I thought the same and the Heavy Rain pics r probably from that demo they showed ages ago

I agree.Alan wake looks "ok"
But Heavy Rain really does look incredible.

I don't see why there is even a comparison tho.Both are going for entirely different things.

AW is going the safe route with the basic action/adventure game
HR is truly blurring the line between games & cinema and creating a whole new Genre.

Pointless comparison.

How in the hell did this get approved?

TGSI

Alan Wake looks great, but comparing it to a PS3 exclusive is a death sentence. I'll be buying both so I don't really care. Xbox fans complain about Ps3 fans talking about the superiority of the PS3, yet it's the Xbox fans that continually try (and do not succeed) in comparing lesser 360 exclusives to what the PS3 offers. That's as dumb as comparing PS3 exclusives to Crysis on max. You just won't win.

@Bungie
Yea, this game isn't for people like you (younger immature gamers into twitchy shooters). Besides, you have no PS3.

they're very different games

AW is a large game with gameplay

HR is a cut scene with QTEs (developers word not mine)

Here's some comparison shots of PacMan and Space Invaders - you choose the winner!

What difference does it make? 2 different games separated by different hardware as well. All this shows is that gaming sites are so desperate for hits they'll invent flame articles from the thinnest of premises.

Having said that, I've already played Alone in the Dark so I'm only really planning on Heavy Rain and I'll see whether AW is worth it after it's been out a while.

r.

@Bungie that's not what David Cage said.

"No! We don't make Dragon's Lair! This is not Dragon's Lair – do you think I'm crazy? I'm not stupid. Do you think I develop on PlayStation 3 to do Dragon's Lair again? It would be absurd. Of course it's not." We typically lead into quotes with a bit more background than that, but those who've read message board diatribes dismissing the upcoming Heavy Rain as nothing more than a series of Quick Time Events surely understand the frustration of Quantic Dream founder David Cage -- who owns the mouth from which the above quote was uttered during a press demonstration at GamesCom 2009.

Cage went on to explain "when there is an action sequence, yes we integrate [these] QTE sequences," but the rest of the time, the player will have full control as they navigate the game's four characters through a deep, choice-riddled story. That actually sounds pretty reminiscent of Quantic's last game, Indigo Prophecy / Fahrenheit. That's great and all -- but we actually wouldn't be disappointed by a new installment in the Dragon's Lair franchise. We admit it -- we're Dirkheads, through and through.

Nice job, on spinning what he said.

http://www.joystiq.com/2009...

Both look stunning but I'd have to say Heavy Rain stands champ in this one.

I also have a feeling those Alan Wake screenshots are from the PC version that's been put on pause till after the 360 version is finished.

I just hope Heavy Rain gameplay is as fun as it should be. I'm still worried if a game completely based on QTEs will be good.

"AW is a [large game] with gameplay" -> [ ? ] <-

Devs cut lot of stuff to make this game Graphically better and well.., to fit teh DVD9z

HR will be Amazing, support this game and if you still have money after buying Every PS3 Exclusive, buy AW for PC

Gamers FTW!!!

I'm buying both, regardless of which looks better/worse compared to the other.

It's not like we're comparing a multiplat game.

Why the comparisons? They are totally different games.

Looking forward to HR. It is a breath of fresh air. The evolution of the graphic genre. This game is the type of new experience that for me separates this gen from last. Instead of Devs opting for just HD upgrades, how about more that push the boundaries of what a game is and stop playing it safe. If I didn't already own a PS3 I would by Feb 23.

Alan Wake looks good for a 3rd person survival horror type game. Nothing really new but it will most likely be a high quality title. Kind of reminds me of the PC game Nocturne which I really liked.

These pictures from Alan Wake are from the PC version not the Xbox360, so this fails. However, with the PC being so powerful Heavy Rain still looks better :-)

The ps3 exclusive wins yet again.

