What was the most technically impressive and demanding game each year?

You have maybe three games on the list that are not designed around having a room or a corridor you walk down, with pre-rendered resources decorating the hallways.

I mean, you could go into how Metro makes a corridor interesting because it's an actual locked in corridor illuminated by dynamic lighting.

Well, the reality is that developers will choose the corridor design (along with using high-detail pre-renders during cutscenes, when the camera-angle is known - you only render the surface of the face model from one particular angle, and you save masses of polygons), in order to make the surfaces look more polished. But it goes at the cost of that you can't actually be allowed to watch the model from behind, since then the illusion breaks.

But what is proven, over and over again, is that any attempt to focus on other things than the surface isn't appreciated. BF4 is a fantastic example of how that works. DICE have this really good engine they've made several interesting titles out of. The destruction, the vehicles, how things have impact, how the guns handle as if the models hold a gun, rather than that it's a high-res sprite drawn in front of the player. It's all well-known to any fan of the games.

And then they end up with their greatest game yet, according to EA hq (bf4). And they've cut down the physics and simplified the animation work. To get in more surface treatment, and to allow the game's core mechanics be easily optimised to run on, for example, consoles.

Then it's universally hailed for looking "better than ever", thanks to the surface polish. But I suppose it's still not as polished as a fully pre-rendered cutscene in Cod:to the Moon and Back, etc.

This kind of bs actually destroys developers who care about tech, is all I'm saying. Either because talent lose interest, or because of internally lost fights between publishing wings and design. And that has ended several unbelievably good studios over the last 5-6 years.

You chose that, in a sense.

 

BF1942, BF2, BF3, and BF4. Morrowind and Oblivion. PlanetSide and PlanetSide 2. Far Cry. CoH. Crysis and Crysis Warhead. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. SoC. Witcher 2. ARMA III. I count more than 3.

You don't understand the difference between pre-rendered and real-time. Static =/= pre-rendered. Lack of interactivity =/= pre-rendered. The only thing in games nowadays which is pre-rendered is FMV cutscenes. Everything else is done in-engine by your GPU.

BF4 gun models are sprites?! So how did they make the firing and reload animations?

Seriously, now we're comparing real-time games running at 60+ FPS against pre-rendered movies?

That's like asking why every AAA can't look like a ray-traced Pixar movie that takes days for a massive render farm to finish a single frame. Or why can't TF2/CS:GO/DOTA 2 look as good as in those Source Filmmaker shorts.

Do you have any evidence to back this up, or is it another one of your personal opinions/speculation?

 

Ok, a few more than three titles. But take Destiny, for example. Whenever a dropship comes in and pass by, this is not actually a full object that's reduced at run-time. Instead it's a shell with pre-made lighting effects that look fairly good from one angle. It appears to you as if it's a completely dynamic element, but the way it appears from distance, and the angle you see it at is controlled and restricted. Same method as "in-game" detail during cutscenes in a very large amount of games, that then disappear once the game gives control back to the player. Tricks like that is how you raise the graphical fidelity now, but it goes at the cost of how dynamic the game is.

BF4 and everything on the Frostbite engine has actual models, even if bf4 uses different passes on how the model is treated compared to bf3 and bc2 for example. I.e., the gun doesn't actually fire the bullets, they originate from the eyes of the player So basically, the gun model is cosmetic. And they did that to increase the detail of what you see the most on the screen (at the cost of how believable the animation is). Call of Duty games all have a pre-rendered sprite for the gun that looks nothing like the model the player carries, for example.

No, just pointing out that the impressive graphics you see in Call of Duty in the scripted pieces - like the reflection in the windows, the model detail, expressions, everything from particle effects to lighting treatment, etc., are one-shot resources that aren't generated dynamically with the engine. This is the sink for the largest part of the development of those games. So in a sense, these games really are built more and more like pre-rendered animation movies. And, as it happens, this is where the origin of "AAA games cost more to develop, because the graphics are better" trope comes from. It's not quite true, but true in practice with the current methods.

But yeah, Project Red and GSC are doing good work, no argument there.

