The Exigent Duality
Suddenly Unreliable - 14:15 CST, 12/19/20 (Sniper)
Digital Foundry has been my favorite source of game tech-related information over the past several years, but I'm not sure I trust them anymore: I'm increasingly running into these situations where what they're saying in video doesn't jive even with their own companion footage.

In my "Cyberpunk 2077" review, I mention that the ray tracing looks "maligned and malfunctioning": for instance, shadows and ambient occlusion are almost totally missing from many objects and character models, making it look like objects are floating over the level geometry.

In a video put up today by Alex Battaglia, he shows side-by-side screenshots with ray tracing disabled, and enabled, where you can clearly see on both sides that the shadows are broken. His voice-over narrative, paraphrased-but-barely: "You can see that ray tracing revolutionizes things, it barely looks like the same game!"

This reminds me of the "Fiery but peaceful protest" CNN moment: "who do you believe, me or your own eyes?" It really makes me wonder why so many recent Digital Foundry videos have that "paid promotion" disclaimer at the beginning of them.

I've also seen all three of Battaglia, Linneman, and even "the man" Leadbetter himself downplaying deficiencies in games, skipping frametime graphs which obviously should be shown, or otherwise censoring their commentary. I get that Linneman is sensitive and doesn't like people criticizing him on the Twatter, but at the same time it defeats the purpose of their channel if I can no longer count on it being objective.