Don’t get artistic assets confused with technical capability. Technically the trailer is much more impressive. Higher contrast != superior. With a little colour adjustment on top, the 05 trailer would be much more dramatic, brown as it is.

The things I notice most, technically, between the two are lack of self shadows, nothing is really volumetric(look at the billboard clipping on explosions and lack of modeling in the smoke) and an overall sense that what’s lacking in realism is made up for in contrast(a la Gears of War). I guarantee the textures, models, facial animation targets… everything in the pre-rendered trailer is higher definition than the final product.

That having been said, it’s agreeably impressive, and nothing I’ve seen so far seems to have the sense of immersion KZ2 is purporting.

killzone3. looks promising, i heard that the campaign was a little short but if there is a good MP too back it up, and i have the chance to try it…

i would definitly buy a console just for 1 good title,
like i did with gears ” with the faulty consoles, now on my third”

Anyways, I think conclusion here is that if you look at the differences [graphically] between the E3 2007 footage, and the footage from PlayStation Day 2008, there is a pretty large difference.

The time between then (July) and now (May) is roughly the same as the time it will be from now till it comes out (February 09).

So expect to see that much of a difference again, if not more. Oh yea, MP will be shown soon so I can’t wait for that!

Of course every time a new game is debuted with gameplay (mainly when its a big game) everyone goes crazy, just as they did with KZ2 at E3 2007. So when the gameplay releases for Gears of War 2 today I am sure its going to be awesome and everyones going to love it.

But from seeing a gameplay screenshot, it looked very much like Gears 1 graphically, and many others agreed so. It will look great, but the Unreal Engine is just not as good as Killzone 2 from what I have seen.

Just my opinion but time will tell.

However, I must admit Guerrilla has achieved a remarkable visual level with Killzone 2.

It will be interesting how this game compared to the soon to be released Gears of War 2 footage.

Overall though the CGI will always be better, but it doesn’t matter because the real time has gotten so close people who have never seen either would get CGI / real time mixed up.

But the point is, whether one is better from the other or not, that Killzone 2 has reached a true milestone technically for video games. And the most frightening thing of all is that it is NOT on a PC, but on a console. PC is more of a limitless platform, new graphics cards, better graphics. It all is at a cost though.

So for this game, at this level of graphics (which is setting a whole new bar), its amazing for it to be on a console. And is a real glimpse into the future of PS3 games in general.

Still a good comparison though, you do mention some key differences here.

I can’t wait for the final game, and how much better it will look compared to what it is at now.

/rant