very well does it?

Now im not saying it isn't a nice game but it's hardly 'revolutionary' visuals, like the banner ads claim. The graphics seem pretty average to me, it certainly looks like a game that's a year old... Oh wait it is.

FarCry and Doom3 graphics are both far superior to this. Just as well the gameplay is spot on...
 
I think the characters in HL2 look much, much more realistic than any other game out there. As far as facial expressions, animations, etc, it blows all other games away. D3 / Far Cry have characters that look very plastic and fake, in my opinion. I don't remember them promising revolutionary visuals.

If they did, back then, it would make sense. A year later it isn't revolutionary, back then it would have been.
 
I wouldnt say it revolutionary at all. It is very comparable to Far Cry. In some ways worse, in others better. Like the guy above said, I think they really did a good job making real looking water and really good characters.
 
joecuddles said:
I think the characters in HL2 look much, much more realistic than any other game out there.
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I really don't like how they look, they look like crap IMO. I do agree with the D3 part as well, didn't like how they looked either.
 
Look like crap? Are you insane? :p

I think they're far better than anything that has been done ever. It makes me wet.
 
I think overall HL2 looks very good, definitely one of the best looking games ever.

But yeah, I don't think anything graphics-wise is particularly ground-breaking.
 
joecuddles said:
Look like crap? Are you insane? :p

I think they're far better than anything that has been done ever. It makes me wet.
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Take another look, it is decidedly average, if you think HL2 is the best graphics ever you ARE smoking crack...
 
I think it was a year ago that they promised that, because it would have been.

I haven't seen any ads that promise revolutionary visuals. But of course, even if they did, something such as that is subjective, so it isn't false advertising ;)
 
joecuddles said:
Look like crap? Are you insane? :p

I think they're far better than anything that has been done ever. It makes me wet.
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Yeah it looks like crap, Alex looks atleast 10 years or more older. The skin textures make me feel sick.
 
Some of the environments in HL2 is almost surreal in terms of beauty. Far Cry, everything looked good, but you can tell some things weren't perfect. (IE, look at the beach. There are 2 layers of ground, one of texture on the beach, and one of the beach original texture.)

Doom3, yes it looked good, but I think that HL2 is not only good looking, but very forgiving to old hardware, which Doom 3 is NOT. HL2 looks amazing even on Dx8.1 hardware.

The water in HL2 is probably better than FarCry, considering it does refraction better then anything I've seen thus far, and it also does very well at model animations and utilizing AI skills with those animations.

PS: Why does the 'B' man always look stoned?
 
Cenuij said:
Take another look, it is decidedly average, if you think HL2 is the best graphics ever you ARE smoking crack...
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We are talking about characters. Models / animations / facial expressions. Follow up through our replies, I'm talking characters only.

Now give me my crack back.
 
D3 runs on GF3 cards. I'd say that's pretty fucking forgiving.

But ya D3's character's did look a good deal better. As did their shadows. :p
 
HL2's graphics are YES very nice.

However, they are in NO way revolutionary, at all! Doom 3's graphics are far superior. If you lined up the features of the 2 engines and put them side by side, ... graphically speaking ... HL2 is not revolutionary.

It doesn't take a [H]ardmember to see this. My sister could figure this one out people.
 
I think the characters are a big, big step. That is of course my opinion :p

Everything else I think is just standard, although the water is particularly gorgeous.
 
joecuddles said:
I think the characters are a big, big step. That is of course my opinion :p
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It's not anything I haven't seen before. FFX did a damned fine job with animations + facial expressions. FFXII will do an even better job. I can understand how one would be wowed by HL2s characters if they're PC gamers only.
 
I can't agree with the characters looking good but yeah the water is really nice.
 
theNoid said:
HL2's graphics are YES very nice.

However, they are in NO way revolutionary, at all! Doom 3's graphics are far superior. If you lined up the features of the 2 engines and put them side by side, ... graphically speaking ... HL2 is not revolutionary.

It doesn't take a [H]ardmember to see this. My sister could figure this one out people.
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I have to disgree, playing HL2 at 1280res 4xAA/8xAF, graphics options maxxed the game looks totally real, the world has beat up/used look to it seeming very realistic.

