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[Summer Haze]

Like I said the pop in is still there, but it's less severe than it was in the original game, considering how much the game has to calculate in a short amount of time, like cloth physics on high quality character models, it could be much much much worse. I'm also positive that depending on the speed Arno is moving affects how he moves through clouds, he moves like characters in previous games if he's running through crowds, as in reaching his arms out and moving them out of his way. In previous games you held a button to make the character do this until AC3 made it dynamic by making Connor push the nearest npcs out of his way.

No offense, but the lengths you go to to defend this game is unreal. It has those issues because it's a poorly made game. Saying it could be much worse does nothing about the fact that it's already bad. Even after a "performance patch" the issues are still there, more so than most games that release today, even before their day-one patches.

I think you must be playing a different game to everyone else.

Imo, Driveclub should come above Unity for 2014. Post-weather patch, that is.

 

[twobear]

Because we all recognized that Crysis was a technically impressive game, but it ran at 20fps for a lot of people trying to run it at max settings.

Same with Half Life 2. I remember not many people having the hardware to run that game; but it was a gorgeous 20-30fps.

I dunno, Half-Like 2 actually had pretty great performance. Doom 3 was way more taxing.

 

[Celine]

Pretty crazy to see how much Sega dominated the graphics front during the arcade days.

Well, several thousands of dollars in equipment dedicated exclusively to the games versus thousands of dollars for a multi purpose computer with an OS versus a few hundreds of dollars of equipment dedicated to the games at home.

 

[Mupod]

I feel like Magic Carpet deserves a mention. It might not be pretty in screenshots but holy shit real time terrain deformation in 1994.

 

[truth411]

Console games are often less technically advanced but have a clear balance of tech and ressources, and often higher budget, which leads to higher quality assets.

Not the case here, PS3 exclusives were unique. GOW3 had the best custom MLAA solution, BETTER than what was on PC thanks to Cell's SPUs. Heck when it comes to MLAA PS3 exclusives lead the way and PC games followed with Lower quality. Usually it's the other way around but it wasn't. Credit needs to be given where it's due.

Edit: Also the "higher budget" tends to be use as a cop out to not give credit to where it's due. It's the hardware that enables the software to perform the way it does. Uncharted 2 was cheap to build, Killzone 2 and GOW3 cost a lot because they were building there engine, the sequels cost less since they had there game engine up.

 

[Crossing Eden]

Just realised something...where the hell is GTA V?

The insane world detail alone should earn it a place on that list. Both in terms of visual detail and world-building detail (NPC behavior, sound design). It's crazy what they managed to achieve with the hardware they were given.

Regarding the character animation btw, I wasn;t just talking about the npc animation, which in alot of games will look bad if you look closely, (actually I'd argue that Unity has a ton of examples of impressive NPC animation compared to other games, like NPCs interacting with each other, dancing, conversations, stealing etc), I was referring to the character animation of the player character.

No offense, but the lengths you go to to defend this game is unreal. It has those issues because it's a poorly made game. Saying it could be much worse does nothing about the fact that it's already bad. Even after a "performance patch" the issues are still there, more so than most games that release today, even before their day-one patches.

I think you must be playing a different game to everyone else.

Imo, Driveclub should come above Unity for 2014. Post-weather patch, that is.

I'm making a discussion about a game which has a ton of things going under the hood of the game, this includes AI, weather, cloud simulation etc. A game btw you haven't even played, refute the points of the technical discussion besides "there's glitches." To do this i'd recommend actually sitting down and playing the game first before discussing it. and relying on "well I watched my friend play..." There's glitches in GTAV too, the game stopped rendering the world for me the other day leading me to drive around in a texture less city, I even have a video of this event, there's a ton of pop in if you actually look around etc, but you wouldn't see me using that as a reason to refute every single technical achievement that the game has made.. if Unity had a different name, story, and series but had the exact same gameplay i'd still be here discussing it's technical aspects/ Poorly made is certainly not the correct term to use, more like not enough dev time thanks to execs trying to meet the fall release date because the game is actually quite good, and better after the patches. Like another said, we should discuss the games underneath the best conditions,

 

[Dictator93]

I dunno, Half-Like 2 actually had pretty great performance. Doom 3 was way more taxing.

