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[DenchDeckard]

Looks like xbox game studios brought the bleeding edge graphics in 2024.

At least they did one thing right.

I've just completed hellblade 2 and 1000g on indiana jones.

One incredible tech demo that looks bonkers on a large oled

And one amazing breath of fresh air single player ip game with insane tech on pc and also looks bonkers on an oled.

I agree with them both but I really want to play silent hill 2 and space marine 2 before judging what looks the best.

 

[Calverz]

I've played the game for 88 hours and there's a lot of places like that, I guess you'll find more as you progress through the game a bit more



ok? not sure what I'm supposed to criticize there, its another cross-section of a picture showing a very low resolution asset. Looking at the Cloud model, it looks like it's a Performance mods picture, which notoriously looks very fuzzy on PS5.

I doubt you'll find many people disagreeing with that sentiment..


-

Just copied these from my own PS5, all these were taken in Quality mode.

The game is full of low resolution assets, there is no other way to put it. The Pro Patch will pretty up the IQ, but as far as I'm aware, there is no difference in asset or lighting quality.

The third one is to show how the lighting can completely blow out in places if you're standing in an odd spot. Hopefully this is something the PC version with its improved lighting fixes.

I've paid little to no attention to this game as I didn't like remake Intergrade on PS5. That looks awful. Like its unfinished or something. I assume PC release will have significantly more detail?

 

[rofif]

Wait I just noticed... pennys big breakaway better than astro bot ?

edit: top 7 is not in order, I forgot

 

[OverHeat]

Wait I just noticed... pennys big breakaway better than astro bot ?

This is bullshit…digital foundry stupidity at its best

 

[adamsapple]

I've paid little to no attention to this game as I didn't like remake Intergrade on PS5. That looks awful. Like its unfinished or something. I assume PC release will have significantly more detail?

It suffers for having massive open zones versus Remake's linear corridor approach. Lots of low quality assets, ground textures etc spread through out the game.

Character models are incredibly well detailed, and some places look great, but that's more art trumping the sheer tech.

Basically, any place in Rebirth that is dimly lit or has golden hour lighting, looks fine. Any place that has bright lighting and exposes the assets, you see the downsides.

 

[Bojji]

Like.. if next year someone released 40 minutes long(honestly how much real gameplay h2 has) game that controls JUST LIKE HELLBLADE and obviously looks like real life cgi, incredible... does that win?
Is it fair if it competes with 70-100h long games?!
if matrix demo was this year... would it win against hellblade? like what. where is that line

Uncharted 2 and 3 (plus GOW3) were linear as fuck and most people (including me) were telling others that they are the best looking console games.

 

[Punished Miku]

Like.. if next year someone released 40 minutes long(honestly how much real gameplay h2 has) game that controls JUST LIKE HELLBLADE and obviously looks like real life cgi, incredible... does that win?
Is it fair if it competes with 70-100h long games?!
if matrix demo was this year... would it win against hellblade? like what. where is that line

Its just games. Its not that serious. If you watch the video that's basically the question DF wrestled with this year and last year. Its really just up to you. Personally, if the category is just graphics I'm going to pick my favorite graphics. There are other categories for a more holistic assessment of all aspects of the game. But even just talking about graphics is subjective since you can add performance, scalability and other factors as well.

People take these rankings way too seriously. I'm pretty convinced it just poisons discourse these days. For as ungamelike as everyone claims Hellblade is, it has more raw moment to moment responsiveness than a JRPG like Metaphor. In a game like that you mostly are just walking around or launching pre-canned animations from menus. Still Wakes the Deep also is fantastic and has platforming and more interactivity than people give it credit for. Anyway, its a divisive game so pick what you like. To me, Metaphor looked like a literal PS3 game and near carbon copy of Persona but lots of others think its GOTY. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. You should know that.

 

[Elios83]

I love it how they contradict themselves in making this list just to exclude "certain games".

But the Zero Dawn remaster not even in the mentions but the Atlus games are there.
When are they bullshitting their audience, before or after?

