Graphics
With every sequel, you expect a graphical improvement over a predecessor, and in some areas bf:v has achieves this, though it struggles in most areas.
The character models are generally much more detailed than their bf:1942 counterparts,
however their skins seem to make far too much use of black for shading purposes, the final result is that the characters simply look false.
Cartoon like would be a good way to describe it. The way they reflect light is another serious issue for me, its makes them look like shiny plastic, toy soldiers.
I guess the most damming thing I can say, is that they just don't look like they belong in their environment. Version 1.01 doesn't appear to have improved anything
in this area, and there is no mention of model or skin changes in the upcoming 1.1 patch either.
In many ways, the skins remind me of the first Unreal Tournament game, in particular the counter terrorism mod that became an awful retail game, Tactical Ops.
Although I clearly don't like general appearance of the player models in game, the first person weapon models aren't so bad, they still look a little too shiny at times but
they are probably the best models & skins in the game.
While the vehicles are detailed and well modelled, they also seem to suffer from the same skinning and shading issues as the player models, again, they look plastic and extremely fake in my opinion.
A lot less realistic that their bf:1942 equivalents. Again, cartoon like would be a good description.
Just look at the artillery screenshot on the right, I think that actually looks like foam rubber.
But, whatever material it looks like, it sure doesn't look like it belongs in it's environment, unfortunaltey the same goes for just about every object in the game.
The new vegetation system however, is impressive and does give you a real feel of being in tall grass and foliage. The performance hit doesn't appear too bad either,
all in all, a nice addition to the game.
Water, this appears to have also taken a step backwards in bf:v, from close up it appears to be a solid brown colour almost all the time while from high up,
it appears to be far too uniform, which again, just makes it look false.
The other main point you notice fairly quickly is that the view distance seems to have shortened drastically from bf:1942,
although it varies from map to map, in general you can see a lot less distance. The game feels a whole lot smaller as a result.
To sum up, each part of the engine may very well look ok in isolation, but they just don't seem to work together very well in my opinion.
It feels like parts of different games have been stuck together with crazy glue.
Nasty black edges.
Impressive AK47.
Foam rubber artillery.
Water?
