Crysis 2 Graphics - Are we too soon to hate ? Cryengine 3 shots within

[Grooveriding]

These are some shots using Cryengine 3 from GDC. Some are quite impressive imo. Obviously we've seen nothing like this in the demo, and these may be PR shots, but these are pretty nice imo.

It could be that Cryengine simply is not very impressive in an urban setting and indoor settings most of all, much like we saw in Crysis 1. These examples of Cryengine 3 are almost exclusively outdoor environments and are quite nice.

http://www.gamesblog.it/galleria/cryengine-3-03/

 

[Dankk]

If they can't make urban settings look good, I don't see how it's possible for the outdoor jungle environments look any better.

The Crysis 2 multiplayer demo is certainly pretty, but it still looks like ass compared to a properly-refined PC game. Muddy textures, cramped FOV, oversized HUD, and then a bunch of overcompensating motion blur and lighting effects to mask the shittiness.

I'll reserve my judgement on the final game until I can see full-resolution screenshots. The ones posted above are not big enough to really analyze.

Edit: And... this is just a personal hunch... those are most likely doctored up PR shots.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

kinda reminds me of age of conan - those demo videos looked great, and had absolutely nothing to do with the game.

 

[gorobei]

the threshold for good looking natural environment just requires massive numbers polygon(enough to get the density of foliage and that fractale growth golden mean).

good looking urban requires less raw polys but more attention to texture and a conscious avoidance of reducing everything to boxes and planes at right angles.

assuming crytek has general environment lighting and atmospheric fading well in hand, it may be a case of getting the art department to slightly tune its impression of urban milieu .

 

[OCGuy]

BF:BC2 with HBAO(?) on was amazing. That is the standard that I will hold Crysis 2 to.

 

[MustangSVT]

hmm they do look good.

but at 60fps? looks a bit touched up.

 

[ViRGE]

I think CE3 will look good when it comes out, but it doesn't change the fact that those shoots reek of bullshots.

 

[Hauk]

The first three scenes are beautiful. Very nice shading. I spent time inserting myself into each scene:
#1 Hiking or hunting, with nowhere to be
#2 Fishing out on the rocks
#3 Hoping for miles of this road as I hit it in a Corvette or Porsche
#4 Beach party, girls gone wild, um, wait, isn't this the scene after Nomad makes his first two kills in Crysis 1?

 

[Dribble]

I think CE3 will look good when it comes out, but it doesn't change the fact that those shoots reek of bullshots.

To be fair we saw similar shots for crysis 1, and you could recreate them in game, only you needed hardware not available for several years to make it playable.

I tend to agree with others in that the quality of the level design might not be quite as good in crysis 3, crytek probably spent 10 years designing the worlds prettiest desert islands and they just aren't so good at cities yet.

The best test of CE3 would be to see it used to render another desert island, but tbh I am glad crytek gave desert islands a rest.

 

[james1701]

I am starting to find the situation laughable, and feel sad for Crytech. Everyone complains Crysis 1 and Warhead are too demanding, and boring. So Crytech goes and looks at games like COD, Halo, GoW, and models their multiplayer to play somthing similar, because its what the fans want, and make it more playable on lesser hardware. By the time the game is released, everyone is getting burnt out on COD, and reverting to games like BC2, and the upcoming BC3, that is more similar to Crysis 1 and Warhead in a slower, but more exciting game play style. They just can't win for loosing, gamers tastes change, and in a game this big, they can't do yearly overhauls with that many significant changes.

I am one of the biggest Crysis fans there ever was, and there are things in Crysis 2 I don't like. But I have never seen a company try to cater to its fans more than what Crytec has done while still trying to be profitable. Batman AA has the push start button also, but there was never as much uproar over that as in this game.

I know a multiplayer demo is best for them to get server bugs worked out, that is what made Halo so good from launch. No one wants a multiplayer game that does not work for a week until they can get the servers sorted out. I really wanted to see the single player campaign, but since Crytec has gone to bed with Nvidia, its hard to say for certain what kind of fallout we will see from that. If its small things like what we seen in Batman AA, then its no big deal, but if its not, then thats a different can of worms all together.

 

[Mocib]

These are some shots using Cryengine 3 from GDC.

The following shots are CE3, rest on this page you linked are CryEngine 2.

 

[Gloomy]

BF:BC2 with HBAO(?) on was amazing. That is the standard that I will hold Crysis 2 to.

I know right? That setting was underrated imo. My card couldn't run the game's generic HBAO setting but I am SO glad Nvidia has an HBAO option on its control panel (last Catalyst I used didn't have one).

To date, it's really one of the few real advantages I've found between the two brands. No spin.

 

[DrBoss]

there are 2 new videos of CryEngine3 on gametrailers.com
They are from GDC 2011

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/gdc-11-cryengine-3/711208?type=flv

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/gdc-11-cryengine-3/711210?type=flv

 

[gorcorps]

To be fair we saw similar shots for crysis 1, and you could recreate them in game, only you needed hardware not available for several years to make it playable.

I tend to agree with others in that the quality of the level design might not be quite as good in crysis 3, crytek probably spent 10 years designing the worlds prettiest desert islands and they just aren't so good at cities yet.

The best test of CE3 would be to see it used to render another desert island, but tbh I am glad crytek gave desert islands a rest.

I still don't know if it's that Crytek can't design cities. I think it's more that cities are just inherently boring overall unless you're scaling them like in Assassins Creed or Crackdown. With Crysis you have superhuman abilities, yet because of the FPS viewpoint you still feel a little limited. If you could run up walls or something then the whole city thing would probably be better from a gameplay perspective. Maybe that's possible, I haven't really been following it. Still wouldn't be great looks-wise in the city though, and that's just cities in general.