I said it before and I will say it again. Alan Wake will be the game that surpasses PS3 exclusives in terms of visuals and graphics. Look at how much better the lighting and detail looks compared to anything even scene this generation (GT5 and Last Guardian as well). HR is a beautiful game (even though they all look plastic)but putting it next to Alan Wake you can already see it's been surpassed.I honestly get the sense of heat in Wake similar to GT5 just with much better details and draw distance. The weather system Alone in Wake is going to splatter HR and even KZ2 so please don't start twisting things for personal agenda's.

edit below: So you laugh when your in denial? Trust me I'm doing the same thing to all the HR is better looking posts. Hr looks like plastic people with a tint of muggy gray over everything.

LOL i needed that, haha thank you very much. Good laugh.

Bungie you just keep getting owned man! @Lt_Skittles totally owned ya!

Read this -- its from someone that actually played and finished the game:

http://bit.ly/8mPFLH

According to the writer on the forum, there are more than 20 endings and 70 scenes.

Just wait for the goddamn games to release.. Seriously.. All these screenshot comparisons..

@lowcarb

I'm guessing the first few times you said it everyone ignored you? I mean, I can understand why.. you say some pretty ridiculous things.

Please don't throw around technical terms as if you understand what is going on in the screenshots you've seen. You can spout things like draw distance, lighting, and detail but there is far more going on than those things. And those all change depending on the type of scene you're drawing.

So far I've seen a clip of Alan Wake running from the police in a foggy forest.. you think that fog is just for show? No, its there to mask the draw distance. It's a technique that has been used by 3D games for a very long time, the most basic of technique of masking.

Detail is arguable. There was a lot of variation in that forest, which is kind of expected of a forest, but it is also very dark, and difficult to see texture variation and resolution. I imagine if that forest was lit up using daytime lighting it would be very ugly. It doesn't help that this is also a 3rd person game, that makes it difficult to get a close look at textures, as opposed to first person shooters. This allows slightly lower res textures, but in turn allows for a lot more textures since they take up less space.

And the animations.. well its pretty standard. It's certainly no uncharted 2. Drake animates depending on the terrain he is running on, stumbling when dropping from certain heights, raising his legs appropriately when he climbs a slope or a rocks that are higher than the ground he's currently standing on. KZ2 had some great animations too, especially death animations. I don't remember how accurate the animations were when going up and down slopes though.

I'm not saying Alan Wake looks bad, but it certainly doesn't visually stomp the competition (although I'd hardly call GT5 and KZ2 its competition).

Honestly, Heavy Rain looks much better, based on gameplay videos and images i have already seen of both games...

...but gameplay wise, something is telling me Alan Wake will be much better. I'm just not sure about Heavy Rain's gameplay. I may be wrong.

so is Alan Wake definitely coming for the PC then? Remedy do hav a history of releasing their games on PC straight after... I suppose we'l only find out after they've released it on 360... they wll make an announcement..

@ Cold 2000:

Denial much? :)

Regardless of what I know that's not important. You go ahead and run around doing damage control. I guarantee you only Ps3 fanboys are the one's making claims like it looks much better. You sound so silly trying to question why there's fog in the woods of Alan Wake. There's not going to be fog throughout the entire game. They used it to bring a certain moment to life just like KZ2 and UC2 in many areas. Everytime I come across or read comments like yours I always wonder where in the heck you clowns come from. Look at the pics again and tell your eye's to stop lying. AW slaughters HR and this is coming from someone that thinks HR looks really really good.

"So far I've seen a clip of Alan Wake running from the police in a foggy forest.. you think that fog is just for show?"

There are many clips with no fog if you go to gametrailers. It's part of there weather system.

"Detail is arguable. There was a lot of variation in that forest, which is kind of expected of a forest, but it is also very dark, and difficult to see texture variation and resolution."

You can clearly see in the AW gametrailer vids the texture details throughout the entire demonstration at night.

"And the animations.. well its pretty standard. It's certainly no uncharted 2."

And what about the animations of HR? Oh I forgot lol...It doesn't have any!

AW isn't even out yet so we don't know how the animations will stack up but whatever happens time will tell.

This is a completely moronic comparison first of all remember them PS1 era with games like Resident Evil 2, That game looked way ahead of its time compared to games like tomb raider.

That's because Resident Evil 2 has horrible gameplay for the most part. you turning was terrible and shooting was completely useless. But that didn't stop RE2 being an amazing game because the visuals where ahead of its time and it was a story driven game for the most part.

