I think Onimusha 2 used real-life footage for the water. If not then it was just crazy good looking. Sadly I couldn't find any good gifs.
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Old games with "photorealistic" graphics
- Thread starter RoombaDance
- Start date
I think Onimusha 2 used real-life footage for the water. If not then it was just crazy good looking. Sadly I couldn't find any good gifs.
hendersonhank
Member
Chronicles of Riddick on OG Xbox blew my mind
Yup.. also Halo. Though that's not exactly photo realismChronicles of Riddick on OG Xbox blew my mind
megatronium
Member
Metropolis Street Racer - Dreamcast
SenkiDala
Member
I remember thinking Wreckless: The Yakuza Missions looking downright amazing and filmic when I first saw it:
Ooooh! I forgot about this one! Yes it was just insane, the graphics were awesome. I played it just once but never owned the game. Makes me kinda want to have it now...
Too bad it's not backward compatible on 360, I'd buy it, but my OG Xbox is dead.
qa_engineer
Member
If I still had the game I would play it.First 100 hours of Gran Turismo 3, I was sure a game could NEVER look any better:
Pagusas
Elden Member
My most standout experience with graphics early on in gaming is Journeyman Project.
A glimpse into the future from 1993.
Mine to. Mine to. Still one of my favorite games (along with Buried in Time)
Thing is, square pixels didn't appear as square pixels on a CRT. They were diffused by the phosphor pattern in a way that made individual pixels blend in much better with the neighboring pixels. The phosphor pattern also provided some texture, making surfaces look less plain. The result was somewhat fuzzy and muddled, but it did not look primitive in the way it looks when viewed on a modern display.
shawnbuddy
Member
Yes, and you have to solve puzzles using only your cockroach abilities. It's one of most out-there and creative adventure games of all time, there's nothing else like it.
Spladam
Member
Yeah, I guess it was. The first three Gran Turismo games blew me away graphically, I remember thinking how much better can it get when I bought 3 Aspec. GT was the reason I bought the PS1 and PS2.
I remember being shocked that this was even running on my original Xbox. Insane.Chronicles of Riddick on OG Xbox blew my mind
capitalCORN
Member
The Xbox was literally a generation ahead of the PS2 and still much beefier than the Gamecube. It really did some amazing things all said and done.
It used to almost always be racing games because cars can be made to look good with very few polygons. rip racing genre
As pointed out above, CRTs actually do a form of live color-mixing right on the display, and the graphics for older games were designed for this in mind. It's why they look so rough on modern displays.
It especially murders the display of games that used dithering on the Genesis.
As pointed out above, CRTs actually do a form of live color-mixing right on the display, and the graphics for older games were designed for this in mind. It's why they look so rough on modern displays.
It especially murders the display of games that used dithering on the Genesis.
I remember playing Morrowind on the OG Xbox feeling like a pretty impressive feat. The loads were insanely bad and it crashed constantly, but I still played it for hundreds of hours.
MrCunningham
Member
Getting worked by pre-release Ubisoft footage in 2017.
lol
EDIT: To actually contribute something useful to the thread. Max Payne 1 blew me away when it first came out. One of the first games I can recall that actually used photographs for the textures.
The textures in this game were quite phenomenal for their day. Another game I have to nominate is Tex Murphy Under a Killing Moon:
This game was original released on DOS PC in 1994. It used a mix of live action FMV and digitized sprites with real time 3D polygon environments and it blended these two elements together really well.
Another choice is Road Rash on the Panasonic 3DO:
Yeah, the game also used digitized sprites and polygon environments. But I remember being blown away when I saw this running on a 3DO for the first time.
Virtua Cop (arcade and Sega Saturn)
Visually this game may look blocky and primitive, but the one thing that really stuck out about this game was the impressive pre-canned animation. The enemy character models had a lot of different death animation depending on where you hit the characters,. I remember being really floored by how realistic the character animation looked for the day. The death animation in this game served as inspiration for all of the pre-caned animation in Goldeneye for the N64.
Driver (PS1)
The original Driver on the PS1 had an oddly "photo realistic" vibe to it back in the day. The game did use a heavy amount of photo sourced textures, but also the game itself had these really weighty vehicle physics that only added to the illusion. I used to spend hours in Director Mode just making mini movies of 1970's inspired car chases.
Unknown?
Member
When I first saw GT3 at Best Buy at the demo kiosk I had to get my dad and he jokingly said, "looks better than real life" hahaha I also thought nothing could look better.First 100 hours of Gran Turismo 3, I was sure a game could NEVER look any better:
Krappadizzle
Member
Just wanted to say this has been a fantastic stroll down memory lane. I'd encourage anyone that's already posted and still has more to contribute to DO IT!
Crayon
Member
Links LS 1998 Edition. Left an impression back in the day, the 90's PC aesthetic is strong.
That's a good pick. The ol Links 386.
Choppasmith
Member
I was going to say Rogue Squadron, but also. The PotC world made me say wow when I first saw played through Kingdom Hearts II.
