Introduction
"Video game Graphics just keep getting better; it is crazy how far we've come, and sometimes looking back is the best way to appreciate it. Hi folks, it's Zaid Ikram, and today on Speed Tool, 10 Graphics Then Versus Now that seems unreal."
Unreal Engine Graphics Comparison
"Starting with number 10, the Valley of the Ancients Unreal Engine demo and Harry Potter Chamber of Secrets. We're pretty deep into 2024 at this point, and we haven't seen a lot of games that show off the power of the newest version of Unreal. There are a few notable ones, but at this point, until we start looking at the next generation of consoles, I don't think we're going to see that generational Graphics jump that everybody wants. So for the time being, we're kind of stuck looking at demos, which I admit are impressive, but they're also just demos. One of the most impressive ones we've seen a lot is the Valley of the Ancients, which has this girl with magic powers exploring a small rocky environment. It's Unreal Engine 5 without any compromises; it's got nanite, Lumen, and all the other bells and whistles enabled. The effects, in particular, are astounding. So why not compare the magic casting in this to a much older game that you can cast spells in like Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets from 2002? Going to be honest here, I find the graphics in this game quite charming. It is an Unreal game through and through with all the colored lights you could ask for. Still, it's Unreal Engine One, where Valley of the Engine is Unreal Engine 5, and the difference is practically unbelievable. One might even say unreal. Look at the spells in Unreal one; the effects were just a texture with some transparency. Maybe they threw a colored light for effect, but that was it. Now look at Unreal 5; there's so much going on with absolutely every effect; it's hard to narrow down exactly what the engine is doing because it's a lot. I mean, it's not just going to be Unreal Engine we talk about, but it's impressive to see just how far Unreal has come."
Graphics Evolution in Game Environments
"At number nine is the Fractured Mind demo versus the original Half-Life in 1998 and Half-Life 2 in 2004. Uh, we've come a long way in subway train interior technology, haven't we? From barely being able to render seats made with more than a handful of polygons to however many thousands of polygons they're pushing in the Fractured Mind demo. This train car is practically photorealistic; the detail on it is extremely impressive, even now that we have seen things well beyond when this asset was created, which was back in 2017. So even though it's not cutting edge when you splash some shaders over it, it looks practically real. The Half-Life 2 Subway was a big step forward, but even that doesn't compare to what they've got going on here. The whole Fractured Mind game gives strong Stray Souls Vibes. It ain't exactly some kind of technical powerhouse, and the hype this demo is getting online is pretty overblown. But the demo does make for a perfect example of just how far GPU technology has evolved over 20 years, going from something that only vaguely resembles the thing it's meant to resemble something that looks damn good. I mean, it's impressive. I know the monorail you're on in Half-Life 2 is supposed to be like a regular train car, but this meticulously detailed rendering might fool somebody into thinking it's real. I mean, you gotta squint a little bit if you're as jaded with video game Graphics as maybe your average Game Ranks viewer or commentator, but yeah, that's impressive."
Advancement in Character Rendering
"At number eight is Alan Wake 2 versus Max Payne. Alan Wake 2 is a technical marvel, but Remedy's always been an innovator with Graphics technology. The original Max Payne from 2001 was one of the best-looking games that came out that year; the texture work alone was leaps and bounds above what most game devs were doing at the time. Alan Wake 2 uses Remedy's proprietary engine Northlight, while Max Payne used Max FX, which was also an engine of their creation, so there is a direct link there. Another direct link is Sam Lake himself, the man who lends his face to the original Max Payne as well as Alex Casey in Alan Wake 2. As you can see, their ability to make human beings has gotten a little bit better over the years. Max Payne is almost literally just an edited photograph stretched over a low polygon head, while Alan Wake 2's Casey is a starkly realistic recreation made using multiple techniques developers have access to to recreate real people. He looks exactly like I always imagined Casey to be. It's uncanny. Thank you; that means so much to me. I'm a huge fan of your books. So, uh, what's the problem? To me, human characters are where the real qualities of next-gen shine. Even going back a few years, you'll see character models that look significantly less realistic, but that's hardly the only difference here. From lighting to environmental design, pretty much everything else, Alan Wake 2 is just leaps and bounds beyond everything from the original Max Payne. I have them right here. No, no, no. Wait."