Tomb Raider on the other hand was a action game and the movement was alot unless confined, you had more open environments and so on. But because of this freedom of movement the visuals would suffer.

Alan Wake = Tomb Raider, Alot of free movement and great action in a far more open game.

Heavy Rain = Resident Evil 2, Huge restrictions on movement but stunning settings and completely story driven.

If you want to pull me up on this go ahead but its all true Heavy Rain is completely like Resident Evil 2 when it comes to movement which puts far less strain on the hardware then games like Alan Wake. In turn allowing you to deliver better visuals.

Alan Wake has far better gameplay which means its harder for the console to deliver high end visuals. Its unfair to compare Heavy Rain to any 360 exclusive because as of yet the 360 hasn't done a poor movement but stunning visual game like Heavy Rain.

The fact that Alan Wake is anywhere close shows how stunning the game is to be honest.

From what I read, Alan Wake's environments are much wider than anything in Heavy Rain. So I'd say they're equal in terms of 'graphics' (the term used lightly).

Okay, how come there are so many comments on this even though the link doesn't work. I've checked it three times in the last 3 hours!

....like lowcarb. I was able to get through earlier, no luck since though.

If he has actually seen these comparisons, it's SO obviousls Heavy Rain looks better. Alan Wake has very nice textures, I'll give it that, but man, the entirety of every AW shot is chock full of probably the most jaggies I've ever seen. It's pretty crazy how jaggie the game is. It very much looks like a video game. Heavy Rain also has very good textures and has absolutely no jaggies. It looks like a CGI movie as opposed to a video game.

The comparison makes little sense anyway. At least 2 of those 4 AW screens are cut-scenes, not in-game. Meanwhile all of Heavy Rain is technically "in-game". So having to use AW cut scene material to compare to HR's in-game just makes HR look all that much better (though I suppose since the 360vsPS3 war started, the 360 side has always used cut-scene material and bull-shots to compare to PS3 exclusive in game material). We also have no idea what platform those AW sharts are showing. If they are from the PC version, again, this makes Heavy Rain look even better, since we KNOW it's from the PS3 version.

Both games will be great action/thrillers, but graphically Heavy Rain stand the victor.

@Rush-Sky

Pardon me if I repeat your mistake of pre-judging a game based on nothing else but some short videos and screenshots but IMO Alan Wake is not more than a generic Alone in The Dark type, Resident Evil 4 type of game. I dont know why some of you guys get "hyped" looking at AW previews/videos, game looks generic. AW is linear as the next, with the interactivity you expect form a linear game with non-destructible environments.

I'm not quite sure why AW and HR are being compared at all, if something is clear is that HR is not Third Person Survivak Horror, much less a shooter.

@lowcarb

Wow, just... wow. You prove your ignorance with every statement you make.

Because I argued with you, I must be a ps3 fanboy.. or I actually have an idea of what I'm talking about.

And like I said, fog is just ONE (and basic at that) method of hiding draw distance. In that particular level, fog is used as a draw distance mask. It is common knowledge. Other levels that don't have fog, use another approach. If you actually read what I said, you would have realized that already. Direct quote from me: "It's a technique that has been used by 3D games for a very long time, the most basic of technique of masking."

And seeing a few textures that look good does not mean the rest of them do. Corners have to be cut somewhere, this is the approach all level designers take when building levels. You do your best with textures a player is most likely to see, and reduce the quality on those less visible or less important objects. With any dark level such as the forest level, it makes it even easier to hide low quality textures since there is very little light compared to a day scene.

And your last comment.. wow. It really shows you know VERY LITTLE about game development.. no animations? Do you know what an animation is? From wikipedia: Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

I can guarantee you that 99.9% of games released at any time period since the conception of video games, have had animations. An example of an animation would be how a character walks through an environment, how their facial expression changes or their lips move when they're talking. Heavy Rain has far more complicated animations than Alan Wake, and for good reason: it's a character driven game. Everything is about the characters and their emotions and their lines that they say. I saw a close up of the AW characters, in GT's videos, and honestly they are not anything to write home about. Which is fine, because that is not the emphasis. The animations that I was saying were not that great were Alan's walking and jogging animation. They are pretty typical for any game, no real attention for detail. I'm not even sure if they are motion captured (Heavy Rain definitely is).