But also technically more advanced in almost every facet (just not in lip syncing). There is something to be said about them coding a physics engine which can do everything that the HL2 (partially bought middleware) physics engine can do, whilst having per pixel hit detection and fully real time lighting.

 

[Floridian]

GTA V should be in the 2013 slot given the scope and the consoles it was running on.

 

[SparkTR]

Not the case here, PS3 exclusives were unique. GOW3 had the best custom MLAA solution, BETTER than what was on PC thanks to Cell's SPUs. Heck when it comes to MLAA PS3 exclusives lead the way and PC games followed with Lower quality.

It was impressive I'm sure, but considering 2010 we're talking about Metro Last Light with it's DX10, PhysX and volumetric lighting effects (hell, lighting in general) that still puts next gen stuff to shame. They had to cut many of those things from the next-gen ports of the games because they were too performance intensive, that's how technologically advanced it was at the time.

 

[mclem]

All games should be considered in their best version, here the PC.

In which case:

Archimedes Elite was regarded as a huge leap from the original BBC version when it was released in 1991. Utilising the power of the Acorn Archimedes series of computers, it boasted solid-filled ships and objects, greatly enhanced AI and a greater range of ships. Also, for the first time, the player was no longer the centre of the galaxy. Other ships would frequently have their own battles, the police would deal with pirates and the player could watch it all unfold without getting involved, unless they so wished!

I think that knocks the socks off Solvalou, personally, I just didn't nominate it because I thought we were limited to the first-run version of games.

 

[king picollo]

Does Technologically advanced = Graphically advanced?

That's the kind of feel i'm getting here.

 

[daxter01]

man 2007 is tough crysis stalker were both mind boggling

 

[Rafterman]

I will never understand how people can chose Doom 3 over HL2. Even at the time I couldn't understand. The same goes for Far Cry. HL2 to is just so much more impressive, the facial animation, materials and physics were mind blowing to me.

Doom 3 was the pinnacle of graphics at the time it was released, and had lighting like no other game. HL 2 was nice in that Source engine kinda way, but even Far Cry was far better looking.

No offense, but the lengths you go to to defend this game is unreal. It has those issues because it's a poorly made game. Saying it could be much worse does nothing about the fact that it's already bad. Even after a "performance patch" the issues are still there, more so than most games that release today, even before their day-one patches.

I think you must be playing a different game to everyone else.

Imo, Driveclub should come above Unity for 2014. Post-weather patch, that is.

No, most people still bitching about Unity are complaining about the game that was and not the game that is. And Driveclub is nice but Unity PC blows it out of the water graphically.

 

[Celine]

Crash 'n Burn for 3DO deserves a mention for 1993 IMO (Daytona obviously blows away everything for that year).
Good draw distance, textured polygons, decent framerate.

 

[shaki123]

Wolfenstein beating Rogue Leader in 2001 is something I don't understand.

 

[Flai]

FPS impacts how impressive the appearance of your game is. If Driveclub were 60fps, they would have to drop a lot of what makes it so visually impressive.

Be right back, going to go take pictures of a realistic scene from Unreal 4. It might run at 1fps or so in-game, but so what.

That's not comparable. 30fps is perfectly playable, 1fps isn't. And if Driveclub would be ported to PC, then it wouldn't have to drop anything to make it run 60fps. Driveclub is technically really good, the IQ, weather effects and graphical fidelity in general are very impressive. It just happens to be exclusive to a platform that has relatively low-end hardware.

I guess it all depends on how you like to measure that what is "technically advanced".

EDIT: Besides, the FPS talk is very subjective. Some people will only play games at 120fps, other people don't mind stable 30fps. And no GPU ran Crysis at the high-settings and high-resolution at a good frame-rate for a long time after the game was released. If Crysis had been designed to run at 60fps with the high-end GPUs, it also would've had to drop a lot of things that make it visually impressive.

 

[SparkTR]

Wolfenstein beating Rogue Leader in 2001 is something I don't understand.

Rogue Leader or MGS2 should be there, their post processing effects outdid anything on PC at the time.

 

[daxter01]

2005 should go to Chaos Theory IMO

 

[Celine]

Wolfenstein beating Rogue Leader in 2001 is something I don't understand.