 

[ImpulsE69]

The answer is plain and simply yes. People don't just enjoy games anymore. They are just picked apart. *omg i see jagged lines!* I'd rather see jagged lines than 100miles of beautiful scenery with nothing to do.

 

[Dropmachine]

If companies would make games worthy of actually enjoying, then people wouldn't be left with nothing to do but tear things apart.

Whens the last time you've played a game that was actually engrossing enough story wise that you didn't want to put it down? The last time for me was Halflife 2. Everything since then feels shallow, stretched and uninspired. Bioshock 2 was decent but fundamentally flawed. the COD series is garbage. Starcraft 2 was fun, but I didn't really care about anybody in it.

Maybe I'm missing something?

 

[Grooveriding]

If companies would make games worthy of actually enjoying, then people wouldn't be left with nothing to do but tear things apart.

Whens the last time you've played a game that was actually engrossing enough story wise that you didn't want to put it down? The last time for me was Halflife 2. Everything since then feels shallow, stretched and uninspired. Bioshock 2 was decent but fundamentally flawed. the COD series is garbage. Starcraft 2 was fun, but I didn't really care about anybody in it.

Maybe I'm missing something?

I find good games are increasingly few and far between.

Last year for me would be BFBC2, SC2 and Mafia 2.

 

[exar333]

If companies would make games worthy of actually enjoying, then people wouldn't be left with nothing to do but tear things apart.

Whens the last time you've played a game that was actually engrossing enough story wise that you didn't want to put it down? The last time for me was Halflife 2. Everything since then feels shallow, stretched and uninspired. Bioshock 2 was decent but fundamentally flawed. the COD series is garbage. Starcraft 2 was fun, but I didn't really care about anybody in it.

Maybe I'm missing something?

I agree with most of your points except for SC2. Although I was really skeptical of the SP in general, it was done extremely well. The major shortcoming was that it was so short...I really look forward to the upcoming 'expansions' to extend the story.

For me, nothing has 'blown me away' since FarCry, to be honest. That game was lush and beautiful and was so advanced for the time. Everything since then has been really just an evolution for me and not stunning. Very little gameplay advances have been brought-in, so combined with the minor growth in graphics, PC gaming does feel a little stale. I have been more interested lately in going back and re-playing older games that were exceptional like TIE Fighter, Freespace 1/2, Mech3, and some older console platformers and rpgs from new/snes days. I miss GOOD gameplay...

 

[RussianSensation]

Just because CE3 can look amazing, it does not mean that the highest graphical effects that engine is capable of were actually implemented in Crysis 2. Perhaps DX11 will bring better quality textures, etc. compared to the Xbox360 version, the game looks only marginally better. How can an HD6970 at 1080p only look marginally better than the same game on the console using at best an X1950XT? We are probably talking 5-6x GPU processing power or more.

 

[gorcorps]

If companies would make games worthy of actually enjoying, then people wouldn't be left with nothing to do but tear things apart.

Whens the last time you've played a game that was actually engrossing enough story wise that you didn't want to put it down? The last time for me was Halflife 2. Everything since then feels shallow, stretched and uninspired. Bioshock 2 was decent but fundamentally flawed. the COD series is garbage. Starcraft 2 was fun, but I didn't really care about anybody in it.

Maybe I'm missing something?

Red Dead Redemption for me. Should have ended sooner though. They dragged that ending out quite a while.

I also beat Mass Effect 2 3-4 days after it came out because I couldn't stop. Great game.

But yes... those games are few and far between anymore. Guess that makes them more special though.

 

[DrBoss]

I also beat Mass Effect 2 3-4 days after it came out because I couldn't stop. Great game.

Same. Mass Effect 2 was probably the best game i played last year aside from GT5 which has no story

 

[Irrational_]

If companies would make games worthy of actually enjoying, then people wouldn't be left with nothing to do but tear things apart.

Whens the last time you've played a game that was actually engrossing enough story wise that you didn't want to put it down? The last time for me was Halflife 2. Everything since then feels shallow, stretched and uninspired. Bioshock 2 was decent but fundamentally flawed. the COD series is garbage. Starcraft 2 was fun, but I didn't really care about anybody in it.

Maybe I'm missing something?

Too true. The last game that I really enjoyed and couldn't stop playing was Mass Effect 2.

 

[ioni]

If companies would make games worthy of actually enjoying, then people wouldn't be left with nothing to do but tear things apart.

Whens the last time you've played a game that was actually engrossing enough story wise that you didn't want to put it down? The last time for me was Halflife 2. Everything since then feels shallow, stretched and uninspired. Bioshock 2 was decent but fundamentally flawed. the COD series is garbage. Starcraft 2 was fun, but I didn't really care about anybody in it.

Maybe I'm missing something?

I'm playing one right now. Dragon Knight Saga. Before that was Risen.

 

[dorion]

The answer is plain and simply yes. People don't just enjoy games anymore. They are just picked apart. *omg i see jagged lines!* I'd rather see jagged lines than 100miles of beautiful scenery with nothing to do.

Really? Cause I would love a game with a draw distance of 100 miles.

What better way to stress computers than to offer a setting that increases the performance requirements 10x.

 

[Dankk]

BF:BC2 with HBAO(?) on was amazing. That is the standard that I will hold Crysis 2 to.

What's funny is that Bad Company 2 is already a year old, and it holds up EXTREMELY well. To top it all off, it's even a console port. (Which might not necessarily count in this case, since DICE does a damn fine job of paying attention to the PC version).