Support NeoGAF

[bj00rn_]

I remember being in awe over Under a Killing Moon because of its highly detailed interior 3D environments for it's time and genre.

The sad irony is that the latest game in the series which was released a couple of years ago kind of looked the same as 23 years ago..

 

[QuantumZebra]

Mortal Kombat was the first photorealistic game for me!
MDK was really good too:

And Mafia:

Holy shit an MDK reference!😀

The first for me was definitely Gran Turismo. That game blew my damn mind.

 

[Klappdrachen]

I'm appalled by the lack Ace Combat in this thread. I mean AC4 even mentioned photorealistic environments on the back of the box.

AC5 looked even better:

Even the ones on PSP and 3DS looked great when you consider what they're running on.

 

[petran79]

Darkseed...

...I remember this looking much better in my head, heh.

CRT computer monitors had much better picture than that screenshot. One reason computer magazines used professional cameras for screenshots instead of just pressing Print Screen

 

[Beegeous]

F1 World Grand Prix on N64.

 

[EvB]

CRT computer monitors had much better picture than that screenshot. One reason computer magazines used professional cameras for screenshots instead of just pressing Print Screen

That literally makes no sense.

 

[petran79]

That literally makes no sense.

No, they had better picture quality that is not being able to be reproduced in new TVs.
One reason you see all those screen filters in emulators of old consoles and computers.

 

[E92 M3]

This thread is nostalgia boulevard.

 

[eloxx]

A lot of great mentions here. I am going with

BloodRayne 2

I was so into that game. It felt and looked so good. Loved it.

Lands of Lore 2

I played the hell out of that game, but I can't remember if I ever finished it. Those graphics were sick. The cutscenes totally blew me away. It was also one of my first PC games.

 

[Kyrios]

The rebel assault games blew me away back then.

Same, takes me back lol

 

[Surfinn]

The rebel assault games blew me away back then.

Yes. So, so good

 

[QuixoticNeutral]

This thread provides an ample illustration of why hype over purported photorealism has never done anything for me, and still doesn't. I can admire the tech, but even in the bleeding-edge demonstrations we see today, games still look like games (not even like pre-rendered, non-real-time CG in feature films) and I can always spot what we'll look back on five years later as a sign of aging.

That said, for me this was the one that felt leaps and bounds ahead of its time:

Riven:

Looks good even today. Imagine how it was back in 1997

 

[low-G]

I remember being in awe over Under a Killing Moon because of its highly detailed interior 3D environments for it's time and genre.

The sad irony is that the latest game in the series which was released a couple of years ago kind of looked the same as 23 years ago..

Under a Killing Moon had pretty insane RAM requirements for full graphics at that time too. 16MB RAM, whereas I only had 4MB (but I could play Doom!)

 

[Guerrillas in the Mist]

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...

CoH was doing insane things with physics, destruction and terrain deformation on a massive, RTS scale when a lot of games were still on canned death animations and static environments.

 

[Chubzdoomer]

I remember being blown away by Reel Fishing for PS1 when I was a kid. It cleverly combined FMV water with still images, resulting in a stunningly "photorealistic" game (at least for its time).

 

[GabeTheGrouch76]

Maybe the existing screenshots don't do the game justice, but I thought NFSUG2 looked really good for its time.

 

[HueyFreeman]

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. ;_;

It's totally from the lost coast, a fact I completely failed to recognize posting on mobile. I 100% thought I was posting this scene :| Not-paying-attention tax

EDIT: there's a partly sunken wooden canoe in this scene that for some reason always makes me stop and stare. The way it interacts with the water surface is STILL amazing to me in 2017. Too bad I can't find a specific shot of it.

 

[blame space]

Soulcalibur still looks good

 

[facetheslayer92]

Myst
Star Wars Dark Forces(couldn't believe my eyes when I played this)
11th Hour
Virtual Fighter 2
Unreal
Omega Boost
Soul Reaver
Banjo Tooie(still looks sharp)
Gran Turismo 3
Metroid Prime(looks better than some early 360 games)
Resident Evil 4(this game doesn't age)
God of War 2

 

[eso76]

Flight Unlimited was a good one.

Destruction Derby 1:

Oh yeah, destruction derby.
The physics, suspensions and body roll looked 100% realistic to me at the time.
I don't think I've seen the game in 20+ years, in my memory it still is.

Similarly, Motor Toon had an unlockable SIM mode in which you could drive a stock car and that also looked very impressive in motion because of how accurate the physics were.

 

[Baron Doggystyle von Woof]

Half-life 2.

 

[MrOogieBoogie]

The first "photorealistic" game I remember seeing in person, where I thought, "Holy shit!" was Counter-Strike: Source on a cousin's computer.

The hand and weapon models and the reload animations were (and still are) awesome.

 

[Ceallach]

Virtua Fighter 3 blew my fucking mind in 1996. The game that had the craziest impact on me.

 

[Currygan]

Also, Driver on the psx

Really fun game too

 

[Crayon]

Super Battletank on SNES! edit: pics

 

[EvB]

No, they had better picture quality that is not being able to be reproduced in new TVs.
One reason you see all those screen filters in emulators of old consoles and computers.

