Most beautiful game made?

[nitromullet]

Ok, do a side-by-side comparison...

zakee00's OMG Elder Scrolls is the RoX0r pic

Actual screenshot from my PC of HL2

which one looks more realistic?

Edit: As far as being wowed by any game, HL2 definitely has my vote. It is the only game I've ever played that felt almost photo-realistic. Doom3 had much better shadows and lighting effects, but a lot of the textures were pretty low detail when you got up close - things that looked great at a distance looked like I was playing @ 800x600 when I got close to them. Plus, Doom3 had a really fake, sterile feel to it. HL2 did a good job of making you feel like you were in a rundown city - great graphics with a gritty edge. HDR in FarCry plain sucks IMO... Too bright on the indoor levels and completely unrealistic looking. Another thing that no one seems to mention about HDR is that it is constantly adjusting the brightness... Something will be really bright at a distance and as you get closer it dims as if your pupils were adjusting to the light. I feel like my eyes are dialated the whole time I play with HDR enabled. The effects could be cool, but they are way overdone.

 

[jamesbond007]

Half-Life 2/CS:Source

 

[ohnnyj]

HL2.

 

[oslama]

Halo series 1&2

 

[Cdubneeddeal]

Doom 1, duh

 

[zakee00]

Originally posted by: nitromullet
Ok, do a side-by-side comparison...

zakee00's OMG Elder Scrolls is the RoX0r pic

Actual screenshot from my PC of HL2

which one looks more realistic?

Edit: As far as being wowed by any game, HL2 definitely has my vote. It is the only game I've ever played that felt almost photo-realistic. Doom3 had much better shadows and lighting effects, but a lot of the textures were pretty low detail when you got up close - things that looked great at a distance looked like I was playing @ 800x600 when I got close to them. Plus, Doom3 had a really fake, sterile feel to it. HL2 did a good job of making you feel like you were in a rundown city - great graphics with a gritty edge. HDR in FarCry plain sucks IMO... Too bright on the indoor levels and completely unrealistic looking. Another thing that no one seems to mention about HDR is that it is constantly adjusting the brightness... Something will be really bright at a distance and as you get closer it dims as if your pupils were adjusting to the light. I feel like my eyes are dialated the whole time I play with HDR enabled. The effects could be cool, but they are way overdone.

here comes nitromullet trying to prove my OPPINION wrong...
you are compaing an engine that isnt even NEAR complete to hl2.
i never said hl2 looked bad...quite the contrary, it looks amazing. i just hate the lo-res textures everywhere. i took a whole bunch of screenies if you guys really want to know what i mean. but if you sort of stand back and play the game and not be nitpicky, its really awesome.

doom 3's textures and fire are better IMO then hl2 (fire looks pretty bad, you have to admit). i havent seen how the D3 engine handles water, that should be intresting though.

the slam dunk for farcry (well, there are two actually) is the vegetation rendering and the water. thats as good as it gets, i think the water looks better then HL2 just because it's more intresting;it moves more and ive never seen trees/bushes etc better then Farcry.

while you guys might think that doom3 cant compare, its alot different. "i cant see the graphics because its so damn dark" that is the point of the damn game! the game engine puts you in the PERFECT atmosphere. if you have ever played through Doom III with headphones and the graphics on high, i think you will know what i mean. you WILL jump out of your seat, and have sweaty palms.

well, i g2g
Nick

PS: link
it can diffenately mean realistic, but i think that games like XIII have great graphics..its a different type of visual style. hl2 is sort of gritty realism, while elder scrolls is fantasy. they both look insanely good.

 

[zakee00]

HDR in FarCry plain sucks IMO... Too bright on the indoor levels and completely unrealistic looking. Another thing that no one seems to mention about HDR is that it is constantly adjusting the brightness... Something will be really bright at a distance and as you get closer it dims as if your pupils were adjusting to the light. I feel like my eyes are dialated the whole time I play with HDR enabled. The effects could be cool, but they are way overdone.

farcry HDR is beta...if you don't like it then don't play with it on. FYI, HL2 is being updated with a patch that enables HDR so if you don't like it, guess you are out of luck
HDR looks awesome IMO, adds new vivid(ness?) to the colors and light.