 

[rofif]

Uncharted 2 and 3 (plus GOW3) were linear as fuck and most people (including me) were telling others that they are the best looking console games.

There is a long ass LOOOONG way from uncharted 123/gow3 to hellblade2.
Like... what are you even trying to say. These are real games you do a ton of stuff. not big cutscene you press W.
I don't mean linear = not applicable.

 

[T4keD0wN]

I just played Still Wakes the Deep. Its a masterpiece. My favorite horror game ever made possibly. But it is not shitting on Hellblade 2.

Read my post again. I think it does on all but those 3 games. Id probably put HB2 and Wukong in the top 3. Not sure in which order though, Wukong has higher highs and bigger scale, whereas HB2 has insanely consistent visual presentation and some of, if not the best animations, despite the cave areas looking kind of boring and lumen dragging it down.

it's not fair to compare high budget 5 hours long cutscene to real games on that list

Like.. if next year someone released 40 minutes long(honestly how much real gameplay h2 has) game that controls JUST LIKE HELLBLADE and obviously looks like real life cgi, incredible... does that win?
Is it fair if it competes with 70-100h long games?!
if matrix demo was this year... would it win against hellblade? like what. where is that line

Theyre talking about graphics, this is pretty much the only scenario where they should and its perfectly valid. With your logic Stellar Blade wouldnt deserve to be here either since its way shorter than DA Veilguard, which would be the ultimate winner by your criteria since you want to decide best graphics by bringing playtime into the discussion for some reason.

Their selections kind of suck, but this sounds way worse.

 

[rofif]

Its just games. Its not that serious. If you watch the video that's basically the question DF wrestled with this year and last year. Its really just up to you. Personally, if the category is just graphics I'm going to pick my favorite graphics. There are other categories for a more holistic assessment of all aspects of the game. But even just talking about graphics is subjective since you can add performance, scalability and other factors as well.

People take these rankings way too seriously. I'm pretty convinced it just poisons discourse these days. For as ungamelike as everyone claims Hellblade is, it has more raw moment to moment responsiveness than a JRPG like Metaphor. In a game like that you mostly are just walking around or launching pre-canned animations from menus. Still Wakes the Deep also is fantastic and has platforming and more interactivity than people give it credit for. Anyway, its a divisive game so pick what you like. To me, Metaphor looked like a literal PS3 game and near carbon copy of Persona but lots of others think its GOTY. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. You should know that.

I mean yeah.
I am just complaining because we are all here in dedicated topic for it.
If interned didn't exist and I saw that list in a magazine, that would be it

 

[Mr Moose]

Top 3:

3. Star Wars: Outlaws
2. Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2
1. Indiana Jones and The Great Circle

What the fuck?

 

[adamsapple]

What the fuck?

It's a legit good looking game, I'm really surprised at the responses its inclusion is getting.

Set aside the South Park Matt Damon looking main character model and it's a very impressive game visually.

Having a good 40hz option on console also goes a long way on top of the usual PC enhancements.

 

[Buggy Loop]

1h48 ????

Let me guess, John says "caveat" somewhere.

 

[rofif]

Is outlaws any good looking on pro? pssr?
I am kinda interested to get it now after some discounts

 

[Calverz]

Looks like xbox game studios brought the bleeding edge graphics in 2024.

At least they did one thing right.

I've just completed hellblade 2 and 1000g on indiana jones.

One incredible tech demo that looks bonkers on a large oled

And one amazing breath of fresh air single player ip game with insane tech on pc and also looks bonkers on an oled.

I agree with them both but I really want to play silent hill 2 and space marine 2 before judging what looks the best.

Iv played all 4 of those games this year on a 4090 and an LG 42C2 OLED. This is my order of graphics from them 4:

4. Silent Hill 2 (looked decent overall but had some technical issues. Possibly better now)
2. Space Marine 2 & Indiana Jones (Tied but cant remember Space Marine 2 much as it was a while ago. Its worth saying I finished Indiana maxed out before the latest patch which apparently improved things further)
1. Hellblade II (sheer graphical fidelity but wouldn't be in my top 5 goty)

 

[GHG]

We had a thread here where it was full of screenshots with that texture bug. Remake has the same issue. The games are rife with terrible textures.

