I sort of disagree, it was among the best from 2009 (UC2 was superior though) and it wasn't just because of art. They managed to get around PS3's biggest issue (alpha) and yet come up with a game with impressive looking particle effects (even if at quarter results), the motion blur and post processing was amazing, so was the limited destructiblity. They deferred renderer was something special for its time despite the lighting lacking precision of HDR. It was technically advanced in other areas, also Killzone 2's performance optimisation helped ND with Uncharted 2 as GG helped then with implementing triple buffering and vsycnc in UC2 (UC1 lacked in this area).
The most technically-advanced game for each year
- Thread starter Phediuk
- Start date
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Didn't the person who said that it had around 25 gigs of lighting data also state that the game would be 50 gigs because of that? When it's only 40. And there's the AI I mentioned as well.
Conkerkid11
Member
Console exclusives cannot win when they are so far behind.IMO 2014 should be Driveclub.
30fps is not impressive.
I'm not sure if 30fps vs 60fps matters in "the most technically-advanced game".
icecold1983
Member
id give 2014 to driveclub and 2013 to either shadowfall or ryse.
capitalCORN
Member
S.T.A.L.K.E.R did deferred shading two years earlier and had much more robust lighting system, including day/night cycles, full HDR and weather systems. Not to mention copious use of Steep Parallax Mapping, open areas and swanky Russian folk songs.
Inf3cted_b3ast
Member
2014 should easily be Driveclub IMO
Diablohead
Member
I still remember buying UT2003 and trying to play it on my pc which only just about ran quake 3 at 800x600, playable but ugly and the larger maps were too laggy.
That year I upgraded my graphics card and ram and it made all the difference, that game was stunning for the time and most likely my first owned PC game which felt like a step above anything else.
That year I upgraded my graphics card and ram and it made all the difference, that game was stunning for the time and most likely my first owned PC game which felt like a step above anything else.
I seen Gears of War in the list eh.
Why wouldn't it matter?
Conkerkid11
Member
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.
Original Gears of War was on PC.
I don't know what you're trying to say here. But thanks for giving more people the chance to see Mulder's sexy face
It's really too bad STALKER was released in 2007 (where there can be only one choice), I'd easily give it 2008 if it was released in that year.
Ricky Ricardo
Member
LOL, congratulations, you've missed the point!
No big surprise there. Ryse got recognized (as an Xbox One game, I might add), because it was a legitimately technical showpiece, even if it fell short as a "game".
Nice try but originally was released firstly on 360 so and a game a 30 fps can be technical advanced.I think Driver club deserves to be mentioned.
dampflokfreund
Banned
Great thread, it's really cool to see how graphics evolved. the 90s and early 00s had such shitty graphics but it got dramatically better since Crysis. I don't know what happened there.
Thanks Phediuk, what an awesome thread/collection!!!
Also, you have to actually play Driveclub with the weather effects to truly appreciate them. This GIF's are sexy, but playing it is out of this world. I don't know what magic pixie dust they are using, but I never expected to see effects like than on a PS4 (especially this early in the console life).
Also, you have to actually play Driveclub with the weather effects to truly appreciate them. This GIF's are sexy, but playing it is out of this world. I don't know what magic pixie dust they are using, but I never expected to see effects like than on a PS4 (especially this early in the console life).
Some people seem discontent with the Unity pick, but out of the years 2011 to 2014 I think 14 is the easiest to decide, and in favour of Unity. It's a large-scale open world game with tons of NPCs which nonetheless uses state-of-the-art graphics rendering. That's exceedingly rare.
Ray Wonder
Founder of the Wounded Tagless Children
Don't really have any suggestions, just here to say this is a great thread.
petran79
Banned
this is not true, at least in 1996 .According to the developers, Midway's Zeus hardware (1997) was 10 times more powerful than a Nintendo64 console
Mortal Kombat 4 console and Windows port was inferior to the arcade version. Yes, that Mortal Kombat 4 with the crap graphics ran on such powerful hardware. Even though PC supported 3d hardware accelerators back then. The gap would be bridged with the Dreamcast one year later.
But this game has a massive pop in. And thousand of bugs. I mean what exactly it's a tech achievement? Compromises are tremendous.
justsomeguy
Member
Came here to shout for Elite and Exile. Especially Elite.
Exile was AMAZING for what it fitted into a BBC Micro - to the point that to save the game you had to reboot the machine as it stored your save data in video ram as there was none spare. It even had SPEECH SYNTHESIS on the bbc master version, what the hell - wizardry! The little creatures with their AI, the huge ever scrolling procedurally generated world, it was just out of this world.
http://www.acornelectron.co.uk/eug/71/a-exil.html
But elite must take the crown - mindblowing in scope and implementation for its age.
Exile was AMAZING for what it fitted into a BBC Micro - to the point that to save the game you had to reboot the machine as it stored your save data in video ram as there was none spare. It even had SPEECH SYNTHESIS on the bbc master version, what the hell - wizardry! The little creatures with their AI, the huge ever scrolling procedurally generated world, it was just out of this world.
http://www.acornelectron.co.uk/eug/71/a-exil.html
But elite must take the crown - mindblowing in scope and implementation for its age.
