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.
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..