Eurogamer

That's according to executive producer Rod Fergusson, who told Eurogamer in a new Gears of War 3 interview that developer Epic battles against gamers' memories of Gears 1.

"They take it [Gears of War 3's visuals] for granted," he said. "That was one of our biggest problems with Gears 1 to Gears 2. Your memory is far better than reality.

"With Gears 2 we were competing with the memory of Gears 1 and what people remembered it was like. We got to the point where, at the review event in San Francisco, I suggested we put up a single station of Gears 1 so the press could play it and realise it wasn't as good as they remember. They were saying, "Oh, it kinda looks like Gears 1." I'm like, "Really? No it doesn't at all. You just remember it looking better than it actually does." Not only were we competing with the state of the industry, we were competing with our own memory."

Gears of War launched in 2006 as a visual showcase of high definition home console gaming, wowing fans with its Unreal Engine 3-powered visuals.

Now, five years later, Epic faces stiff competition in the graphics race on the Xbox 360 console.

But, Fergusson explained, it is the continued evolution of Unreal Engine 3 that ensures Gears of War 3 will once again raise the graphics bar when it launches later this year.

"The nice thing is Unreal Engine 3 is always changing. It's the same number, but every day hundreds of code changes go in and the engine improves. We keep pushing our engine team and ourselves art wise to keep taking it up.

"Yeah, people have closed the gap. We were far ahead of a lot of games when Gears 1 came out. Everybody's been catching up, and a lot of people are fighting for ownership of that title. But we continue to push the box and what HD means."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-04-18-we-take-gears-3s-visuals-for-granted

Sadly I missed out on getting my GOW3 beta key when they were first being given out... :(

However I just got one from a free giveaway blog a few minutes ago, so I only missed out on a few days of gameplay. :D

If you guys want to try your luck at getting your own Gears Of War 3 beta key, although I'm not sure if they have any more keys left to give out, you can check out the site here:

http://freegearsofwar3beta.blogspot.com

Good luck getting your key guys!

I think that happens a lot to a lot of different games and gamers.  Even here, you have people that haven't played a game in years and remember how breathtaking the game was.  I'm guilty of this too.  More often than not, the bar has been raised in such tiny increments that we don't even notice it's being raised.  Only when you go back and play a game (Like Metal Gear Solid 4 or Gears of War 2) do you see that what was impressive then is just above average (or average), now.

That's why art style like Valkyria Chronicles or Wind Waker is more important/impressive than technical prowess.  Good art is always going to be good.  Groundbreaking technology is only groundbreaking for the moment (the reason your old 2D PS1 games tend to be more impressive and hold up better than your old 3D PS1 games).  That's my take, anyway.  Titty boobs.

I like those.