Summer Haze
Banned
I agree with him about the ridiculous pop-in. I saw this game in-person for the first time yesterday and I was shocked at just how bad it was. NPC's popped in like crazy, their clothes changed colour, and the way Arno moves though them looks janky as fuck. They just pop out of his way. I feel the older games handled this much smoother. I thought it was so bad that I actually asked my friend if this was running with the latest patch, and it was.
And in regards to animation, I thought some of the NPC's moved very 'robotic-like'. Guards especially. Turning corners, or changing direction at all, should be a smooth animation in this day and age.
Also, anyone have any suggestions/predictions for 2015's most technically advanced game?
Overall solid list, if a bit PC centric. Weird how ahead of its time Crysis was. Then again, I had a really good rig at the time of its release and could still barely run it at even 30fps. Pretty sure even a year later when I upgraded my GPU, I still struggled running it at a decent frame rate, at least on max settings.
Side note, I'd definitely give 2014 to Driveclub over Unity. That dynamic time of day, weather system, volumetric light affected clouds, dynamic GI, shaders and all the rest. It's just way beyond the tech and visuals of any other racer I've played, perhaps even any game full stop imo. Never played anything that resembled real life more often and more consistently than Driveclub.
Side note, I'd definitely give 2014 to Driveclub over Unity. That dynamic time of day, weather system, volumetric light affected clouds, dynamic GI, shaders and all the rest. It's just way beyond the tech and visuals of any other racer I've played, perhaps even any game full stop imo. Never played anything that resembled real life more often and more consistently than Driveclub.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Thousands of bugs is definite hyperbole after all of the patches, massive pop in as well since it's less pronounced than it was originality, it's still there don't get me wrong, but it's definitely less severe than it was in the original release.
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.
Yeah. For all the roughness around the edges, Unity is an open-world game with among the most realistic lighting I've ever seen (realtime or no), insane geometry complexity, literally thousands of NPCs on screen, fantastic character modelling, great texture detail, and a hugely impressive animation system.
I understand the arguments for not including it, but I don't think it's a lolworthy choice just because it's janky (as I recall, Arma II was also fairly janky).
Personally I'd go for H-L2 over Doom 3, on the grounds that graphics technology today seems to share more in common with H-L2 than it does with Doom 3. And while it doesn't have the full realtime lighting, the shader effects and animation systems in H-L2 impressed me a lot more than anything in Doom 3 did.
My man I have the game and it's a bug galore. I can't imagine what terrible shit is it without patches.
In all honesty I never seen a game so devastated to the glitch. At least in the ps4 version.
dampflokfreund
Banned
Yeah, modern games still have many low res textures, awful last gen geometry and flat textures.
It is time to finally drop the remains of the old generation
I thought that was Mulder but was never 100%! Thanks!
UT2K3 was a revelation, didn't the demo set a record for the amount of downloads? I remember installing all 3 CDs back in the day after I'd picked it up, nothing worse than that when you just want to play! The game looked absolutely rad.
Nice thread!
thelastword
Banned
Some of your early 70's games look better than the later ones, Crysis 2 was not the best looking game in 2011, Arma 2 was not the best looking game in 2009, the best looking game in 2014 is certainly not Unity.
Crysis 1 still looks better than it's sequels to me, no mention of GT3 in 2001, No mention of MGS2 in 2002, No mention of Uncharted in 2007, No mention of God of war 3 in 2011, No mention of Shadowfall, Ascension or Resogun in 2013. No mention of ISS/first light or Driveclub in 2014. hmmmmm...
Crysis 1 still looks better than it's sequels to me, no mention of GT3 in 2001, No mention of MGS2 in 2002, No mention of Uncharted in 2007, No mention of God of war 3 in 2011, No mention of Shadowfall, Ascension or Resogun in 2013. No mention of ISS/first light or Driveclub in 2014. hmmmmm...
Freeman
Banned
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.
I feel like the list leans to much in favor of PC and raw power those aren't always the most technically-advanced games IMO.
I feel like GTA and some PS3 games(GoW,Uncharted,TLU) should have a place in the list.
I also feel like working properly should be a requirement for a game to be impressive, as it isn't the case for AC:U.
I feel like the list leans to much in favor of PC and raw power those aren't always the most technically-advanced games IMO.
I feel like GTA and some PS3 games(GoW,Uncharted,TLU) should have a place in the list.
I also feel like working properly should be a requirement for a game to be impressive, as it isn't the case for AC:U.
Summer Haze
Banned
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.
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.
XiaNaphryz
LATIN, MATRIPEDICABUS, DO YOU SPEAK IT
Most people mentioning it like Durante are likely talking PC version.
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 played the unpatched PS4 version a bunch. I've played much buggier games before.
[edit] I think the reason for the stagnation after 2007 is twofold. One of the reasons, obviously, is the long console generation. But I think the other is diminishing returns.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
I also have the game on ps4, around 60 hours in. And honestly I had more glitches in my 50 hrs of DAI than I did with Unity, really need to get back to that game btw.
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.
All games should be considered in their best version, here the PC.
BotoxAgent
Member
i think Super Thunderblade beats Space Harrier at that time
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.
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.
Dictator93
Member
I think the particle effects are impressive given the hardware, but they really fall out of favor when they detonate close to the screen. Also, being a deferred game was unique maybe, but it was far from being the first game to use deferred lighting techniques, even on consoles. Wasn't perfect Dark Zero deffered hence his really odd resolution?