Possibly old news to some of you, but I couldn't find a dedicated thread for this.

• The OneyPlays video from a couple of days ago is where I came across it.
• The Unreal Engine video for those of you who don't want three jokesters commenting over it.

I think the bit in the beginning with Keanu Reeves in the white void looks... well, unreal. But then it quickly goes into uncanny valley territory when Carrie-Anne Moss shows up. After that, it just looks like any other video game. I'm sure it features a bunch of graphical bells and whistles with acronyms I haven't kept track of. But there's no point where it makes me wonder if it's a video game or video footage.

I'm excited about the possibility of video game characters that are indistinguishable from real people, but that's probably a long way off. At least one developer put a damper on another tech demo, this time from Unity. I'm fairly sure the Unreal one also uses some trickery, especially considering the choppy framerate in the later part of the OneyPlays video.

What I'm not excited about is how this sort of technology will likely end up used. It will probably lead to more graphically stunning games with very limited interactivity. At the same time, we're going to see more movies with CGI dead actors (e.g. Carrie Fisher), or even a computer-generated voice replacing a living actor (e.g. Mark Hamill). This was all predicted by sci-fi authors and the like, but it's still unsettling to see it unfold.

… And deep fakes. No longer can we believe what our eyes tell us. With practically limitless manpower and increasing sophisticated tools, it now takes about a day to make any person who leaves an image on the cloud do and say anything.

Yes it’s all fancy smanzy and that, and are we reall and what are we here for nonsense. Do you know what really jumped out at me though, the auto-aim. Who needs to actually aim when you cross bait jumps right to where you need to shoot, heck why even bother pressing the button to shoot, it knows what you are going to do

Computer graphics are still a long way from leaving the Uncanny Valley. The closer we get to a "realistic" look, the less appealing it actually looks to me. I think we've already long passed the point where fancy graphics really matter. Great art direction will always be able to beat out the new shiny. Well, someone is getting their knickers in a twist. Gameplay is of little consequence when this is nothing more than a tech demo showcase of the engine capability. This is never going to be an actual game.

"The better the graphics get, the worse the games get" - Me

Oh, geez. I'd forgotten about that. Let's enjoy horrifying but harmless Steve Buscemi videos while we can. That hasn't been my experience, though maybe I'd feel differently if I wasn't watching Let's Plays. I enjoy seeing these advances, when they actually go towards making a better game. Technology has come a long way since the days of Lara Croft unable to open her mouth, and vigorously bobbing her head to simulate speech.