Ultimately, I will enjoy both games, I have no hard on for either of them like a lot of people do. But I do get sick of people saying stuff like OMG ITS BETTER THAN ANYTHING THIS PLATFORM HAS TO OFFER IF YOU DISAGREE YOU ARE A FANBOY. It takes a lot to impress me now, ever since I played Crysis. That game has by far the best looking engine around, far better than any 360 or PS3 game, especially with all the modifications you can make. I was impressed with Uncharted 2 because of how close it came, but it still has a long way to go. But once an engine surpasses CryEngine 2, I will be impressed.

Aw looks much better than HR folks! HR is nothing more than Home with a story. Once again look at the pics and quit trying to do damage control. HR controls look absolutely boring and the demo will sway this blind opinion of it.

Edit wicko: I had know idea I had to be educated in the development tech field to post on N4g lol. Seriously dude you fail at every turn to justify what your saying because just like me it's a matter of opinion which one looks better. Do you honestly believe anybody on this site cares what upsets you? If you want to get mad at somebody take it out on Sony or this developer for not making HR look better sheesh. Also calm down on the long posts trying to convince people you know what your talking about. Dev talk means squat to me because I play games not make them.

"Because I argued with you, I must be a ps3 fanboy.. or I actually have an idea of what I'm talking about"

HA....dude your the easiest kind to spot out. The only reason my comment even upset you and only you and those alike is because guess what? Your a fanboy yourself lol. Now go choke on your spit and parish troll!

DAMN dude they both look mighty fine BUT as stated before the character models are worlds apart.It have to be on the PC running in DX 11 to have a chance against Heavy Rain. In other news February 23 cant come any sooner, I WANT MY HEAVY RAIN!!!!!!!!!

are you the lonewolf from Motorstorm?

All of you who think heavy rain looks better than AW are being fooled. The portion of heavy rain where you can actually control you character, looks TERRIBLE. The portion of the game where you do not have full control looks awesome. This game is pulling the wool over fanbois eyes... The characters are not fully controllable!! AW on the other hand, looks awesome all the way through. The character is fully controllable. Lets be fair and compare the controllable portions of heavy rain to AW... AW looks 10 times better. Bellow is what heavy rain truly looks like. AND it does not look better than AW. Stop the fanboism!

http://www.nextgn.com/wp-co...

Seeing as how one is completely scripted and the other is real time I am surprised Alan Wake even holds a candle to HR.

I think these games are going to help separate the intelligent and the unintelligent game journalist that work in the industry. As we will now have concrete evidence that will prove how dumb some people really are.

From what you've read? Apparently you're privy to information the rest of us aren't. Where exactly did you read that AW environments are 'wider' (whatever that means anyway... or were you trying to say bigger) than HR? No honestly, where in the world did you stumble across a description of how "wide" the HR environments are? As far as I know, nobody knows how big the environments are in HR, not to mention there will be many different environments which I'm sure vary in size. And how you make the jump from, the environment being supposedly "wider" to the graphics being equal is beyond me.

You sad little kids with your bizarre crushes on corporations, will say and make up anything...

Link won't work for me but, really, I only wanted to see what spin the author was putting on his "comparison". Sadly, I'll never know.

They're VERY different games and having seen a bit of both games in motion ,where it counts most, I was a touch more impressed with Heavy Rain from a purely visual standpoint. Alan Wake himself walks like he has a stick up his bum(still) while the HR characters really move and react like people and are the closest characters I've seen yet to actually escaping uncanny valley. That said, I did hear that a lot of the animations in AW are still just place holders so have no idea if they fixed it or replaced them yet so sorry to Remedy(and I don't doubt they'll improve the way he moves and the stiffness of the flashlight holding arm before release to bring it all up to the same excellent standard of the rest of the game)if they have and I haven't seen them yet.

Heavy Rain, however, is a very new(totally to anyone with no experience of IP/Farenheit)concept/genre and not usually as action packed which will, nop doubt, help them with keeping the number of pixels per face etc well up compared to AW where there's a little more going on-though as is often said a lot of AW is very dark which will also allow Remedy to cover up areas and allot processing power to whre the flashlight lands.