It's not a issue with the textures most of the time, it's the fact that there's a bug where the textures will momentarily (or permanently in some cases) fail to load. This is also present in the PC version of the first game (although I've only encountered it twice up to chapter 12 on a 4080), so it's clearly got something to do with their use of the engine.

When the issue isn't present however, the overall presentation is great.

Rebirth looks like shit regardless of platform.

Nah. Maybe you'll settle down in a few weeks after the PC port lands.

I've played the game for 88 hours and there's a lot of places like that, I guess you'll find more as you progress through the game a bit more



ok? not sure what I'm supposed to criticize there, its another cross-section of a picture showing a very low resolution asset. Looking at the Cloud model, it looks like it's a Performance mods picture, which notoriously looks very fuzzy on PS5.

I doubt you'll find many people disagreeing with that sentiment..


-

Just copied these from my own PS5, all these were taken in Quality mode.

The game is full of low resolution assets, there is no other way to put it. The Pro Patch will pretty up the IQ, but as far as I'm aware, there is no difference in asset or lighting quality.

The third one is to show how the lighting can completely blow out in places if you're standing in an odd spot. Hopefully this is something the PC version with its improved lighting fixes.

The overall point is that if metaphor deserves a mention then so does rebirth. If we're going to talk about textures then metaphor has horrible low resolution textures everywhere, it's a game that is saved by it's art style but it's the very definition of lipstick on a pig. The only way it cleans up is on PC using a combination of supersampling and mods (including texture mods).

But this is the discussion they've opened themselves up to by including metaphor while ignoring space marine.

Also, the textures have failed to load in most of those screenshots, and your 3rd screenshot down is something that only happens if you stand in between an indoor/covered section and an outdoors one. Bizarrely, the way they've set up the auto-exposure is a bit on the slow side.

 

[adamsapple]

The overall point is that if metaphor deserves a mention then so does rebirth. If we're going to talk about textures then metaphor has horrible low resolution textures everywhere, it's a game that is saved by it's art style but it's the very definition of lipstick on a pig. The only way it cleans up is on PC using a combination of supersampling and mods (including texture mods).

I got no problem with dissecting Metaphor, I'm the first person in the topic who brought it up as a negative

If it were up to me, both Metaphor and Rebirth would be out of the honorable mention list and others like Stellar Blade and Still Wakes the Deep would be there instead.

 

[GHG]

I got no problem with dissecting Metaphor, I'm the first person in the topic who brought it up as a negative

If it were up to me, both Metaphor and Rebirth would be out of the honorable mention list and others like Stellar Blade and Still Wakes the Deep would be there instead.

Still wakes the deep is another good shout.

That and nobody wants to die have been horrifically overlooked in these kinds of lists this year.

 

[Gaiff]

It's not a issue with the textures most of the time, it's the fact that there's a bug where the textures will momentarily (or permanently in some cases) fail to load. This is also present in the PC version of the first game (although I've only encountered it twice up to chapter 12 on a 4080), so it's clearly got something to do with their use of the engine.

When the issue isn't present however, the overall presentation is great.



Nah. Maybe you'll settle down in a few weeks after the PC port lands.



The overall point is that if metaphor deserves a mention then so does rebirth. If we're going to talk about textures then metaphor has horrible low resolution textures everywhere, it's a game that is saved by it's art style but it's the very definition of lipstick on a pig. The only way it cleans up is on PC using a combination of supersampling and mods (including texture mods).

But this is the discussion they've opened themselves up to by including metaphor while ignoring space marine.

Also, the textures have failed to load in most of those screenshots, and your 3rd screenshot down is something that only happens if you stand in between an indoor/covered section and an outdoors one. Bizarrely, the way they've set up the auto-exposure is a bit on the slow side.

