Best looking games of 2015 *spawn

Clukos · Jan 3, 2016

The only thing that is always confusing is how people claim a game looks better because it's bigger "but open world", "but the map size", "but..." and so on and so forth.

MrFox · Jan 3, 2016

The Order trumps anything else for artistic merit.
Until Dawn for photorealism.
Star Wars for technical achievement.

If the question is what looks best, The Order is obviously my choice.

Interestingly the 2.35 aspect ratio is a big plus for immersion and balanced image with a wider view (instead of too much ground/sky), as long as you have a projector and a 2.35 screen. You puny mortals, I am the Cinemascope Master Race, I have the superior technology.

AlNom · Jan 3, 2016

Shifty Geezer said:
Hence I suggest people just post their preferences and leave it at that. Might even add a poll as a sbujective measure of what gamers prefer.

I'd prefer not to get into a ranking argument myself. Each of the games have good looking parts for various reasons.

manux · Jan 4, 2016

I haven't played all the games but what I can share is that I was very amazed by the battlefront graphics ps4 outputs. I got ps4 with battlefront bundle for christmas and I was very surprised how nice the graphics are. I thought my rather pimped up gaming pc would have spoiled consoles for me but that clearly is not true. I'm perfectly happy and amazed by ps4. And the real reason I got ps4 is yet to ship(gran turismo sports, uncharted4, dreams, horizon zero dawn and ofcourse morpheus)

Globalisateur · Jan 4, 2016

Obviously the artistic value is going to be a very subjective subject, as it should. Now if one would like to talk only about the technical prowess of a game, so the framerate would be taken into account, an interesting question would be:

If you had to direct a game with ideally the best graphics you could get from a fixed hardware, and you could select the most optimized and efficient engine; which engine would you pick among any game engines?

- Frostbite?
- Killzone (Until dawn)
- RAD engine?
- etc.

L. Scofield · Jan 4, 2016

Clukos said:
The opposite is true, don't confuse FOV with camera distance from character, TO generally has a wider FOV than normal TPS games, but it is changing constantly (wide when walking, very wide when running, smaller when behind cover).

This is the FOV when walking: http://abload.de/img/theorder_1886_2015090rlsib.png

How about a screenshot where we can see something.

HTupolev said:
It's ~90 degrees, healthy for a console shooter.

Source? Seems like 60 at best. Probably lower considering how big distant objects look.

Globalisateur said:
Obviously the artistic value is going to be a very subjective subject, as it should. Now if one would like to talk only about the technical prowess of a game, so the framerate would be taken into account, an interesting question would be:

If you had to direct a game with ideally the best graphics you could get from a fixed hardware, and you could select the most optimized and efficient engine; which engine would you pick among any game engines?

- Frostbite?
- Killzone (Until dawn)
- RAD engine?
- etc.

Frostbite, easily.

orangpelupa · Jan 4, 2016

No cartoon games in the poll?

Billy Idol · Jan 4, 2016

L. Scofield said:
How about a screenshot where we can see something.

Source? Seems like 60 at best. Probably lower considering how big distant objects look.

Did you ever actually play The Order? Since day one (or even pre-release) you posting hefty critique and I am wondering if you ever experienced the game at all?

The same goes for Battlefront SW on PS4(!!!) if you want to compare it to The Order (and not some beefed up PC version).

Games are interactive. Imo, one need to experience them to realize all the nuances and the overall impression the graphics have. Best, on the typical gaming setup one is used to (own calibrated TV).

Looking at screenshots, looking at YT or even GS vids is imo not enough to judge...especially for someone who is very prominent in requesting real facts all the time!

So, on what material is your opinion based on...screenshots only? YT playthrough?

Just curious...

Clukos · Jan 4, 2016

L. Scofield said:
How about a screenshot where we can see something.

Behind cover: http://abload.de/img/theorder_1886_201601077ly6.jpg
Standing still: http://abload.de/img/theorder_1886_2016010j7lv1.jpg
Running: http://abload.de/img/theorder_1886_2016010qxxao.jpg

So much for "tiny FOV"

HTupolev · Jan 4, 2016

L. Scofield said:
Source? Seems like 60 at best. Probably lower considering how big distant objects look.

The first answer is that I tried using a highly precise single-frame FoV measuring technique, got something slightly greater than 90, but then had to consider that the subtle barrel distortion filter would skew the result very slightly high.
I really need to get around to doing a writeup on FoV measurement techniques so that I can be less cryptic...

The second answer is that you can get a somewhat rougher measurement via a more intuitive approach: Go to a spot where you're surrounded by highly-distant stuff*, level the camera at the horizon**, and do a full 360-degree rotation at constant angular velocity. Divide the time taken for the camera to pass one frame worth of stuff by the time it takes to do a full 360-degree rotation, and multiply the result by 360 to put the answer in degrees.

