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Most technically impressive game of the 7th generation?

D

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
DJIzana said:
Easily #1 the most impressive.

tumblr_m70m7sZqfm1qb6hdt.gif
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It's technically impressive in some ways but it's really let down by the animation. When standing still it's easy to marvel at some of the scenery they pulled off on the Wii, but it just doesn't look very good in motion during gameplay. It looks incredibly janky to me.
 
Denton

Denton

Member
For me, two games stood out over the rest:

1) Witcher 2 - it just had such a stunning art direction, every character looked amazing, and that Flotsam..

2) Metro Last Light - technically and artistically beautiful, the apocalypse felt real

But there were many amazing looking games. RDR had wonderful atmosphere and thunderstorms, world design, Rage looked like artwork come alive (in exteriors at least), Crysis 3 is incredibly accomplished, Uncharted 2 has some beautiful vistas..the gen has been pretty damn good.
 
KaiserBecks

KaiserBecks

Member
ArkhamFantasy said:
That's not nearly as bad as people listing games that run 25 FPS or below on a regular basis.
Click to expand...

And that's not nearly as bad as people listing games that can be controlled with an ipod. But whether or not a game is technically impressive is entirely subjective, so it really doesn't matter.
 
Shin-Ra

Shin-Ra

Junior Member
More specifically, its dynamic horizontal resolution switching.

Tech Interview: WipEout HD/Fury
Digital Foundry: We commented on the dynamic resolution of WipEout HD's 1080p mode on release, but it was never actually confirmed by Sony until recently at the SCEE Develop presentation. Can you go into depth on the performance benefits this gives you?

Studio Liverpool: Reducing the horizontal resolution dynamically allows us to hit our target 60FPS when the scene complexity literally explodes during heavy weapons fire. This means we don't have to compromise the overall graphical quality just to account for these sporadic maximum load scenarios. The drop in resolution isn't really very noticeable and we feel it's a worthwhile trade off.

Digital Foundry: How is resolution adjusted, by how much, and in what circumstances? Is the shift literally frame by frame? What is the relationship between the dynamic resolution system and the tearing of frames in terms of the lack of v-sync?

Studio Liverpool: We dynamically alter the horizontal resolution from 1920 to 1280 in steps of 32 pixels. Even when the game is paused and we modify the resolution in the debugger it is very hard to see a change. It is not enabled at resolutions lower than 1080p. The throttling is only allowed to change by 32 pixels each frame (either up or down). The strategy is not to predict when we will overflow a frame (which is somewhat impossible), but to recover as quickly possible if it happens. On some televisions you can see that the tearing is actually present all the time in the top few pixels of the screen. This is due to the software v-sync implementation used in WipEout HD - this is not 'framing out', it's just missing the true v-sync by a few pixels.

Digital Foundry: The dynamic framebuffer system is very cool in the sense that assuming the resolution changes during the most intense scenes, this is where the player is least likely to notice it, and where performance and response really should get the priority. But on the other hand, the game was heavily marketed as full 1080p60 and strictly speaking it isn't...

Studio Liverpool: The game is always 1080 at 60Hz. Only the horizontal resolution of the 3D render is modified, and the final framebuffer is always 1920x1080. At the end of the day this technique is about getting the most out of the system - if a game keeps a solid 60 frames at all times then it either has a totally consistent GPU load, it's throttling in some other way (such as level-of-detail) or its wasting a load of GPU cycles to ensure that it always has enough room to stay at 60Hz when the action hots up. We don't want wasted GPU cycles, we don't want level of detail (WipEout HD has no level-of-detail in the environment geometry - at 1080p you'd see it pop) so we compromise on the occasional tearing and resolution throttling.

We are always looking to push every aspect of the game and 1080p 60FPS was a very important target for us given the nature of WipEout HD's high-speed visuals. Responsiveness and fluidity are of singular importance in a racing game when you need to react in a split second and have that reflected immediately on screen. Having said that, the weapon effects really connect you to experience and are just as important to the overall impact of the game, so if we can achieve both using such an initiative approach as the dynamic framebuffer then why not?

