Something I noticed..

[Tang Lung]

I was playing through F.E.A.R. a few days ago, right after I finished Quake 4, and I noticed that most of these two games I had to keep the flashlight on.

So I play HL2 for a bit, and despite the flashlight being off for the most of the time, everything was so washed out and bland that I hoped for some kind of dark level to save my eyes.

So then, yesterday, I installed Shadow Warrior (in case you haven't noticed, im going through an FPS phase...hmm, might replay Doom3 after this), and I noticed just how colourful and varied the environments were. It was still realistic looking (I don't really like Serious Sam style of whacky cartoon colourfulness), but was more fun to watch.

I install the demo of NOLF2. Again, it's a pretty game, and it has alot of variation and colour. I remembered back to the dark, futuristic cyberpunk levels of Deus Ex, and despite it's rustik quality, it was still bright and shiny.

So I was hoping that we could break this trend of ''wow, it's post 2004 now, and we can render shadows, let's make it so you can't even see what your shooting at'' with DNF. Rather than giving us dark basements without electricity (FEAR), or city streets that haven't ever heard of neon lights (Invisible War), I would love to have the city of vegas looking like it does in the movies. Bright, colourful, neon heaven at night and sun drenched streets in the day.

I love shadows as much as the next nerd, but not when I realise I just spent 400 quid on a graphics card that allows me to realistically not see sh*t :).

[Amakou]

''wow, it's post 2004 now, and we can render shadows, let's make it so you can't even see what your shooting at'' with DNF. Rather than giving us dark basements without electricity (FEAR)

F.E.A.R. was meant to be a dark game, not a colorful happy place. Just look at Alma.

~Amakou~

[brabee]

Well, I just replayed Pandorra Tomorrow and I was really upset that I had to use night vision almost all the time... especially with the great graphics the game has :(

[NutWrench]

I thought the ambient lighting in Quake 4 was really bad. Even in a brightly-lit outdoor area, all the characters and objects cast razor-sharp black shadows. There wasn't much fill lighting anywhere.

[Micki!]

I have noticed, that only very few games, have spectacular and beautyful sky-boxes...

If i look to the sky, i want it to move, and look alive...
clouds should follow the wind, birds and ariplanes etc should fly high above ground, distant locations can be seen and more...

I came to think of Quake 4, which i think has not very good skyboxes... Despite the amazing graphics of the environments, and characters, the skies look like a moving painting...

AvP2 had a REALLY cool effect of this (forget the outdated graphics for a moment) it had some kind of whirlwind going on sometimes, which mvoed around the center of the whole map, as if you were in the middle of a GIANT tornado... It felt cool, and added ALOT to the atmosphere imo...

And Painkiller, has one of the BEST EVER skyboxes imo... It looks extremely detailed...

So that said, i want DNF to have extreme quality skyboxes, for outdoor levels...

[avatar_58]

In FEAR I don't think I used the flashlight more than once, it really wasn't that dark.

[Micki!]

I did use the flashlight a few times in FEAR... there wasn't really many times (if any) where it was pitch dark, but it DID help a tidbit, when looking through smoke sometimes...

[Amakou]

I hated using the flashlight in F.E.A.R., not because it was bad or anything, but because I didn't want to reveal my position to the enemy. :O

~Amakou~

[Mr.Sociopath]

tang lung , I see what you mean.. I played 2 cheap low budget colorfull games lately and I had exactly the same feeling.. even if the level were uber ugliness, it felt refreshing.. so I imagine if well done it would look nice and fun..

[infowars]

I see what your saying Tang.

There has been a lineup of 'dark games' in the past several years...yawn**

TUROK! /turok2... that game was so fun on n64 and it had sweet colorful graphics! Coll blood effects too! Remember that nuke weapon! SOOOO COOL! Very pretty game! More Fun than most of the crap out today...

Game developers need to realize a few things, and take a note or two from US...the ones playin all the games! It not about adding higher number of polys and higher and higher resolutions....(that is the NATURAL process of the industry , anyways!) but its more so, how they use the visuals, ....the 'art style'

Id rather play through shadow warrior then HL snooze anyday!

[MakronMan]

i thought SS2 was actually quite good imo it was very unique the way every thing was colourful and bright cos its not used in many games.

[Danule]

one thing i always wondered about f.e.a.r is why didnt they impliment the cast shadows on the flashlight like in doom 3? that always bugged me.. i hope dnf has it though.

[hell-angel]

one thing i always wondered about f.e.a.r is why didnt they impliment the cast shadows on the flashlight like in doom 3? that always bugged me.. i hope dnf has it though.

Probably because the game was heavy enough as it is. :)

I do like the clearity to be like in D3D, that was just right, although I do love the look of the current games as well. So as long as it fits the game it's fine by me. ;)