I'm not into FPSs lately, I must admit but I will try Crysis 2 just to know what the fuss is all about. That being said, I think Crytek are too ambitious.
You ve got a point but you arent completely right.
Indeed Kameo and PDZ had Parallax mapping, which is pretty much missing from today's games, but apparently they had lots of room to do it considering that they had less polygons, had a simpler design and fewer advanced effects. Both these games were designed for a generation old console.
In regards to texture variety and quality they have been surpassed minus the parallax mapping.
I can't say if they have been surpassed or not, but those old games look better for whatever reason. Developers seemed to focus on textures, HDR, some AA, and parallax mapping, and it worked fine.
I like the CryEngine 3 and it would be interesting to see what they achieve with exclusive titles like Kingdoms, but if using those effects means having to tone down many other features, then the game would not look balanced.
In PC they don't have to choose, just throw everything at those powerful machines, they could handle it no matter how well or bad optimized it is. Consoles have a lot of less ROPs and graphics techniques available because of lack of power.
I can imagine developers having a conversation looking for an A or B option...... "In console it should go like that. I would go with A"
"I say B, the high rest texture. Getting the middle resolution ones would look unbalanced. But, if you get the half res texture done and downgraded without almost any difference, you could go back later and get A done as well and it would look great, I think!"
"Ok, go with A + B and make it look great".
But in the end of course not everything is going to look distinguished because either A or B were the correct options, not a mixture of both.
I think that, among many others, one of the reasons here is that studios lack money nowadays, because there's a global crisis, they have to go with cheap assets.
I've noticed that as well (that older games still impress me more than newer ones). I still think the first Motorstorm looks better than Pacific Rift. It's like instead of taking what was good and working with a previous engine (and really made the game graphically shine) and improving on it they throw out the baby with the bath water and pour precious recourses into new graphical techniques which take away from old ones that worked so well. Some examples would be as above PGR3. What an amazing looking game. There's no excuse for the second one not looking as good; it should look better! With Motorstorm the dust effect was done really well... none of that hideous alpha pixelation as in the second game.
Uncharted 2 is an exception. Honestly. if they had just focused their efforts on better texture filtering (which that art so deserves) for Uncharted 3 I would be more than happy. Filtering was the one sore point in an otherwise amazing looking game.
You're right, PGR3 looks slightly blurry to me as of currently -I still have it, I don't usually sell my games-, but in the past it was mind-boggling!!!!
I wholeheartedly agree on the new Motorstorm, judging by the videos I watched, most objects of the scenery look like a pile of squared, very sharp and angular boxes destroying all the time. It feels like it's a generation behind compared to the first game of the series.
I still remember people bragging about the original Motorstorm -post trailer, ingame graphics-, how great it looked and how it showed PS3's capabilities.
This Motorstorm 1 pic is pretty self explanatory. The mud texture is simply amazing.
I think their claims of improvement are totally warranted, considering that most people think that any recent game looks leagues better than Perfect Dark 0. Probably because they don't spend the whole game with their nose pressed against a brick wall staring at some cheesy parallax mapping effect.
Holy crap, that's awful. You must be kidding. You can't label a graphic effect such as parallax mapping as cheesy.
It actually enhances graphics and it's listed on Crysis 2 config files. They disabled it on consoles, though.
r_UsePOM = 0 Consoles version won't feature Parallax Occlusion Mapping
Labels are just words that people use to describe some things. If you don't like the effect, then don't label it. However, it's unfair to tell people who find those effects stunning that they shouldn't be used simply because you personally think such things are cheesy and unnecessary.
It's obvious the game looks better with Parallax Mapping.
Launch 360 games were particularly bashed because of Sony's overhyping PS3 graphics. Back then people still believed the E3 2005 KZ/Motorstorm/etc... videos were actual games. I remember that when GeoW launched, everyone thought and said "finally we have next gen graphics", but really it doesn't look any better than Kameo/PDZ.
PDZ, while its art is really, really awful, has very good tech. Good HDR, high res textures with normal and parallax maps, dynamic lens flares, high quality object based motion blur...
Well, I lived that to some extent. Although in my case the game that amazed me the most was Oblivion. Gears of War was nice, though, especially some of the levels. It's still my favourite GeoW game.
It wasn't only the art, the game was awful at times to be honest, but it was impeccable in regards to some of the technology.
Crytek wanted to add many features to Crysis 2, but consoles can't run them all, or the quality of those effects is probably downgraded in comparison to PCs.
r_PostProcessEffects="1" This one works on consoles, which gives a more natural touch to the overall image, and it's also activated along with colourgrading.
r_UseEdgeAA = 1 Sorta AA
r_SunShafts = 2 The game will feature some kind of GodRays on the PS3 and 360.
r_Glow = 1 It will be cool along with HDR
e_GI = 1 This is the best, most interesting effect, Global Illumination is certainly great, but not very suited for consoles, it seems, without having to tone down other effects. The game also features Full Dynamic Lighting along with it, really nice.
Full Dynamic Lighting + Global Illumination OFF
Full Dynamic Lighting + Global Illumination ON
Regarding those KZ and Motorstorm trailers you mentioned knowing the reality helped some people to stop bragging about how "incredibly real" and "artistic" they supposedly were.
Besides, I'm not saying developers lie, exactly, but I'm tired of the way we rush to treat every semi-coherent thing that comes out of their mouth as a profound statement that needs to be trust and analyzed from every conceivable angle in case it holds the meaning of everything or something.
I mean... developers are limited because of NDA and thus they aren't going to share all the information we'd like to know.