Being a fan of Podtoid I expected Jim to talk about Viva Pinata as soon as I saw the title. Although Viva Pinata does look good, I'm not sure I would say it's the best of this generation. Maybe I'm just saying that because I hate the game, but recently I saw a video of Kinectimals gameplay and I have to say it does the same kind of visual style much better. The fur and foliage effects in that game are brilliant, and the colours are really nice.
One other game from this generation that has really impressed me with graphics is Deus Ex: HR. I don't know how well that will age because a lot of it is down to the really nice texture effects. They really make things like metal and clothing look fantastic. But another part of it is to do with the aesthetic of the game. The goldish tint it has to everything and the way they blend the futuristic world in to everything works so well. It's got so much style to it and it's really immersive.
El Shaddai will probably age well since it's got a big focus on aesthetic over fidelity (although it's not lacking fidelity). It's very colourful too. I also think games like Darksiders with it's bold comic book style visuals will stand the test of time.
I also really love Wind Waker and it's graphics really do look fantastic. It still looks better than a lot of games released now. It's definitely thanks to the cel shading, but not all cel shaded games look great. I've noticed that a lot of cel shaded games tend to have a low poly count. I guess developers think they can get away with not making super high detailed models because the cel shading hides it somewhat, but I can't help but see it. Thankfully, Wind Waker doesn't fall in to that trap. Because of that I don't think I've seen any cel shaded game that looks better.
But I disagree that Borderlands looks good. I don't think you can even call it cel shaded. It seems to fall in to this category that pretty much all "cel shaded" games of this generation seem to. like Crackdown, The Darkness 2 and Afro Samurai, they seem to fall in to this category of only being partly cel shaded. I don't like it. Sometimes it can look good, but a lot of the time to me it looks half-arsed, or like the developer didn't want to go full cel shaded because they thought it would put people off. But all to often it ends up looking lazy. Like in Borderlands, it just looks like they are using "cel shading" as an excuse to not bother with high detail models or a lighting engine. They just make the textures look hand drawn and put a black outline round everything, and call it cel shaded. I just wish people would do it properly, but with high detailed models. There are some games that do and they look stunning, like Eternal Sonata or Tales of Vesperia. That is how cel shading should be treated.
EDIT: Reading through the thread reminded me of a game that I wanted to mention but I forgot! It entered my mind and then instantly left. I guess I'm getting old before my time. Anyway, I meant to say Mirror's Edge! That game looks fantastic! The stark colour contrast and the clean, sleek and well realised visual direction are really gorgeous. That's a game like Deus Ex where realistic/high fidelity graphics can come together with a strong aesthetic to make something fantastic. Too often people create this dichotomy between realism vs. aesthetic, but those two games prove that the distinction is fallacious. You can have both, and when you do you end up with something really special.