Yeah, RL takes 2001 for me too.
Also Metroid Prime is a hot candidate for 2002 .

 

[SparkTR]

GTA V should be in the 2013 slot given the scope and the consoles it was running on.

Lists like this shouldn't include handicaps. GTAV was impressive for its hardware, but it can't compete with the tech Crysis 3 was pushing on high-end PCs at the time (despite C3 being a shit game). The stuff they were doing there was insane.

 

[MarkV]

I'd probably put Ryse over Crysis 3 for 2013 and other little change here and there but very nice work OP.

 

[1.21Gigawatts]

I think many people mix up "technically-advanced" with "best looking" or "technically impressive".

If it were "best looking" we could argue about Uncharted 2 etc.
If it were "technically impressive" we could argue about GTA V on last gen consoles etc.

But "technically advanced" is strictly how advanced the graphics technology is, not how good it looks or how impressive it is to get it to run on machine xy.

 

[twobear]

Doom 3 was the pinnacle of graphics at the time it was released, and had lighting like no other game. HL 2 was nice in that Source engine kinda way, but even Far Cry was far better looking.

I strongly disagree. The material effects in Half-Life 2 are lightyears ahead of Doom 3 and Far Cry (there's materials in the game which are still really lifelike), the lighting might be precomputed but the radiosity makes it look far more natural, and the animation systems put it closer to a 2014 game than either Doom 3 or Far Cry.

Valve concentrated on animation systems and shader effects where both Far Cry and Doom 3 concentrated on normal mapping absolutely everything in sight and their shadow systems. It's a close call between any of them which was the most advanced (since they were each doing things that the others weren't), but Valve made the right call wrt which systems to concentrate on if we're talking about which games looked best (and the proof of the pudding is that H-L2 has aged gracefully, whereas Doom 3 and Far Cry look very much of their time).

[edit] Although ironically the interiors of Far Cry still look great; much better than the exteriors.

 

[thelastword]

Technologically advanced doesn't equal best looking, visuals and aesthetics are subjective so we can't get a conclusion with that. On the other hand technology is objective. Especially Crysis 2, the tech that game was pushing, despite being an absolute disappointment, puts pretty much everything else to shame.

But yeah 2001 (and maybe 2002) needs an overhaul.

I get that, but the list is a bit too pc and arcade centric, What was the best looking game in the year 1997 when ff7 came out, that game got all the attention it did because of graphics. It's funny that the only console game he mentions is the one I disagree with, technically, Battlefield was more impressive than Gears in 2006, I also found motorstorm's mud deforming technology to be on point as well, Gears should be an honorable mention of course.

I don't know on Crysis2 though, I genuinely believe Crysis 3 is a great tech advancement, I just don't think Crysis 2 was all that.

In this situation technically advanced does not=best looking and you'd be hard pressed to find many games that are as good looking as Unity. Especially open world games. We've all seen the screenshots, no need to post yet another one to convince people pretending that it's not a good looking game.

I know you love this game but you must concede that it had a lot of technical issues, in that case it's a bit inappropriate to award it a technical medal. On the other hand Driveclub had no issues with what it rendered, and it has some insanely large levels with the most impressive dynamic weather, I think it fits the bill.

 

[DD]

Driveclub might look gorgeous, but it's a very simplistic game that aside. The physics are bad, the AI could be better, you can't go more than one meter outside the asphalt...

 

[Dennis]

Great topic and fantastic OP.

 

[wazoo]

What was the best looking game in the year 1997 when ff7 came out, that game got all the attention it did because of graphic.

FF7 is tech for the masses. 3 CD of FMV + scripted 3D on 2D backgrounds. ps1 has much better tech like psygnosis games, but FF7, it was more a marketing marvel than anything else.

 

[Celine]

Another one that I think might be mentioned for 1988 is Reikai Doushi.
Stunning 2D fighting game for the arcades.

 

[Crossing Eden]

I get that, but the list is a bit too pc and arcade centric, What was the best looking game in the year 1997 when ff7 came out, that game got all the attention it did because of graphics. It's funny that the only console game he mentions is the one I disagree with, technically, Battlefield was more impressive than Gears in 2006, I also found motorstorm's mud deforming technology to be on point as well, Gears should be an honorable mention of course.

