benefit greatly from improved lighting. But I only like advanced graphics if the design is there. For example: I prefer Quake 3 over UT (any version) because Quake 3 has a much cooler design. UT is bland, lame and boring visually to me, despite it's "graphical superiority." Either do something with the graphical advances that is worthy of the tech or don't bother with it. I don't care about "real world" settings, I like bizarre, creative environments. Quake/Silent Hill are good examples of environments that appeal to me, Alice is another.

For gameplay, better graphics should come second. If the designer has a need for better graphics that integrates the gameplay with it, then I'm all for it. But I'd rather play better games with Quake graphics than Wolfenstein 3d with UT2010 graphics. 

Quake Arena is still a programming marvel compared to that bloat code of UT2003 == sure there are a lot of built in features mostly of the mover nature that make it nice to map for, but as you said, it looks bland, and Q3 is STILL being improved on with Ydnar's work. 

System Shock 2

I'm replaying some Duke3D after stumbling upon a Win32 port that lets it run on my newer machine.

The most graphically pimped game I've run is Painkiller and while cool, doesn't beat Quake, Unreal, Deus Ex and other oldies as far as the overall experience goes.

But I think good stuff is going to happen. I'm really intriqued by STALKER. 

yeah, how could i forget! one of the greatest things you get from advanced graphics is the ability to put hundreds of monsters on screen at the same time which makes games like painkiller possible. 

necros... graphical inprovment has stolen away cpu, ram, and rendering power into fewer, better looking monsters, rather than the opposite.

Doom: Lots of monsters.

Quake: Bunch of monsters.

Quake 2: Handful of monsters.

Quake 3: No monsters.

Quake 4: Negative monsters?? 

word on the street yo 

In Quake 4, monsters are you! 

what i mean is that with better advances, rendering engines are faster and more efficient, even though they have tons of stuff in them... imagine trying to load PK's monsters into quake for example. quake is a lot slower drawing epolys than wpolys, so would suffer alot from having to draw say, 30 random monsters from PK.
mind you, AI suffers in PK, but that's sort of the good thing about it. :) (and it's not a graphical advance, so irrelevant to the discussion :P) 

/me points at Theif series

Like that, only slightly more so.

That's about it.

(Although it is possible to induced a certain play style on a player through the use of atmosphere, ie, scare the shit out of them and they'll play more cautiously) 

Necros - good point indeed. I suppose you mean that you can have more enemy and thus a certain gameplay where at least the enemy fit into the standard of the game.

Grindy - also a good point, nay, a better one even, about being able to encourage a certain play style in the player. One presumes you could do the opposite by having graphics that make the player more confident (Far Cry's outside maps, maybe????).

Zwiffle, Scragbait, Headthump - you missed the point, well done, award yourself a small turd each.

Scampie - RRRROFL @ negative monsters! Maybe the object of the game will be to create monsters....give birth to them....hmmm.... 

'Zwiffle, Scragbait, Headthump - you missed the point, well done, award yourself a small turd each'

A cold little stinky and not a steamer on a platter like Larry Flynt doles out. No thanks, you can keep it. 

... is a perfect example of a positive effect of graphics on gameplay, and actually uses a lot of the features you mentioned. I'm not a huge fan of the single-player portions of the Splinter Cell games (I don't know, I just don't have fun playing them), but I recently got SC2 and have been addicted to the multiplayer for the past few days. They've added a lot of touches to it that really enhance the gameplay experience for me. The multiplayer is maximum 2 vs. 2, with 2 spies and 2 mercenaries. Spies play the same as in single-player: they sneak around and try to use stealth and their environment (hanging from pipes, using zip-lines, crawling through air ducts) to elude their enemies and accomplish objectives. The mercenaries are more like the classic first person shooter gameplay. They have a gun, grenades, and can't climb up on things like the spies. All of the gameplay modes basically revolve around the concept of the spies infiltrating an area and stealing/defusing an item at a point in the level, with the mercenaries defending these objectives.