It is a bug and often, the textures don’t even load even after restarting the game. Wukong has a similar problem, but it’s nowhere near as frequent as with Rebirth or Remake.

Also, yes, the PC version of Remake has the same problem, but I believe there is a mod to fix it. I’m hoping they will resolve this issue with Rebirth on PC, but I wouldn’t bet on it since it’s been present in 3 iterations of 2 different games. They’ll soon make it 4.

 

[Luipadre]

Set aside the South Park Matt Damon looking main character model and it's a very impressive game visually.

Having a good 40hz option on console also goes a long way on top of the usual PC enhancements.

Its getting that response because the internet told these people its a bad game and you should hate it. Anyone who legit played it would say it deserves its spot there, hell just watch the SW segment in the DF video and you can see why its there

 

[Luipadre]

Is outlaws any good looking on pro? pssr?
I am kinda interested to get it now after some discounts

Favor quality 40 fps mode with FSR looks stunning and a locked 40 without a single hiccups. PSSR is broken in that game and 60 fps "quality" mode is worse than the base quality mode both in terms of resolution and settings

 

[tmlDan]

I'd have Wukong at 1. Hellblade at 2. Astro Bot would probably take the 3rd spot.

good pick, completely forgot about wukong - it's def up there

 

[Fess]

Like.. if next year someone released 40 minutes long(honestly how much real gameplay h2 has) game that controls JUST LIKE HELLBLADE and obviously looks like real life cgi, incredible... does that win?
Is it fair if it competes with 70-100h long games?!
if matrix demo was this year... would it win against hellblade? like what. where is that line

They talk about this and that’s why HB2 didn’t win. They went with Indiana Jones for the more open structure and better performance and still super high fidelity assets while having scalability from Series S and far up to push even high end PCs with path tracing.

I would agree 100% on their reasoning here having played through them both at the highest possible setting.

The outlier is Star Wars Outlaws for me. But I haven’t played it so only goes by what I’ve seen online. Does it look good enough for top 3? They show off some of the impressive tech but also complain about how characters look in cutscenes. Maybe the environments are really impressive I don’t know.

 

[Buggy Loop]

Indiana Jones path tracing was really something to behold, so not surprised DF picked it. Rarely seen a more cohesive lighting system out there and perform that good. Wukong full ray tracing was good looking but performed way worse than ID tech's solution.

 

[Jibran#one]

U can argue that hellblade is static and doesn't have life or it's a tech demo , it's a very good looking game on series X but on pc cranked up to the max there is absolutely nothing else that comes close to it.

 

[Mr Hyde]

1. Indy
2. FF7 Rebirth
3. Silent Hill 2

Those are my personal picks from the games I played that released this year.

 

[Lootlord]

It's visually impressive in everything except for interactivity. The character models, animations, geometric density, lighting, shadows, textures, visual effects, hair, and absolutely everything else royally dumps on Rebirth. You're talking as if Rebirth was Tears of the Kingdom in terms of world interactivity. The fact that it even made the list is enough because of how bad and inconsistent the visuals are. We had a thread dedicated to the frequent muddy textures found in the game. Those are all easily fixed and they hopefully are when it comes to PC in January.

I just finished the "game" a couple days ago, was such a slog, never wanted a game to end so badly.

Anyways, about the graphics;
+best character models yet most likely
+mostly fluid animations due to motion-capturing
+very nice scene transitions in game
+water is pretty good
+geometry is fine, well... nanite

-blurriest game i've ever played (4090, maxed out DLAA 1440P)
-feels like 17 filters on top of the actual gfx, CE, Vignette, out of focus, grain, etc. etc.
-textures pretty lowres imho
-traversal stutter (UE)
-very small scope
-no interactions with the envrionment except the scripted ones
-boring environments, look very similiar all the time, feels like the levels consist of 80% rocks that have been scanned in
-glorified techdemo
-PC version doesn't really scale above consoles except some minor things that are barealy noticeable

Played it on gamepass. No idea who in their right mind would pay money for this.
There's hardly any gameplay and the little things that are there are just so repetetive, like cmon, can you plz stop after spawning in 10 enemies in a row? It's not like the "combat" is fun after the first time.
Puzzles are almost as braindead as in Veilguard.
Could have just made a movie instead, not that i would enjoy that more with this "story" but still.