Fact is they're both incredible looking games and exactly the kind of thing that we should(and did) expect from HD console gaming and are both preorders for me-and I've had my AW preorder for about four years I think-dunno without looking at the reciept!Some real eye candy for you whatever console you game on and though it will mainly be opinion in the end anyway I'm certain I wouldn't declare either the solid winner in the gfx dept just yet and wait til we all played the games bfore having a proper bunfight, eh?

Another thing:what's the truth about the extent of the sandbox aspect to AW? People say it's been canned with the PC version, people say it hasn't, others say that you'll still be able to enter any of the buildings in it(and they're ALL designed and decorated differently)while yet more say it's merely been scaled back to a few open areas you can explore! I can't find anything except suff from five years ago when they were just showing us the concept for the firt time and am completely confused at this point-as much as to where these people who "say" things get their info from(I can't find it but I'm pretty dim, as it happens)as I am about actually finding out the truth I think!

Whatever, two great looking and amazing sounding gaming experiences to add to the sickeningly expensive looking list for 2010. It's funny , with Alan Wake it feels just like it did with Killzone2 for me as they were both titles I expected near the launch of their consoles and were both instrumental in my deciding to buy a PS3 and 360. If I'm as happy with AW pulling off what they said it would way back then as I was with KZ2 visually matching(beating in some areas and just missing out in others but as near as dammit all round)target footage and delivering visceral shooting then i'll be a happy bunny and the long, long wait will be forgotten immediately.

Now, where's my GT5 and Wardevil preorder slips?

I'm trying to figure out how this is the PC version of Alan Wake, when Remedy has halted development on the PC version.

"PS3 Heavy Rain vs PC Alan Wake
These pictures from Alan Wake are from the PC version not the Xbox360, so this fails. However, with the PC being so powerful Heavy Rain still looks better :-)"

Fail comment of the day. Holy crap! Screenshots of scenarios that haven't been developed yet!

Care to explain?

comparison...I'm coming for you on the 26th Madison!

i demand to know why all the AW hopefuls are running around claiming that

"AW has large environments! AW has large maps! AW is fully explorable! HR is SO linear! HR is just QTEs strung together!"

unless i have been misinformed, AW is NOT an open world game, and its environments are about as open as say, gears2 or UC2. all of those games are TPS's with a storyline and limited, linear environments. sure you may be able to run around both sides of a building, but the reality is that the maps are still (probably, unless i missed something) designed to go from point a to point b. making it LINEAR. i HIGHLY doubt that they are the "open and fully explorable" worlds that AW fans are making it out to be.

im impressed with AW, but i dont understand the supposed visual prowess that this game brings to the table. the lighting is nice, and the texture work seems pretty good, but is this really a huge step up from say, gears2? does it blow RE5 out of the water? are the environments any bigger than that of UC2? id wager a guess that the answer to all of those questions is probably no. AW is not bringing anything NEW to the table, graphically, its just a polished version of your standard TPS games, with a flashy lighting system. am i wrong?

secondly, why are people saying that HR is linear? doesnt it have MULTIPLE storylines with a vast number of story branches and endings? doesnt that traditionally make a game NOT linear? AW on the other hand, just seems to be a cinematic tps game with a set story, from the start to the finish. its linear. theres nothing wrong with that, UC2 did it excellently last year, and it won almost every GOTY award out there. its pretty much the way games have operated since the beginning. stories, for the most part, are LINEAR. and that is something i believe HR is trying to change. stories do not have to be linear, they can be fluid.

in terms of graphics, i also dont understand why people claim that AW should get some kind of boost against HR because the camera is fixed in HR. lots of games, even now, have fixed cameras and people dont seem to complain about them. all hack and slash games have fixed cameras, including the much acclaimed GOW3, and they are rarely if even knocked on the graphical level for a fixed camera. even gears and older TPS games have a fixed camera attached to the character, as opposed to a free moving camera. did people complain? no. i dont see why the case of HR is any different. HR has been touted as a graphical monster since its conceptualization because that is what one of the things it is trying to accomplish: to mimic realism as closely as possible. AW is a good looking game for sure, but it doesnt intend to mimic realism like HR does, rather it looks to suspend realism, similar to most other video games.

