Indeed, its getting there my good friend. Currently gaming engine technology supports little tricks to make it look like a pixar film, but when it comes to actual poly count and detail its not even close. However! It will come, and look at it this way.. 1992 - DOOM came out, you remember those wonderful sprites? Now look at it, in 15 years we went from 2d sprites to gears of war. Imagine where we will be in another 15?

Personally I believe valves technique they used with TF2 was a rather brilliant one, in the respect that it could save alot of people performance troubles and still have the game look damn slick and beautiful. The way they worked the phong shading, etc was rather slick in itself. But when applied all together I can do nothing but applaud them for what they pulled off :). Team Fortress is coming back bitches!