[Deepblue]

While this matter is probably extremely subjective, which do you think looks best out of Half-Life 2, Doom 3, Far Cry, and Halo 2 (hardly fair considering resolution and hardware limits, but it has good post-effects).

A sampling of each...

Half-Life 2:


Doom 3:


Far Cry:


Halo 2:
(more screenies 'cause there are just so damn many)








 




 

*wonders how Halo 2 would have looked at full potential on a high-end PC*

EDIT: Damn, this was supposed to be a poll...

[CP5670]

None of them. At the moment, I think Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory with the SM3 stuff and HDR turned on looks better than anything else out there.

[Deepblue]

Well.... That's not a 1st person shooter, so ha! *wishes he could change the title of the thread...*

EDIT: On another note, can someone please enlighten me on why SC: CT is rated M?

[WMCoolmon]

That F-16 game someone posted somewhere.

Barring that I'd go with Halo 2. It just looks so damn good, even on a TV.

[CP5670]

Well.... That's not a 1st person shooter, so ha! *wishes he could change the title of the thread...*

You just said "games."

Out of the ones you listed, I think Far Cry has the edge if you use HDR (and tone down its effects, which are too strong by default). Otherwise it's really a toss up between that and Doom 3. HL2 for the most part looks like it's about two years old while Halo 2 might have looked good if you could run it at anything higher than 640x480 or whatever standard TVs run on.

Speaking of Far Cry, I just noticed this in the game directory and had to post it:

EDIT: On another note, can someone please enlighten me on why SC: CT is rated M?

Who knows. I stopped paying attention to those ratings long ago. Another strange one was Descent 3, which I think was rated T for some reason.

[Knight Templar]

Halo 2 FTW.

[achtung]

I like Doom 3 the most but it always seems that halo 2 makes use of of lighting effects to look so good.  Still Doom 3 and halo 2 are an even match for me.

[Fragrag]

[Strike]Freespace 2![/Strike]

Halo 2 looks good, but seems to have problems with Anti Aliasing in game,

[Sandwich]

FarCry all the way.

[Fineus]

I don't think there's any decisive winner - but if you really forced me I'd go with Doom 3.

Doom 3 has the most impressive engine going for it. Its potential is really very special indeed, and while some of the objects do look "plastic" - with a little tweaking you can get it looking incredible.

Half Life 2 really doesn't look that great in default. It has an HDR bloom mod that is quite nice, and the engine has some nice tricks up its sleeve, but overall it just doesn't seem to quite measure up to the mark.

Far Crys lush environments and massive areas of play (while maintaining high frame rates) are really very nice, but the textures lean more towards the "comic" than the "real" which isn't to my taste entirely. Also, the player models are a bit long in the tooth now. Some of this could be down to a matter of taste though.

Halo 2 just doesn't look that special. It looks good - but it doesn't really separate itself from the pack at all. Again this could be down to a matter of taste (and I've never actually played it, I'm going on the screenshots).

I'd like to nominate a game of my own if I may. Need For Speed Underground 2 on the PC. Normally I don't play driving games for the PC and I wasn't sure I'd like this one - but I thought I'd give it a go. Having cranked the settings up - I must say I'm very pleasently suprised. It looks quite simply fantastic. If Grand Theft Auto upgrades to a similar look - it'd be a landmark game. It does look a lot better when it's moving (but these things always do). Suffice to say, it does quite a nice job.



Update:

Also, when you think about it, personal taste plays a big big part as well. Half Life 2 focuses more on decaying East European cities etc. Doom 3 is all about claustrophobic corridors of a military installation - therefore quite drab colours. Far Cry takes the prize for vast open spaces and lush vegitation.

The point is, if you hate dark and claustophobic corridors then of course Doom 3 is a bad choice. If wide open vegetation doesn't float your boat then Far Cry won't win the prize for you. So it's not necessarily down to which looks best - but to which looks best at showing off the bits you like about gaming.

[pyro-manic]

HL2 for me. If they'd put more detail in the levels it would have been spectacular. I prefer Far Cry's vegetation (though the distance clipping on the grass etc was annoying), but the Source water effects blow it away. Doom 3 sucked on all counts, and I haven't played Halo 2 so I can't comment on it...

