Best looking game to date

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Magester

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Today I was playing Oblivion on maxed settings aweing at the graphics of this game and came to think what do you think is the best looking game made to date? I dont own a xbox 360 and have been out of the console/PC loop lately mainly due to my unhealthy WoW addiction, and from what I have seen PS3 has some great things in store for gamers. What are your thoughts?
 
This is a loaded question. Obviously looks are subjective, and so everyone will have a different opinion of what looks better.

Also, games can usually look good in one of two ways - technologically, and asthetically. For example, the Doom3 engine has a lot of special fancy effects, but overall asthetically it looks like garbage to me. Half-Life 2 on the other hand offers a lot less technologically, but its well designed levels, textures, art, and assets come together to create a far more beautiful game.
 
Liekomg said:
This is a loaded question. Obviously looks are subjective, and so everyone will have a different opinion of what looks better.

Also, games can usually look good in one of two ways - technologically, and asthetically. For example, the Doom3 engine has a lot of special fancy effects, but overall asthetically it looks like garbage to me. Half-Life 2 on the other hand offers a lot less technologically, but its well designed levels, textures, art, and assets come together to create a far more beautiful game.
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Agreed, although HL2's graphics isn't that impressive anymore, the art style/direction of the game is amazing.
 
Liekomg said:
This is a loaded question. Obviously looks are subjective, and so everyone will have a different opinion of what looks better.

Also, games can usually look good in one of two ways - technologically, and asthetically. For example, the Doom3 engine has a lot of special fancy effects, but overall asthetically it looks like garbage to me. Half-Life 2 on the other hand offers a lot less technologically, but its well designed levels, textures, art, and assets come together to create a far more beautiful game.
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Yeah your right, Perhaps both - by themselfs?

Personaly I thinking graphics come in a very far #2 to gameplay but they enhance the overall experence. Personaly I can still have just as much fun still playing FF6 compared to newer games, just wanted to get some views on what people think.
 
I would ahve to agree with Oblivion personally. With maxed settings and a decent resolution, it is a truely beautiful looking game, particularly outside roaming the country. Though, the new Flight Simulator from MS looks like it could walk away with the title, when ever it is relesed.

Games like FEAR, Quake 4, and Doom 3 don't impress me much as far as actual looks go. They are fantastic games with good graphics, physics, and gameplay, but I would not hold any of them (or the similar games, except maybe HL2) any where near Oblivion.

At the end of the day it is pretty much up to anyones opinion. It's quite a bit like discussing art these days.
 
Well, Crysis will look pretty badass when it gets here...

And my vote is for HL Ep 1. Company of Heroes also looks amazing for a RTS game. The explosions, etc, look fucking amazing.
 
For me personally its all about the "WOW" moments and I can get them from either one of two ways. 1. The graphics, oblivion certainly is beautiful until you look at a character in the face and then its loses its punch for me. 2. from gameplay, for example the first time in FEAR when I shot a soldier in the shoulder and the way he flipped just floored me.

God of War also "WOW"ed me when Kratos rips a guy in half with his bare hands. freakin' awesome
 
It is a tossup between Oblivion, Project Gotham 3, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, and Doom 3. I've never tried FEAR though and heard that looks awesome.
 
biggles said:
It is a tossup between Oblivion, Project Gotham 3, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, and Doom 3. I've never tried FEAR though and heard that looks awesome.
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doom3 has nothing on FEAR, imo FEAR was really fun to play, i had everything pretty much everything maxed and it looked amazing, sparks flying richocheting(sp?) bullets and whatnot. Doom3 is too clean if you get what im saying
 
I still think HL2 is the best. They did such an awesome job with the lighting and texture work, it really immerses you in the environment. Stop playing for a couple of months and then come back to it at full quality 1600x1200+, 16x AF, 8x+ AA, and full detail everywhere. It is such a difference from most games in the sense that it is so gritty and real.

I dunno though... Oblivion is good, but you gotta modify it to look better. I remember first loading it up with every detail cranked, and the distant terrain was more blurry than than the very first Unreal game. It looked absolutely HORRID. Thank god you can fix it with ini tweaks.

FEAR isn't that great in terms of looks. Maybe it would be better if the whole game didn't take place in a recycled office, and if everything wasn't pitch black. And why the hell is your shadow so dark!? Shooting things like stacks of paper results in a Duke Nukem-esque explosion of 2D sprites. This is what, a 2005 game? Come on. Other things look amazing, some of the shader effects and whatnot, but for the most part it is a very bland looking and quite often pitch black game.

