There is surely some tongue in cheek stuff going on, but people don't need gifs to make a conclusion about Alan Wake's visual fidelity, we have videos showing the exact same thing just fine, don't we? :)

The game, whatever resolution it runs at, looks downright impressive. In a lot of cases recently, people have attempted to use what are unfairly representative screens to try and tell the whole story about the game's visual fidelity, which while nice to have non bs promo shots, is still wholly flawed in terms of actually telling a person what the game really looks like. This game is no picture book, it's an interactive game experience, as is the case with most modern day videogames. Bayonetta, for example, prior to actually seeing that one in action, really didn't look like much in screens, and after release it still doesn't look like much in screens.

However, when we are on the subject of that game in motion, it's infinitely more impressive than any still shot could ever hope to achieve.

One of the more prominent examples of someone posting some bad screen of Alan Wake in an attempt to make a blanket conclusion from just that, was when someone on GAF posted a picture of Alan Wake, which was incredibly blurry and you couldn't see much of anything. What that person doesn't tell you, however, is that for that specific scene it was basically sundown, and the general look was the developer's attempt to achieve a certain vibe for the scene, which comes across much more convincely in any format that involves motion, namely videos.

It also didn't help that whatever view there was of the sun, as it was on its way down eventually giving way to night time, was obscured by an uphill path that eventually ends at the house on top that Wake and his wife are staying in, plus there was fog present. Now this kind of imagery will obviously be much more difficult to get across in a still format, but literally nobody failed to be impressed when watching it in videos.

They pointed out weak lighting, blurriness and lack of draw distance in this screen. Their complaint was all around ludicrous. They ignored every bit of evidence to the contrary, even in the very videos from the very site that released the screenshots in the first place. It seemed to me like the person, or certain individuals, had an agenda where they seemed to only take interest in a few bad looking still shots while refusing to engage anyone in a discussion on the videos that cover the very scenes from those stills, of which nobody had any complaints about, and everybody considered highly impressive. Now, these aren't my words, these are the words of people who are far more hyped for Alan Wake than I've ever been. The game looks so impressive that its detractors didn't even have very much complaints about its visuals, until they had someone help make up their minds for them by providing some numbers (Always impressive how that works)

Hell, as good as it may be, this is the kind of game I normally take a pass on, just as I did with both Bioshock games, because it may not necessarily be my cup of tea with regards to subject matter and art direction, even if I consider that art to be impressive. The primary reason I'm even buying Alan Wake in the first place is because it's from Remedy, the team that gave me Max Payne, and I like the way they tell a story.

Now, when I see things like I described above, it tells me something. It tells me that some people really and truly do understand how much their argument falls apart when this game is shown in motion. It's a good way to screw with their argument. I mean, I'd agree much more with a lot of what they were complaining about if they made it apparent they just had an issue with the dev's decision in framing the scene or scene's in question as they chose to do so, but that wasn't what they were going on about, they were criticizing the game's technical merits, which can also be fair done the right way. However, it's not fair in the least bit when people are cowards in how they go about doing so.

Check out that GAF thread, if you can actually stomach a read, you'll see page after page after page with people refusing to even acknowledge that video footage of this game exists or live demonstrations have taken place. The one troll that gathered the courage to even engage on the videos made the outrageous claim that every last piece of footage for this game, apparently even what Blim himself got to see personally, had to have been doctored, I assume the same even goes for the E3 09 demonstration. That was the best answer to the videos provided, that they had to be faked. Don't take those gameplay videos as evidence of anything, just take these blurry screenshots, even if they may be direct grabs. This is why so many devs pull super high resolution screens at god knows whatever settings, with god knows how many touch-ups out their behinds, because many times a true screen just won't get their message across.

Have you guys ever seen direct feed shots, real ones not done by the developer of Gears of War 2? Let me tell ya, if ugly had a name... lol.

What usually gets left out of these video discussions, however, is that nobody is willing to say that the gameplay visuals look bad, or average. Nope, we aren't seeing that at all. We are seeing, whether true or not, best looking game on consoles, best looking 360 game hands down, the 360's first true exclusive, etc.

So, as imperfect as the process may be, sometimes a gif or a video is needed to get the point across better than a still could ever hope to.

The game, from what has been shown, looks all pretty damn great. Even simple things like smoke coming from the chimney of a house looks awkwardly impressive, and I guess all the subtle and great looking things this game does, came at the cost of resolution. That decision will either prove to be a good one, or a bad one, some have already made their decisions on that end, but I'll take the wait and see, but the videos have been very promising, even if a number of the character models seem to suck :P

Splinter Cell Conviction, a game I didn't hesitate to criticize on many occasions prior to trying the demo, when I thought it was looking really rough and perhaps seriously lacking in quality, now happens to be one of my most enjoyed gaming experiences this generation :)

http://www.gameblog.fr/news_15066_visite-des-studi...

A website visited Remedy's studios. There are dabs of footage in various places, but I specifically remember at 7:53, 8:40 and 8:45.