Comparison of Cyberpunk Games
"At number seven is Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty versus Deus Ex. It may not be fair to compare one of the best-looking games of the past few years to a game that wasn't even cutting edge back when it came out in the year 2000, but they're both cyberpunk games; they're both RPGs. I mean, kind of. I think there's enough to say there's a connection here to make a long story short. Deus Ex does not hold up well compared to Cyberpunk. Cyberpunk has this huge, incredible-looking city that's dense with details like a smaller video game environment, and it can switch between crowded interiors and city streets quite seamlessly, with the character models always being exceptionally detailed, at least now in 2024 after significant fixes have happened. Do you remember the potato face-loading difficulties this game had when it launched? I do. But now it looks incredible. Deus Ex looks primitive in comparison, even to the potato faces. I mean, just look at somebody talk; they have three different heads they snap between, and that's it. Didn't have a choice. Has he been infected? Oh yes, most certainly. When I mentioned that we could put him on the priority list for the Ambrosia vaccine, he was so willing; it was almost pathetic. In this place, the rioting is intensifying to the point where we may not be able to contain it. There isn't even any basic interpolation for the animations; everyone just looks like a marionette. It's very weird. The locations are small and extremely basic; the lighting is static. Yeah, certain areas look better than others but compare any random location to something from even Unreal Tournament, which came out a year earlier. It doesn't even hold up compared to that. Deus Ex is still a great game, of course, but time has not been kind to this one.
Spider-Man Graphics Evolution
"At number six is Marvel Spider-Man 2 versus Spider-Man 2. So New York, is probably one of the most replicated cities in video games, right? If a game has Spider-Man in it, then it's probably going to be in New York. Also, the 2004 game was Spidey's first step into an open world, and for a lot of people, it's still the best. The old Spider-Man is still a very fun game with an innovative swinging mechanic, but graphically, well, look at it. It's less a city and more a flat plane with a bunch of rectangles or rectangular prisms, I guess, sticking out of it. Like, the world is so basic compared to what games can do now. Even the worst-looking game now is just leaps and bounds ahead of even what this would look like with a proper render pipeline and much better textures. Like, just walk around at ground level; the difference is staggering. In Marvel Spider-Man 2, the city looks like a city. There's traffic clogging the streets, cracks in the sidewalk, trash, and people walking here. I mean, it looks like a place. Compare that to 2004 Spider-Man where it's a desolate wasteland with a car every once in a while, maybe a person or two. Like, it's so empty; the streets are huge and uniformly sized, and there's nothing in them. So it's just even more emphasized. Of course, you're supposed to swing around and all that, but even from far away, the city looks crazy empty and bland in that old game, especially when compared to how vibrant the city looks in Spider-Man 2. It's just not a fair comparison. Of course, these games are about two decades apart, but it's easy to get the nostalgia glasses about old games. Sometimes you gotta go back and look at them to remind yourself, this is what games used to look like; it was not always pretty."
Ancient Egypt-Themed Games Comparison
"At number five is The Talos Principle 2 versus Serious Sam. Big fans of ancient Egypt, aren't they? It appears in pretty much all their games in some form, going back to Serious Sam way back in 2001. Even though the game was a budget title when it came out, it was still considered a graphics card showcase because of the huge environments and special effects. It's outdated, to say the least, but something is charming about the visuals in this old game. It doesn't exactly look realistic, of course, but it does look good for what it is. Fast forward more than 20 years to their most recent game, and the difference is honestly kind of mind-blowing. From this cartoon rendering of Egypt to stuff that's almost photorealistic if you look at it from the right angle. Talos Principle 2 uses Unreal Engine 5 to great effect, and they're able to do a lot with relatively little. And the only part of the game that leans into the Egypt theme is during the prologue. The rest of the game is going for something else. But both of these games have massive open environments that still manage to run well. Even though these games have almost nothing in common in terms of gameplay, one's an over-the-top shooter, the other's a philosophical puzzle game. They're both cutting-edge graphics games for their time, which goes to show how far we've come since 2001."