 

[Zebo]

HL2 looks 2d at times to me. Not only that, you guys that summerize Doom3 with one word, DARK. Well I go one for HL2, YELLOW.

 

[mrscintilla]

FARCRY period. The water quality is soooooooo real.. The leaves are sooooooo natural-looking. I am hooked; I am not even a regular gamer....

 

[darkswordsman17]

Originally posted by: zakee00

HDR in FarCry plain sucks IMO... Too bright on the indoor levels and completely unrealistic looking. Another thing that no one seems to mention about HDR is that it is constantly adjusting the brightness... Something will be really bright at a distance and as you get closer it dims as if your pupils were adjusting to the light. I feel like my eyes are dialated the whole time I play with HDR enabled. The effects could be cool, but they are way overdone.

farcry HDR is beta...if you don't like it then don't play with it on. FYI, HL2 is being updated with a patch that enables HDR so if you don't like it, guess you are out of luck
HDR looks awesome IMO, adds new vivid(ness?) to the colors and light.

Yeah, did you try adjusting the levels of HDR? You can change it from like a value of 1 to 11 or somewhere about there. I played with I think it was 7, and I loved the effect, it made me actually want to play through Far Cry which I hadn't had the urge to up to that point.

What I'd like to see is Bungie or a good studio (Gearbox would work if they wouldn't half-ass the port again) port Halo 2 to the PC and fix the issues where they had to compensate for the lack of power with too much bump-mapping and throw in the high-res textures and everything. I think that'd be a pretty good looking game.

You know what I'd like to see, is John Carmack take on a racing sim or something that seems very unorthodox (flight sim, adventure/platformer).

I can't wait to see what some studios that have been developing for consoles (like Retro, the new Metroid game creators) will be able to do once they get the new consoles and some real horsepower to work with. Metroid in hi-def would be amazing. They've done such a great job on little nuances that I think will play a huge role in differentiating games from one another graphically in the future (as its becoming so easy to be able to make the game look great, but it takes so much more talent to give it the small details).

Wow, I'm talkative tonight.

 

[ronnn]

Farcry by a mile. Tron 2.0 is also a pleasant environment, but very different. Hl2 is good, but bland environments. Doom3 is like an ugly comic book. Crap game, machine produced, unartistic environment. Am waiting for someone with some artistic sense to use the engine.

 

[nitromullet]

here comes nitromullet trying to prove my OPPINION wrong...

you were one who posted:

/endthread

now it's an opinion, before it was authoritative...

my god you are truly retarded. thats all i'm going to say.

That's a great way of showing your respect for others' opinions...

you are compaing an engine that isnt even NEAR complete to hl2.

So, it should look better and judged at a higher standard. Both pre-release HL2 and Doom3 screenshots blew everything currently available at that time out of the water, except FarCry. Look at Unreal3 compared to current games...

doom 3's textures and fire are better IMO then hl2 (fire looks pretty bad, you have to admit). i havent seen how the D3 engine handles water, that should be intresting though.

Agreed on the fire point. Textures in Doom3 don't look good up close.

the slam dunk for farcry (well, there are two actually) is the vegetation rendering and the water. thats as good as it gets, i think the water looks better then HL2 just because it's more intresting;it moves more and ive never seen trees/bushes etc better then Farcry

The water in FarCry is more interesting. The water in HL2 looks fantastic at a distance, but is pretty unrealistic when you walk through it - it stays the same. I was quite impressed with FarCry, honestly... Maybe the last two game patches have kinda soured me towards FarCry. 1.2 was complete crap - it was buggy and I lost all of my saved games. 1.3 gave us HDR... Well, I already gave my opinon on that. Plus, 1.3 still has bugs. HL2 and Doom3 are less buggy than FarCry. and bugs tend to ruin the immersive element of gaming to me. Don't get me wrong, I liked FarCry quite a bit and would certainly buy an expension pack or FarCry2 if or when they become available.