Certain parts of Prey looked really awesome to me, the plastic coated look of the Doom 3 engine actually works well here, mostly because of all the organic stuff you encounter.

So that's my opinion. I'm sticking with HL2 and the Source engine for now. And don't forget that they keep improving it as well. HDR lighting, and now TF2 with it's very unique look. It's only getting better from this point on!
 
Liekomg said:
This is a loaded question. Obviously looks are subjective, and so everyone will have a different opinion of what looks better.

Also, games can usually look good in one of two ways - technologically, and asthetically. For example, the Doom3 engine has a lot of special fancy effects, but overall asthetically it looks like garbage to me. Half-Life 2 on the other hand offers a lot less technologically, but its well designed levels, textures, art, and assets come together to create a far more beautiful game.
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Damn, I really like this quote... its what I would say, if I wasn't half pissed smoking a cigar right now. QFT as they say.

cheers
 
3D mark 06. Specificly, the one with the firefly flying through a forest at night. While not a game, I do wish lighting in current games behaved like that. Crysis might change all that though.
 
^ haha, If that actually counts then I change my vote to 3D Mark 06 as well. The firefly one like you mentioned, and also the one with the big blimp/airship flying through the canyon.
 
Presto88 said:
...The graphics, oblivion certainly is beautiful until you look at a character in the face...
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Yes, I believe fugly is the word you are looking for. Its just heart breaking visually to talk to anyone in that game. Real kills it.

Overall HL2 beats everything out simply because it gets it right. FEAR has moments as do some of the large set pieces in D3. Crytek looks to be on the verge of defining what a good game should look like once again with Crysis next year.

The biggest disappointment to me we as GRAW, boy was that one ugly game. Everyone looked like escapees from a claymation factory and the vehicle looked plan cheap and the environment straight out of a bad movie set.
 
Luthorcrow said:
The biggest disappointment to me we as GRAW, boy was that one ugly game. Everyone looked like escapees from a claymation factory and the vehicle looked plan cheap and the environment straight out of a bad movie set.
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I'm guessing you're talking about the PC version. Yeah, when I downloaded the demo, I was shocked at how bad the graphics were. The Xbox 360 version has really awesome graphics though. Why did they decide to do two games when they could have just ported the console version to PC...
 
PWMK2 said:
The Xbox 360 version has really awesome graphics though.
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I thought they were pretty disappointing. Even in HD. And this is coming from a guy with a two-year-old video card.
 
Luthorcrow said:
Yes, I believe fugly is the word you are looking for. Its just heart breaking visually to talk to anyone in that game. Real kills it.
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The graphics aren't what kill talking to people -- the voiceovers are. Talking to orc women really kills it entirely -- somehow, I doubt that someone with tusks in their mouth talks like a middle aged USA woman. That, and the way that they used the same VA for every instance of a specie's gender.

As for purty graphics... 3dMark06. Even better than Unreal 2: The Second Reality.
 
NEW Super Mario Bros DS. Instead of 2D characters, they're now 3D characters and the backgrounds are pretty cool too. You can even walk through pipes when you're huge!
 
I'l agree with half life 2. Most any game that does not cover the game world in plastic should be given a medal though :rolleyes:
 
Oblivion wins the outdoor graphics crown hands down, especially when you install the 3rd party mods which increase the LOD at a distance. The sheer complexity of the scene is staggering with loads of different models for trees, bushes, then 100's of individual plants and then to top it off a layer of grass over everything, it looks so natural with deer frolicing around.

Best RTS has to be Company of Heros, there almost a retarded amount of detail been put in.

Best strictly indoor shooter at the moment I think is probably FEAR, with high levels of physics involved the sparks, dust and debris from all the objects you hit makes the scene look good, although during any non-firefight moment it's actually fairly bland.

Doom3 is nice but in it's own dark dingy way, the shadows are fantastic and I really enjoy stencil shadows, but the effects can't hold a candle to FEARs
 
For overall impressiveness, my vote goes to HL2 with SC:CT trailing behind it.

If I were just giving my opinions on lighting, then I'd say SC:CT is the best I've seen, especially with the alternate vision modes. Neverwinter Nights had some decent ambient lighting effects, as well.

I haven't played Oblivion (yet), so I can't comment on it.
 
i think dark messiah can rival that oblivion. even tho ive only played the demo.
 
LuminaryJanitor said:
I thought they were pretty disappointing. Even in HD. And this is coming from a guy with a two-year-old video card.
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You gotta be kidding. First game that crossed my mind was GRAW on the 360...utterly amazing graphics from the beginning to the end.