Tekken Series Graphics Advancement
"At number four is Tekken 8 versus Tekken 1. This one goes way, way back to the earliest days of 3D. The original Tekken came out September 21st, 1994, and while it's not quite as rudimentary as Virtual Fighter, it's only a slight step up from that. These guys have textures, and that's the innovation. Everyone's weird-looking, and stiff, and a lot of the backgrounds are cropped stock photos slapped over a gradient. At the time, this was revolutionary, but now it's ugly as hell. There is a certain charm to a lot of these early PS1 games, but you'd have to be lying to say they looked good. It was a time of innovation and experimentation. Nobody even knew what a 3D game was supposed to look like back then, and they were winging it. And some of the games from that era legitimately do have a stylistic goodness to them. Tekken 1 is not one of those games, in my opinion. However, fast forward 30 years later, Tekken 8 shows us just how much things have evolved. This is easily the best-looking game in the series up to this point. It's a pretty significant upgrade over the previous game, even Tekken 7. What's funny is, that we can still directly compare characters that appeared in the first game to ones that appear in eight. Like, look at Ninja, for example; she has the same pose and a lot of the same moves. Jack in Tekken 1, has the same victory animation as he does in Tekken 8. This sort of repetition is just all over the place here. Rarely do we see a long-running series stay this consistent for this long. The visuals look about a thousand times better, maybe more, but so many other things stay super consistent. Tekken 8 isn't exactly an unreal-looking game, but in comparison to the original, it's like looking into the future."
Comparison of RoboCop Games
"At number two is RoboCop: Rogue City versus 2003's RoboCop. RoboCop: Rogue City has some discussions, and say what you will about it, but it can look pretty damn good on PC with max-out settings. It's a game that shows what's possible with Unreal Engine 5. It certainly holds up against the last major RoboCop game, which is 2003's RoboCop. Does anybody remember this? It was published by Titus; it was made using RenderWare, which was the ubiquitous engine for a while in the mid-2000s. It didn't get very good scores because, frankly, it wasn't very good. It does make a good comparison for how far graphic technology has come for mid-budget games, though. You know, not necessarily the biggest games of the year, but games with some money behind them. Not the most money, some. The 2003 game has a street level right at the start, which is perfect for comparison. The street in the new game, is very realistic, with detailed lighting, moody as hell, and almost photorealistic at times. Well, the 2003 game, well, let's just say it's not that. I mean, it doesn't look as bad as it could. It definitely could look worse in that area; you can make out a city. But it's lacking in effects and design-wise, it's pretty weak. So many things in Rogue City seem to be made with almost obsessive levels of detail, and there are plenty of moments that break that illusion, like pretty much any time someone talks."
Baldur's Gate Graphics Evolution
At number one is Baldur's Gate 3 versus Baldur's Gate 1. Western RPGs were just never meant to look as good as Baldur's Gate 3. Like, go back to the original game with its huge UI, its low-resolution 2D assets that were kind of rough-looking even back in 1998, and it's... I mean, these games were big, but they were never meant to be beautiful. At least that's how it's always been looked at. I should have joined the army. Western RPGs were always more workmanlike in the graphics department. Even when they went full 3D, they were woefully behind the times. Dragon Age: Origins, for instance, great game, don't get me wrong, but it is butt ugly. Baldur's Gate 3 breaks that trend with gorgeous, detailed environments and meticulously designed and crafted characters, which were made by scanning real face models. Most of the character animation was done by motion-capturing people during their vocal performances. Every little random animation was motion captured by someone. And it's a frankly incredible amount of bespoke animation most major developers wouldn't even bother. The technology is finally here to make work like that not only feasible but effective. The many animations and characters you run across do breathe a lot of life into an otherwise dry genre. All right, all right, no reason to get your tongue in a twist. Well, come on, let's get you to she, uh, you'll need to report to the sergeant. You'll keep a trollin'. That's, of course, on top of everything else. The world's design is stunning. It's just a beautiful game that is beyond massive in scope and offers so much in terms of flexibility with what you want to do. We've come a long way from the flat text boxes that used to be this genre's stock and trade. And it's already hard to go back.
Outro
That's all for today; leave us a comment, and let us know what you think.And as always, we thank you very much for reading this blog. I'm Zaid Ikram. We'll see you next time right here on Speed Tool."
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