One of my favorite "vista" moments in a game was at the beginning of Half-Life 2: Episode 2 when you get to see the destroyed Citadel, and the massive portal, looming over what remains of City 17. The effect of the portal, the sound echoing in the distance, and the overlook of the wilderness below was fantastic. Then, went the portal storm hit, and that wave of energy expands from the center of the pile of rubble out towards and beyond the player, it gave a palpable sense of scale to the whole scene.
As a pure piece of "eye candy", it was still great but not 'quite' awe-inspiring. However, the way the whole scene panned out; the looks, the sound, the animations; it cemented itself in my memory forever.
Some developers out there seem to grasp how to do the "vista" scene better than others. Valve, Bungie, Irrational, Rock Steady, Naughty Dog, Bioware, Bethesda, Crytek. Say what you will about their respective games, but they sure know how to make eye-candy.
Freezy_Breezy said:
This will blow your fucking mind
Blow it right the fuck away. Seriously, I want the next Portal to be like this and fuck with my perceptions of reality. Or maybe a game where you go mad and this is what happens to the levels?
There are actually one or two levels in Portal 2 that feature that sort of impossible geometry. The instances of them are well hidden, but were necessary to make those particular levels possible.
They talk about it in the commentary.
Still, I'm with you. A game like Portal, built entirely around Non-Euclidean architecture, would be amazing.
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