Oh i almost forgot, the walking speed in this game.. holy shit, my fingers almost cramped from perma holding W + shift (which is still only like normal walking speed, without shift it's like snails speed).

It's a nobrainer for me to choose Indy over this, since Indy is an actual game with a pretty big scope at times and looks amazing with PT.

 

[Ozriel]

This is why I’m not buying a 5090. No interest in playing any of that top 3.

if you buy a 5090 you’re only restricted to games made in 2024 and earlier?

 

[The Cockatrice]

"Phenomenal"

 

[kevboard]

I think it's a bit unfair to put Hellblade 2 up against video games... tech demos always have way more leeway to optimise every scene.

 

[Mister Wolf]

Indiana Jones with Pathtracing.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

It's the fifth fucking post in the topic lol.


If Metaphor had shipped with a decent or any Anti Aliasing solution, I would have replaced Persona 3 Reload with that as an honorable mention, but as it is, the game is very jagged and the IQ suffers

And that’s comical because metaphor’s problems aren’t just AA related

 

[BennyBlanco]

if you buy a 5090 you’re only restricted to games made in 2024 and earlier?

No. But there is nothing on the horizon that looks good either and needs more than what I have. Nvidia always had a big game to market their cards with. Cyberpunk, etc. What are they gonna use next month? None of this junk is moving the needle for me.

 

[GHG]

And that’s comical because metaphor’s problems aren’t just AA related

Yep, even digital foundry themselves said so in their commentary at the time of release:

Metaphor probably won't be winning any awards for asset complexity, but there's definitely a greater level of polygonal definition in the environmental artwork.

I don't want to give Atlus too much credit here, as the actual open-world lighting can look quite flat in indirectly lit areas.

Metaphor is definitely not up to current-gen lighting standards, or even necessarily the quality of a more sophisticated last-gen game, but the lighting quality overall is satisfactory enough in a lot of places

Metaphor: ReFantazio has some gaping visual faults, and I suspect these issues will have a tendency to stick with players.

Firstly, the game's overall level of rendering tech is reminiscent of the PS3 era, so we're not getting the sophisticated baked global illumination, physically-based materials and TAA that defined PS4 and Xbox One efforts, never mind the ray-traced lighting that is increasingly characterising the current gen.

Instead, Metaphor is marked by harsh shadowmaps, normal maps, and specularity, a visual mix that came together on seventh-gen machinery like the PS3 and Xbox 360. It's not necessarily an unappetising mix, but it does give the game a dated feel.

Image quality and lack of anti-aliasing is a big problem in the game's visual make-up, to the point where native 4K rendering only goes so far and we need to downscale from 8K to eliminate aliasing and shimmer.

The art isn't uniformly high quality either, and there are some areas where the 2D assets are a little questionable. Level geometry is fine enough for the most part, but textures are sometimes a little flat and muddy.

Anime cutscenes also appear a little soft and can look overly compressed at times.

The next two issues though are perhaps the largest, and might end up defining the visuals for the worse. Metaphor has relatively poor image quality, with a lot of aliasing and shimmer at all times.

Like Persona 5, there's no anti-aliasing whatsoever, but critically here the geometric density of the game has seen a big bump, providing more fodder for aliasing artifacts. Combine that with a high-contrast art style that uses outline shaders, and the game is just an aliasing mess.

It takes a full 8K downsampled to 4K to approach decent image quality, and that drives performance often below 60fps even on a 4090. These brute force approaches just aren't going to work for console hardware, so it's a bit of a 'TAA or bust' situation for image quality in this title I think.

