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Old games with "photorealistic" graphics
- Thread starter RoombaDance
- Start date
Mihos
Gold Member
Coming off virtual racer, I think it was the textures with the advertisements that put it over the top. It was probably the biggest leap for me too. Coming from the previous generation of 'how big are the sprites?" to "how many polygons?".... Daytona was the first polygon game that made it clear 3d gaming wasnt going anywhere, at least for me
UserDoesNotExist
Member
I couldn't find any screenshots that weren't low res, but back during the Xbox 360 launch, my whole family gathered around the TV to watch me play Call of Duty 2, and we were floored that such a thing was possible.
Berlin_Wall
Member
Played Pes 4 back then and my father asked me which game I am watching. Man.. These days.
Can hardly tell it's a game.
You should listen to the french voice acting. Probably one of the worst voice acting ever,
Gabriel : I have... clues... that... can be... very interresting for... the police... if they... listen to... me.
There's even a moment were the studio actually scold the voice actor for his performance that was left in the game.
It still looks good today at high resolutions, it's a very sharp looking game.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.
petran79
Banned
Star Wars Rogue Leader on the Gamecube
I don't think I'll ever get over what Factor 5 did with that hardware. It was pushing more polygons than any other game that generation, on top of being fully lit, with high res (for the time) textures, and it was using bumpmapping extensively all running at 60fps.
I don't think I'll ever get over what Factor 5 did with that hardware. It was pushing more polygons than any other game that generation, on top of being fully lit, with high res (for the time) textures, and it was using bumpmapping extensively all running at 60fps.
Fatmanp
Member
Honestly I always though PGR2 was more of a standout for its time. PGR4 was a great improvement on PGR3 graphically. PGR3 as a game never jived with me at least online it didn't. Never reached the heights of PGR2.
thesonovabeach
Member
Mgs4 eggs
The Dark Eye featured stop motion animation
Been such a long time since I played this game. It's a bizarre relic of the nineties, the kind of thing you'd never see boxed and sold at retail nowadays, if sold at all. Very moody and gorgeous in its own way. It would appeal to people who like Ethan Carter and the like.
FlutterPuffs
Member
Here's a scene that blew me away for its realism once, the caribou scene at the end of Metal Gear Solid.
First time my jaw dropped on the ground :
Dead or Alive 2, on Dreamcast.
Amazing graphics no doubt, but photo realism? No. Same for people posting daytona.
The first one I always thing of is Superbike 2001as it actually had a menu option named photorealism in it for 3D cards.
It was amazing to play and see all the proper liveries and helmet designs as well as asphalt that looked like asphalt.
Coincidentally and not quite in the same league visually, but Sega Manx TT Superbike is the first game I can think of where they went out and full mapped a course. It was an arcade racer but being able to ride the 'real' circuit in 1995 was magical (especially if it was a ride-on cabinet.
It was amazing to play and see all the proper liveries and helmet designs as well as asphalt that looked like asphalt.
Coincidentally and not quite in the same league visually, but Sega Manx TT Superbike is the first game I can think of where they went out and full mapped a course. It was an arcade racer but being able to ride the 'real' circuit in 1995 was magical (especially if it was a ride-on cabinet.
DavionStriker
Member
Links 386 was the first VGA game I ever saw, and its glorious 256 colors blew my young mind
Holy shit yes! I think this is the first game for me to be blown away by the graphics. Those trees... I used to play Firestone for hours.
Yu Furealdo
Member
RE-VOLT from 1999 blew my mind and looked super photorealistic at the time (keep in mind that I was six)
The physics and lighting were really great
The physics and lighting were really great
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Deadpool_X
Banned
I'll never forget the moment my dad thought a real football game was on a Wednesday night when I was playing NFL 2K1 on Dreamcast.
loli pantsu
Member
This gets my vote. I was similarly blown away by rtcw when it first came out. Also, it was possibly the first game where enemies of the same type had different faces. It added a lot of variety in the people I shot because they didn't all look like clones of each other.
theepicoftyler
Member
this.
This screenshot in particular blew me the fuck away. It was reprinted in OPM like 12 times before the game came out. What a disappointment that game ended up being.
Honestly, the lighting in that screenshot is on-point in a way most games at the time weren't. Obviously, the image quality didn't hold up on normal PS2 hardware, though.
Onlinehero
Member
I remember using the flamethrower and going "damn, that's REAL!"
Mgs4 eggs
It's video, that's why it looks real.
capitalCORN
Member
sechsterangriff
Member
For me it was definitely Shenmue. It was mindblowing at the time.
And here I thought I would be the first to post Phantasmagoria. I just replayed it a few months ago and it was actually fun. 7 CDs of photorealistic graphics with adult content. Blew my junior high aged mind back then.
