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Battlefield 3 has, without argument, the best graphical engine to date. Not only is it capable of rendering out incredibly high resolution textures across all player characters and NPC’s, it is also able to apply the same quality textures to a collapsable building and various pieces of terrain.
This is not only true for the PC, but for the consoles as well. On a console, Battlefield 3 looks absolutely brilliant; a step ahead of the curve on such outdated and overly redundant hardware. I have yet to meet a gamer that has been visually displeased by Battlefield 3’s graphical prowess.
Not only does the game have an excellent engine running it’s core, it also has a very distinctive look and feel. I’m not going to say that it has vibrant colours, or that it has alienly-exotic locales, but what it does have is that look that makes you feel so completely immersed by what it is that’s happening. This is done through camera-shaking, vision-based effects (like having a laser sight being pointed into your eyes) and the dynamic actions that your character takes in certain situations (like setting up a stand, or vaulting over a rail).
It is in all of these ways and more that Battlefield 3 is easily the best contender for presentation this year and has proudly earned it’s position as number one for this category.
-Benjamin Webb
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Now we’ve seen plenty of box arts this year… some have been alright, others have been downright atrocious by either being too bland or including too many things going on at once and everything clashing together. Then we have box arts that you would rather sit out on a shelf face out and present to anyone who comes over because they look like a work of art as it feels like it would be a shame to hide such a unique and beautiful cover art in a shelf full of other games obscuring the artistic design.
A few title this year could possibly have claimed the best boxart but one title stood out above the rest and that was the box art for Atelier Totori: The Adventurer of Arland. As you can see in the above image, the artwork on the front cover of Atelier Totori truly stands out as an exception piece of artwork. While the game has beautiful hand drawn looking scenes similar to this occasionally, this box art is almost worth a purchase all on its own. While some people who look at it may see it as being too similar to anime, the majority of people will take it at face value and see the artistic value of featuring the main character Totori performing alchemy in her lab with a very artistic backdrop on a simple white background with the flowing font of the title in the foreground. This is what a box art should look like and that is why Atelier Totori: The Adventurer of Arland has received the best looking box art of the year.
-Travis Bruno
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