I haven't had a good computer in about 10 years until recently (used a netbook in between), and I've tried many new games recently, and I'm disappointed to notice that the movements of the characters have barely changed over the past decade.
The graphics have gotten quite good, although I would've expected to see much better by now, and I think they started stagnating on visuals in the past 5 years (after Crysis) because of the rise of laptops, which are replacing PC's for most people.
But still my main disappointment was with how unrealistic the movements of the characters are. The characters "look" pretty real, but then that idea gets completely ruined by the way they move. It kind of ruins the experience.
Take Skyrim for example, great visuals overall, especially for the environment, but I hate the way the character moves and how it fights. While the visuals make you think you are in 2012, the movements make you think it's still 2003, the year of Morrowind.
It depends on the game. I think we're right at the point right now where some developers are making a huge push toward absolute realism (see: LA Noire's facial models and Battlefield 3's destructible environments), but it's still in the early stages.
I think a huge part of the problem isn't a sudden move to laptops, I think it's that the current generation of consoles is seven years old, and major developers (i.e. those with the resources to innovate) tend to design with the console in mind these days.
LA Noire's facial animation, while very impressive, was lifted from real people: so we're a bit far off from simulating that (in the sense that we're simulating physics in games).
For anyone who played Bad Company 2, I think Battlefield 3's destructible environments were a bit of a letdown: the levels got more complex but they really toned down what you were allowed to destroy (a wall here, a wall there, etc). I'm not exactly sure why they did this.
I agree that the current generation of consoles are holding us back. I can't wait to see what kind of games we get on next-gen hardware, I just hope it happens without too much of this online-required nonsense that seems to be becoming the craze..
Try out Max Payne 3. While there's still motion capture etc, the euphoria motion system is fantastic and I think character movement is a nearly solved problem.
Facial animation I just wish they went back to Brütal Legend because they were cartoony, but the most expressive faces I've seen in a game.
The reason the destruction was toned down is because the maps would look extremely barren after a while. Even now, if you get rid of all the trees in e.g. Caspian Border, a lot of cover get lost and air and land vehicles would be having a heyday.
Blame both laptops and consoles. The reasoning is the same: both have less powerful hardware and developers want to maximize the availability of their game.
I'm not sure laptops account for a lot of the choice, when designing games, to be honest. Consoles, sure, there's a market and a reason to take them into account.
But you don't really have many AAA devs planning on running their game on laptops.
I know what you mean. It still amazes me that it's so easy to find games (even it cutscenes!) where foot planting doesn't keep the feet from skating across the surface.
It seems like such a simple thing, and I'd rather have a game get that right than render a realistic mustache. A quick check of a trailer on YouTube seems to show that Madden 13 still doesn't have it, and it breaks the immersion every time I see it.
Backbreaker [1] did it two years ago, and it looks so much better to my eyes because of it.
Lifeless animation has always been a thorn in Bethesda's side. It would be nice if in the future Carmack and company decided to cross train with the Elder Scrolls team. Maybe Carmack's crew can show them how to animate and the Elder Scrolls / Fallout guys can teach Id software how to write a decent story.
If both teams mastered the other's strengths, the resulting games would be nearly perfect.
Some games are better than others. Battlefield 3 has really good character animations for the most part, although you notice it less because it's not an NPC-dialogue heavy game. Deus Ex on the other hand, has some of the worst NPC-dialogue animations of any game I've ever played: bad lip sync, fidgety characters who look like they are constantly uncomfortable.
I haven't played Skyrim so I can't really comment on that. Oblivion had fairly decent character animation but it was mired by moon-physics: NPCs eagerly charging down stairs (or off a small ledge) to engage a foe would sort-of float and there would be this "running in the air" effect that was especially noticeable at the very beginning of the game.
Yep, that's the one thing that still bugs me about even the latest games. To me it seems like their movements are too deliberate/precise, while not being random enough.
Like when humans are talking there are lots of tiny little movements all the time, even when we intend to stand mostly still. When a character in a game moves his arm it goes from point A to point B, stops immediately, and doesn't affect much of the rest of the body.
The problem there isn't technology, it's the skill of your animator. Our lead artist told me that learning to animate humanoids isn't so hard, but making those animations look lifelike can be incredibly challenging.
In my opinion, they've stagnated not because of laptops, but because of consoles. 5 years ago, the PS3 came out, a year before that, the Xbox 360 came out. Cross platform development has caused things to stagnate. When the next round of consoles comes out, we'll have a discrete jump in technology, and it will slowly increase and level out.
The graphics have gotten quite good, although I would've expected to see much better by now, and I think they started stagnating on visuals in the past 5 years (after Crysis) because of the rise of laptops, which are replacing PC's for most people.
But still my main disappointment was with how unrealistic the movements of the characters are. The characters "look" pretty real, but then that idea gets completely ruined by the way they move. It kind of ruins the experience.
Take Skyrim for example, great visuals overall, especially for the environment, but I hate the way the character moves and how it fights. While the visuals make you think you are in 2012, the movements make you think it's still 2003, the year of Morrowind.