Graphically speaking.

[thy_butcher]

I think Downpour has amazing art direction.
Speaking on its raw visuals, I think they look pretty good. Textures, lighting, etc., it's all really nice. I wasn't expecting photo-realism. I was expecting impressive graphics. In most areas, Downpour matched or exceeded my expectations. It's a beautiful game Imo. I say Vatra should also develop the next major SH game.

[Silent Fantasy]

^ An over exaggerated opinion. Besides some small lag, it all looked fine to me. I think its detailed and impressive. Iv not seen 1 game that didnt have some muddy textures anywhere, so its expected. The lighting in Downpour is a bit too extreme though. either too bright or too dark, and the torch's veiw is way too small to see anything. Homecoming looked like ass to me even when it first came out, excluding most monsters and alex himself..mostly.

[thy_butcher]

@Silent Fantasy - How can my opinion be over-exaggerated when it isn't exaggerated at all? If anything, I'm refraining from gushing about how much I like Downpour's visuals.
I'm sorry If I offended you with my view.
I'm not trying to argue; but I am clarifying that my above post most definitely is my stance on the topic. It's MINE. Not anybody elses.

[Falconv1.0]

See the thing is, 2 and 3 looked impressive when they came out compared to things that were out at the time. Downpour looks like crap compared to other good looking games out today. It lacks the subtle art direction the originals had an trades it for an overt shade of blue or "eh", especially indoors.

If you need an example of how good the subtle changes in 2 and 3 are, go find that terrible comparison video of the original and the hd collection and see how much they take away in the hd collection. You start to appreciate how much work was put into the visuals in the original. Downpour doesn't have that work AND IT RUNS LIKE ASS.

Either way Homecoming's visual design is one of the most offensive styles I've ever had the displeasure of looking at. I often use it as an example of how you can do things OH SO HORRIBLY WRONG in a game.

[KingCrimson]

@Silent Fantasy - How can my opinion be over-exaggerated when it isn't exaggerated at all? If anything, I'm refraining from gushing about how much I like Downpour's visuals.
I'm sorry If I offended you with my view.
I'm not trying to argue; but I am clarifying that my above post most definitely is my stance on the topic. It's MINE. Not anybody elses.

It may be the case that Silent Fantasy meant to refer to the post above yours, and you both posted at the same time so it looked like s/he was referring to you...? I agree it did not seem to reflect the content of your post.

[Skele]

I think they were probably responding to me... and i'm not exaggerating, tbh Downpour really isn't very impressive visually at all, and the technical issues are very apparent. I've been pc gaming a lot over the past 6-8 months, so technical issues really stand out to me, and Downpour is in dire need of a patch to fix the bad framerate.

also, i didn't walk around the town/streets in awe while playing downpour. it has good art direction at times (i really like the train ride during devil's pit) but as you walk around the streets everything you see is some shade of blue, and then when monsters are around the screen turns grey i think.. that's not very impressive in my book. plus you throw in the jagged edges on pretty much anything and the terrible monster designs, and you're not left with a nice looking game.

[thy_butcher]

Oops. Well then, my apologies.

I do agree with Falconv 1.0 on the matter of comparing Downpour's situation to old SH's. As Falconv 1.0 said, at the time of release, the original SH games were each visual marvels. They raised the standard for video game graphics. Downpour certainly does not. It's visually inferior to a lot of current games. It'll be great if a SH is ever the cutting-edge of visuals in a game ever again.
Nevertheless, I hold-fast my view. I think Downpour looks great. Perhaps we're jaded eh? I don't know...
Looking at Downpour, or any modern game, I'm impressed by what developers can do. It must take a lot of time, money & hard work. I highly respect every dev in that sense. So Downpour isn't the most shiny stone in a box full of digital gems; but still, taken as it is, it's still a pretty, precious stone.

[Silent Fantasy]

^^ Theres still not much comparison with Homecoming to Downpour though. Homecoming was smoother to play, yes, but Downpour looks much better. Homecoming had many of the same issues you brought up, and many more when it came to texturing. HC really only had more detailed monsters in comparison. I do see the problems in Downpour (except jagged edges), my main disagreement is Homecoming looking better.