To put it frankly, erformance is not very good. On PS5, the game basically operates at an unstable 60fps, with frame-rates in the low 40s at worst. Some areas play back mostly at 60, like the second city, while most areas in the first city cause substantial performance issues. Combat tends to run poorly as well, and strangely, some of the more enclosed dungeon and interior spaces also tend to run well below 60 frames per second.

There is some slightly weird behaviour going on with the game in general though. Despite having a pretty wide scope, I don't think there is a good level of detail system here.

Metaphor: ReFantazio - a sublime game let down by bizarre technical choices

Digital Foundry reviews Metaphor: ReFantazio - a truly superb RPG marred by older tech, odd technical choices and inconsistent performance.

www.eurogamer.net

But yet here it is, featuring in their "best graphics of 2024 discussion".

Frankly, these guys are jokers. Zero credibility.

 

[ManaByte]

Top 3:

3. Star Wars: Outlaws
2. Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2
1. Indiana Jones and The Great Circle

 

[Killer8]

Don't know what John is smoking when saying the best way to play Silent Hill 2 is the PS5 Pro version in quality mode. Even a base PS5 is better. The Pro patch added in PSSR which seriously fucked up the global illumination and reflections. Bloober removed PSSR from the performance mode which fixed the issue but it still remains in the quality mode to this day. I ended up picking up the PC version and running it at 30fps via the in-game cap + Nvidia's 1/4 v-sync on a 120hz monitor delivers a better experience than PS5. You can get hardware RT and can mod in ray reconstruction plus mods to un-fuck Angela's face.

 

[nemiroff]

Indiana Jones ?! What?!

Here's why they chose it, good luck arguing against it with knee-jerk feels:

General Visual Quality: The game is praised for its outstanding graphics, which are considered some of the best in recent years. The environments are meticulously detailed, capturing the essence of the Indiana Jones franchise.

Environmental Design: The game features historically accurate environments, with locations that are meticulously researched and recreated. The game includes dynamic weather systems that change in real-time, adding to the immersion. Advanced lighting techniques are used to create realistic shadows and reflections, enhancing the overall visual fidelity. High-resolution textures are used throughout the game, providing a high level of detail in both characters and environments.

Character Models: The character models are highly detailed, with realistic facial animations and expressions. The clothing and gear worn by characters are intricately designed, with attention to detail in the textures and materials.

Special Effects: The game features impressive particle effects, such as dust, smoke, and fire, which add to the realism of the environments. Realistic water effects are used in various environments, with reflections and refractions that mimic real water behavior. The game includes destructible environments, where objects can be broken or damaged, adding to the sense of realism.

Animation Quality: The animations are smooth and fluid, with realistic movement for both characters and objects. Advanced motion capture technology is used to create lifelike animations for characters, enhancing their realism.

Artistic Style: The game uses a cinematic presentation style, with camera angles and visual effects that mimic the look and feel of the Indiana Jones films. The color palette is carefully chosen to reflect the different environments and moods of the game, from lush jungles to dark, ancient ruins.

Technical Aspects: The game utilizes ray tracing technology to create realistic lighting, shadows, and reflections. The game runs at a high frame rate, providing a smooth and responsive experience. The game supports 4K resolution, allowing for incredibly detailed and sharp visuals.

Conclusion: "Indiana Jones and the Great Circle" sets a new standard for visual excellence in video games. Its combination of historically accurate environments, advanced lighting and shadow techniques, high-resolution textures, realistic character models, and impressive special effects make it a standout title in terms of graphics. The game's cinematic presentation and attention to detail create an immersive and visually stunning experience that captures the essence of the Indiana Jones franchise.

 

[rofif]

Here's why they chose it, good luck arguing against it with knee-jerk feels:

General Visual Quality: The game is praised for its outstanding graphics, which are considered some of the best in recent years. The environments are meticulously detailed, capturing the essence of the Indiana Jones franchise.

