FROM E3: One thing that’s becoming increasingly apparent every time I step foot inside a new booth is just how visually spectacular a lot of the games at this year’s show are. I’m feeling the threshold of what I find impressive rising each hour. If there’s any theme emerging from E3, it’s that there’s some serious eye-candy on the way. The Order 1886 is quite possibly the prettiest game in existence. I stood there waiting for the action to begin for a good ten seconds before realising that I had control and everything I was seeing was in-engine. The last time I made that mistake was with Uncharted 2. Yes, it’s grey-ish and slightly drab in tone, but the character models and animations are simply jaw dropping. Batman: Arkham Knight is leaps and bounds over its predecessors and is definitely one of the visual standouts this year. The draw distance is massive, neon lights reflect in puddles and Batman himself has undergone a huge makeover – you can see individual raindrops rolling off his cape. Assassin’s Creed: Unity is a clear upgrade over AC: IV, which itself was a good looking game. The crowd sizes have multiplied exponentially and the map of Paris is equivalent in scale to the Wilderness area from AC: III – stand on a roof top and you can see an impressive amount of it. I’ve been told that the engine can handle crowds of up to 1000 people, too. Yes please. Call of Duty hasn’t been considered “pretty” for a long time now, but Advanced Warfare really is looking like the leap the series needed to take, at least visually. Ghosts didn’t look like a true next-gen CoD, but this does. The amount of particle effects on screen and the motion captured faces set a new standard for shooters. DriveClub, FIFA 15, NHL 15, Lords of the Fallen, Bloodborne, Mortal Kombat X, Rainbow Six: Siege, Far Cry 4 and The Witcher 3 all look amazing themselves and can easily be added to this list. All these games look better than just about everything currently out. As we suspected (but never knew for sure), last year’s console launch titles clearly weren’t pushing the hardware – most were cross-gen after all. Of course none of this matters if the gameplay isn’t any good, but come early 2015, and even late this year, we’re going to be playing some absolute stunners.
Posted on: Thu, 12 Jun 2014 06:30:00 +0000
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