It's more of an informed opinion after talking informally with various devs. But keep in mind that devs on Studio Liverpool/Psygnosis, for example, won't end their career by wanting to be quoted as ragging on their employer. It's bad for you (even if you quit and do something else), and that's why this is on a forum instead of in an article. But SL was essentially disbanded and some of the talent kept in the NWG under Sony developing different titles because of very difficult problems between Sony and SL. Zipper, for example, that made MAG had to go through quite a bit of restructuring before they ended up with partially being on the team that made Planetside 2. Planetside 2 also was supposed to be a spiritual successor to the tech developed for MAG. But in reality, that didn't happen. The tech they use ends up with creating a bubble near the player that has decent detail, where everything else outside runs at very low updates even on a very fast rig -- the game just couldn't be designed on the same principles. And Sony thinks, with some right, that people will think it's good enough. But it must be pretty heartbreaking for the devs who actually do the programming, when they know that it would have been possible to take this in a different direction if they sacrificed some of the graphics, and set the hardware requirements a bit higher.

But to take one example that is pretty much public, it's not a coincidence that the Frostbite engine is owned by a separate company from DICE now that DICE is owned by EA. That's how they retain some artistic freedom on how they develop their tech, and through that some independence on the design decisions they can take when developing new games. ..The entire "we[DICE] only make a product for our customer[EA], we have no control over what they do with the game once we deliver as per contract" thing originates from them.

 

1. Great Wall of Text
2. Destiny? What's that?
3. CoD uses actual gun models too. Just like every FPS ever after Doom II and Quake. Sprites? ROFL
4. I didn't say CoD has impressive graphics. It hasn't since 2007.
5. What is this "Project Red" and "GSC" you speak of?

 

Not sure why you're annoyed by wall of text, which isn't much actually. And if anything the wall constructor bothered to do it for your questions in the first place.

Destiny the Game

I'm confused by the word "sprites" being used this way as well, and sorry for terrible drawing, but hope this helps:

What it should have been


What we are actually fed with


Due to the simple geometry they can get away with rendering the gun/hand separately and composite it into the final image in 2D. Maybe that's what Nipsen refers to as "sprites"?

Project Red = CD Projekt Red, the guys who did The Witcher series.
GSC = GSC Game World, the guys who did STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl.

Both titles are definitely famous. The studios might be less so though.

 

All his posts are long-winded and unfocused. He doesn't really address the questions or stay on topic so much as go off on his own tangents. That is what makes them hard to read.

My point exactly. This thread is about PC games.

I know who CDPR and GSCGW are. I have all the Witcher, S.TA.L.K.ER., and Metro games. It was a subtle jab at his long-winded posts yet refusing to write out the name of the studios. Project Red could be like a digital video camera or something.

Whatever his definition of sprite is, it's clearly wrong. For instance, if you mod an FPS into a TPS, you can clearly see that the gun and hands/arms are actual 3D models comprised of solid geometry. The rest of the body may or may not be there depending on if the game ever allows you to see yourself, e.g. mirrors. Otherwise it's usually just disembodied appendages plus a disembodied untextured low-poly head where the first-person perspective camera is placed.

 

Good to know that. I guess it was a bit too subtle for my poor sarcasm detector. Same for the Destiny.

If we are talking about alternative explanations for the studio names, Project Red could also be a Minecraft mod, and GSC could be Game Stock Car. (Not that those fit the context.)

 

How did Zhdalker get on the list? I mean, the game was good, after installing like 20 mods (like TES games), but by its own it sucked major balls...

 

Right. And it's technically less complicated than mapping a picture to an uneven surface. So I think "sprite" is kind of descriptive

I mean, it's a good way to describe what kind of priorities certain studios have, when they engage an artist to create standalone sequences for resources with their separate ecosystems in the modeling tool, with static resources and static lighting baked into the sequence. And then create an engine to display these pieces.

Instead of making an engine for displaying the actual models with the engine creating the lighting, with logic of various kinds making changes to it, etc. I mean, comprehensive real-time spline correction isn't going to happen any time soon. But to ignore it altogether? To see developing games as just a very complicated quick-time event?

It's games and it's not important or anything. But the entire thing is kind of offensive.

 

And to hide this while make it more annoying, they do no Z-buffer handling whatsoever. You known your 8 feet long sniper barrel is now through the wall but you can't see that. At the same time your enemies can see something popping out from the other side and "blind" head shot you through the wall without you realizing what's happening.

I think this is the standard way (geometry-wise) to do FPS since the very beginning? When did correct animations become relatively popular?

