actually, Alan Wake doesn't really have better lighting, it's more like how the lighting is used that matters in that game since that's the combat and game focus, whereas UC2 is more focused on, well, action adventure under natural light instead of light manipulation.

I'll let you know when I get to play Alan Wake and evaluate what it does and why.

I'd advise people to remember you have to consider the aims of the engine/game. For example, in Alan Wake lighting is key, but, but the environments might be fairly statis, or the focus might be on open world vs linear flow, how many enemies onscreen are we talking? What is the focus on enemy AI complexity? All this has to be understood to really compare the results.

I could write some code which would look beautiful visually, particularly if I could have all static backgrounds, no physics and simply focus on rendering and lighting. Now, I'm not saying that is Alan Wake or Uncharted 2, but I am saying obvious similarities aside I see these as games that nonetheless have different goals which may mean very different underlying engines.

Not anymore it isn't.

And this thread needs gameplay videos.

Uncharted 2 - Bigger version here?

Alan Wake - There is minimal good quality gameplay on the web, this is as close as i could find.

Also, with character models... I don't know if this means much but...

Polygon count for Alan Wake -
"10k-20k Triangles"

Uncharted 2: Nathan Drake -
"80k Polygons"
Uncharted 2: Every other character -
"30k Polygons"

That's exactly why UC2 is the first console game to impress me.

Uncharted 2 is mile ahead of AW just yet.

Yeah, I have to admit the balance between great visuals, on-screen action, animation, physics, etc. in Uncharted 2 was pretty amazing and a real testement to the underlying engine they wrote.

I think Alan Wake looks to be a great technical achievement, too.  But I want to see more about how it juggles the various elements, and whether it sacrifices being great across the board to be superb in some areas and okay in others before I make any conclusions between the two.

yeah.....

IMO the aliasing and dithering of vegitation and so-so nature of the textures puts AW ahead graphically of UC2, plus AW's more open and does it's cutscenes in real-time.

Also anyone saying some scenes of Alan Wake are CGI need to help themselves to some crow, Digital Foundry confirmed they were real-time 6 months ago, it's Uncharted 2's which are videos.

Found more!

Alan Wake - Here

Uncharted 2 - Here

im going to say AW U2 may be better tec wise or wat ever but AW has a more realistic look to it AW is more about being one with the environment the environment/mood/atmosphere will make or break AW kinda like RE games 0-code veronica and maybe re4 had it but many fans where put off with 4 and re5 b/c the atmosphere wasnt the same

u didnt put many AW pis up though