The Cook-Torrance BRDF for specular creates better shines on objects. It's something you notice when the scene is moving, so harder to demonstrate in still images. But, here we see the white storage tanks have a nice shine on them, which is due to the PBR BRDF. It uses a more complex algorithm for shine view angle, concentration, etc. So, you get nice highlights like that. The ambient occlusion is also added back into (or, rather, subtracted from) sunlight. So, things like deeper recesses on The Bandit, and the area under The Bandit are now darkened as they should. FUEL's contrast of light & shadow, and use of realistic sunlight & shadow colors has always been it's strong suite. It's why 10 years later you can still take amazing pics like this with it. The graphic assets (trees, textures, etc) are definitely showing their age. But, this shows the power of graphics shaders. Bolting on a more modern PBR/BRDF, fixing things (like making grass impacted by the AO under cars), and correcting the lighting model makes an impact. Then things like bloom help blend the scene to distract from the low-res quality of some art assets.