Doom3 looks too cartoony and blurred, I mean the gun animations in D3 seem very low detail and fuzzy, where as HL2 weapons look picture perfect.

Characters, no game EVER looked as real as HalfLife2, there eye and lip movements are the best to date in any game. Doom3 looks like cardboard boxes, there mouths moved like PacMan
 
batty said:
It's not anything I haven't seen before. FFX did a damned fine job with animations + facial expressions. FFXII will do an even better job. I can understand how one would be wowed by HL2s characters if they're PC gamers only.
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*glances at his FF cartridge for NES*

While FFX did a nice job, I think the facial expressions and animations (as well as detail) are much more fluid and better done than FFX or Far Cry / D3.
 
HL2 looks 10 times better than farcry and doom3. Doom3 was too dark and low res textures killed it. Farcry had too many flaws and the game itself sucked and was laggy. HL2 runs perfect at 1600x1200 4xAA/8xAF while farcry didnt. Apparently you are either 1) not playing the game at high res's or low settings or 2) need glasses, cuz HL2 is gorgeous.
 
this is just to thos epoepl who want to talk about how real the water looks people play morrowind the water in that is the best out of everygame
 
dont forget its only a game people, games are ment to be played and to bring fun and excitement to the player, not outstanding graphics and picture-perfect images, all of those are just a plus.........
 
so you guys not impressed, what are you running dx7? Seriously there are hardly any games that come close to HL2 as a game overall. Far Cry was great, but different, Doom3 was not as amazing as I was hoping. Sure it was leaps and bounds in graphics, but the game sucked balls. I stopped playing after like, a day, bored the hell outta me. HL2 on the other hand kept me on the edge of my seat, amazing, truely engrossing. In my opinion HL2 visuals are more realistic, I love the way the city looks and the buildings textures are awesome, not to mention the character design and animations, wayyyy better than farcry or D3. But ya know, whatever.
 
joecuddles said:
*glances at his FF cartridge for NES*

While FFX did a nice job, I think the facial expressions and animations (as well as detail) are much more fluid and better done than FFX or Far Cry / D3.
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Ya but FFX is ancient by today's standards. I didn't want to say FFXII since most people haven't played it [not out yet, but I got a chance to play it for an hour at E3], but it really does a fine job on facial expressions and animation, better than HL2s I would say. And it does so on a 233mhz? CPU.
 
batty said:
...it really does a fine job on facial expressions and animation, better than HL2s I would say. And it does so on a 233mhz? CPU.
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Well, FFXII isn't out yet, so you can't really use it to compare to a game that's currently on the market. And we both know we can't compare Mhz ratings of consoles vs. PC's fairly, common now ;)

I think that they may have promised revolutionary visuals last year, and it would have been for sure. It's just too late to be revolutionary now, although it sure as hell stands with the best. I'd like to see any ads or anything that are recent that talk of revolutionary visuals if anyone has any links. But on the back of any games' box, it's always 'revolutionary'.
 
joecuddles said:
Well, FFXII isn't out yet, so you can't really use it to compare to a game that's currently on the market. And we both know we can't compare Mhz ratings of consoles vs. PC's fairly, common now ;)

I think that they may have promised revolutionary visuals last year, and it would have been for sure. It's just too late to be revolutionary now, although it sure as hell stands with the best. I'd like to see any ads or anything that are recent that talk of revolutionary visuals if anyone has any links. But on the back of any games' box, it's always 'revolutionary'.
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just check out the banner ad at the top of this page... *edit* may be neweggs claim about the revolutionary visuals, didnt notice it was a newegg ad at first...
 
EDIT : Ah yeah, it is a Newegg ad. That may explain the entire situation. They want rid of those old 9800 AIWs :p

Not seeing it now, although I think I did before. Every game markets itself as revolutionary in every aspect. A company could make a game where you eat chicken as a sport and it would have revolutionary gameplay, according to it's creators. If they're still marketting it as revolutionary, it's all subjective anyways, so you can't really disagree with an opinion.