Here's a quick demo video I scraped together, where I'm doing some constant-speed rotation from 33 seconds to 85 seconds in the video. A full rotation takes around 36 seconds, and if you look at a skybox object on the left side of the image and measure how long it takes to get to the right side, it's about 9 seconds. (9/36)*360 -> 90.

//==============================

*Highly-distant stuff doesn't parallax much with third-person camera rotations, so its movement across the screen when you rotate is "purely" a matter of your rotation speed. For this method you need at least one frame in your rotation to have a highly-distant reference detail on both sides of the frame.

**In rectilinear perspective projection, this ensures that horizontal position on-screen isn't dependent on the y height of a detail in the game world. The already-mentioned barrel distortion breaks this somewhat, but only to the significance of a few pixels on the left-right sides of the screen, not enough to muddy the measurement all that much.

Clukos · Jan 4, 2016

Also, when i said TO makes great use of the super-wide aspect ratio what i meant is this (SPOILERS):
http://abload.de/img/theorder_1886_20160100da5t.jpg
http://abload.de/img/theorder_1886_2016010prlvs.jpg

Such shots are just not possible in 16:9 format.

Clukos · Jan 4, 2016

Updated this album with ~60 more screenshots from TO (PNG->JPEG + crop through PS): https://www.flickr.com/photos/128836441@N08/albums/72157650510207659

Some of those
(Another good example of 2:40:1 advantage)

Shifty Geezer · Jan 4, 2016

orangpelupa said:
No cartoon games in the poll?

The games are from the NX Gamer vid that spawned this thread plus Scofield's suggestion. Feel free to nominate other games if you think they win the Best Graphics Award.

goonergaz · Jan 4, 2016

IMHO The Order has easily the best graphics in 2015 but it is exclusive and linear...either way it is (rightly) the outright winner.

For cross-platform Star Wars Battlefront is (again) easily the best graphics of 2015 - I'm amazed it's running on my PS4 so smoothly.

Shifty Geezer · Jan 4, 2016

goonergaz said:
IMHO The Order has easily the best graphics in 2015 but it is exclusive and linear.

I think small environment, linear games shouldl be expected to have the best graphics (nicest to look at) because they don't have to stretch so far. The moment you place on demands like epic draw distance, you have to make compromises elsewhere meaning less pretty pixels. Kinda like giving two artists two days to work on a painting each, one on a 3 foot by 2 foot canvas and one on a 30 foot by 20 foot ceiling. When viewing up close (equivalent to viewing the game world through the window of the screen), it's obvious which'll be 'prettier'.

Clukos · Jan 4, 2016

Shifty Geezer said:
The games are from the NX Gamer vid that spawned this thread plus Scofield's suggestion. Feel free to nominate other games if you think they win the Best Graphics Award.

If we are talking cartoony graphics i think Ori definitely deserves an award, art direction/style and animation are exemplary. It blew me away visually, even though it's not a technical showcase per se.

Shortbread · Jan 4, 2016

Although I'm a PC gamer at heart and eye-candy whore when it comes IQ settings... IMHO, The Order 1886 has the best CGI'ish presentation and PBR assets that I have ever seen across any platform. That being said, games such as Battlefront and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain when running on a PC, especially at 4K (which I'm enjoying), with max IQ settings are downright untouchable in many areas. But yes, The Order 1886 gets my vote for 2015...

London Geezer · Jan 4, 2016

This kind of thread will always attract a certain amount of opinion bashing. What's the point of bashing someone's opinion. Just say what the best looking game is for you, why, and move the f'k on!

Having said that, I actually played The Order and maybe I just can't get over how useless it was as a game but I don't think I'd give it the best looking game award. Obviously very pretty and extremely impressive, but personally for me it has to be Until Dawn, which has given me the most WOW moments lately.

Clukos · Jan 4, 2016

London-boy said:
This kind of thread will always attract a certain amount of opinion bashing. What's the point of bashing someone's opinion. Just say what the best looking game is for you, why, and move the f'k on!

Having said that, I actually played The Order and maybe I just can't get over how useless it was as a game but I don't think I'd give it the best looking game award. Obviously very pretty and extremely impressive, but personally for me it has to be Until Dawn, which has given me the most WOW moments lately.

I really liked Until Dawn as well, the part with "that" dude blew my mind. But the performance side is too inconsistent to give it an edge over TO or Battlefront imo. Of course, like you said it's all opinions at the end.

Deleted member 11852 · Jan 4, 2016

Also not played The Order but Until Dawn also takes the graphics crown for me. I also give a special nod to Arkham Knight which is also beautiful and open world.

Best looking games of 2015 *spawn

What game had the best graphics in 2015?

Until Dawn

Batman Arkham Knight

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Star Wars Battlefront

The Order

Just Cause 3

Halo 5

Xenoblade Chronicles X

Witcher 3

Bloodborne 2 when?

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