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Half Life 2: Episode One
There's a wonderful new team dynamic at work in Episode One, thanks to the fact that Alyx battles alongside you throughout most of the episode. After playing on your own throughout Half-Life and Half-Life 2, it's refreshing to have a companion by your side, and Valve takes advantage of this by throwing you into situations where you must rely on teamwork to survive. Alyx is a capable assistant (perhaps almost too capable, since it's pretty tough to kill her off, and she seemingly has unlimited ammo), and she's often the difference between victory and defeat in many encounters, as she'll cover your back while you're busy trying to sort out the puzzle. Visually, Episode One introduces a lot of subtle improvements and enhancements in the Source engine, keeping it in line with video-card developments over the past couple of years. The new high-dynamic range lighting technology (seen only if your video card supports it) makes a big difference, as the outdoor scenes look a lot better, while indoor scenes feature impressive shadowing and atmosphere at times. Some of the textures in the game have been increased considerably, notably on Alyx and the other main characters, and the game looks incredibly sharp and with some pretty impressive HDR implementation.
AA, AF, HDR, world reflections and refractions, you name it, if it was possible we enabled it. Four AA samples and 16 levels of anisotropic filtering are also enabled here with every possible IQ setting at high.
Battlefield 2 - EA
The award-winning Battlefield franchise invades the high tech frontlines of modern warfare in the new sequel, Battlefield 2. The game brings the intensity and excitement of Battlefield 1942 into the modern era with enhanced team play and the latest, most technologically advanced vehicles and weapons systems available to man.
I just love what this game can do in terms of gameplay and image quality. We had to use FRAPS to measure the performance and by use of the game command prompt remove a nasty framerate cap. The results do not lie.
Small note: the game by itself does not support these high resolutions, but simply make a little .bat file and insert the following, save this .bat file in the BF2 game directory and startup at the resolution of your choice:
bf2 +menu 1 +szx 2560 +szy 1600 +fullscreen 1
The 8800 series eat this game alive even in the highest resolutions. Very nice.
Call of Duty 2
Call Of Duty 2 redefines the cinematic fighting game. It's a complete wargaming experience with more immense, more intense, more realistic battles than ever before. Beautifully rendered graphics, dynamic lighting and shadows, groundbreaking AI, and choice-based gameplay innovations make this the most intense WWII shooter yet. Go online for Axis vs. Allies team-based multiplayer action, building on the intense Call of Duty multiplayer modes.
No game sucks in high resolutions as much as COD2 does when you have AA and AF enabled. However, 2560x1600 is your preferred resolution here. :)