All footage of the game I don't recall seeing in any other video.

Supposedly some spanish mag review.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=2094085...http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=2094127...

They scored it 9.3 out of 10.

I'm hypnotised by these gifs, its simply the best looking game on consoles.

First time a game made me think of a real world place I use to go,sure all games have stuff in it that reminds you a real places but with this game it looks exactly like a place I used to go fishing,its uncanny,I dont know real well ahow to explain myself but it looks and it feels like nothing I ever seen before.

I think what makes it its the lighting,its the most impressive and the most perfect use of it in a game ever.

Its kinda weird,that last gif......its hard to believe its a videogame.

The lighting is very impressive indeed, and considering a lot of what they wanted to do with this game in real-time gameplay, like twisters, the awesome looking animated gameplay transition between day and night cycles for dramatic effect, the highly impressive particle effects, the high quality shadows. For one, already pointed out the quality of the smoke coming out of the chimney, and then there was a part in one of the gameplay videos where a flock of birds flew overhead as Alan was on the boat with his wife and every single one casted a quick shadow as they flew by without even a slight hitch in the framerate, neither the game's frame rate, nor the speed of the shadows themselves.

It isn't so much about just the basic framerate or speed of the game as a whole, though, we have many upon many 30fps titles this gen, it's the speed with which every other aspect of the game performs. There are many times in a lot of games where you can just see that a certain aspect of this game's engine runs slower or faster than others. The speed of the chimney smoke was highly impressive, I thought. I've seen similar examples in some other games where it either doesn't look as volumetric and full, or if it does, it seems to run noticeably slower than some other aspects of the game. The smoke in Alan Wake has a Crysis quality to it, not in terms of abundance or quantity, mind you, but certainly up there with regards to its quality and performance, I think. The shadows of this game are another aspect that benefit from not only high quality, but also fantastic performance.

I'm sure we've all seen the day to night transitions by now. Look at speed in which all those shadows are moving around and coming into place. We've all seen games before where it always felt as if there was something off about the shadows and how they moved. Just because the game may run at 60 or 30fps, doesn't necessarily mean that the shadows will perform at a similar speed. It's sorta like our discussions in the various racing game threads where we talked about the speed of the reflections on the car's surface. We could tell when they were slower than they needed to be, or when they were just the right speed.

Alan Wake, for its apparent compromise in resolution, doesn't appear to compromise in too much else.

Now, they may have accomplished a lot of this via lowering the resolution, but I just don't think they could've done as much as they are doing at the quality and performance they're doing it at, without something having to give. I like that these various other components appear to operate as well as they do. It does seem true that the facial animation and lip synching probably didn't get the kind of attention that the rest of the game probably got, and that's something I'll just have to deal with, the game's already gold. And then there are the character models that surely aren't the most impressive, but they serve their purpose, I guess.

There are some devs that lower the resolution and you're left wondering to yourself, just what exactly did they gain from it? Well, with this game it's pretty obvious in a number of areas what they gained, and, hell, I'll gladly take that. I mean, just the 4XMSAA alone, while I don't particularly consider it to be any sort of absolute necessity, it sure is nice to have. In some ways the game may actually be getting panned for just how smooth it looks. We've probably at this point just become so accustomed to certain levels of aliasing this gen that some may now indirectly confuse that aliasing as an aesthetic benefit to a game's visuals lol. No joke, people said this about many ps2 titles in comparison to some original Xbox titles lol :P

There's also another thing that I really love about the lighting in this game. It has this amazing filled out look to it. In that second gif where Alan is shown coming out the house, in that very location in the video that this gif comes from, when Alan was heading back into his house at night, you caught a glimpse of the window from the outside, and the way the light looked as it was shining or beaming through the window was most impressive.

I certainly love the way this game looks. It'll now just come down to how much of that perceived quality is maintained in an upscale to 720p. The 360 hardware scaler, I've noticed, has been complimented by a number of individuals as to the quality of the upscales, and I myself haven't had too much of an issue in that area either. Remedy has clearly confirmed, if nothing else, that they are combining all of what they are doing in the game at varying resolutions or qualities, and outputting it all to a 720p image. We all know this is a roundabout way of not saying what the native res is, but they do at the very least confirm one other very important thing: That there was a calculated effort on their part to ensure that the game, whatever resolution it may really be, looks as good as possible after it gets upscaled to 720p.

Judging from what I'm seeing, they appear to be succeding. I eagerly anticipate Blim's 720p, 10 minute vids for this game :D

Say what you will about meeting the 720p native criteria, but I really respect that these guys weren't afraid to go out of their way to truly tailer the game to their specific needs for the 360. I've said it before that I desired a dev to just say "screw it" and truly make their game look as amazing as they possibly can at lower resolutions. I never expected that game to be Alan Wake, more like a jrpg or something, but I'm not complaining. Thank god the hud is at least confirmed 720p, though, don't want to be staring at hard to read, crappy looking text and hud elements on my HDTV.

Word of warning, spoilers are out for the game's ending and twists. Be careful.

