Gears of War 3 looks soooo good!

Dunno if it's maxing out the X360 but it's definitely maxing out the Unreal Engine 3.

Much more color and much better lighting, the improvements are really huge.
The lighting in Gears 2 was not bad, but I think it was one of the weaker parts in graphics.

As I see it, Gears 1 was the best looking game on 360 until Gears 2 was released. By looking at the pics of Gears 3 that Selnor posted, I would say it has a good chance of being on the same level as Uncharted 2 and God of War 3. We will see...

the improvement from gears 2-3 isnt as big as the op pics but still its a big leap.

But the is something strange about the gears 3 pictures but i just cant put my finger on it.

Wow im impressed Unreal Engine. Gears 2s graphics were overlooked for that reason, but this has really taken them up a notch.

There is always gonna be room for improvements. The room gets smaller every year...but there is always a formula to do it better. Its as Guerrilla games says that they are maxing the SPUS load, but next year they will finf a code to improve that.

Its great to see that we are getting better quality games every year.

good question.  The following was rumoured to be a translation from a Russian gaming mag:

"According to rough translations by the chaps on the official Epic Games forums, the Gears of War designer told the mag he's opted for prettier graphics and dynamic environments for the third game rather than a 60fps framerate."

But I think Epic said the comments were translated out of context.  The upshot seemed to be a switch from 60 fps as the target to 30 fps to allow for more extensive visuals - but until Epic themselves comment or there is a more solid source I guess we'll have to wait and see.

From those pics, we can see just how much of a difference good lighting and contrast between light and dark makes. Those pics are beautiful btw.