[Turnsky]

i dunno, i'd say Halo 2, because not only did it look pretty, but it had a cinematic feel to it, one that either HL2, D3 or Far Cry have failed to reproduce, that said, all of the others have their memorable moments, too.

note: the latter three games are either coming, or are on the Xbox, post screenies and see which ones survived the console porting

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Deepblue


Halo 2:
(more screenies 'cause there are just so damn many)
...
*wonders how Halo 2 would have looked at full potential on a high-end PC*
 

Gee, you've in no way tried to load the question, have you?

Um, HL2 had the most convincing environments IMO, but in terms of graphical impressiveness Far Cry was better.

Halo 2 looks nothing special compared to either.  It's probably about the same level IMO as Call of Duty, but with more shiny bits.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Kalfireth
I'd like to nominate a game of my own if I may. Need For Speed Underground 2 on the PC. Normally I don't play driving games for the PC and I wasn't sure I'd like this one - but I thought I'd give it a go. Having cranked the settings up - I must say I'm very pleasently suprised. It looks quite simply fantastic.

Agree with you there Kal. NFS:U2 does look pretty impressive when everything is flying past you at speed.

 That's a pretty impressive bank balance for a street racer though. I guess we know why we never see police in the game. He must have bought out the whole city

[aldo_14]

I'm waiting for Need For Speed Underground: Gifnock.

You start off racing stolen Asda trolleys, before moving to driving Vauxhall novas with blacked-out windows, a completely usless spoiler, a non-functional decorative second exhaust*, and a big Bang & Oluffson stereo sticker on the back (belying that the actual stereo is made by Alba and cost 20 quid from Tesco).

The aim being, of course, to win back your fake burberry cap & kappa tracksuit collection, a race at a time - and then to go professional to pay for your hearing aids (having deafened yourself playing Bonkers 14 - available from Woolworths - at 200 decibels on your ****ty car stereo)

*also available; useless bucked exhaust with no benefit beyond scraping across the ground

[Fineus]

Actually that's a screenshot from my own game Kara... I got bored early on when I realised that you were allowed to unlock new tech and just get your car up to scratch... only for them to let you have access to a better car.

So now I drive the races to unlock the tech - but I can afford them any time I want. Less arsing about waiting

[Ransom]

It looks plastic at times, but I prefer Doom 3's dark twisting hallways filled with bizarre science fictionery. HL2's engine doesn't really impress me, and I found most of the environments to look pretty boring (the architecture especially), though they did have their moments. Far Cry can be quite impressive at times, but I'm not a fan of its cartoony bright colours. Halo 2 I think is somewhere between Doom 3 and Far Cry for me.

[CP5670]

For those of you who don't like the cartoony look of Far Cry, set the render style to Cold. I also thought that the default style looked strange, but this makes it look a lot better. The colors are even better with HDR enabled and properly configured.

[Roanoke]

Originally posted by Ransom Arceihn
It looks plastic at times, but I prefer Doom 3's dark twisting hallways filled with bizarre science fictionery. HL2's engine doesn't really impress me, and I found most of the environments to look pretty boring (the architecture especially), though they did have their moments. Far Cry can be quite impressive at times, but I'm not a fan of its cartoony bright colours. Halo 2 I think is somewhere between Doom 3 and Far Cry for me.

Funny that, as I got bored of D3's constant Industrial pipes'n' railings pretty quickly.

[Taristin]

Originally posted by aldo_14
I'm waiting for Need For Speed Underground: Gifnock.

You start off racing stolen Asda trolleys, before moving to driving Vauxhall novas with blacked-out windows, a completely usless spoiler, a non-functional decorative second exhaust*, and a big Bang & Oluffson stereo sticker on the back (belying that the actual stereo is made by Alba and cost 20 quid from Tesco).

The aim being, of course, to win back your fake burberry cap & kappa tracksuit collection, a race at a time - and then to go professional to pay for your hearing aids (having deafened yourself playing Bonkers 14 - available from Woolworths - at 200 decibels on your ****ty car stereo)

*also available; useless bucked exhaust with no benefit beyond scraping across the ground

Or the American counterpart, where you start off in your rusted '88 Honda CRX shell, before moving up to a 93 Civic hatchcrap, which is so low to the ground it scrapes on the tiniest bumps. Slowly you buy your 'OMG WOW LOLZ! Completely 'legit' Integra Type R' motor, and put it in your 1200.00 civic. Get extremely flared body pieces, paint your car an oulandish shade of yellow/green/pink/flatblack and cover it in vinyl. 10 more horsepower y0!