Although technically, I'd be more inclined to agree that it isn't so much 'revolutionary' as it is 'evolutionary'. Still can't complain though, looks great at 2048 with 2xAA / 16xAF.
 
joecuddles said:
Well, FFXII isn't out yet, so you can't really use it to compare to a game that's currently on the market. And we both know we can't compare Mhz ratings of consoles vs. PC's fairly, common now ;)
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Yeah because a Console is just going to kick the crap out of a PC when you do. ;)
 
Actually the thing that annoys me about the characters in HL2 is the eyes and face.

The eyes have a shiny reflective texture which is fine since an eyes cornea has a film of liquid on it but in HL2 it looks odd against the rest of the face. The texture for the rest of the face isnt reflective but in real life it would be due to the slight oily areas around the nose and on the forehead... This makes the shiny eyes look out of place and rather odd.

FarCry had a slight sheen on the skin textures which balanced the shine on the eye texture quite nicely.
 
Thats probably why I don't like them. :)
Cenuij said:
Actually the thing that annoys me about the characters in HL2 is the eyes and face.

The eyes have a shiny reflective texture which is fine since an eyes cornea has a film of liquid on it but in HL2 it looks odd against the rest of the face. The texture for the rest of the face isnt reflective but in real life it would be due to the slight oily areas around the nose and on the forehead... This makes the shiny eyes look out of place and rather odd.

FarCry had a slight sheen on the skin textures which balanced the shine on the eye texture quite nicely.
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Cenuij said:
The graphics seem pretty average to me, it certainly looks like a game that's a year old... Oh wait it is.
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Yeah? go and download the leak and tell me thats a "game". :rolleyes:
 
Half Live does have some nice features in the genre of FPS's, of note:

Character Models and Facial Expressions
Crisp textures and Scenes
Realistic Looking
Best Water Period
Awesome Physics Engine
Good use of HDR lighting
Good use of per pixel lighting overall

And best of all, FUN gameplay!
 
I think Doom 3 was technically more accomplished for the lighting and whatnot and the textures seem to retain more detail close up than HL2.

The thing is, the latest cards can run HL2 at 1600x1200 4xaa 8xaf, full details and get good frame rates - whatever tricks Valve used certainly manage to make it look great and still run quickly. Looking as good as it apparently does on more modest hardware as well, while certainly not revolutionary is definitely a big evolutionary step.

Just like in Far Cry and Doom 3, Half Life 2 has times that you just sit back and stare at it because it's that good. It's certainly not a disappointment for me.
 
hl2isbeautiful.png
 
theNoid said:
HL2's graphics are YES very nice.

However, they are in NO way revolutionary, at all! Doom 3's graphics are far superior. If you lined up the features of the 2 engines and put them side by side, ... graphically speaking ... HL2 is not revolutionary.

It doesn't take a [H]ardmember to see this. My sister could figure this one out people.
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But, HL2 Does look very, very good, and runs well with a bunch of stuff happining at once, If the Doom3 Engine was used in HL2 it would of brought most of the game sequences to thier knees, In HalfLife I get an average 60+ FPS with 4XAA and 8XAF on 1152x864, in Doom3 with the same settings I get about 15+FPS, and Doom is only a tiny bit more impressive, I thought the particle effects in Doom3 are amazing but in HalfLife2 thier good, just not uber, that's my take on it.
 
demons9872 said:
this is just to thos epoepl who want to talk about how real the water looks people play morrowind the water in that is the best out of everygame
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Heh, I just noticed something in Morrowind, I downloaded the Visual pack XT for morrowind, and guess what some of the retextures where from HalfLife... Hmmm something fishey is going on here, BTW: Both have good water but HL2 is better and more realistic... Oblivion will be a blast though when it arives, in the mean time I'll just sit back and play HL2, NWN, Morrowind, Doom3 and anything else I want to get my hands on.
 
I think Oblivion might just be the prettiest game I've ever seen. I typically dispise FPS-RPGs [hated Morrowind] but jesus, with those graphics I may have to painfully sit through it just for the looks.

Edit: And I can't wait to shoot that fucker up.
 
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