What Nightmarecast said :D

The 360 has gotten some negative backlash from 1. Sony fans and 2. people dissappointed from the leap, or lack there of, from current gen games to the launch titles.

People familiar or associated with the industry know the technical issues and hurdles launch titles face (and the hurdles developers must overcome in getting their entire staff up to speed in making a next gen game... everyone needs to be on the same page with the right tools) but if there is one game that demonstrates that the Xbox 360 is not some "Xbox 1.5" or a "Dreamcast 2" it is PGR3.

The game is beautiful artistically and has a lot of demanding rendering effects. As developers get up to speed on the techniques, abilities, and requirements of making next gen looking games AND they have a full development cycle with the hardware we can expect more games with rendering techniques similar to PGR3. Most devs wont have the time, money, or resources to take a couple hundred photographs of cities and digitize them (only AAA titles will have that kind of budget) but the rendering techniques that make this game look so hot will be coming.

In that respect all the devs using UE3 is kind of dissappointing. Yes UE3 looks good, but it uses all the same techniques and ideas. Visuals is about pairing technology with art style and assets, and so we may see a lot of games with a similar "feel". So far I get that very feeling when I see GOW, UT2007, Too Human, Mass Effect, Huxley, etc. All different art assets and some different styles, but not too much. And the graphical "feel" of lighting and shadowing is all very similar. And due to the design goals of the engine (like no dynamic destruction to the word, typical Epic animation) they all feel very similar.

Here is to hoping games like Halo 3 is to UE3 games as PGR3 is to NFS:MW or Full Auto. A proprietary engine built for a specific platform/game with a AAA budget should look completely mind blowing.