Forget the exact context, but I remember a post where you were giving thumbs up to Gran Turismo 5 screen shots. So I don't really grasp your new found elitism.
That was a long time ago, when I was comparing Dirt 2 to GT5, etc., and before Project CARS matured. Also, I am talking about Crytek setting the standard for 3-4 years with Crysis 3, not about just comparing Crysis 3 to Crysis 1. If they didn't hype their graphics so much, I wouldn't be scrutinizing the graphics to this extent.
Project CARS makes GT5's graphics look last generation. I am always impressed when any company pushes things to the next level, which makes spending $500-1000 on GPUs more worthwhile.
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2798600&postcount=3359
If a game looks near photo realistic and I'd need $800-1,000 of GPUs to run it, I'd spent that $. If I have to spend $800 to go from 0xMSAA to 4xMSAA, I could care less. MSAA/SMAA does not fix low resolution textures, lower polygon models, etc.
I disagree there - the downtown areas in the afternoon sun looked amazing. Some of the water + vegetation areas looked really good too.
Blacklight Retribution - free game.
Compared to its
graphical competitors, such as Witcher 2, Metro 2033, BF3, Crysis 2 failed to stand-out. It wasn't an ugly game, but it wasn't revolutionary in any way. In fact, in many places Crysis 2 is a huge step back compared to Crysis 1 graphically.
Crysis DOES look good, just nothing special anymore
No one is arguing that Crysis 1 is the best looking game. It's about it revolutionizing the PC graphics for
years to come. In many ways, Crysis 1 still has more advanced graphics in some aspects than even Far Cry 3.
This is vanilla Crysis vs. Far Cry 3. A 2007 game against a late 2012 game. It shouldn't even be a contest but Far Cry 3 is not convincingly better in every way.
Are you willing to bet that Crysis 3 will look nearly as good as 2017-2018 PC FPS games? I think you guys are forgetting how old Crysis 1 is. If you played PC games in 2006-2007 and
you fired this up, your jaw hit the floor and your 8800GTX was doing 25 fps. When I fired up Crysis 2, I felt it didn't even best Witcher 2, Metro 2033 or BF3. Many PC gamers actually think Crysis 2 looks worse than Crysis 1 without MaldoHD mods. Crysis 3 doesn't look like the same revolutionary advancement that Crysis 1 brought either. I have no doubt Crysis 3 will surpass Crysis 1 graphically without problems, but will it shake the industry in the same way?
This is
C3 with every setting on Very High, except no MSAA/SMAA. This does not look like a some next generation PC game. I don't know why so many of you are defending Crysis 3's graphics as if you are so emotionally vested in the franchise. Look outside for next generation graphical inspiration in other games. Compared to that, Crysis 3's graphics are not setting the bar for the PC, not even close. When Crysis 1 came out, I don't remember a single game, modded or not, that looked better. If C3's single player campaign looks way better than Multiplayer, I'll change my view. It just doesn't feel like Crysis 3 was 100% developed for next generation GPUs from the ground-up like the first game was.