They are not objectively better, people just like them.

A square pixel is a square pixel, running a scan line between them does not equate to a better picture.

 

[Crayon]

I think old games look flat out better in a CRT where the pixels can bleed into each other a bit. That's how those games were designed to be viewed.

 

[maus]

Scenes that always impressed me were the mission briefings where they cram all the detail they can into a small scene and you got to see the characters up close, even if their mouths moved like robots.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein, 2001

Splinter Cell, 2002 (crappy stretched shot from youtube)

Splinter Cell is still a pretty awesome looking game apart from the standard def resolution. I don't think the PC version had the same level of graphical effects as the xbox.

 

[tuxfool]

Commanche and the power of a Voxel engine.

Speaking of voxels, Outcast:

 

[ChackanKun]

I remember being in awe over Under a Killing Moon because of its highly detailed interior 3D environments for it's time and genre.

The sad irony is that the latest game in the series which was released a couple of years ago kind of looked the same as 23 years ago..

Man, one of the best gaming series EVER!

Tex Murphy is the most charming beated down P.I. ever

 

[petran79]

They are not objectively better, people just like them.

A square pixel is a square pixel, running a scan line between them does not equate to a better picture.

There were some things only the monitors and computers of that era could do

 

[maus]

Aged well....?

I never noticed before but I think the coolest part of this is how the neck behaves and contorts like real skin. Even in today's cinematic games the neck usually just kind of turns with the head.

 

[E92 M3]

Felony 11-79

Blew me away back in the day.

 

[Crayon]

 

[Syme]

Silent Hill 3 isn't literally the most photo-realistic looking game, but the expressiveness of the facial animation remains pretty much unmatched. It's got this quality to it where you all the emotion and nuances from the characters, but it's still got enough of a cartoony hand-drawn feel for you to overlook certain details that aren't there, that's why it ages so well.

Uncharted 4 may surpass it in some ways, but there'll be games that come along that go for the same style as Uncharted 4 but do it better. The Last of Us 2 probably will for a start.

 

[Vilix]

Rogue Squadron 2 on GC was amazing

edit: i remember thinking something like "it's like the movies".

Came to post this. Still a great game.

 

[plutoknight]

Onimusha's backgrounds.

I can't seem to find a screen but that game has the best water effects on the PS2.

 

[The Real Napsta]

Nfl 2k looked Fucking real

This. I was blown away.

 

[Crayon]

Return to Zork.

I remembered this looking a little more real. That reminds me... I wonder what Under a Killing Moon looks like...

Pretty good I guess.

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

Nfl 2k looked Fucking real

I remember my dad walking in when I was playing this on Dreamcast and he thought it was a real game for a split second

 

[Gangster Bastard]

No, they had better picture quality that is not being able to be reproduced in new TVs.
One reason you see all those screen filters in emulators of old consoles and computers.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think PC monitors back in the day were capable of displaying low resolutions like televisions could, so DOS games always looked pixelated.
I know some Japanese PC games from the era would actually add in fake scanlines.

 

[capitalCORN]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think PC monitors back in the day were capable of displaying low resolutions like televisions could, so DOS games always looked pixelated.
I know some Japanese PC games from the era would actually add in fake scanlines.

At least in the 90's. PC monitors were progressive scan, and handled a myriad of resolutions and refresh rates. They were still CRT. But if the game rendered interlaced, so would the monitor.

 

[ss_lemonade]

Alone in the Dark for the dreamcast blew me away with it's prerendered backgrounds and how you could illuminate the backgrounds with your flashlight

 

[RoadHazard]

No, they had better picture quality that is not being able to be reproduced in new TVs.
One reason you see all those screen filters in emulators of old consoles and computers.

CRTs didn't have "better" picture quality. They had objectively worse quality than modern TVs, but games were made to adapt to and take advantage of how CRTs worked, so they often look better on those than in pixel-perfect sharpness on a modern screen.

 

[Insane Metal]

Onimusha 2

 

[Spladam]

I remember the bullshots of Gran Turismo 2 in EGM blew my mind, There was one shot of the rally on the side of hte Grand Canyon from above that looked like a photo. My mind was blown. Strangely, I can't find it in an image search.

 

[mingo]

Definatley Metropolis Street Racer on the DC, my mates and I would just stop and admire the views and place we eat in that were featured in the game.

 

[IHaveIce]

Riven and Myst 3.. I'm still confused why these games looked so good, I mean I look at the screenshots right now.

 

[Crayon]

I remember the bullshots of Gran Turismo 2 in EGM blew my mind, There was one shot of the rally on the side of hte Grand Canyon from above that looked like a photo. My mind was blown. Strangely, I can't find it in an image search.

You might be thinking gt4. That stage actually looks pretty awesome.

 

[epmode]

Riven and Myst 3.. I'm still confused why these games looked so good, I mean I look at the screenshots right now.

I've never played Myst 3 but Riven is almost entirely pre-rendered.