[sh#1fan]

Meh~

Some parts of the game the graphics and lighting are fantastic.. other times its extreamly rough around the edges and really bright... even with brightness turned down so idk lol
Its not like "Worst Graphics EVER" but there not "ZOMG BEST GRAPHICS EVER" either... so meh... lol

I think its about the same as homecoming, but it is alot less smooth and less frame rate (it's really laggy)

[Silent Fantasy]

^ Yes. Downpour has plastic hair and rubber looking water that moves all at the same time while being complimented with N64 era lip-syncing when not in cutscenes. and as someone said before, ninja turtle teeth.

[Yuki]

^ Yes. Downpour has plastic hair and rubber looking water that moves all at the same time while being complimented with N64 era lip-syncing when not in cutscenes. and as someone said before, ninja turtle teeth.

I'm diggin' the game, but I admit I burst out laughing at Murphy's face when he's injured and you use the rear-view button.

[Falconv1.0]

http://www.helldescent.com/forums/viewt ... =24&t=1083

I maintain that anyone who says this game looks amazing either doesn't have eyes or hasn't actually see a game that looks amazing.

But srsly if that comparison is legit just...what the hell?

[Skele]

^y'know, i noticed the downgrade in graphics when i met that guy at Devil's Pit (i forget his name). as i watched the cutscene i was thinking "he looked MUCH better in the trailer for this game." At least i know im not overreacting when it comes to the graphics.

anyway, maybe that's what they spent the extra 3 months or so doing? maybe they had to downgrade the visuals for the game to run better or something. either way, it's disappointing, but i'll admit if they can bring about a PC version, that has options for controls (i don't care for the 2d scheme) and a number of graphics options, i may bite.

[Falconv1.0]

That link alone makes me seriously doubt their abilities when it comes to working with that damn engine.

Have you people seen shit like Gears of War 3? Game has like a million more things going on visually yet it runs more consistently and looks so much better, what the hell.

[warfare315]

I think the game is downright beautiful graphically. It's the framerate issues most people are complaining about, I think. I am speaking from the perspective of someone playing this on Xbox 360, I've heard PS3's had more issues so I don't know everything.

EDIT - And yes, I've played Dead Space 2, Red Dead Redemption, Gears 3, etc. and I realize the games run much smoother. SH Downpour chugging along is my biggest issue with the game. Because the graphics are nice, when the game is running smoothly. I also barely had any framerate issues on the xbox version.

[Silent Fantasy]

^ All of those games were developed under much more experienced teams.

[Harlequin]

I think overall Downpour's graphics were great. The people had issues though - I'm pretty sure someone was wearing a helmet at one point, because that definitely didn't look like hair - but the environments were great. I only had texture popping two or three times.

And I only had lag problems once,

PRIME_BBCODE_SPOILER_SHOW PRIME_BBCODE_SPOILER:

outside the theatre room at the orphanage

, so I have no complaints there. Other than that it ran really smoothly for me.

[Falconv1.0]

That pistol looks barely better than the one in Resident Evill 4. It doesn't look better than the one in Half Life 2. In fact pretty much none of the models rival Half Life 2's.

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around that. Understand that there are people that can makes stuff that looks better than this WITHOUT GETTING PAID already and you're willing to call it anything other than "not completely terrible I guess".

I don't get it.

[clips]

I noticed the downgrade as well when i met that guy at Devils Pit...i automatically assumed they had to scale it back a bit for performance purposes and yet it still has some ugly framerate drops at certain moments.

You can't compare this to gears of war or dead space or any other AAA franchise...those games are working with a much higher budget which allows them to have access to the best tools and middleware to have those games running at it's most productive levels.

That said i thought Downpour was impressively detailed in terms of it's environments...there's alot of debris and torn boxes thrown around in the area and SH actually feels like an actual town...it didn't feel like you were in a boxed off level. Even tho the graphics were scaled back a bit the game still looks good...better than homecoming and homecoming didn't have anything near the level of detail in it's hotel or or other areas in comparison, and all of Downpour's co-stars look better than all of the co-stars in homecoming...who could forget the atrocious mayor from homecoming?

Everything looks great...it's not the best looking game, but it's certainly not the worst...i noticed the game also had fixed camera angles in certain levels which was also a nice touch. I haven't finished it yet, but as far as the visuals go,..i've got no complaints.

[Silent Fantasy]

Most of the co-stars in Downpour look better than alex in Homecoming. The other characters in HC looked more to the level of the little girl in the monastary in Downpour.