Links 386 was also amazing. I didn't even care about golf but I still played it because it was so pretty.
Phatosaurus
Member
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Tricks aside (like FMV), Max Payne definitely ranks as one that stands out strongly in memory for the incredible impression it gave with its texture quality. I distinctly recall being overwhelmed at the quality of the assets versus other games at the time, though I'm sure the decal quality and believable audio work relative to bullet impacts contributed to this impression. Sometimes the "photorealism" of something can be a influenced by the production of other qualities, too.
Big points to Mafia too, which was similarly mind blowing in its asset quality.
Big points to Mafia too, which was similarly mind blowing in its asset quality.
BLAUcopter
Gold Member
To be fair, COD 2 was amazing in every aspect and it even ran at 60FPS! So coming from the previous gen, it did look impossible.
McGruber21
Member
For me the first time I remember how "real" a game looked was Madden on N64. Probably one of the first couple but here's the box for Madden 2000
Diablohead
Member
First time my jaw dropped on the ground :
Dead or Alive 2, on Dreamcast.
Amazing looking game still today but it has a style to it, i'd not call it photorealistic. *edit* I guess the arenas themselves look real.
HueyFreeman
Banned
Feel like people aren't quite grasping OP's point. At no point was Daytona ever photorealistic, amazing as it was.
Mafia's a great example - textures lighting and art could come together in a way that really was startling at the time. Doesn't come across in screens unfortunately
Half life 2 is one that can really still do this for me, surprisingly (though I recognize there have been post release updates)
Mafia's a great example - textures lighting and art could come together in a way that really was startling at the time. Doesn't come across in screens unfortunately
Half life 2 is one that can really still do this for me, surprisingly (though I recognize there have been post release updates)
shawnbuddy
Member
I know "photorealistic" is being used hyperbolically here as "just really realistic," but personally I'd define photorealistic more strictly as being indistinguishable from a photo, and that hasn't happened yet.
One that I felt came close were the weird fuzzy tunnel enemies in Metro: Last Light, though. They seemed to have an extra layer of reality thanks to texturing. I was also really impressed with the character models and animation in Beyond: Two Souls.
One that I felt came close were the weird fuzzy tunnel enemies in Metro: Last Light, though. They seemed to have an extra layer of reality thanks to texturing. I was also really impressed with the character models and animation in Beyond: Two Souls.
The rebel assault games blew me away back then.
Same here. Used to love the effects.
Feel like people aren't quite grasping OP's point. At no point was Daytona ever photorealistic, amazing as it was.
Mafia's a great example - textures lighting and art could come together in a way that really was startling at the time. Doesn't come across in screens unfortunately
Half life 2 is one that can really still do this for me, surprisingly (though I recognize there have been post release updates)
http://images.bit-tech.net/content_images/2005/09/lost_coast_benchmark/eyecandy1.jpg[img][/QUOTE]
That's from their HDR tech demo, isn't it?
Your point still stands, though. The game was (and arguably still is) a looker. Love it, wish someday we could get more of it. ;_;
MegaSackman
Member
Jurassic Park on Sega Genesis
phantasmic_glaive
Member
Best I could find, but the first time I thought graphics were life like. The water at the Gogendantes fight was amazing. I know it was video, but still..
I'm a very cynical person (or just someone who feels admiration is a form of weakness and weakness is terrifying... Yes, I'm in therapy for that) so I don't recall much making me go "wow". Mostly technical things like Total Annihilation having anti-aliasing. Also I wasn't terribly impressed by 8-bit computer games because the previous owner of my C64 loved the demoscene and there were loads of demos on those diskettes which of course blow anything actual games do out of the water.
Earth Defense Force 2 made me think "this looks properly cinematic". Mostly due to style choice though, the big, billowing explosions are so much closer to what you'd see in a movie than the flashes or expanding circles of the era. Even today it's fairly rare to see a dynamic explosion (i.e. outside of pre-scripted events) actually create black smoke in a game.
Company of Heroes was super impressive as well with blasts actually conforming to the buildings and terrain and how much detail was in RTS units up close.
I think the explosions are just animated sprites, not actual particle simulations...
This is more a "looking back at how silly we were for thinking these games looked realistic" thread, not a thread about finding actual photorealism.
Earth Defense Force 2 made me think "this looks properly cinematic". Mostly due to style choice though, the big, billowing explosions are so much closer to what you'd see in a movie than the flashes or expanding circles of the era. Even today it's fairly rare to see a dynamic explosion (i.e. outside of pre-scripted events) actually create black smoke in a game.
Company of Heroes was super impressive as well with blasts actually conforming to the buildings and terrain and how much detail was in RTS units up close.
I think the explosions are just animated sprites, not actual particle simulations...
This is more a "looking back at how silly we were for thinking these games looked realistic" thread, not a thread about finding actual photorealism.