When DID this console generation peak (Graphically)

What game just sucked all the juice it could out of these consoles. I know this generation is not yet over and we still have a couple of months before the NEXT GEN and DAT XBOX ! and PS IIII are released. I know THE PC MASTER RACE have seen ALL THE PIXELS. But for us heathens......

Yeah, that seems about right. Maybe Gears 3 on the 360 side. I remember that looking pretty fantastic. Although, for cross-platform games, MW2 looked pretty damn good on console and nothing's really gone above and beyond that, that I can recall.

I think your pretty spot on with those. GTA being open world will work against it being the best looking game even though it one of the last tent poles, so those are probably it.

And honestly that's amazing. Look at those games, and think of the hardware that pushing them. Its astounding. Imagine how far current consoles will go by the time their hardware is considered hot trash.

Yeah, i gotta agree, its pretty impressive how much they've gotten out of the current generation hardware.

This last christmas release explosion of games had some of the best looking games this gen. Halo 4 looks amazing along with Far Cry 3. Was pretty proud of the little 360 being able to even play a game that looked that good.

Skyrim.

Please excuse my artsy side for a moment:

Journey.

Those aren't real screenshots though. Keep that in mind.

I would say they peaked late 2007. Games have only gotten slight graphic tweaks since then or they butcher the framerate.

If you believed bullshot images from PR you would see no reason to ever upgrade a console.

Boy who needs an xbox 360. Look at those amazing PS2 graphics! Only possible with the Emotion Engine™

Okay that's enough picture spam.

I want to see The Last of Us in action. Naughty Dog gets more out of the PS3 then anyone else and that game, and GT6 i guess now, are the last two big PS3 games I can think of. Be interesting to see if they can squeeze a few more awesome looking pixles and polygons out of the system before it's dead.

@reisz: I will second Journey.

Go play Metro Last Light on PC @2560x1600 on max settings. You will clearly see this generation hasn't peaked.

Considering Journey is pretty much the best looking game ever, I will third this.

I'm pretty sure he means consoles. A PC generation never really peaks since PC gaming doesn't necessarily have generations.

Even though Journey is super pretty. I'm not sure its some technical marvel to behold. If you start judging things by art style it may be outdone by stuff of a previous generation.

editerer: To clarify that doesn't make the game any less amazing.

I don't think we can say for sure until after the The Last of Us, Beyond: Two Souls and Gran Turismo 6 come out.

Of the games that are out now I'm pretty sure it's God of War: Ascension.

I don't know, I generally value artstyle over technical prowess. For instance, I'd say Vanquish is one of the best looking games of this generation but on a technical level it's probably nothing special. It's just super clean and slick looking.

A couple of games that on a technical level I think didn't get enough attention are Sonic Unleashed and Generations. Both games have this really cool global illumination effect where objects reflect light onto one another that I can't even remember any other games doing this generation, and it looks fantastic. They also in general looked really good, but I guess nobody payed attention because they're Sonic games.

holy shit that skull thing is hilarious is that realyl a thing from a halo

On 360 I would say Gears of War 3 was probably it with Halo 4 having better lighting. You could argue that Crysis 3 and Far Cry 3 both used fancier tech, but I don't count games that run at 20 fps as looking good. For PS3 I would say right now God of War Ascension is easily the best looking game. But The Last of Us, GT6, and Beyond all look better or at least as good. So I guess 360 peaked a couple years back while the PS3 will probably peak later this year.

I'm not convinced that it has already. The new Tomb Raider looks pretty damn good. Especially when you consider that it is an open environment and the view distance the game managed to put it. The entire shipwreck site looks fantastic.

According to Crytek, they sapped the 360 of absolutely everything it had.

Graphically, though, a generation doesn't really "peak". It starts to really slow down, but I would say that a generation generally ends before a game comes out that saps literally everything. I would bet that with some tweaking, even Crytek could coax a little more out of the Xbox.

Realistically, though, it's hard for developers to make good-looking games for consoles that are so old.

Uncharted 2 was the last game that, on a visual level, absolutely blew my mind, but I'd say Uncharted 3 is probably the most technically impressive game I've seen this console generation. Some of the stuff in that game is ridiculous. I'm really looking forward to The Last of Us, oh lordy.

when i couldn't stop looking at the ground textures in uncharted!

Uncharted 2. I don't know if 3 is better or just different. The leap, or the difference between it and its competitors was more narrow for 3 than 2. In 2009, it seemed like Naughty Dog were sorcerers, making console games that looked better than PC games.

Closer to now is Dead Space 2. I couldn't believe how good that looked on console.

I'd say Uncharted 3 and Halo 4. But, those were the latest big 1st party games, right? So, it's hard to say that it peaked.

Red Dead Redemption was and still is a spectacular looking game on top of being open world.

Personally I thought the art in Halo 4 was a misstep where they should have gone for a stylistic look instead of trying to be more realistic. *shrug*

For my sensibilities, it's got to be GTA IV (respectively GTA V, when it's out and actually running in a playable fashion). I care more about the scope and scale and density of interactivity of gameworlds, rather than minute fidelity such as shadow and texture resolution and aliasing.

So it's either a Rage Engine (Rockstar) or a Frostbite Engine (EA/DICE) game.

It's the end of a generation and I'm still amazed at the new games and how great some of them look. But that's always the case, right? It doesn't mean i'm not excited, though!

If we are talking pure graphic capability then probably Gears of War 3 or Uncharted 3 are the first to come to mind. However art style always leaves a big impression on me and I always look back on Prince of Persia 2008 as one of the most beautiful games I've ever scene.

I remember plugging my 360 into a HDTV for the first time and being disappointed with Call of Duty 4.

Hell, I don't know. The Witcher 2 looked fine I guess. Nothing really blew me away.

DID!?

Final Fantasy 13 was the first game this generation that I remember making me actually think this new gen could look great. And I think the Shadow Broker DLC for Mass Effect 2 included the best looking thing to me on consoles this generation.

Um...games never looked as good as they did after the first Bioshock. So I'm going to say around there.

Although, if you want to get technical I guess it peaked around the time PC games had to compromise for console ports.

It was hard for the PC to be competitive when all the big titles were lazy ass ports, true.

Battlefield 3 seemed to be the title to break through the wall and remind everyone how good PC games could look.

Fourth'd.

I came here to say Uncharted 3 but @darthorange reminded me of God of War: Ascension. Plus, PS3 still has The Last of Us, Beyond: Two Souls and Gran Turismo 6 coming out so they'll set higher bars then GoW. Which is crazy and amazing. The only games that really impress me graphically anymore are Sony's first party games. I won't say Microsoft because I don't have a 360. But yeah, everything else usually looks old now so I can't wait to see what developers, mainly Sony's 1st & 2nd party devs, do on the PS4. That should be a sight to behold.

Witcher 2 on 360?