almost every poster here agrees that these games are not the same. they are different in conceptualization, emphasis, and structure. they should not be compared and those who are trying to do so, and i point primarily to those who are trying to boost AW and knock down HR, are being irrational.

that being said, AW seems like a linear TPS with an intriguing story and standard TPS gameplay that is familiar to most gamers, and will therefore appeal to most gamers. HR seems to be an open story game that looks phenomenal and will play out like a "choose your own adventure book" from when you were a kid. the gameplay looks to be slower paced. HR interests me more, because of the story element, and its mimicry of realism that makes the events of the game that much more believable. will AW have "better" gameplay? many may think so because its more familiar, but in my opinion, HW has much more to offer the industry and the gamer than AW.

/endrant

What's next? Forza 3 vs MGS4?

When will you guys just grow the heck up and respect the opinions of others. If people here would simply respect each other we could all easily come out of this as winners. Both games have there strong points as well as weak so instead of arguing why don't you all give props to both these developers for trying to push new boundaries.

I think Alan Wake and Heavy Rain both are shaping up to be something incredible!

Sucks the site is not loading for me, i want to see how these 2 games look, not really compared. But of course i believe HR will look better. Also take into consideration, from the info that I know about HR, is that they are 2 totally different kind of gameplay. Alan Wake, is a run around some what shooter, that has much going on. HR is like a movie, QTE?, i use the word movie loosely though. So of course there will be a great deal of a difference in the graphics.

Thats why they should not be compared, 2 totally different games. Now if Alan Wake was the same gameplay and stuff then yah compare but its just like comparing the FPS and TFP, most of you do not agree, and i for one do not agree too.

Alan Wake looks better. It has better textures and lighting, which are two of major cornerstones of good graphics. Heavy Rain looks good too, but overall Alan Wake looks better.

I agree that Alan Wake looks better. It has better lighting, art and detail. HR is in the scripted QTE genre and still shows it's not on par with Alan Wake a standard action thriller game.

I can tell you this comparison is pointless because half of the Alan Wake pics used in this comparison are from an old PC build of the game from 3 years ago in one case, before the revamped engine and improvements for the 360 version and the PC version was scrapped.

How hard would it have been for this guy to post screens of Alan Wake released just this month? He didn't because he wants people to think HR is on par irrespective of what he said in his article.

3 years old
http://gamingbolt.com/wp-co...
2 years old
http://gamingbolt.com/wp-co...

It's very clear this person that made the comparison and the N4G member that submitted this did so purposely used these very carefully hand picked screens for his comparison.

This Month
http://xbox360.ign.com/dor/...
http://xbox360.ign.com/dor/...

1 Year OLD
http://xbox360.ign.com/dor/...

This month
http://xbox360.ign.com/dor/...
http://xbox360.ign.com/dor/...
http://xbox360.ign.com/dor/...

You can see in this link how the guy is using pics from 3 years ago.
http://media.xbox360.ign.co...

Alan Wake smashes Heavy Rain in graphics and it's not a movie game, made up of static worlds and cutscenes with pre-rendered shortcuts(now real time processing just static worlds)

What's next comparisons with 4 year old pics?
http://xbox360.ign.com/dor/...

Three year old pics was funny enough like this one
http://xbox360.ign.com/dor/...

Lulz... 10 disagrees for my comment which was 100% true. How pathetic. We're all hoping for a PC version, but they cant take screenshots of a game that hasn't been developed yet.

@Niceguywii60

Wow! Those Alan Wake screen shots look amazing. You made your point very well.

I agree with you that Alan Wake has richer graphics. It's obvious when you look at those Alan Wake screen shots and compare them to Heavy Rain screen shots.

For instance when you look at this Alan Wake screen shot http://xbox360.ign.com/dor/... and you compare it to Heavy Rain http://ps3.ign.com/dor/obje... you can see that Alan Wake has much better detail in the characters and the environment and also has better textures and lighting.

