why so few graphically outstanding games on 360?

Because 360 games seem to put more emphasis on making massive levels with ridiculous poly counts than making smaller levels with really fancy shaders and post-processing effects.

PS3 games are flashier at first glance, but I dare you to find me a game on the PS3 with a massive scale and a high graphical fidelity like Halo Reach.
 
by the way, when playing old Xbox games does the 360 actually increase the rendering resolution or just upscale/apply AA?
 
Nirolak said:
I feel relative to the psychological standard set by press bullshots, "in-engine trailers", and tech demos, it would be pretty hard for a current gen console game to really blow away a huge percentage of people, especially when they're looking back at games from a 2012 perspective.

I mean, let's take a quick hop over to Digital Foundry for some capture card shots of what the best looking games on the systems actually look like.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-vs-gears-of-war-3
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-vs-uncharted-3

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I mean, they don't look terrible, but I don't think people are really going to fall out of their seats anymore over games at this level.

I think the best way to try and figure out what really counted as outstanding graphics on the platform would be to head over to the threads of the best looking games at the time they came out and just start counting the number of people who posted how impressed they were and try to make a general assessment of just how impressed they were by their comments. I think that's about the best portrait you could get while trying to avoid the factor of looking back with much higher standards.
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This desperately needs to be quoted.
 
the witcher looks incredibly impressive running on the 360. it looks much better than all games so far, in my opinion at least.
 
Looking at screenshots from the best looking games in here....


new consoles please

Nirolak said:
I feel relative to the psychological standard set by press bullshots, "in-engine trailers", and tech demos, it would be pretty hard for a current gen console game to really blow away a huge percentage of people, especially when they're looking back at games from a 2012 perspective.

I mean, let's take a quick hop over to Digital Foundry for some capture card shots of what the best looking games on the systems actually look like.
I mean, they don't look terrible, but I don't think people are really going to fall out of their seats anymore over games at this level.

I think the best way to try and figure out what really counted as outstanding graphics on the platform would be to head over to the threads of the best looking games at the time they came out and just start counting the number of people who posted how impressed they were and try to make a general assessment of just how impressed they were by their comments. I think that's about the best portrait you could get while trying to avoid the factor of looking back with much higher standards.
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Well said.

Marketing hype and official screens often paint a different picture (har har) and raise expectations that cannot be matched when you get actual direct-feed shots displayed on your monitor.

"Eh, it's good enough" seems to be the prevailing mantra for most satisfied customers.
 
Majanew said:
Why? They're video games, so videos are much better at showing how video games look. Motion makes a huge difference.
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...all of the issues in those screenshots are present in motion and they are only running at 30 fps so it's not like motion makes up for those flaws.
 
Stallion Free said:
...all of the issues in those screenshots are present in motion and they are only running at 30 fps so it's not like motion makes up for those flaws.
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The systems are old. Comparing them to the kind of results you'd get from a modern PC is absurd. If you were to compare them to five year old $400 PCs, sure.

I think the best looking games on both are incredible impressive given the dated technology.
 
StuBurns said:
The systems are old. Comparing them to the kind of results you'd get from a modern PC is absurd. If you were to compare them to five year old $400 PCs, sure.

I think the best looking games on both are incredible impressive given the dated technology.
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Man, just wait till you start reading some Neogaf threads. People actually claim that they surpass modern PCs from time to time.

Anyways, I have seen a consistent proper 60 fps/1080p/8xAA/16xAF on my television pretty much every day so it's hard to go into 2005 mode for when I boot up consoles so I can be impressed.
 
Haunted said:
Marketing hype and official screens often paint a different picture (har har) and raise expectations that cannot be matched when you get actual direct-feed shots displayed on your monitor.
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true, if only official screenshots = game sales, devs would be well pleased.
 
The 360 is top right now when it comes to consoles, we all thought the 360 was tapped out and then we got Forza 4 and soon Halo 4.
 
Been said loads, but Gears 3 is staggering. Say what you like about the art, but it's a marvel, technically speaking. Dat motion blur... And Alan Wake, sub-HD and tearing aside, some of the effects and physics in that game are fantastic. The lighting, the fog, the draw distance, insane. But apart from that, plenty of AAA multiplats look a great deal better on 360; RDR, RAGE, Mafia II, ME3, etc.
I love my PS3, and would agree that the exclusives on that console are better looking than their rivals. Uncharted, Killzone and God of War are some of the best looking games this gen, but to say 360 has no truly outstanding looking games is crazy.
 
mxgt said:
I think Forza 4 is pretty ugly

jaggies gonna jag
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Thats a knock against it, but remember how we laughed at Forza 3 for its poly swapping only for Forza 4 to destroy it. Same with Reach, we thought that because the game was so large, the game couldnt look much better but Halo 4 seems to be disproving that.