You could argue that technically it doesn't run at 1080p 100 per cent of the time, but in reality most people don't notice the difference and are perfectly happy with 99.9 per cent 1080p in all it's high-def eye-bleeding glory. I believe it's our job to bring you the best gaming experiences possible, and if it takes a sleight of hand as you previously put it, I don't think you're getting a bad deal.
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ibmt6BYDNZb7DV.gif
 
C

Coffeeling

Member
wtf are people listing Journey? It's a celebration of great art direction, to be sure and thus easily one of the best-looking games from last generation (seriously, how many devs just go techtechtech for looks? It's depressing.) but I don't see what about it would be especially technically impressive.
 
F

FlashbladeGAF

Member
dark10x said:
It's technically impressive in some ways but it's really let down by the animation. When standing still it's easy to marvel at some of the scenery they pulled off on the Wii, but it just doesn't look very good in motion during gameplay. It looks incredibly janky to me.
Click to expand...

it's on the Wii...

sacrifices had to be made ...

and it still does more than Final Fantasy XIII

senza_titolo_2_by_soulstrike91-d65l3ll.gif
 
F

Fezan

Member
TLOU
GTAV
GOW 3 & A
Beyond
GT6
Forza Horizon
U2 & U3
GeoW:J
Killzone 2 & 3

If you don't count PC games

Halo4 looked good at first glance.once you start noticing its a step back from Halo reach in almost everything beside Res AA and character faces.I catually disliked the graphics of H4.

Crysis series on console was also not that good. It had so many effects but most of them looked ugly on consoles. I recently played C3 on both PC (lowest setting) and 360 and it looked shit on 360

Rage Rage was a technical mess. Megatextures were bad. there were tons of streaming issues. The adaptive resolution was very apparent unlike Wipeout. Yes it was 60 fps and hit 720p from time to time but sacrifices like completely static world and baked lightning were not worth it
 
D

Dark Octave

Banned
GTAV without question. What it pulls off is ridiculous. While playing through the story, I went back and fourth between GTAV and KZ Shadowfall without noticing a huge leap or drop in visuals between them.
 
D

Doran902

Member
Xenoblade had great art direction and some large environments but the characters and enemies / animations weren't up to stuff imo. You could tell they sacrificed some areas in order to have a larger world. If I was picking a WII game I would say Mario Galaxy 1/2 were pretty stunning for that hardware. I don't mean to shit on Xenoblade as it was a fantastic game and had some gorgeous vistas.
 
N

Nibel

Member
Easily GTAV

Despite the few technical issues the fact that this runs on these old ass devices is pure sorcery - nothing compares to it in my opinion

Cruising through the city at night with dozens of lights facing at you is just incredible and feels so real
 
S

Scrabble

Member
Is there a better looking 60fps game than Rage? I know it gets shit because "oh my god if you put your face right up to the wall it looks bad", but damn is it a good looking game. And people wonder why more games aren't 60 frames.
 
I

Ishida

Banned
ZombieNapoleon said:
Touche, ok so 768p (not sub 720p) and upscaled to 1080 looks tremendous. Not all games, especially early on, looked that tremendous on the PS3.
Click to expand...

Yeah don't get me wrong, I agree it looks incredible (I included it on my list on this very thread). Just wanted to fix that resolution thing ;)

But 1024x768 is below 720p. So yes, it runs at sub-HD resolution. ;)
 
D

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
FlashbladeGAF said:
it's on the Wii...

sacrifices had to be made ...

and it still does more than Final Fantasy XIII

senza_titolo_2_by_soulstrike91-d65l3ll.gif
Click to expand...
Oh, I know it was on the Wii, but the animation has a tremendously negative impact on the visuals.

It definitely does not "do more" than Final Fantasy XIII, though, at least technically speaking. Xenoblade is a better game for sure.

That scene you posted there isn't even technically impressive. It's just great artistic execution.
 
R

Rolf NB

Member
Dead Space 3 is absolutely amazing.

I know the demo looks kind of bland, but if you happen to have the full version in a drawer somewhere, pop it in and play at least until, how should I call it, "the friendly spaceship". Unbelievably smooth, detailed, great AA implementation, and tastefully moderated use of color and effects.

e: also more of a "best looking" rather than technically impressive, but FF XIII-2 is outstanding in its beauty. Dat plain (again!).
 
Discomurf

Discomurf

Member
Wii Games that were technically impressive:

Xenoblade Chronicles
Red Steel 2
Goldeneye
MW3 *I might be alone on this but from a technical level the port of Modern Warfare 3 for the Wii was very impressive.
Mario Galaxy 1&2 of course.
Resident Evil Darkside Chronicles:
anigif-31ad24c.gif
 
K

KKRT00

Member
From pure technical perspective Crysis 3. It put more tech on past gen consoles ports than many current gen games have.

