For me, Star Wars looked great and was on UE3. I'm happy with current gen graphics so that is obviously nicer but the gameplay was total meh for me. The demo did have uncanny valley eyes.
I don't like UE4 at all. Characters and rocks still have that plastic look to it, the lava looked unnatural and fake, espcially the way it flowed, there were tons of nice particle effects but then some of the rocks crumbling physics looked so pre-manurfactured, even if they're not.
The mountains looked fantastic. I read the DF article about it and it seems to be pointing out that there is no pre-baked lighting, it's all real time. Well whoop-di-do. Sounds like Euphoria, all real time animation no pre-done stuff. As an end user, why should I care if something is pre-baked or real time as long as it looks nice? Physics that are only used so walls can crumble when explosions or bullets hit them is frankly pointless to me - show me physics based gameplay then I'll be interested. UE4 can do 1 million particles, nice and all but we can already see good particle effects, having them swirl about more and react in real time is not going to pop my cherry.
Square's engine was far more impressive to me, maybe because it concentrated on characters rather than environments. I prefer more natural and realistic and emotional expression in character models than just environments. However it looked so detailed that immediately I was LMAO at Square, as it reminded me of that movie they made that almost bankrupted them. I do not believe that Square have the talent or resources to make a FF game with these graphics unless it takes them 5-7 years and almost kills the company.
Watch Dogs looked a bit better than current gen, but wholly achievable, if toned down on 360 etc which it has been confirmed to be coming out on anyway.
As for the question of do we need better graphics? I'm dubious. I'm pretty happy with how the PS3/360 games we saw at E3 looked, Wii U has 3 times the memory and a better GPU and CPU so technically it can do better than the best of those systems - developer and budget permitting of course. No one is going to make the effort though and Nintendo has not been interested in pushing visuals for a while now.
I'm very happy with PS3/360 graphics. Even if PS4/720 come out next year, I wouldn't buy either for at least 2-3 years. I don't see much of a difference anyway; Star Wars 1313 looked current gen to me.
Sure the next-gen visuals are a bump up in the right hands, but they're not going to make the games any better....you still have to design good gameplay. I'm happy with the jump they should bring....Witcher 2 showed LAST YEAR on the PC a glimpse of next-gen visuals and obviously it makes a great game much more immersive to have such believeable graphics.
GG, its not surprising that everything looks plastic on UE4....they had the exact same problem with UE3 games when it first came out. Look at the early 360 games....they ALL had that plastic look to them. Perfect Dark Zero was a major criminal in that department.
So yeah, the graphics look nice...but they won't get me to buy any of these game consoles. Exclusive, MUST HAVE games will, & I think Microsoft and Sony are going to be lacking in that area. I plan on leaning towards PC & Wii U, and I think between those two I will have access to 95% of the must have games on the market. So MS & Sony are going to have to give me a reason to spend $400 (or, if the rumors of some cheap console/ripoff subscription service turn out to be true) on their consoles anytime soon.
For the record, I find the Unreal Engine incredibly overrated anyway.
I was more impressed with Square's White Engine (Final Fantasy 13) and Crytek's stuff in this generation.
Crytek are today saying that they are way past next-generation graphics already with their engine. I wish they would show us this new stuff.
Question:
Based on what you have seen this E3 would you class these graphics as a generational leap?
Based on Luminous, I would say yes. UE4 looks good but too artificial for me. Star Wars looks like UE3 with a marked 15% bump.
edgecrusher said:GG, its not surprising that everything looks plastic on UE4....they had the exact same problem with UE3 games when it first came out. Look at the early 360 games....they ALL had that plastic look to them. Perfect Dark Zero was a major criminal in that department.
The helmet on the demon guy in the UE4 video, right on the helmet it has that ugly plastic looking texture you see everywhere in UE3 games. Is the only way to make things seem more 3D by oiling it like oiling a womans body in a porn video, so it pops out?
edgecrusher said:For the record, I find the Unreal Engine incredibly overrated anyway.
The UE4 video was running at like 4X the resolution of 1080p, so I guess if they had just targeted 1080p they would be able to do some more incredible looking stuff I guess as they would have 4 times less pixels to render?
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Yodariquo said:The FF demo is stupid. They create a more realistic style to the male characters while leaving the female a 3D anime rendition who looks completely out of place.
I'll have to check it again to see what you mean.
Okay, I see what you mean. The women are all anime smooth faced.
Crytek said:"We were one of the first studios in the world to get access to all of the next-generation consoles. Obviously we can't talk about what they are but we know what next-gen entails. I think people... I'm not going to judge it because it'll get me in trouble, but next-gen is actually not a clear picture right now."
This is worrying, along with the rest of the article it sounds like he's saying PC is already way beyond and they are already there?
^He's probably referring to the rumors that PS4 and Xbox aren't much more advanced than the Wii U.
Yodariquo said:meh
This.
And I don't need to actually see the footgae to come to this conclusion. 
LA Noire covered new ground with faces, just as Heavy Rain does. This will become the norm rather than the exception.
The enemy AI in The Last of Us is new. Expect more of that.
Fewer AAA titles with more realistic physics and AI is what we can expect from next gen.
PC games will always evolve and lead the way. There will always be room for improvement.
edgecrusher said:^He's probably referring to the rumors that PS4 and Xbox aren't much more advanced than the Wii U.
The rumour was that MS threw all in with UE4 when they saw it at GDC and is supossed to be more of a monster of a machine. Whereas PS4 is not finalised at all so far and uncertain.
One thing I got from this developer walkthrough of UE4 was that apart from the fancy swirling lit particle effects in that room, a lot of it stuff we already see in current gen games. Sure it all looks better in UE4 but it's all stuff we have already come to take for granted, like how a torch lights up a dark room and casts shadows, or how a light source reflects on walls etc.
Next gen and yet Square Enix still can't get the dubbing right.
There are more UE4 gameplay tech demos here, a ship on the water, a top down sci fi shooter and a pilotwings style game.
None of them really impressive.
Specifically we saw Unreal Engine 4 today, Star Wars 1313 which was actually made on UE3 but using the most top spec PC they could find. And we saw Square's Luminous Engine. People are also speculating that Watch Dogs (which was shown on a powerful PC) is a glimpse of Next gen even though it's coming to 360/PS3.
As a secondary question, given how good the graphics are of the latter end of generation titles we saw at E3, do we even need better graphics? Halo 4, Last of Us and more looked pretty swish to me. Are graphics the only thing that is going to push you to want new consoles?