TRU looks absolutely incredible, if you ask me. Perfect image quality, incredible motion blur, and beautiful scene designs. I loved the previous two CD games and I'm thrilled to see how this one has turned out. I was concerned with performance as a result of the VERY poor running TRL, but they've completely solved those issues and the game runs very smoothly most of the time. Can't wait to play the final!
The camera isn't all that bad in that you DO have full control, but I will admit that it never seems to point where you'd expect it to. I think it should be fine for the most part, though. I think the combat has improved since TRA, but it's still obviously not the focus. The fact that the enemies are actually dangerous is a great improvement too. The platforming and climbing is pretty much on par with the previous CD efforts, though I appreciate the new animations and some of the new abilities (wall jumping, for instance). Hopefully the length of the game rivals TRA (a very long game) rather than Legend (which was VERY short).
ungradiated, no soft edges, single alpha value -- yeah, dx8 stencils
That's one area where I thought TRU was a bit weak. The shadow resolution seems very low. The self-shadows you see on Lara, for instance, were so low resolution that they were reduced to a few giant blocks. I can see that you hate Uncharted (though I'm not entirely sure why), but honestly, I don't see how you can discredit the game so quickly. The shadows, regardless of how they were achieved, looked very good overall.
Personally, I would actually PREFER hard stencil shadows (ala Doom 3) over the kind of shit you see in many other games with ultra low-resolution shadows. Stencil shadows aren't exactly cheap when used on a large scale either.
It seems to me that Uncharted has become some sort of love/hate game as a result of the "console war". That is, some people seem to hold it up on a pedestal, praising it to the heavens as a gift to gamers everywhere while others, who dislike these fans, seem to damn the game at every opportunity. I'm wondering, if this odd pro/anti-PS3 line of thought could subside, would people enjoy it for what it is? It's a fun 3rd person shooter with a solid presentation. It was also Naughty Dog's first current generation title. Tomb Raider Underworld is the second outing for Crystal Dynamics (TRA doesn't count as it was basically created as a PS2 game). Their FIRST game was FILLED with serious performance issues on both XBOX360 and the PC. Their second effort is a massive improvement in every area and one of the best looking games on the horizon. Who's to say Naughty Dog's next title won't see similar improvements made? Uncharted had some tearing and slowdown, but TR Legends framerate CONSTANTLY dipped into the teens unless you resorted to using 480p. The fact that an nVidia GTX260 still runs into bits of slowdown in Legend is even more telling.
It's just a shame to see so many people shitting on different games for their own agendas.
