What Was Gaming Best Generation... (So Far)

[theRepublic]

BasilZero said:

theRepublic said:

dsage01 said:
7th...
The best improvement in visuals and gameplay I've seen. Sony and Microsoft really took a big jump from there previous previous consoles and changed the whole gaming world with online gameplay and amazing visuals

I'm sorry, but I am going to have to disagree with everything here.

The graphical leap from the third to the forth generation, and fifth to sixth generation were both much larger than what we have seen this gen.  We hit a point of diminishing returns with this generation.  Games really don't look that much better than the previous generation.  Even the leap from the fourth to fifth gen was more technically impressive, even though the graphics have not aged well.

In terms of gameplay, there have been very few changes between this gen and last gen if you are talking about the 360 and PS3.  Unless you are talking about Kinect and Move.

Actually majority of games did get a huge improvement over the last generation in terms of graphics, its probably also mostly due to the fact of the HD technology.

But I honestly believe this generation had all sorts of different visual games being released, all the way from Crysis 2 to first party titles such as Halo/Uncharted and even to indie based games such as Terraria and Angry Birds. Its been a pretty good generation in that sense.

That is just not true.  When is the last time you played a N64 or PS game, and a GC or PS2 or XB game?

When you go from a model that is a few hundred polygons, to one that is a few thousand, there is a big difference.  But at some point, adding more polygons does not change much.

There is a point of diminishing returns.  More polygons is not the only way to improve graphics, and many games this generation have used other techniques like improving the lighting.  But nothing as drastic as moving from the blocky charaters and blurry textures of the fifth gen to the smooth graphics we saw last gen.  Yes, the pixel counts and detail have increased this gen, but look at this:

Madden 2001

Madden 2002