I got spoiled major, sorta annoys me because something that friggin cool I wanted to learn on my own :(

That sucks, well I sure hope those spoilers don't come here.

I'm blown away that there are already people who have this game. How in god's name could MS allow it to get out so early?

It isn't just reviewers that have a copy either.

Pirates get things really early nowadays

Anyone who can reach a conclusion about the visual fidelity of a game based on crappy pics taken by a dubious site such as Videogamezone.de ( which has been called out for this before) is equally if not even more full of shit.

i've just gone against my initial gut reaction and i just pre-ordered the limited edition. i'm not particularly psyched for the game (i have seen very little of it compared to most) but if any game deserves a chance it seem to be this. as far as i'm concerned this is the first REAL exclusive on the 360 that has pushed the console. it has the polish (animations aside) the budget, the time and the talent behind it. and it is looking to be the showpeice on the 360 for visuals.

I disagree, both Gears titles where true 360 exclusives and kicked assed visually.

gears was good, but it was a multiplat engine, a multiplat dev, the visuals didnt push the console really. what i mean by a REAL exclsive that pushes the console, i mean in relation to the likes of killzone 2, uncharted 2 and god of war 3. games that REALLY push the console further then anything else. the games that make other games look mediocre. the 360 has never had one of those before imo, but alan wake seems to have changed that. i THOUGHT conviction was going to be one as well, but it really wasnt, alan wake looks amazing tho. polished to a perfect sheen. it's going to be the game that hopefully alters your perception of other 360 games. where you think to yourself, i wish *enter game name here* looked as good as alan wake, i wish it had the budget, i wish it had the polish. it's the way i feel about most games on the PS3 with regards to uncharted 2/killzone 2/GOW3, i WISH all games on the PS3 had that level of detail and polish. alan wake is looking like it's going to be that type of game on the 360.

And at the time of their release, Gears 1 and 2 both did this.

Again i disagree as Both Gears games pushed the 360 console at the time, as stated by the devs and where praised left right and center by all for its visuals, much like uc2 and gow3 are now, but with each iteration the devs get smarted and are able to push the console even more as i'm sure Gears3 will prove also.

QFT!!!QFT!

they really didnt tho, not to me, we'd seen UT3 prior to gears, and it looks just as good if not better. gears was just another UE3 powered game to me. nothing more. just another middle-ware powered game. i never looked at gears and thought it was standing out as anything particularly great as far as the consoles capabilities where concerned. MS have just never really let a dev take advantage of the consoles strengths before. no long dev cycles, no bespoke engines etc. they're all very rushed feeling to me. either using existing multiplat engines, updated previous gen engines etc. they pay millions and million on marketing, but no where near that on the game itself. i just think it's nice to see a game that finally does this, a game that has had the time, money and effort put into it to show what the console is REALLY capable of.

Thats about all we need to no, as near everyone else and the gameing press hailed both Gears as visual masterpieces on release, hell Gears 2 is still up with the best looking games out to date!!

I don't know if would say first real exclusive, primarily because you got things out there like Mass Effect 2. That game looks amazing and I say that without having seen all it has to offer yet, but I played a good portion of the pc version, and the 360 version is obviously beautiful as well.

Then again, in the context of what Korn is saying, I guess I probably understand what he means when he says that about Alan Wake. Alan Wake is likely using an engine that is probably more closely designed for the 360 and its strengths than probably any other out there, and it certainly does show. There's probably not another title out there that is as technically accomplished as Alan Wake seems to be. Then again I suspect when Reach is complete, it will be a contender in that area also. MP is already looking far better than I would've honestly expected it to look, so that gives me hope for what is in store for the single.

However, with all that said, you do still have to respect what some other games have managed to do on the system, despite their engines perhaps not being as explicitly tailored to the 360.

Even when talking about engines thats not true, in an interview Remedy said they worked on the engine for 3yrs, and as we all know back then they where working on the pc version also, so this engine is multiplat also, but now is being tweaked to work well on the 360, just like UE3.

Exactly.

There's surely some real truth to what you say there, however, the UE3 engine in particular was an engine where at the core of its design did a number of things that played against some of what were meant to be some core strengths of the 360.

I don't know too much about Wake's engine, or maybe it wasn't as publicized as information about the UE3 engine, but I never heard of the engine explicitly doing things that went against the strengths of the 360. Plus once Microsoft took over as publisher, there was an assumption that the 360 would take priority and before you knew it, the pc version was canceled and there was only just a 360 version. I mean, looking at Wake as it appears now, there can be no doubt that these guys are really squeezing some serious performance out of the 360, and that may be because the Alan Wake engine as we knew it, is no longer multi-platform, but is very 360 specific.

True, but both Gears games pushed the 360 and where visually stunning when they were released.

Perhaps you're right. PS3 doesn't really have a console pushing showpiece exclusive either though. I read it would take years to take full advantage of the console because of how complicated they made it.

That's indeed true.

I would say the PS3 got such games with Killzone, God of War 3, and DEFINITELY with Uncharted 2.