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Digital Foundry Direct Special: The Best Game Graphics of the Year 2023

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
The ability for the exact same posters to shit up every DF thread imaginable is quite impressive.

The list has both major PS5 exclusives for the year in it and they can still somehow cry about bias.

I'm quite confident DF can post a video of Alex giving Jim Ryan head and they would still complain about him not stroking the shaft enough.

Spit Take GIF



10/10
 
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Senua

Gold Member
The ability for the exact same posters to shit up every DF thread imaginable is quite impressive.

The list has both major PS5 exclusives for the year in it and they can still somehow cry about bias.

I'm quite confident DF can post a video of Alex giving Jim Ryan head and they would still complain about him not stroking the shaft enough.
I call them, the unbannables.
 

ikbalCO

Member
Avatar over Alan Wake 2 damn, I really have to play this because AW2 blew my mind graphically
Fsr ruins aw2 on consoles.

Even in quality mode. Its fuzzy and blurry a lot of times.

It is only fair that they gave it to the game that brought their a game to consoles as well.

Ubisoft killed it this year. Hope they keep things going next year starting with prince of persia
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
SuperMarioBrosWonder_scrn_08.jpg

How did this game make it onto the best graphics of the year list?
Because they are idiots. Hifi Rush and Odyssey over Forza, MK1, Atomic Heart, Starfield, Dead Island 2 and even Street Fighter 6 is crazy talk. Literally insane.

They talk about PT in Cyberpunk pushing it over pretty much everything else this year, and then ignore the insane lighting and asset quality of the games i listed above in favor of a 2D game and a very last gen looking HifiRush. Hifi Rush over Starfield is fucking insane to me.

Hell, id put Zelda ToTK over Mario Wonder. What it is doing with its physics systems is far more technically advanced than anything in Mario Wonder.
 
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tommib

Gold Member
Honourable mention to AC6 is nice. I thought that game looked and ran absolutely fantastic on my OLED with performance VRR. Anyway, here’s my list of the most adorable visuals of the year (the only one that matters™️):

1. Metroid Prime Remastered
2. A Highland Song
3. Armored Core 6
4. Scorn (PS5)
5. Final Fantasy XVI
6. Alan Wake 2
7. Star Wars: Jedi Survivor
8. Dead Space
9. Quake II (Enhanced Edition)
10. Super Mario RPG
 
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DanielG165

Member
I don’t know why people are surprised nor upset over Avatar being number 1. If you’ve seen the game in person like I, and so many other people have, then the choice makes sense. Visually, graphically, and sheer fidelity and tech-wise, there is no other open world game that matches what Avatar is doing, outside of Cyberpunk. It also is a very reasonable game to run at max settings and still have really solid performance, despite it being very demanding. You don’t need the most powerful GPU to run Avatar well, and still get all the bells and whistles. It’s a stunner across the board.

Honestly, the top 3 list is well deserved. Cyberpunk, Alan Wake 2, and Avatar have all very clearly shown off what is possible with current generation visuals, with all 3 being tour de forces in that aspect.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
I don’t know why people are surprised nor upset over Avatar being number 1. If you’ve seen the game in person like I, and so many other people have, then the choice makes sense. Visually, graphically, and sheer fidelity and tech-wise, there is no other open world game that matches what Avatar is doing, outside of Cyberpunk. It also is a very reasonable game to run at max settings and still have really solid performance, despite it being very demanding. You don’t need the most powerful GPU to run Avatar well, and still get all the bells and whistles. It’s a stunner across the board.

Honestly, the top 3 list is well deserved. Cyberpunk, Alan Wake 2, and Avatar have all very clearly shown off what is possible with current generation visuals, with all 3 being tour de forces in that aspect.
A lot of people simply havent played it. The game got mediocre reviews and ubisoft games tend to be ignored on message boards anyway.

And yes, its remarkable how well it runs on a variety of machines. The fact that it runs at 60 fps on consoles while offering better image quality than AW2 at 30 fps on consoles is a massive technical accomplishment. no pun intended.
 

RavionUHD

Member
A lot of people simply havent played it. The game got mediocre reviews and ubisoft games tend to be ignored on message boards anyway.

And yes, its remarkable how well it runs on a variety of machines. The fact that it runs at 60 fps on consoles while offering better image quality than AW2 at 30 fps on consoles is a massive technical accomplishment. no pun intended.
True, but to be completely honest, the game itself (apart from the graphics) is pretty mediocre (in regards of gameplay and story) nothing special, not worth the full prise.
 