There is no doubt that Alan Wake has the better graphics.

most of the pix you posted of AW arent even in game, and the ones that are look about RE5 quality in regards to texture work to me. again i commend the lighting in AW, it is nice, albiet a little overly flashy. i failed to see anything that indicates AW will look significantly better than RE5 or gears2, let alone UC2.

-You are way off base, Overdrive.

The textures, lighting and everything else all look better in Alan Wake than Heavy Rain.

Those screenshots are from in game and they blow almost everything else out of the water. Seriously, this http://xbox360.ign.com/dor/... looks amazing. It looks at least as good as Uncharted 2. Maybe better in some ways.-

http://media.psu.com/media/...

http://www.1up.com/media/03...

http://www.1up.com/media/03...

http://media.psu.com/media/...

I'll give it to Heavy Rain... but by a slimmer margin that most people here want to admit. You know who you are...

To say what is and isn't desirable in graphics... I think they merely look different. I think the Heavy Rain shots are a bit too liberal with visual depth-based blurring and the Alan Wake models lack the deep skin luminosity of Heavy Rain. In both, I am still acutely aware that I'm looking at a video game. That is certainly undesirable.

Honestly, I think these two teams together could make a game to mount a challenge against Uncanny Valley... but I think Quantic Dreams would be the team to bring the most to the table, so I give it to them.

i dont believe that my opinions were off base at all.

firstly, i did not mention anything in the last post about HR at all. although i do think HR looks better due to better character models and animations which more closely mimic reality, i did not make any comparisons in my last post, you just assumed that i did.

secondly, i stand firm on my opinion that AW looks marginally better than RE5 or gears2, and that is due to the lighting and particle effects. i looked at all those screens, and although i admit that they look good, please explain to me why it looks "miles better" than any of those games.

lets look at the screen you posted. where in that screenshot is the texture work exceptional? his tweed jacket and trousers look good, but other than that, where is the amazing texture work? his hair and face lack texture and detail. the environments also look quite good in some videos, but how much of that is attributed to the lighting as opposed to the textural work? AW's strength graphically is in the lighting system and particle effects. again i admire the engine for those reasons, but really in my opinion, it doesnt really blownd away anything thats been done before.

and lastly, as to the screen shots being posted by niceguywii60 being in game, i just rechecked some of the videos and i based my assumption on the angle of camera in relation to the character, and it did not seem like the standard tps angle. but after reviewing some clips from the game, it seems that the camera moves out of the standard tps view when he uses flares, so i admit that some of those might be in game. however, many of them simply are not in game screens, like those in the day, when the camera is clearly not focused around him, leading me to believe that those screens are taken from cut scenes. please enlighten me if my reasoning is not correct.

let me say one last thing. i think AW looks good. perhaps i did not make myself clear. i said that it looks better than most tps games out there, from the footage that ive seen. however, the point i was making, is that the graphical level just is not a MAJOR step up from the current offerings in the tps category.

::edit::
just took another look at those ign screenies. they are definitely NOT in game. the viewing angle when hes shooting do not correspond to the camera angle in game when hes shooting. also were they to be in game, there would be a hud displayed. perhaps a few of them are running on the game engine, but i highly doubt that most of those are even using the engine to render it.

It hard to say which game will be "better". They are from two entirely different genres. As for which one will do better... you know it depends on how much advertising they get. Remember, the mainstream isn't as hardcore as you are.

First, why does this have to devolve into a discussion about the alleged limitations of the 360.

Second, what do you mean "the new engine" for the 360? There are tons of engines that can run on the 360 hardware.

Third, Alan Wake is less of an open world game now. but how less is unknown.

From Wikipedia: "Remedy also promised a free-roam, sandbox-style city, similar to those seen in the Grand Theft Auto series. However in an interview with Finnish magazine Pelaaja and British magazine Edge, this was later confirmed to have been removed, with Remedy opting to focus on a compelling storyline over sandbox-style gameplay. Due to a mistranslation from the magazine Pelaaja, it was thought that Remedy had removed the free-roam. However, Thomas Puha, Creative Director for Pelaaja, announced that there was a mistake in the translation and that the open-world side of Alan Wake would still be included. Puha said, 'There is still an open world, but due to the story the action is more directed to tell the story better as you’d expect from Remedy.'"