while you guys might think that doom3 cant compare, its alot different. "i cant see the graphics because its so damn dark" that is the point of the damn game! the game engine puts you in the PERFECT atmosphere. if you have ever played through Doom III with headphones and the graphics on high, i think you will know what i mean. you WILL jump out of your seat, and have sweaty palms.

I played the entire game all the way though... I enjoyed it and I agree that the darkness is part of the game. Those people with their flashlight on the gun barrel mod just didin't get it IMO... I was also thoroughly impressed with the graphics when I played it, however, after playing HL2 and then playing Doom3 again I wasn't as impressed except for the lighting, which is amazing and better than HL2.

Don't get me wrong, none of these games we are talking about here suck or don't look great... I think we're picking out the best of the best, so any game mentioned in this thread is already in a special category IMO.

it can diffenately mean realistic, but i think that games like XIII have great graphics..its a different type of visual style. hl2 is sort of gritty realism, while elder scrolls is fantasy. they both look insanely good.

Certainly a valid point, but I still think Mathias99 said it best when he asked about shadows in Elder Scrolls 4.

 

[Zenoth]

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter

Ah !

 

[HamburgerBoy]

you gotta be kidding me...stalker looks good, but ES4 totally pwnz0rz it.

Everything in ES4 is ultra-shiny and reflective like it's covered in soapy water, and the weapons, food, and other items have a cartoony look to them like Warcraft 3. It does have good grass and tree textures, though.

 

[nitromullet]

Yeah, did you try adjusting the levels of HDR? You can change it from like a value of 1 to 11 or somewhere about there. I played with I think it was 7, and I loved the effect, it made me actually want to play through Far Cry which I hadn't had the urge to up to that point.

You have a link on how to do that? Might be cool to check out...

farcry HDR is beta...if you don't like it then don't play with it on. FYI, HL2 is being updated with a patch that enables HDR so if you don't like it, guess you are out of luck
HDR looks awesome IMO, adds new vivid(ness?) to the colors and light.

I'm going to hope that Valve isn't as heavyhanded with their use of HDR as Crytek. There are some cool elements to it, but at the default intesnity in FarCry it's just too much.

 

[imverygifted]

i want to say farcry or doom3, but the chronicals of riddick really surprised me in how good the graphics engine is. hl2 is always a favorite but the farcry engine had better water and lighting (especially w. HDR) in my opinion

 

[ohnnyj]

Would have posted this link with my vote for Half Life 2 but what do you know my domain had expired, so I reupped it real quick and now it is back online.

Just wanted to give you guys an idea of how awesome HL2 can look at times, especially at 1920x1200. And zakee00 I uploaded a few more.

Linkage.

 

[nitromullet]

Not to hijack this thread, but I dug up some info on HL2 HDR.

One feature that we'll be adding to the Source engine in the coming months is high dynamic range lighting. To showcase this we've taken a part of the Highway 17 chapter of Half-Life 2 and worked it into a single level that incorporates HDR along with some new gameplay. We're calling this short level "The Lost Coast," and it will be made available free of charge to Half-Life 2 customers that meet a specific set of high end hardware requirements. We'll be publishing those requirements soon.

http://www.hlfallout.net/viewnews.php/7746/

I hope my specs are up to snuff, it would be interesting to see...

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: ohnnyj
Would have posted this link with my vote for Half Life 2 but what do you know my domain had expired, so I reupped it real quick and now it is back online.

Just wanted to give you guys an idea of how awesome HL2 can look at times, especially at 1920x1200. And zakee00 I uploaded a few more.

Linkage.