I don't know on Crysis2 though, I genuinely believe Crysis 3 is a great tech advancement, I just don't think Crysis 2 was all that.

I know you love this game but you must concede that it had a lot of technical issues, in that case it's a bit inappropriate to award it a technical medal. On the other hand Driveclub had no issues with what it rendered, and it has some insanely large levels with the most impressive dynamic weather, I think it fits the bill.

I stated multiple times that it does have technical issues but they aren't as severe as they were in the past. And on the other hand Driveclub doesn't have to push a ton of open world AI simulation or an open world that has interiors, sewers, etc. And the list is arcade and pc centric because for a long time consoles were behind both and in some cases still are. Also Crysis 2 had a ton of tech behind it in 2009, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOINRMfumnw. The weather tech is very good in Driveclub though.

 

[Schryver]

I like this thread. We need Carmack to weigh in and give us the definitive choice for each year

 

[thelastword]

FF7 is tech for the masses. 3 CD of FMV + scripted 3D on 2D backgrounds. ps1 has much better tech like psygnosis games, but FF7, it was more a marketing marvel than anything else.

At that time that was some amazing tech though, pre-rendered backgrounds with good cg and sound made it a technical spectacle.

 

[Summer Haze]

I'm making a discussion about a game which has a ton of things going under the hood of the game, this includes AI, weather, cloud simulation etc. A game btw you haven't even played, refute the points of the technical discussion besides "there's glitches." To do this i'd recommend actually sitting down and playing the game first before discussing it. and relying on "well I watched my friend play..." There's glitches in GTAV too, the game stopped rendering the world for me the other day leading me to drive around in a texture less city, I even have a video of this event, there's a ton of pop in if you actually look around etc, but you wouldn't see me using that as a reason to refute every single technical achievement that the game has made.. if Unity had a different name, story, and series but had the exact same gameplay i'd still be here discussing it's technical aspects/ Poorly made is certainly not the correct term to use, more like not enough dev time thanks to execs trying to meet the fall release date because the game is actually quite good, and better after the patches. Like another said, we should discuss the games underneath the best conditions,

I watched a friend play it for at least 2 hours while I was in the room. I'd say that's more than enough time to give an opinion about how the game runs. Especially seeing as all he did in that time was run around the city killing guards, so I got to see nothing but the open world itself. I fail to see why me watching someone play a game is any different than if he had passed the controller to me and I played it myself. The game would have ran just as poorly.

And sure, the game may have a lot of impressive tech...but when those things are detrimental to more important things like, you know, framerate, or player immersion, then I feel like this game has no place in a list than is supposed to include technically advanced games.

But that's just me.

 

[SparkTR]

I don't know on Crysis2 though, I genuinely believe Crysis 3 is a great tech advancement, I just don't think Crysis 2 was all that.

It definitely was a technical disappointment compared to what people were expecting, but I guess it depends if you're talking post or pre DX11 patch, which released a few weeks later. Post DX11 patch, which enabled Ultra settings, it was pretty fantastic. It had tessellated water and surfaces, Bokeh DoF, realtime reflections, POM, high quality object motion blur, shadow penumbra and particle shadows among other stuff.

 

[Not Spaceghost]

2011 should be Witcher 2 as it was one of the first games to release with ubersampling and was actually extremely well optimized.

Its visual quality was on par with that of Crysis 2 but Witcher 2 offered far more technical bells and whistles.

 

[Celine]

At that time that was some amazing tech though, pre-rendered backgrounds with good cg and sound made it a technical spectacle.

For console peasants.

 

[Summer Haze]

No, most people still bitching about Unity are complaining about the game that was and not the game that is. And Driveclub is nice but Unity PC blows it out of the water graphically.

As I said, my experience with the game was post-patch. The game it is right now. On PS4, anyway.

 

[Crossing Eden]

I watched a friend play it for at least 2 hours while I was in the room. I'd say that's more than enough time to give an opinion about how the game runs. Especially seeing as all he did in that time was run around the city killing guards, so I got to see nothing but the open world itself. I fail to see why me watching someone play a game is any different than if he had passed the controller to me and I played it myself. The game would have ran just as poorly.