Environmental Design: The game features historically accurate environments, with locations that are meticulously researched and recreated. The game includes dynamic weather systems that change in real-time, adding to the immersion. Advanced lighting techniques are used to create realistic shadows and reflections, enhancing the overall visual fidelity. High-resolution textures are used throughout the game, providing a high level of detail in both characters and environments.

Character Models: The character models are highly detailed, with realistic facial animations and expressions. The clothing and gear worn by characters are intricately designed, with attention to detail in the textures and materials.

Special Effects: The game features impressive particle effects, such as dust, smoke, and fire, which add to the realism of the environments. Realistic water effects are used in various environments, with reflections and refractions that mimic real water behavior. The game includes destructible environments, where objects can be broken or damaged, adding to the sense of realism.

Animation Quality: The animations are smooth and fluid, with realistic movement for both characters and objects. Advanced motion capture technology is used to create lifelike animations for characters, enhancing their realism.

Artistic Style: The game uses a cinematic presentation style, with camera angles and visual effects that mimic the look and feel of the Indiana Jones films. The color palette is carefully chosen to reflect the different environments and moods of the game, from lush jungles to dark, ancient ruins.

Technical Aspects: The game utilizes ray tracing technology to create realistic lighting, shadows, and reflections. The game runs at a high frame rate, providing a smooth and responsive experience. The game supports 4K resolution, allowing for incredibly detailed and sharp visuals.

Conclusion: "Indiana Jones and the Great Circle" sets a new standard for visual excellence in video games. Its combination of historically accurate environments, advanced lighting and shadow techniques, high-resolution textures, realistic character models, and impressive special effects make it a standout title in terms of graphics. The game's cinematic presentation and attention to detail create an immersive and visually stunning experience that captures the essence of the Indiana Jones franchise.

meh.
General visual quality is good as I've said.
Character models are also fine. Although I've seen better.
Special Effects? meh. Nothing special. water is butt ugly.
Animation? It's a first person game. Animations are good but nothing better than ND is doing.
Artistic style - it's a graphics reward
Technical aspect? Path tracing? Sure... maybe.. for those who can enable it. There are many PT games.

The game looks like less than sum of it's parts. Everything is fine or good but overall I am not that stunned by it. It's kinda clinical.

 

[DenchDeckard]

U can argue that hellblade is static and doesn't have life or it's a tech demo , it's a very good looking game on series X but on pc cranked up to the max there is absolutely nothing else that comes close to it.

I've just completed it as I knew it would be short and you are not wrong.

Absolutely insane on pc and an OLED monitor / tv.

Coupled with the headphones it's an intense experience. Also extremely true to the joke of just pressing forward in-between these insane showcases of tech and animation in the various fights.

Bonkers. Boring at times but a visual showcase for sure.

 

[Gaiff]

meh.
General visual quality is good as I've said.
Character models are also fine. Although I've seen better.
Special Effects? meh. Nothing special. water is butt ugly.
Animation? It's a first person game. Animations are good but nothing better than ND is doing.
Artistic style - it's a graphics reward
Technical aspect? Path tracing? Sure... maybe.. for those who can enable it. There are many PT games.

The game looks like less than sum of it's parts. Everything is fine or good but overall I am not that stunned by it. It's kinda clinical.

Art direction does matter, but it's nothing special in Indiana Jones. Hellblade 2, BMW, Astro Bot, and Silent Hill 2 are all far better in that respect. I find Indy's art bland.

 

[Fess]

Metaphor: ReFantazio - a sublime game let down by bizarre technical choices

Digital Foundry reviews Metaphor: ReFantazio - a truly superb RPG marred by older tech, odd technical choices and inconsistent performance.

www.eurogamer.net

But yet here it is, featuring in their "best graphics of 2024 discussion".

Frankly, these guys are jokers. Zero credibility.

