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Shadow of Chernobyl is the original game, I'd recommend that one.
Its a post-apocalyptic FPS set in an alternate universe where Chernobyl caused massive mutation of its environment. The only other shooter I've seen that portrays a post-apoc world so well is HL 2.
Just be warned, you start off with the worst fucking gun imaginable and immediately get sent off to fight dudes with shotguns. That nearly put me off the whole game, but it gets better.
Ah yes, STALKER is great. I need to finish it, but the game is so crashy sometimes. Love the game.
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
Also, Super Mario Sunshine is still the best 3D representation of water I've ever seen.
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It was pretty obvious that what Star Fox was doing was well beyond what a sprite could imitate, and that 3D was going to get more intricate and more realistic.
KotOR might not look that impressive anymore, but it still looks very acceptable. The graphics are slightly stylized so it hasn't suffered as much as it might have, and the texture work is pretty crisp turned up as high as it goes on the PC version.
I've never encountered one bug the entire time I played STALKER. :P
Also, I think the reason I like HL2's environments so much is that they're not empty and barren. In City 17 there's plenty of detritus and trash sitting around and the place looks appropriately dirty. I remember playing Halo 2 and thinking during that one city level with the scarab I think that it was so sterile and devoid of anything.
A few of the many reasons it's one of the best PC games this decade, actually.
One hundred times yes. I don't know why, but Doom never did it for me like Star Fox did.
All right, people. It is not a gerbil. It is not a hamster. It is not a guinea pig. It is a death rabbit. Death. Rabbit. Say it with me, now.
Hahahaha
Nice try but no one believes you
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
Halo 2 looked like it did because it was rushed, and pushing the xbox hardware extremely hard. The game had a bunch of features cut (bump maps and reflections being two off the top of my head) before release because they just couldn't get the performance they needed with their engine.
Halo 3 is a lot more busy, maybe still a little too clean but at this point it's a style more than an omission.. the graphics have a more vibrant comic book type feel to them than HL2 does.
Crysis proved how fun destroyable trees can be.
What's that Koreans? A tree fell on you? Good, I can use the pistol instead of wasting rifle ammo. A tree's in the path of your car? Oh look now your tires are flat. And your machine gunner is dead.
And now your driver.
Oh now you're all alone with a tree and a jeep you can't drive and you can't see me?
Now there is an invisible hand around your neck? Oh now there's a glowing red dude holding you?
Oh apparently you can fly!
The only bug I had in STALKER was when the fucking patch erased my saves. SO MAD.
That said, if people could play real wargames - so you saw your friends get their intestines blown out and suffer boredom and freezing cold and shitty pay and a nonexistent GI bill and horrific burn damage, and people, after playing those games, mostly got PTSD, I would be OK with hyper-realism.
Like the OP said, if you were to show his young self a screenshot of what games look like today it would be unbelievable. However, I do not think the same would hold true today. If you were to reach forward in time and pull back a screenshot of a game released 10-15 years from now (Starcraft 2 or Diablo 3 probably :P) and look at that pic I doubt you would be surprised, impressed sure, but not surprised. I think better, more amazing graphics is taken as a given nowadays.
My guess is the next big "ZOMG THAT'S UNBELIEVABLE" step will be in AI. Of course not full on real AI, but greatly expanded upon NPC actions that make modern day NPCs look as complex as their 8-bit counterparts of yesteryear.
Or maybe I am crazy.
See when I think about this, I think if you showed someone Soldier of fortune 1/2 in the pong era, it would fuck them up. I think the same applies to us. Weill move towards such gore and realism, but it wont phase us if we move slower into it. Think about how tame a game like BF 1942 was for blood(there wasnt any). A teacher walked by at the college who was "a different kind of thinker" and was appalled that we were pretending to try and kill each other, and thought there was absolutely nothing right about it and was slightly sickened(he was pretty reasonable guy actually, and was just trying to get us to think about it). In a sense hes right, we were simulating a war, and trying to murder each other on some level. Pretty fucked up when you get into it, and then your snapped out because that fucker rammed a plane into you and you have to get that bastard back, and it all becomes fun again.