 

For this year I think it'll boil down to The Witcher 3 (for its world, environments and monsters), Batman Arkham Knight (for its character models) and Just Cause 3 (for its world and environments).

 

What I never liked in TW games are animations. They really feel choppy, especially if you compare it to Bioware games. On the other hand story in TW is much much better than in Dragon Age or Mass Erect. Basically it's the only thing I like about TW games.

 

But you are using DmC as the most technically impressive game of 2013 which you yet to prove (and failed as well). There are far more technically impressive games for 2013. Plus we are talking about PC games, not console games. It's either you lack reading comprehension or you just like to derail the topic (aka Trolling which you just admitted).

And then there is the passive aggressive post. Good job, classy.

 

I'd say demanding does not always go hand in hand with "technically impressive." In my case, I'm usually more impressed with the tech when a game is optimized to be less demanding and perform better on weaker machines, or when a game is designed in a way to incorporate user mods that enhance the visuals and gameplay.

Most demanding titles of recent years: Lords of the Fallen, Assassin's Creed Unity, Witcher 2, Metro 2033

Most visually impressive (can only comment on games I've had a chance to try): Crysis 3, Dishonored, Far Cry Blood Dragon, Wolfenstein New Order, Skyrim, Transistor, Mark of the Ninja

 

True, but they usually go hand-in-hand. It's a tough topic to discuss without getting into the whole argument over aesthetics. Scalability and optimization are a whole 'nother can of worms that is even more subjective.

All the games I listed, besides wowing me with their technology in some way, were benchmarks in their day, pushing the bleeding edge. Crysis 3 is the perfect example of a game which is both technically impressive and extremely demanding.

 

2014 - how about Metro Redux?

 

Yeah, that's a great candidate. AC Unity as well post patch is also another candidate.

What about Star Citizen?

 

Nah, it was nothing we hadn't already seen in 2033 and LL. In fact, some effects in Redux were downgraded, er I mean optimized.

 

And some areas were improved.

I can't think of a better looking game last year (on a technical basis). I don't think Far Cry 4 can compete with Metro Redux. AC: Unity was a buggy mess so I haven't given it much attention yet (I got it free as part of the NVIDIA game bundle last year), but I can't see it beating out Metro Redux. I don't own Shadow Of Mordor yet, so maybe that one is a contender, though it doesn't look all that revolutionary from screenshots and videos.

 

Unity was impressive for the sheer scale and attention to detail in that scale, the architecture and textures were amazing. Really fantastic game that was just released too early. Easily one of the best looking games ever released.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

Which makes it a sidegrade to original 2033 at best. As far as original and Redux versions of LL go, there's virtually no difference. Redux is a current-gen console remaster is all, in a year that was full of them (TR: DE, SD: DE, GTA V).

If I absolutely had to pick a game from 2014, it would be The Vanishing of Ethan Carter for its use of photogrammetry to great effect.

 

I think METRO Redux should be awarded for proofing that CPU can effectively manage PhysX effects. That must be the first game where PhysX on strong CPU would be faster than on middle GPU.

 

But Redux "console" CPU PhysX is worse than 2033/LL GPU PhysX.

Anyway, I think PlanetSide 2 GPU PhysX is a lot more impressive:



Too bad it was permanently removed from the game.

 

Nice demo video. Makes me want to get into Planetside 2

 

More like bait-and-switch. The game looks nothing like it did 2 years ago. It's not even owned by the same company or developed by most of the same people anymore.

 

Did not know that. I installed it and gave it a 30 minute squirt about 2 years ago. Shame I never got into it at that time.

 

You know that point in every MMO's life cycle where it's not dead yet but you can see the end from here? That's where PS2 is right now.

 

I still think it has potential.. I'm quite sure it still has PhysX too.. It might not the super type that you shown in that video but when I got my 970M, I got the PhysX message sign when I was running PS2... I haven't played the game for a while (I'm addicted to World of Warships lol) however I had more hours on it then MW2 multiplayer lol..

 

PhysX is the physics engine used in PlanetSide 2, so *technically* it is still in the game and hence shows up on the PhysX indicator. However, this is just using the CPU to process basic physics simulation, not the fancy Nvidia GPU hardware-accelerated effects (APEX Particles) you see in the video.

So the game looks like the "PhysX off" half of the video you saw, minus a bunch of other graphical elements that were downgraded/removed in the name of "optimization".