Those are not even the best shots we have seen of the game in the last 3 months
That said I am going to disagree on the CGI comment for all the reasons mentioned before.
1. They are very, very small picks and the game lacks a ton of detail at higher resolutions compared to the compressed screens (it is like watching the Lost Planet and Mass Effect animated GIF videos floating around... completely false sense of quality and detail in the world)
2. Display significant artifacting (JPEG compression, possibly from the game itself as has been noted in regards to texture shimmer--again, hard to tell with such small pics). The artifacts alone make it impossible to make an assessment to state they have made significant rendering inroads in the direction to approach the CGI in the sequal
3. The picture of the CGI render earlier in this thread, compared to full screen shots, shows massive -- and I mean massive -- disparity in regards to quality across the board. Texture resolution and fidelity, lighting and shadowing, particle density and interaction, deformable terrain, camera angles, etc.
The game has a ton of short cuts, like sprite based foiliage, so the leap from that to "near target render" in the sequal when the current product shares pretty much theme, and nothing else, isn't even in the discussion.
Evolution captured the tone, theme, and energy from the CGI. But technologically it is far inferior. Not that it is a bad looking game because it clearly is a very nice looking game... but the constant "Wow, looks like the render target!" or "Wow, it looks better each time -- I think the sequal could look like the CGI" are so out of place an inaccurate it isn't funny.
Maybe it looks like the render targets to some of you, just like Kameo was near Toy Story to others, but I dare say both are closer to their PS2/Xbox equivalents than they are to the above mentioned CGIs.
I think people are forgetting about the insane quality in the CGI. I posted a picture earlier. The gulf between it and anything out on any of the platforms is enormous. Even the things that are being faked well at this point... fall short.
Of course I am sure we are all open to discussion about how they are going to take their current product and be able to upgrade the rendering engine to such a level where it could be mistaken for the CGI, or at least approach that level of detail and fidelity.
I think right off the bat they need much more real poly detail, significantly improve texture filtering and resolution, particle effects need to be improved across the board on the scale of epic proportions, and shadowing needs to be completely overhauled. And mud deformation needs to be much more accurate and detailed, preferrably real and not mapped onto the ground with texture tricks. Oh, and all the foiliage needs to be something other than... sprites. Something solid, with some geometry, and casting and receiving shadows would be nice. Vehicles could afford to fall apart more chaotically and randomly as well instead of the "parts all fly out from the center". The CGI shows a nice example of a car tumbling and as it tumbles it loses parts with each tumbling impact. More detail and particles in the explosions would be nice as well.
I am CERTAIN Evolution will be attacking these issues, but the jump from where they are at to "near target render quality" is huge. Evolution has made HUGE strides with the title and did an awesome job of capturing the essence of the CGI. But nothing we have seen indicates they can approach that quality on a released product. If that is the case then dozens of titles out right now and coming in 2007 hold the same potential, and my response would be the same for all of them!