BigLee74

Member
I’ve not watched the video (I’m still suffering after effects from the borefest that was the Forza v GT7 video, and it’s one billion shots of tree placements) but HiFi Rush?

I completed it, it was a great game, it was superbly executed and animated, but at no point was I even remotely impressed with the graphics. Very strange inclusion.
 

DanielG165

Member
True, but to be completely honest, the game itself (apart from the graphics) is pretty mediocre (in regards of gameplay and story) nothing special, not worth the full prise.
That’s why you don’t pay full price for it. I’m playing the game right now for $15 using Ubisoft+.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
[/QUOTE]
What's wrong?

If they wanted to add art style, they should've discussed visuals, not graphics.

Maybe you should watch the segment where they talk about it, they lay out their reasoning for putting it on there.
 

MarkMe2525

Gold Member
Art style is completely irrelevant to graphics though.
I agree with this sentiment. When discussing "best graphics" and the art style is not specifically mentioned as a factor, I would assume they are referring to the technical aspects of the presentation.

Edit: I haven't watched yet so they very well could have mentioned it. Can't be watching 11/2 hour videos in the middle of the day. We'll, I shouldn't anyways.
 
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Gaiff

SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
Art style is completely irrelevant to graphics though.
I beg to differ. The topic is best graphics, not technically most advanced or impressive games. It's all about celebrating good looking games and they come in all sorts of different flavors. Sure, the ones using advanced rendering tech are objectively ahead but we ain't robots who only care about ray tracing and geometry and object density, right?
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
I know that this hasn't got anything to do with any of the games discussed by digital fiasco but I just wanted to say: Assassin's Creed Unity is beautiful, man.

Do you mean Mirage? The one that came out this year?
 

Turk1993

GAFs #1 source for car graphic comparisons
Because they are idiots. Hifi Rush and Odyssey over Forza, MK1, Atomic Heart, Starfield, Dead Island 2 and even Street Fighter 6 is crazy talk. Literally insane.

They talk about PT in Cyberpunk pushing it over pretty much everything else this year, and then ignore the insane lighting and asset quality of the games i listed above in favor of a 2D game and a very last gen looking HifiRush. Hifi Rush over Starfield is fucking insane to me.

Hell, id put Zelda ToTK over Mario Wonder. What it is doing with its physics systems is far more technically advanced than anything in Mario Wonder.
Just because of his console version comparison he didn't put Forza in there while the pc version looks excellent. But hey atleast they put a Nintendo game in there thats a plus point right.

So he thinks that Mario looks better than this lol

J2fNWt1.gif

Pk-PEs-Rj-1.gif

fAEcs8s.gif

S8cH2.gif

S6qTM.gif

S6qTb.gif
 

Killjoy-NL

Gold Member
It's the other way around.
Graphics barely matter anymore when you can achieve any art style and it does the heavy lifting
Fair enough and I fully agree.

I just don't think art style matters much when talking graphics.
Graphics should be strictly technical and objective, art style is highly subjective, hence I refer to it as visuals.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
Fair enough and I fully agree.

I just don't think art style matters much when talking graphics.
Graphics should be strictly technical and objective, art style is highly subjective, hence I refer to it as visuals.
Ah I see what you re saying.
They should strictly name the video "GRAPHICS TECH".
Just graphics imo is the full outlook... full overall image of the game.
 

bender

What time is it?
Fair enough and I fully agree.

I just don't think art style matters much when talking graphics.
Graphics should be strictly technical and objective, art style is highly subjective, hence I refer to it as visuals.

The end result matters so there is always going to be subjectivity. Something technically impressive doesn't always mean what is produced is appealing and certainly doesn't always mean that the output is more appealing than something less technically impressive. It would be a sterile way of looking at things and we could just eliminate the human element from the judgement and would be akin to saying, "This game looks better than that game because it uses more polygons."
 

Killjoy-NL

Gold Member
The end result matters so there is always going to be subjectivity. Something technically impressive doesn't always mean what is produced is appealing and certainly doesn't always mean that the output is more appealing than something less technically impressive. It would be a sterile way of looking at things and we could just eliminate the human element from the judgement and would be akin to saying, "This game looks better than that game because it uses more polygons."
Yeah, but technical aspects are objective, so one can judge the graphics based on tech, performance and respective hardware.
 
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