Edit: Glad to see PGR4 and the Rare games getting love, so many times the MS exclusives are impressive in not so obvious ways. =(
 
Putting aside that Gears is probably more relevant to the topic because it's a Zboz exclusive, for the life of me I can't figure out why people are always so much quicker to invoke Gears 3 than Bulletstorm in these graphics hooer pissing matches. In the scheme of UE3 games, Bulletstorm shits on Gears from a great height. Dem skyboxes, dat color.
 
I'm really staring to question if some of you have even played some of the games being mentioned. I mean sure, the tech is outdated, the IQ is lacking and so fourth but some of these console exclusives are a marvel to behold regardless of the tech being utilized.
 
It's all down to the developers.

I personally think Sony has stronger first-party developers, hence why games seem to look a better.
 
delta25 said:
I'm really staring to question if some of you have even played some of the games being mentioned. I mean sure, the tech is outdated, the IQ is lacking and so fourth but some of the console exclusives are a marvel to behold regardless of the tech being utilized.
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Gears 3 and Uncharted 3 were like the last two console games I completed.
 
I kind of agree with the TC, just not on the same trollolol level.

The 360 has some great looking games, but nothing really stands out as stunning. Then again, the same could be said of the Wii. I don't believe it has any games that really stand above others on the platform.

The PS3 does but has strange arcitecture that allows devs working only on that console to produce good results, but I'm pretty sure it could be matched on 360 if a dev took the time to do so, I don't think anything on PS3 is beyond the ability of the 360.

Many of Sony's studio's help others to produce the results they do, such as Santa Monica, Foster City etc.

People forget that these studios spend alot of time helping other devs produce these results, as they know the hardware inside out. I don't think MS really does this with its own studios.
 
I think the OP touched on a perception....but this is all about a higher standard overall.

The 360 has a forest of tall trees, with a few reaching higher....while the PS3, especially in early going was really rough....a plain of grass with a few trees obviously sticking out.

I honestly think that the 360 is a more powerful machine for graphics, and the reason their a are a couple like Uncharted 3 that at least match the best on the 360 is time spent by talented first party devs writing to the hardware. (in case its not clear...at least match means you can easily argue for a couple PS3 games being the best gfx on either)

By far the game that really made me think next gen is here was Gears 1 - nothing on PS3 or 360 ever came close again to that type of huge step IMO. Lots of better looking games and woah that looks awesome moments....but by this point the bar has been raised on both...for a few years. Uncharted 2 was far more impressive graphically at the time than 3.
 
I really need to play Gears 3 again somehow, because I don't remember it looking that impressive when I played it. I laughed when I saw people saying Reach though as that game definitely doesn't look amazing, I remember that one clearly.
 
As primarily an outsider looking in on threads like this as I play Wii games and indie titles on Steam, I shake my head over this kind of bickering.

Both platforms share a huge number of titles that generally look really damn good, and throwing this kind of slander around is kind of pathetic (though given the OP's preference for trolling, this doesn't surprise me). Personally I would say the PS3 has a few games that are more outstanding, in particular from the first parties, but that is more to do with design and artstyle than anything else - games like Journey and God of War 3 are monuments to the power of presentation being boosted by the available technology and Sony's allocation of creative freedom to their studios. But it's not like the 360 is without its first party/exclusive lookers, namely the last few bastions of quality Rare releases like Viva Pinata and Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts. And while Halo 3 in general looks quite boring, it's still technically pretty faultless.

But really, the libraries are so similar that singling one out for having "so few" titles that wow visually makes you look like a horrible fanboy.
 
Gears 3
Halo Reach
Forza 4
The Witcher 2
Alan Wake
Banjo Kazooi
Crysis XBLA
Mass Effect 1-2 were timed exclusives and looked amazing.
Project Gotham Racing 4
Skyrim


All of those games are top tier graphically and or scale wise and blow away most other games on the system.