Shadowing

Shadows are probably the most drastic gameplay effecting graphical feature for this game... the shadowing in the game is very important, especially for the spies. I can't tell you how many times I'd be running through, have someone see me, and vault over a few boxes to land in a dark corner, and watch anxiously as a mercenary runs past me thinking I went down the nearby hallyway. Or, on the other hand, turned on my flashlight by chance and noticed a spy perched on a box right in front of my nose watching me.

Fragment and Vertex Programs

Splinter Cell has made good use of these in a lot of their effects... the vision modes are really nice. Both teams have two vision modes. The spies have a night vision mode, which lights everything up and gives the whole scene a blurry, grainy appearance, and an infrared vision mode. The infrared is a great example of gameplay enhancement. It allows the spies to see all of the different heat sources around, be it a mercenary in the room below the roof they're crawling across, or a laser tripwire not visible in normal vision modes. SC2 would be a whole different game without the vision modes.

Smoke

There really isn't a lot that they did with this that's NEW technology, but I'm listing it because they used it well. They do smoke using layered sprites, I think, much like games like Counter-Strike do smoke grenades. There's is a great tactical tool, though, as the mercenaries are badly effected by it... their vision starts getting blurry, they move slower, and start coughing badly. If they stay in the smoke too long they can even suffocate. And speaking of blurry...

Effects on Vision

They do great with this, too. The different things that happen to you in the game change your vision (most of these happen to the mercenary, as it effects his suit). The mercenary might get double vision from the smoke grenades, or have his HUD be filled with static as his suit gets shocked by something, or have his visor splattered with fire extinguisher powder as one is shot out nearby. They're all very minor things but good graphical effects that definitely factor into the gameplay.

I'll stop now. I guess this seems more like an advertisement for SC2 than anything else, but I just think it's a great example of what you're talking about... I definitely recommend checking it out, too. Great fun, especially on a LAN. 

I think there are a few gameplay options that are a bit *easier* to implement well at this point, due to advanced graphical technology, but I wouldn't say that there's anything intrinsically new that's being brought to the table. (Or if there is, I haven't seen it.)

I would love to talk all about Quake 4, but I would be in deep trouble, so instead, I'll talk all about Far Cry, because I've been playing the hell out of it for the last couple of weeks.

Shambler, your comment about Far Cry's outdoor maps possibly instilling more confidence in the player cracked me up. :) I see the point you're making, I think (large, brightly-lit, sunny, open maps with a humungous draw distance would seem to inspire a certain relaxation), but I have been more tense playing Far Cry (both indoor and outdoor levels) than I've been while playing any game in a long time, maybe ever. This is mostly because of the save point system (i.e. no quicksave). The save points are generally well-placed, but there's nothing like being down to a sliver of health, and knowing that you're surrounded by enemies to make you tense. Plus, it's just a damn hard game. Good stuff.

Graphical technology? Hmmn. The binoculars are not exactly jaw-dropping tech at work, but they work really well, and they also act as sound amplification (sometimes even more important when you're in thick jungle and can't see more than a few feet). It's nice too, that when you spot an enemy with the binocs they are "marked" on your radar and stay on there from then on. Before I figured out to use the binocs often, I was getting my ass kicked. The game is a weird mix of stealth and run-and-gun, and I'm loving it.

The nightvision goggles + flashlight is a good example of relatively new graphical tech that serves to improve gameplay. There's a constant balancing act between using the flashlight (which costs nothing, but alerts enemies), and the goggles (which quickly run out of power and recharge very slowly, but don't alert enemies). There are also some enemies that are nearly invisible unless you're using the goggles. :) Different view modes were very difficult to implement just a few years ago, and even then, they kinda sucked.

Finally, the draw distance in Far Cry is amazing. Being able to snipe someone in the head from ~1000 scale meters away = insta-boner.

Hmmn. Need a Far Cry icon. 

Not everyone on this forum is out there wasting their time on a Friday Night (I would guess dusk on the Isles at this time) picking up and sexing up the ladies but is instead hard at work thinking about where this medium is headed for in the near term future.

Excellent work, PJW 

dawn to dust.