Basicly, while it is POSSIBLE to make these great looking games, it is not ECCONOMICAL to make them.
I agree with you completely, but this reminds me of something:
Does anyone else think it's funny how the Myst games were all developed with reasonably short development times and they all look Amazing? (With Myst 4, of course, rivalling the CGI quality of films like Lord of the Rings and King Kong).
I think it's fascinating that Myst's graphics (especially Riven's) were done largely with photographs. The sound effects were pretty low budget, too -- The sound of a crazy machine in Riven is actually done by shoving a microphone in a flushing toilet.
...And the characters, of course, (exception being Myst 5), are live actors -- probably, somehow, significantly less bother than complex 3d models... and they look better.
Not possible everywhere, of course, but two things to be learned here:
To the makers of all next-gen 3d games that try to look real (yes, that includes you, Crysis), Give Up; Myst 4 beat you to it YEARS ago.
Also, I think the reason why Myst 4 looks so great is not because it's 2d prerendered scenes (in fact, the pre-rendered stuff can be a problem during full motion sequences, due to the size of the video that's animating on-screen thanks to the 360-degree stuff), but rather due to the way that they focused their attention on particular, small worlds.
Lots of games are trying to look good on too big of a scale... likely as a result of where cookie-cutter FPSs are going. If more games just tried to be unique, and we had maybe a few classic adventure games coming our way, gameplay would improve in the same way that the manageability of graphics would improve... which means that artists can pay more attention to making smaller areas look absolutely stellar, thus causing those tech demos to become reality.
These small worlds work best when the player is given a sense of accomplishment whenever they get somewhere new; for example, in Myst (the reason I'm obsessed with it is because I just played through the start of Myst 4 for no reason before uninstalling it since I already finished), I will always be excited when I come across a new linking book... or even, for that matter, a regular book :P
When I do finally get to a new area in a game such as Myst (or Sam & Max, to be fair), it took so much work to get there that I am simply excited to see it. It doesn't matter how small it is, it has character. The worlds are made to be more than just visually deep, but rich in details like artifacts and paintings and other brilliant backstory.
I do not need to care about the story, and if I choose that route, it still looks cool. If I choose to care about the story, there is stuff there, and in such overwhelming quanitity that I merely think "wow".
The failing of the modern cookie-cutter computer game is that the worlds are only big -- not deep.
What little sense of accomplishment I get in said games is very quickly relieved by how they seem to be built as a film - they are to be watched, not played. The actions that I take in game are merely what the developer wanted me to do -- they do not feel natural.
Thus, it looks worse and there is no sense of accomplishment; there is nothing to be learned from the game which no-one else will see, since artists will treat areas of the game more like an assembly line -- a chore -- than something which they have 2 years to build up to perfection and to give as much character as possible like they do in Myst.
What fun could there possibly be in a world that does nothing? ...Or am I missing the point? Are games going to become just big white empty spaces with nothing but characters and small objects?
Edit:
Wow, that is incredibly disjointed, repetetive, and difficult to read.
Sorry.
I don't know what relationship it has with this topic, either... I guess it shows that I agree, anyway.
And that white scene with nothing but characters and objects could actually be a really cool gameplay game... and it was my idea, so I ask that you stop thinking about it :P
Edit2:
Thanks, Alex!
You asked a question that justifies the existence of this reply.
Too bad my reply is one post above yours...