Hahahaha you're right I'm just lying on an internet message board to show how awesome I am to everyone else I'll just go fucking kill myself.
I didn't get any bugs either and I played the at launch. No patches, no mods. Straight vanilla, unpatched STALKER. No bugs. Darmak isn't alone in this like he is in his personal life.
Losing saves with every patch did suck balls, though.
All right, people. It is not a gerbil. It is not a hamster. It is not a guinea pig. It is a death rabbit. Death. Rabbit. Say it with me, now.
edit: also, you make me laugh so much Pancake. :P
Halo 2 had bump maps, it's why Chief was made with less polygons than his Halo 1 version because Halo 1 didn't support bump maps on bipeds. Halo 2 did, so they were able to make chief and enemies and so on with less polys because they could finally use bump maps on them.
Metropolis being strangely empty was a result of the rushing though, and possibly because they had to cut live co-op late in the game (they might have had more areas and enemies planned if you had more players, and balanced single player accordingly).
Reflections were just cut due to framerate, though. Most games continue to use cubemaps even on 360 because it's just easier to do so since a vast majority of people can't even tell the difference between real time reflections and cube maps.
I tried to help fight the fire but it was just too strong, like it was fueled by man's own hatred
Sorry about your house, by the way
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
Let me put it this way:
There is an unavoidable crash in main story where if you are still in a certain zone after a certain piece of dialogue is over, the game crashes to desktop
There is no way around this, since it is just after a point where you lose all your equipment and the men who have it are in that zone
I had to use a fan made patch to fix it and continue
And then twenty minutes later I crashed for no reason in a different zone
And then I put the game on a shelf and have not looked at it since
I'm fairly certain that "bug testing" does not exist in Eastern Europe
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
I don't know what Olivaw's on about. I rarely know what Olivaw's on about. It is possible -nay, probable- that he's been wandering around without a psi artifact equipped. Pseudodogs don't cause DirectX failures, Olivaw! You know that!
edit: Wait, there's a crash there? After the patch that allowed you to reclaim your equipment? Never ran into it. Weird.
All right, people. It is not a gerbil. It is not a hamster. It is not a guinea pig. It is a death rabbit. Death. Rabbit. Say it with me, now.
Bask in the glory.
WHICH IS A LOT
GRRRRRR
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
I'm hoping that when we hit photorealism, devs will get bored with it and more artistic styles will gain popularity. If not always cel shading or whatever else then at least more stylized takes on real life, like Mirror's Edge for example. Pretty soon technical quality won't really be a selling point anymore. Same thing happened to movies. Film critics will comment on art direction but certainly not a clear picture and a steady framerate.
I agree with you for the most part except the end comments about movies.
In fact that has been some of the bigger gripes in movies in the past few years is the lack of clear picture in both "steady-cam" shots and in scenes with extremely heavy CGI like some of the fights in the first Transformers movie. Also, take a look at virtually all of the fights (not CGI) in Batman Begins. You have to damn near watch the thing in slowmo to discern what is actually happening.
This isn't a problem so much in games though.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
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Leaves in sunlight is one of the most costly things to render you could ask for. Subsurface scattering ain't no joke, son.
That's not what he's talking about
at all
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
The opening movie for Resident Evil: Code Veronica on the Dreamcast.
Specifically, when they cut to her eyes, as she is in the cell at the end of the opening, and listening to the rumblings above her.
Those eyes ASTONISHED ME. The way the moved, the way they looked real. I remember actually being so impressed I showed my mom, who didn't really care, simply because I was out of new people to show and couldn't get over it.
Remember the original teaser vids? Original H2 had bumpmaps popping out all the fuck over the place.
I would say we need to focus more on the artistic and less on the graphical. So many games today have just terrible, unimaginative art-direction, and art direction is what lets a game get away with dated graphics years after it's been released. Wind Waker will age much better than Twilight Princess, Paper Mario better than Goldeneye, etc.
Comic book cel-shading is where it's at. See: PoP, looks so damn good holy fuck.