I'm wondering what game you'd use to test out your new system. To really show you what it can do. For a while, it was obviously Crysis (1), but I'm not sure that there's a consensus these days.

I started playing Metro 2033 last night (for the second time). I remembered it running like crap on my old computer, but I foolishly expected this 2 year old game to be able to run it on its highest settings in DirectX11 mode on my ~1 year old PC. It was fine for the first 5-10 seconds... then not so much. Still, even on settings my PC can handle, it does look pretty awesome.

But are there better looking games?

The Witcher 2 is probably the best looking game and one of the most demanding. Ultra + Ubersampling looks amazing.

But Trine 2 looks magical. I can't stop looking at it. It's so pretty.

Crysis 1 and 2, Witcher 2, Battlefield 3, Metro 2033, DIRT and Forza, all are top of the line in their own ways.

Honestly, I'd say the best looking game ever made is PROBABLY Crysis 2 on it's highest settings. It may not have the OMG REAL look that Crysis 1 has, but it has an astounding level of detail on its own while also maintaining a much stronger and varied art style.

Overall probably Witcher 2. I just love the attention to detail and the bright vibrant colours it presents. Lighting is also brilliantly done as is the motion blue and other visual effects. It really is just a brilliant looking game!

Trine 2 is also absolutely fantastic looking. Just something about bright colourful fantasy settings that I love I guess.

EVE Online looks pretty damn sexy now. They are slowly patching/updating the skins of sations and ships and well everything.

Minmatar ships still look like a gravity well in a scrap pile happened then tied some solar pannels to it. Voila. Why do I fly that garbage around?

Well apart from the obvious ones like crysis and the witcher, i'd have to say games like company of heroes or the recent entries into the total war series.

Shogun 2 anyone?

Just Cause 2 maxed out can actually be really beautiful.

Crysis 2, Battlefield 3, Witcher 2, and Dirt 3. All of them look really good on the PC.

Crysis 1, Witcher 2, Metro 2033, Far Cry 2.

A year ago I would of preemptively added BF3 to the above list - such a shame that I can't.

Crysis still has some of the best graphics, and it was made on a budget of $22 million and released in 2007. This industry is in bad shape if games are profiting hundreds of millions and it just goes into fat cat wallets instead of towards producing better games.

"Sir, we could upgrade to Crysis level graphics, but it would cost us 2-3% profits."

"Pah! No need to bother doing that when they will buy slightly-sharper-than-Xbox graphics!"

Well CryEngine 2/3 is capable of higher details with DX11, however Crysis 2 is a console port so they limited it extremely in howmuch you get to see.
But with custom jungle maps it still blows everyone else out of the watter.

When it comes to aesthetics however Trine 2 is the king.

I'd say the best looking are probably metro, battlefield and crysis, but that's to be expected as most of these games are showcases of new engines (eg. rage, crysis, battlefield). Things like metro and trine aren't however which is why they stand out.

either

or

I would say Trine 2. Impossibly beautiful, even if you don't like the gameplay.

OSHarlequin:
Well apart from the obvious ones like crysis and the witcher, i'd have to say games like company of heroes or the recent entries into the total war series.

Shogun 2 anyone?

shogun 2.. interesting choice there

For me?

Iris Online.
What a work of art that game is. its moderate graphics by todays standard but its just a BEAUTIFUL looking game.
its just a living peice of art and i adore it.

Are we going with solely best looking or graphical fidelity as well because DEFCON still looks fantastic in my opinion :)

Aesthetics VS. Graphics, people!

Anyways, I will always kindly remember the world of Hyllis from Beyond Good and Evil. Lots of work was put into the design.

DooM³ is still the only thing that's made me stop and gawp at a wall for minutes, because it such amazing carvings in it. It's animation, rather than modelling, which makes you believe a character is real, and Fred Nillson's movement in that was absolutely brilliant. Seeing an imp climb, crawl, and stand up, was genuinely creepy and pleasing to watch. The entire environment foreshadowed that you were getting deeper into what was wrong with it, with the fleshy sections breaking through the walls, which pulsated and got worse as the game continued. You really felt as though you'd been into the depths of an exhausting horror by the time you'd finished, and all the visuals fed into that.

If you're looking to stress test the unholy shit out of a system... gotta go with HD texture pack mods for gamebryo-based games. Toss the user-created HD retex onto Skyrim, crank it up to 11 and watch it crawl.

Aesthetics, though, are in the mind of the beholder. I rather enjoyed Alice: Madness Returns for that, but I'm strange.

I always use Arcanum to test out my new systems, it looks great and if the system can't run it on full settings then I don't want it.

Witcher 2 with Ubersampling blew me away last year, also Trine 2 definitely deserves a mention.

Before that Metro 2033 was quite the looker, and Mafia 2 did fabulous things with PhysX.

Crysis is holding up amazingly all these years too.

Crysis 1 and The Witcher 2. There are no others.

LookingGlass:

I started playing Metro 2033 last night (for the second time). I remembered it running like crap on my old computer, but I foolishly expected this 2 year old game to be able to run it on its highest settings in DirectX11 mode on my ~1 year old PC. It was fine for the first 5-10 seconds... then not so much. Still, even on settings my PC can handle, it does look pretty awesome.

Metro 2033 is a fantastic game, and is amazing looking. Its not pretty, but it does look great.

With out doubt though the best looking game on the pc is Crysis 2 with the DX11 and high res patches.

GriffinStallion:
Dwarf Fortress.

I laughed way harder at this than I probably should have.

I'd say Dead Space 2. TW2 is also a good candidate.

And yes Eve Online really do have some very shiny parts graphically. You might want to check out the trial. The gameplay in general is mostly dots in space, but character models and ship models are getting amazing.

Like most have already said, witcher 2 and crysis 1 will give any system a run for it's money, crank witcher 2 to the max then you will more than likely need SLi.

Oh Final Fantasy 14 is also a power hungry beast even if it is horrible.