Environments were to die for.
 
from a purely art direction I give the crown to WoW. Graphically its nothing special but the art and environments IMO are second to none. I dont play it anymore but I remember thats one thing that pulled me to play WoW instead of EQ2. But like others have said, not all graphically superior games are fun to play so all the pretty stuff gets lost behind a shitty game. And also like others have said, HL2 and Doom3 came out at relatively the sametime and I thought HL2 looked far superior even though beneath the surface it was not. To this day I still think HL2 stands to a lot of new games.
 
Stereophile said:
Oblivion with CaptnKill's LOD replacement & Qarl's Texture Pack 2 with Rulz Parallax mod looks far nicer then any PC game I can think of. Aside from the LOD, the stock game is still damn impressive. But the texture packs are amazing.
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Yeah and you can even push out better looking environments with ini modifications.
 
What i've seen so far of Project Offset is impressive. That or Crysis.
 
Prey
Doom3
Doom3 Expansion
Quake IV

All look really good, but basically the same. There are certain objects that aren't that great graphically, but overall they are really pretty games.

FEAR looks fantastic. Though the level's are pretty much the same, the textures, the lighting are great, and the particle effects and sheer amount of destruction you can have in a level are great to look at.

Half-Life 2 is pretty as well. Great artwork, great level design and textures look pretty good too. Though lighting falls a bit short.

I am surprised I haven't seen Far Cry mentioned. The levels are spectacular and expansive as hell. Plus the character models are pretty good too compared to most games.

Oblivion has great level design, and the lighting is pretty good too. But the character models leave a lot to be desired. They really don't fit the overall quality of the game level and world design.

Another overlooked game is Star Wars Republic Commando. That game looks great, especially when you consider the engine it uses. Level design is good and the artwork is spectacular. Plus as far as mood settings go, it is one of the more well put together titles out there.

For the XBox 360, I'd have to say Dead Rising and Need for Speed Most wanted look great, as does PGR3. But due to so many variations in quality of graphics even in one given game, its hard to pick a "best looking game ever".
 
I would say Rayman 2 for Dreamcast. The art direction is simply amazing beyonds words, the colors vibrant... It is a feast for my eyes.

It's unfortunate to see the "ultra-real" path that games are taking nowadays - I feel personally that there's only so much you can do in that vein, and it's already been done imho. I would rather see some originality and true art than another WWII shooter.
 
1 vote for Oblivion, it seems like the clear and only choice for me.
 
Dan_D said:
Prey
Oblivion has great level design, and the lighting is pretty good too. But the character models leave a lot to be desired. They really don't fit the overall quality of the game level and world design.
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Good point. The 1st person view is gorgeous, but when you're talking to someone up close the game clearly has compromises. Luckily there are mods for that too.
:D
 
Liekomg said:
This is a loaded question. Obviously looks are subjective, and so everyone will have a different opinion of what looks better.

Also, games can usually look good in one of two ways - technologically, and asthetically. For example, the Doom3 engine has a lot of special fancy effects, but overall asthetically it looks like garbage to me. Half-Life 2 on the other hand offers a lot less technologically, but its well designed levels, textures, art, and assets come together to create a far more beautiful game.
Click to expand...

++ (again)

I think Blizzard is the best example of this. I think a focus on art direction is more important than simply visual effects.
 
I'm surprised no one has mentioned Call of Juarez.
Call of Juarez is pretty damn impressive in everything it does graphically with all the Shader Model 3.0 usage, and, simply put, I think it's the best looking game out there.

When it comes to best-looking in an artistic + beautiful fashion, however... Okami takes the cake.
 
Gotta say, I love the enviroments in FEAR *after* the firefights. The game itself I thought was pretty bland. "Oh look! I'm in ANOTHER office..." However, the ability to blow the shit out of almost everything kicks ass.

I kind of wonder how FEAR would do with non urban enviroments. I never did finish Condemned, the rafting season started up around the same time I got into it...
 
I'd probably have to say HL2 with the high-texture pack. It wasn't technologically advanced, or particularly impressive (graphically speaking), but it was artistically breathtaking. Everything in that engine just...fit.
 
DejaWiz said:
For overall impressiveness, my vote goes to HL2 with SC:CT trailing behind it.

If I were just giving my opinions on lighting, then I'd say SC:CT is the best I've seen, especially with the alternate vision modes. Neverwinter Nights had some decent ambient lighting effects, as well.

I haven't played Oblivion (yet), so I can't comment on it.
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Sc:CT is good, but nevertheless, I think Doom 3, still is one of the most amazing engines as far as lighting goes.
 
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