Graphics seem to be whatever devs boast about these days but what about AI, Physics, environment interaction, animation, cinematic camera angles, etc I can't think of many games were physics played a major role in gameplay of games that weren't puzzle games.
Most games just use "physics" as eye candy, I want to be able to play a game where an explosive goes off and pushes everything around it that can potentially kill enemies and the players, this also applies to environment interaction, I'd like to see more non scripted environment interaction, it appears some games are already doing it such as Metro Last light metal and concrete cover can be shot up piece by piece, or in Crysis 3 like seeing MTA trains fall apart after getting hit by a missle and I remember seeing a seen where Prophet took cover behind a tree and you could see stray shots knocking the top off it.
Art Style, developers should put more emphasis on Art style especially indie devs which shockingly lack art styles, considering it's 2012 platformers with 3D graphics isn't too much ask. Infact Nintendo first party and Media Monicule would be good examples of devs who put efforts into art style. Mixing their types of art styles with technical graphics would be amazing and more eye candy pleasing than games aiming for photo realism like ARMA. But I guess Art Style can be affected based on the theme/setting of the game this problem is that art styles aren't that consistent for some games for example like Hard Reset, It looks amazing inside the city but once you move on to the outside world it looks pretty bleh.
AI is my other complaint it seems most AI these days don't do any other functions than focus on the player soon as they spot them. LAst of Us had some pretty interesting AI. Most AI seem to have this magic ability that they never loose sight of you no matter where you go or what you do. Some don't seem to have any common sense and just go straight forward at you. I can't think of a game where an enemy actually tries to back away from you.
My last major hope for focus on is animation, not just how the characters move but how they react to. Rage and Hard Reset are the only games I can think of where you could shoot an enemy in a specific area that's not the head or something obvious like a fuel tank on a pyro and they'll react specifically to that. For example in Hard Reset you could shoot off a gorilla bots legs and seem them twitch on the ground, you can shoot off one of their arms and they'll immediatly fall and crawl after you. This is part of the reason I don't find non hack n slash melee based games that enjoyable, the hit reaction is poor and non dynamic. Even uncharted has some sloppy melee animations, however Last of Us seems perfect. Looking at EIN I found the animations impressive especially for an MMO. It seems that almost everyone is getting mocap and not just the big budget AAA studios, it's nice to see even RTS games put effort into animation like Rome 2 Total War despite their massive scales.
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