The native widescreen support in HL2 doesn't hurt at all either. What monitor are you running that on? That is nice!

 

[Zebo]

Sony GDM-FW900 YUMMY

 

[SynthDude2001]

I'm going to have to go for FarCry overall.

I've also played Doom 3 and HL2 (I've actually not yet finished any of these three games, but that's beside the point ). Doom 3 is quite impressive as far as lighting effects (or lack thereof?), and the player models and level design are pretty nice too (what I've seen so far) - but the textures look horribly dated; would it really have hurt them to use some decent high-resolution textures? Hell, even my oldskool Unreal Gold with high-res S3TC textures (pic) has quite a bit more texture detail.

HL2 is even more impressive (IMO) - hell, just the water effects alone could qualify it. On top of that, there are some very impressive shader effects, not to mention nice lighting and physics as well. The level geometry I've run across so far could stand to be improved upon though IMO.

However, neither of those games "wowed" me so many times as FarCry. My opinion could well change once I get further into all three games, but it stands for now. I had never seen such unbelievably beautiful outside/plant life scenes before in a game. It also has great shader effects and the player models are good too. The water also completely "wowed" me at first, although HL2 beats it handily in that area. HL2 also came out eight months later than FarCry did though...

HL2 is still very very close, but the great tropical scenes in FarCry just impressed me more though.

 

[zakee00]

Originally posted by: ohnnyj
Would have posted this link with my vote for Half Life 2 but what do you know my domain had expired, so I reupped it real quick and now it is back online.

Just wanted to give you guys an idea of how awesome HL2 can look at times, especially at 1920x1200. And zakee00 I uploaded a few more.

Linkage.

those are georgeous babe

ok here is Nick's ultimate game engine!!!!!111:
1. Doom 3 shadowing
2. FarCry Water
3. FarCry Foilage
4. HL2's awesome performance on any fairly recent rig
5. some kind of HDR

its a work in progress

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: zakee00

Originally posted by: ohnnyj
Would have posted this link with my vote for Half Life 2 but what do you know my domain had expired, so I reupped it real quick and now it is back online.

Just wanted to give you guys an idea of how awesome HL2 can look at times, especially at 1920x1200. And zakee00 I uploaded a few more.

Linkage.

those are georgeous babe

ok here is Nick's ultimate game engine!!!!!111:
1. Doom 3 shadowing
2. FarCry Water
3. FarCry Foilage
4. HL2's awesome performance on any fairly recent rig
5. some kind of HDR

its a work in progress

Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

 

[zakee00]

Originally posted by: SynthDude2001

Originally posted by: zakee00

Originally posted by: ohnnyj
Would have posted this link with my vote for Half Life 2 but what do you know my domain had expired, so I reupped it real quick and now it is back online.

Just wanted to give you guys an idea of how awesome HL2 can look at times, especially at 1920x1200. And zakee00 I uploaded a few more.

Linkage.

those are georgeous babe

ok here is Nick's ultimate game engine!!!!!111:
1. Doom 3 shadowing
2. FarCry Water
3. FarCry Foilage
4. HL2's awesome performance on any fairly recent rig
5. some kind of HDR

its a work in progress

Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

did i mention that i can write game code? and tapdance?

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: zakee00

Originally posted by: SynthDude2001

Originally posted by: zakee00

Originally posted by: ohnnyj
Would have posted this link with my vote for Half Life 2 but what do you know my domain had expired, so I reupped it real quick and now it is back online.

Just wanted to give you guys an idea of how awesome HL2 can look at times, especially at 1920x1200. And zakee00 I uploaded a few more.

Linkage.

those are georgeous babe

ok here is Nick's ultimate game engine!!!!!111:
1. Doom 3 shadowing
2. FarCry Water
3. FarCry Foilage
4. HL2's awesome performance on any fairly recent rig
5. some kind of HDR

its a work in progress

Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

did i mention that i can write game code? and tapdance?

:camera:?