And sure, the game may have a lot of impressive tech...but when those things are detrimental to more important things like, you know, framerate, or player immersion, then I feel like this game has no place in a list than is supposed to include technically advanced games.

But that's just me.

I've played the game for 60 hours, I still haven't even seen every nook and cranny, did you even see every district? How many of the building interiors did you see? Each district has differently styled interiors and also their own key buildings that are built to be 1:1 scale, AI and crowd behavior, How about the sewers, npcs under that as well. How about the main mission design where the enemy AI gets stricter than in the open world? Two hours is surely not enough to take in even a fraction of what the game has to offer on a technical level, especially if all you're doing is "watching someone run around the city killing guards." So basically that means that you likely didn't see how the game renders faces or hair during cutscenes. Which is a technical achievement in itself.

 

[bananafactory]

I'd put Driveclub above Unity for 2014.

 

[KillGore]

No The Last of Us or Driveclub?

 

[icecold1983]

I stated multiple times that it does have technical issues but they aren't as severe as they were in the past. And on the other hand Driveclub doesn't have to push a ton of open world AI simulation or an open world that has interiors, sewers, etc. And the list is arcade and pc centric because for a long time consoles were behind both and in some cases still are. Also Crysis 2 had a ton of tech behind it in 2009, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOINRMfumnw. The weather tech is very good in Driveclub though.

cryteks "tech trailers" that have released alongside each crysis game are not representative of the actual game. the one you linked is sort of an exception because its mostly console footage which is somewhat representative, but the single pc scene in the beginning is well beyond anything in crysis 2.

 

[-SD-]

1992

Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss needs to atleast be listed as a contender.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_Underworld:_The_Stygian_Abyss
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYTit60G6Hk#t=41s

 

[Triggerhappytel]

I think the whole thing could come down to being a year-on-year poll to vote. I mean, if we can get 5+ games for each year it could make a really interesting series of topics, culminating in the results.

Only mods can create polls, I believe?

 

[Floridian]

Lists like this shouldn't include handicaps. GTAV was impressive for its hardware, but it can't compete with the tech Crysis 3 was pushing on high-end PCs at the time (despite C3 being a shit game). The stuff they were doing there was insane.

So is the list for years 2007+ only for games that runs off high-end pcs?

 

[Crossing Eden]

cryteks "tech trailers" that have released alongside each crysis game are not representative of the actual game.

How many of those things weren't actually in Crysis 2? Besides the AI I mean.

 

[gai_shain]

I'd put Driveclub above Unity for 2014.

No The Last of Us or Driveclub?

In which technical aspect are they more advanced than the choices made in the OP

 

[KOCMOHABT]

I am very much a Crytek-fanboy and I have worked with their engines for many years (until recently), but 2011 should honestly not belong to Crysis 2 but rather BF3.

Crysis 2's contribution to the world would, after a patch that came much later, be Screen Space Reflections, while BF3's was the measly "dirty lens" effect. Both of these would in future be used by every game seemingly. (Same as with original Crysis SSAO though it was a bit rough and the blurring could have been done better)

But I think the introduction of Frostbyte 2 with the, albeit prebaked, still very impressive Geomerics global illumination engine combined with large environments who are more or less destructable is more impressive than Crytek's attempt to jump on the console bandwagon. It also had particle shadows/particle lighting that is more advanced than the Crysis2 version.

SSDO in Crysis2 is nice, but the implementation used is imho inferior to HBAO (first seen in BF3, right?).
Tesselation and POM have been done better than in C2.
The global illumation in Crysis is really not that great, i don't think there is much denial and that's why its use in the game is really limited and most lighting is hand-made.

 

[Synth]

As I said, my experience with the game was post-patch. The game it is right now. On PS4, anyway.

For a thread like this, why would the PS4 version of Unity be considered over the PC version though?

It's not about what's most impressive given the hardware constraints, as evidence by Sega's domination of earlier years.

 

[nextgeneration]

Kudos for awesome thread, OP.

 

[Celine]

Also worthy of mention for 1988 is Taito's Top Landing

 

[jaaz]

Good thread, but no Street Fighter 2 for SNES?

No Starflight for PC?