GT 6 and GTA V are close second.
 
E

EagleEyes

Member
GTA V
Gears of War: Judgment
Uncharted 2 and 3
Killzone 2 and 3
Halo 4
Red Dead Redemption
Forza Motorsport 4

These are the best in my opinion.
 
Kssio_Aug

Kssio_Aug

Member
Uncharted 2/3 and GTA V takes the crow for me. I was very impressed with those!
Did not played GoW Ascencion or Beyond Two Souls though.
 
S

Scrabble

Member
KKRT00 said:
From pure technical perspective Crysis 3. It put more tech on past gen consoles ports than many current gen games have.

GT 6 and GTA V are close second.
Click to expand...

I agree, Crysis 3 on 360 looks pretty amazing. A lot of console ports seem to get overlooked merely because of the superior pc version and it's not really fair.
 
B

BadWolf

Member
God of War 3 probably, its the only game that literally had my mouth wide open saying WTF. That whole opening section was just mind blowing, both from an artisitc as well as a technical level.

The other worthy mentions are MGS4 and Uncharted 2 and 3.

Also really liked the look of Prince of Persia 2008.
 
T

Timu

Member
The Last of Us
Another set of pics by me.
iblBjrxxFvMHJE.PNG

ibkysc63IU6y.PNG

iiGdEofq9fQL3.PNG

iOOyYAjFB1Xq3.PNG

ik8X6zSyCUFkm.PNG


Naughty Dog really pushed the PS3, can't wait for the PS4 version and what they will do for their PS4 games.
 
A

Alex_Mexico

Member
VanWinkle said:
I think I was most impressed by Uncharted 2 at the time of its release, though Uncharted 3 is probably technically better. I'd say Killzone 2 or 3, Wipeout HD, Beyond Two Souls, and God of War 3 are probably up there in the same realm too.
Click to expand...

OP's asking for the most impressive game of the generation, and that has got to go to The Last of Us.

Uncharted 1 floored me the most the first time I saw it but the best game of the past console generation was, without a doubt, TLoU.
 
V

VanWinkle

Member
Alex_Mexico said:
OP's asking for the most impressive game of the generation, and that has got to go to The Last of Us.

Uncharted 1 floored me the most the first time I saw it but the best game of the past console generation was, without a doubt, TLoU.
Click to expand...

I haven't played TLoU, though I'm sure that would be up there too!
 
I

IAmRandom31

Banned
Uncharted 2 or God of War 3 for me.

Both of those games had my jaw on the floor nearly the entire length of the game. Phenomenal visuals, and in Uncharted 2's case the physics were just insane.
 
F

freshVeggie

Member
Timu said:
The Last of Us
Another set of pics by me.
http://i4.minus.com/iblBjrxxFvMHJE.PNG
http://i7.minus.com/ibkysc63IU6y.PNG
http://i4.minus.com/iiGdEofq9fQL3.PNG
http://i2.minus.com/iOOyYAjFB1Xq3.PNG
http://i5.minus.com/ik8X6zSyCUFkm.PNG

Naughty Dog really pushed the PS3, can't wait for the PS4 version and what they will do for their PS4 games.
Click to expand...

Hey Timu, I see screens you took yourself often on gaf.
Mind to tell how you take pics/videos?
Even better would be, if you could please spare some time and make a thread or better OT about video capturing. I am sure a lot of people would appreciate it.
There is so much info, some tips from experienced guys like you would be awesome.
We also could make it a pool for clip sharing but unlike the existing pc/console ones, it would be high quality, hugh bitrate maybe even 60fps?
Thanks
 
Huggers

Huggers

Member
The Naughty Dog games on PS3 are completely stunning but I might lean towards GTA V being more technically impressive. For an open world game it looks good and the world is HUGE
 
Vol5

Vol5

Member
As much as Killzone 2 looked good the controller lag was a fucking ball ache. I hated the game simply because of that.

I think it's a toss up between GTA5 and GoW3. GTA has amazing scope and stuff going on but does occasionally suffer from pop-in and some shitty textures, but on the whole, yeah, it's an amazing achievement, GoW3 is great as well. That first level with on the back of a Titan then having to fight Poseidon?? Still easily holds up today.
 
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