Best Graphics of 2011

I have a X360 and a PS3. I find myself preferring the Xbox for two reasons;

Most of my friends are on Xbox Live.
The PS3 controller cramps my hand after about 44.98104 minutes.

 

Hand cramps? Never had a problem with that. Is this you?



I do prefer the 360 pad for FPS games but the dualshock seems fine to me.

I think heading where your friends are is probably the most determining thing really.

 

The odd "T" orientation of the shoulder buttons irritates me a little bit, and the triggers are a bit too narrow for comfort. But the amount of travel and resistance is very good.

From what I've read, most complaints about the Dualshock are from people with larger than average hands, who say the pad is too small.

@monsly, so, you got a screenshot from The Science of Sleep eh?

 

I can't believe that the common "understanding" on other forums is that the PS3 is more powerful/capable than the 360. People have really bought into this "teh cell is da gre4test evar" stuff.

PS3 has some better looking games because of talented developers that manage to get the most out of the system and do very well on the artistic front. I recently stated that the X360 is more powerful/capable on another forum mainly because of the non-split memory pool and lower OS footprint giving much more usable memory for the GPU. Well apparently I'm wrong because Uncharted 2 and GoW3 look generations ahead of any 360 game so the PS3 must be more powerful! Surely developer talent, art direction and user preference have nothing to do with it.

 

So does that mean that all Xbox 360 developers are talentless/have no artistic ability?

 

Not at all, they just have less of an artistic focus than many of the big Sony exclusive devs.

Much of it also depends on the type of game, which is why it's a bit stupid to compare Uncharted 2 and GoW3 to Reach. Of course, Killzone 2 looks slightly better than Reach IMO, but at least Reach is a slightly better game.

 

The line that I often hear trotted out is that the PS3 has an edge over the 360 when fully utilised. Yet fully utilising it is a more tricky proposition than the 360. This would probably explain why some PS3 exclusives are lauded for their graphics and why the 360 has an advantage with the majority of multiformat releases. Besides, the gaps we see this generation are not as big as last gen anyway.

I'm not buying your reasoning at all.

 

I agree with what you're saying aside from that fact that PS3 actually has any sort of edge when fully utilised (aka, CELLs SPE's are used effectively).

Many ports perform badly on the PS3 because SPE utilisation is very low, but aside from that, the split memory pool is also a big factor in this. Of course this becomes a bigger problem than it would be otherwise when developers use the 360 for their target system. There are ways around it and clearly the big Sony exclusive devs have found these ways.

When a dev actually works with the PS3 properly or exclusively it is very much close to being on par with the X360 (better in some ways, worse in others). The rest of what makes the end result is down to developer ability and art direction as well as the type of game it is, which effects camera angles (selective or restrictive) and view distance from textures and effects. Also how scripted the game is comes into play. If something explodes on a timer when you are 50m away from it the explosion probably looks amazing. In a free world game where you might be 10m away and at a less desirable camera angel, it may look like arse.

 

So developer ability on the supposedly easier to program 360, which has fewer memory bottle necks and free AA is poor?

Killzone 2's explosions were pretty tasty.

 

Chi, look at it this way; the 360's developers are not poor, it's just that the PS3's first party devs are just so much better.
Furthermore the PS3's first party developers get huge amounts of assistance by Sony and MUST share around their tech (namely because it's apparently owned by Sony). That allows the developers to come up with very, very impressive tech, as the best from each department can effectively work together on the tech across development studios.

If Microsoft did what Sony did with its first party developers, we'd have first party games of equal graphical caliber on both platforms.

 

Why don't Microsoft do that then?

 

I'm not sure why, possibly because they don't really have a large first party development base? I can only think of Lion Head and Rare at the moment.

 

Because they are stupid. They paid $400M for Rare, which turned out a turd or two. The fucked up with Bungie too.

 

Pretty graphics indeed. Why are people saying Crysis 2 looks like crap then?

 

They don't like the new art style shift to an Urban environment from a lush jungle. Furthermore it's only the PC version of crysis 2 that's being ridiculed in such a way, just because there is Crysis 1 with it's better artstyle to compare to.

 

Because it has worse graphics than a game from 2007.

 

I'd be willing to argue that Crysis 2 is technically more impressive than Crysis 1, it's just that the artstyle is far less appealing.

 

You would loose that argue cause Crysis 1 clearly is technically more impressive, and just on the eye, its a big difference, especially if you implement the DX11 mods.