Muscle Wizard
Banned
It made me say wow when I first saw them standing next to the anime boy and the cartoon duck with all the zippers.I was going to say Rogue Squadron, but also. The PotC world made me say wow when I first saw played through Kingdom Hearts II.
Choppasmith
Member
Yeah, to be more specific, that scene where Barbossa talks with Pete. That contrast between "cartoon" and live action in video game form really blew me away.
muno
Neo Member
You mean this one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_cg0WIWLmo
To answer the thread, I'd also have to agree with Gran Turismo 3. Very few games have impressed me with their photorealism since then.
DOWN
Banned
I'm blown away that OP thinks Far Cry is anything special after we've had Frostbite games looking like the second coming for a few years and Uncharted 4 / Horizon already out?
Anyway, Pirates of the Caribbean At World's End had weirdly amazing graphics because they were done by Industrial Light and Magic alongside the movies
Anyway, Pirates of the Caribbean At World's End had weirdly amazing graphics because they were done by Industrial Light and Magic alongside the movies
Yep, absolutely astonishing. Starbreeze had some crazy talent back then. Some of the best guys are my colleagues now, and I truly can't match their legacy in any shape or formChronicles of Riddick on OG Xbox blew my mind
buttery fistful
Member
Kingpin: Life of Crime had some moments that i thought were extremely realistic to my young eyes
GraveX1
Neo Member
Ninja Warriors
Firefox
Ninja Warriors was on three arcade monitors side by side and was high resolution for the time (80s). Firefox was a crappy shooting game atop laserdisc of scenes from the movie but I was blown away when I was a kid.
Also +1 on the Gran Turismo mentions. GT 1 through 3 all blew me away when they came out.
Firefox
Ninja Warriors was on three arcade monitors side by side and was high resolution for the time (80s). Firefox was a crappy shooting game atop laserdisc of scenes from the movie but I was blown away when I was a kid.
Also +1 on the Gran Turismo mentions. GT 1 through 3 all blew me away when they came out.
MagnoSauce
Member
Released a week before Crysis, so perhaps that quote might have been accurate for a short while. There were parts of it that I think were ahead of any game released at the time.
ShellyDeKiller
Member
Flight Simulator 2000
Until you saw them jiggling like Jell-o. Game looked good in screenshots and ugly in motion.
Kingpin: Life of Crime had some moments that i thought were extremely realistic to my young eyes
Company of Heroes looked so good on release that Company of Heroes 2, which came out years later, didn't really look that much better, at least at the standard camera zoom for the game. Obvious if you zoomed in the sequel is much more advanced, but I remember being surprised at how less drastic an upgrade it ended up being visually.
SpookyFries
Member
Ok that looks pretty fantastic.I made one real quick. Not the best quality but it gets the point across
For me that time was a few weeks ago in the screenshot thread for GT Sport. The game, of course, doesn't always look good (In fact it kinda looks very primitive in some areas) but when it nails it? Oh God it nails it. Might be the very first game that achieves, even if for a fleeting moment, total photorealism.
Alter_Fridge
Member
I made one real quick. Not the best quality but it gets the point across
That's superb
itsbenoclock
Member
The tech in this game was awesome at the time, and playing it on PS3 I thought the environment details looked quite real; having gone back to it recently I realise it doesn't look amazing anymore.
My mum saw me playing through an interrogation once and asked what film I was watching.
It's not that old but things have moved on so much since.
My mum saw me playing through an interrogation once and asked what film I was watching.
It's not that old but things have moved on so much since.
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
Test Drive Le Mans on the DC back in 2000 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RsftcShkCk&t=90
Authentic tracks, tons of cars on the track, dynamic time-of-day & atmospheric conditions. All that over VGA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeAlHP63w_Y
Authentic tracks, tons of cars on the track, dynamic time-of-day & atmospheric conditions. All that over VGA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeAlHP63w_Y
thesonovabeach
Member
F.E.A.R. environments feel so real.
GearDraxon
Member
"Want some rye? 'Course ya do!"
Great game too.
potatohead
Member
A third of these games in this thread barely qualify as photorealism.
Good graphics yeah but no not photorealism.
Good graphics yeah but no not photorealism.
.. now.
Theslammer
Member
Good thread idea, OP!
I remember thinking this looked real:
Thought he looked like how he did on the box and also thought hearing him speak was the most amazing thing. I felt I didn't notice the cartoony look of many games back in the day as a whole. I mean, shit, I thought she looked pretty real at the time:
In the 3D era, Gran Turismo was the game I thought looked photorealistic:
And Goldeneye. Add fingers, and they might as well be real people! xD~~
I remember thinking this looked real:
Thought he looked like how he did on the box and also thought hearing him speak was the most amazing thing. I felt I didn't notice the cartoony look of many games back in the day as a whole. I mean, shit, I thought she looked pretty real at the time:
In the 3D era, Gran Turismo was the game I thought looked photorealistic:
And Goldeneye. Add fingers, and they might as well be real people! xD~~
Coreda
Member
For console releases the viewing distance was also typically farther away than computer monitors, depending on how close one sat, which helped.