Games on the PS3 that blow away other games on the system
Uncharted 2-3
Killzone 2-3
God of War 3
GT5
MGS4
Resistance 2-3
Heavy Rain


These games are too tier of the PS3 and blow away most else on the system.


Both platforms have standout titles.


Even the Wii has a couple...

SMG1-2
Zelda SS
Metroid Prime 3

(maybe a few more I don't really play my wii much anymore)


Main issue is this gen is Extreamly long in the tooth. Chaos Theory on the Xbox game near the end of a short lifespan for the Xbox and support was promptly moved to the 360. ( good thing IMO) .


This means that just about every developer in the business is making compromises for their games to look the way they want on the 360/PS3.
 
Stallion Free said:
Gears 3 and Uncharted 3 were like the last two console games I completed.
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Id recommend you give Killzone 3 a try if you ever get the chance. I mean, I'm well aware that with being a PC gamer comes a higher standard for visuals/IQ but is this really that "outdated"...
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delta25 said:
Id recommend you give Killzone 3 a try if you ever get the chance. I mean, I'm well aware that with being a PC gamer comes a higher standard for visuals/IQ but is this really that "outdated"...
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I haven't played Killzone 3, but KZ2 ran and controlled very poorly. Did KZ3 make things snappier?
 
First things first, he said why so few, not why not any. Stop saying Gears 3, as I think that's part of the problem right there.

MS has very few first party developers that would actually push the system's hardware. Most developers for the 360 will just use the UE3 and call it a day. While devs like say, Rare or Bungie, who either are no where near where they use to be (serious, Conker's live and reloaded is THE best looking game on the original Xbox, hands down), or left the company all together. And the UE3 isn't really set to use all of the 360's strengths while minding all it's weakness (Gears 3 looks good, but still has issues).
 
Yea it's been said over and over again. It comes down to not having very many strong first party developers.
Sony really only has 3 (Uncharted, God of War, Killzone). Two more than MS though haha.
 
delta25 said:
I mean, I'm well aware that with being a PC gamer comes a higher standard for visuals/IQ but is this really that "outdated"...
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For a lot of people who game on PC, the improved IQ is very important. For me personally, blurriness and jaggies can just murder an otherwise great looking scene. It's actually terrible because all I see when I look at games these days is the graphical flaws - in your KZ2 shots my eyes were snapping onto the odd low-res texture or bit of aliasing rather than seeing it in a holistic sense where it looks good.

I am currently having nightmares about ME3, and not because of it's story. Those fuckin' helmet textures...
 
delta25 said:
Just out of curiosity, are you saying the games look bad or just the screenshots?
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If I had my big boy PC shoes on I'd man up and call them outright bad, but to be fair (and because I don't want to ruin the next year for myself), let's just say that seeing the consoles' supposedly most graphically impressive games running in 720p and less than 30 frames... bleh. It doesn't excite me. I see The Last of Us screenshots and I'm seriously puzzled at the people praising the graphics as some sort of standout achievement. The caveat "It looks good... for a Wii game" now has to be applied to PS3 and 360 games as well in any serious discussion, imo.

It's clear that developers have to go with heavily stylised art to work around the outdated hardware to produce anything above acceptable.

That said, Journey is one of the best looking games I've played this year.
 
delta25 said:
Id recommend you give Killzone 3 a try if you ever get the chance. I mean, I'm well aware that with being a PC gamer comes a higher standard for visuals/IQ but is this really that "outdated"...
Click to expand...
Beat it last year. I love the art, but playing fps games at ~30 fps is not appealing to me and FOV is appalling from a gameplay standpoint. I also find the abuse of pre-rendering in-engine cinematics to be awful.
 
ThoseDeafMutes said:
For a lot of people who game on PC, the improved IQ is very important. For me personally, blurriness and jaggies can just murder an otherwise great looking scene. It's actually terrible because all I see when I look at games these days is the graphical flaws - in your KZ2 shots my eyes were snapping onto the odd low-res texture or bit of aliasing rather than seeing it in a holistic sense where it looks good.

I am currently having nightmares about ME3, and not because of it's story. Those fuckin' helmet textures...
Click to expand...
If you're a bit more technically minded, it's absolutely normal to see game screens that way. If I look at modern 3D screenshots today, all I see are compromises and limits imposed on the artists working on them.


Ignorance truly is bliss. We had a guy here that simply wasn't able to see screen tearing even in the heaviest instances (hi AC/GT5). Enviable motherfucker. :p
 
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