Don’t throw them all under the bus, that was just Oliver’s personal choice outside of the top 10, John and Alex hadn’t even played it. But to his defense he talk about the aliasing and framerate problems etc. Still, weird pick.
They all had some personal games they wanted to talk about for some reason. Oliver and Alex talked about Veilguard essentially just to drool over the hair tech, that was weird lol

 

[nemiroff]

meh.
General visual quality is good as I've said.
Character models are also fine. Although I've seen better.
Special Effects? meh. Nothing special. water is butt ugly.
Animation? It's a first person game. Animations are good but nothing better than ND is doing.
Artistic style - it's a graphics reward
Technical aspect? Path tracing? Sure... maybe.. for those who can enable it. There are many PT games.

The game looks like less than sum of it's parts. Everything is fine or good but overall I am not that stunned by it. It's kinda clinical.

Argument: "Meh and nah". Predictable.

 

[adamsapple]

Here's why they chose it, good luck arguing against it with knee-jerk feels:

General Visual Quality: The game is praised for its outstanding graphics, which are considered some of the best in recent years. The environments are meticulously detailed, capturing the essence of the Indiana Jones franchise.

Environmental Design: The game features historically accurate environments, with locations that are meticulously researched and recreated. The game includes dynamic weather systems that change in real-time, adding to the immersion. Advanced lighting techniques are used to create realistic shadows and reflections, enhancing the overall visual fidelity. High-resolution textures are used throughout the game, providing a high level of detail in both characters and environments.

Character Models: The character models are highly detailed, with realistic facial animations and expressions. The clothing and gear worn by characters are intricately designed, with attention to detail in the textures and materials.

Special Effects: The game features impressive particle effects, such as dust, smoke, and fire, which add to the realism of the environments. Realistic water effects are used in various environments, with reflections and refractions that mimic real water behavior. The game includes destructible environments, where objects can be broken or damaged, adding to the sense of realism.

Animation Quality: The animations are smooth and fluid, with realistic movement for both characters and objects. Advanced motion capture technology is used to create lifelike animations for characters, enhancing their realism.

Artistic Style: The game uses a cinematic presentation style, with camera angles and visual effects that mimic the look and feel of the Indiana Jones films. The color palette is carefully chosen to reflect the different environments and moods of the game, from lush jungles to dark, ancient ruins.

Technical Aspects: The game utilizes ray tracing technology to create realistic lighting, shadows, and reflections. The game runs at a high frame rate, providing a smooth and responsive experience. The game supports 4K resolution, allowing for incredibly detailed and sharp visuals.

Conclusion: "Indiana Jones and the Great Circle" sets a new standard for visual excellence in video games. Its combination of historically accurate environments, advanced lighting and shadow techniques, high-resolution textures, realistic character models, and impressive special effects make it a standout title in terms of graphics. The game's cinematic presentation and attention to detail create an immersive and visually stunning experience that captures the essence of the Indiana Jones franchise.

Can't complain.

-

Another one that I feel should have been in the honorable mentions.

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden

It's a small budget game but they pulled off some fantastic visuals.

 

[ToneyJ]

Are they just anti-Playstation? I genuinely don't care if they are, but Penny Pig over Astro Bot and no mention of Stellar Blade seems like terrible taste.

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

Top 3:

3. Star Wars: Outlaws
2. Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2
1. Indiana Jones and The Great Circle

Why they can't be taken serious.

 

[adamsapple]

Why they can't be taken serious.

Elaborate.

 

[Venom Snake]

Pfft, weaklings.

1. Eve's ass (console, pc soon)
2. BMW (pc)
3. BMW (console)

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

Elaborate.

TWO of the the top 3 don't belong.

DF has a predictable heavy bs history.

 

[Gaiff]

Are they just anti-Playstation? I genuinely don't care if they are, but Penny Pig over Astro Bot and no mention of Stellar Blade seems like terrible taste.

Considering how often PS games show up how many times they got first place, no?

There just hasn’t been anything graphically very impressive from Sony this year. Astro Bot is arguably the best looking game, but it’s not pushing any boundaries like Hellblade does with the characters or Indiana Jones does with the lighting. I’d personally have Astro Bot at 3-4 and kick Indiana Jones out, but I don’t value tech anywhere near as much as the DF crew.