Total graphics snob!

This Easter weekend I’ve been playing a lot of PC games. I finished off Mass Effect 3, played even more Battlefield 3 and played Crysis 2 from start to finish . I’ve had a lot of time this weekend to think about the most impressive graphics I’ve seen and so have listed some of my thoughts below.

Mass Effect 3

 

Mass Effect has very polished graphics, nothing particularly fancy but very well done. They leave the environments feeling a little clean. That said, many of the environments are on board spacecraft so that’s excusable. There hasn’t been a huge change since the graphics of ME2.

Battlefield 3

I’ve commented in the past about BF3’s stunning graphics (here). The real impact from the graphics in BF3 is the scale of the environments. The Back to Karkand expansion has highlighted the cleanliness of the original maps. The new additions feel much more detailed (which they are) while also benefiting from an improved ability to destroy everything!

[youtube http://youtu.be/SumZQuJEiMs&w=590&HD=1]

 

Skyrim

Skyrim has been a huge game recently, again the most impressive aspect of the graphics is the shear size of the environment! It makes BF3 feel tiny! [Playing with the high res texture pack] The environment is filled with detail both indoors and outside.

 

Not surprisingly though if you walk right up to objects, particularly the inside walls of buildings the textures are a little blocky. Characters are well made and considering the size of the game it would be unfair to expect no imperfections. NB: these particular screen shots do not reflect this.

 

Crysis 2

Crysis 2 was a last minute purchase on Origin after I finished ME3 and still had 3 days of weekend left! I enjoyed the original Crysis, with graphics set to medium, on my old laptop and though I’d test out the latest one. It is just over a year old but more recently a high res texture pack and DX11 feature pack have been released. Once Crysis had downloaded about 3 hours later I installed the new packs right away.

 

 

Speaking only in terms of graphics, the first Crysis was fantastic and Crysis 2 has not let me down. Officially I never played Crysis 1 at full graphics so I couldn’t tell you how much better 2 is, but 2 has probably the best graphics of any game I’ve ever played to date. The landscapes look dirty (a good thing in this case) and full of trees/brushs, broken objects etc. The cinematic style visual effects help you to become fully immersed in the game.

[youtube http://youtu.be/eNY8W6OKldE&w=590&HD=1]

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