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Biggest graphical leap in a series in a single generation?

Can't believe anyone has mentioned Metal Gear Solid 2 ----- > Metal Gear Solid 3 on the PS2.

The leap was insane considering the hardware. Better character models, better textures, better lighting, grass "simulation", better special effects...
 
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wat for both of your images

Can't believe anyone has mentioned Metal Gear Solid 2 ----- > Metal Gear Solid 3 on the PS2.

The leap was insane considering the hardware. Better character models, better textures, better lighting, grass "simulation", better special effects...

Don't forget half the frame rate
 
Yes of course in the rain it looks much better, but in normal conditions I don't think PGR3 is too far behind, especially from cockpit view. The most impressive game is still PGR2 imo, 11 years old and still looks great.

Well, PGR1->PGR2 is impressive too:

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TO:

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Nothing else comes to mind, Super Mario Bros 3 was gorgeous. Later gen NES titles in general just looked great. Could you imagine showing someone in 1986 that just bought Super Mario Bros Kirby's adventure and then telling them they were running on the same system it would of blown their mind

And this was before the era where companies decided going for choppy tearing unresponsive 'cinematic' experiences was a reasonable thing to do if it meant better graphics. Both games ran at a silky vsynched 60FPS (50FPS for our Euro and Asia PALs), of course.
 
Can't believe anyone has mentioned Metal Gear Solid 2 ----- > Metal Gear Solid 3 on the PS2.

The leap was insane considering the hardware. Better character models, better textures, better lighting, grass "simulation", better special effects...

Half the frame rate... :P
 
Dudes, this shit is about games that leaped within a single console gen to the next. MGS3->MGS4, SSB:M->SSB:B, RE:CV -> RE4 are bullshit examples.

Post shit that was on the same console ffs.
 
Yeah but the comparison is silly either way. CoD2 was cross-gen as well, so no duh it's gonna look like shit.

CoD2 was not cross gen. It came out only on the 360 and PC.

There was a game branded "Call of Duty 2: Big Red One" on PS2/GC/Xbox, but it was a totally different game from a different studio.
 
Yeah but the comparison is silly either way. CoD2 was cross-gen as well, so no duh it's gonna look like shit.

CoD2 on PC blew my mind when it came out, those smoke effects were insane, only had to wait another year for Gears to make everything else look like crap though :P
 
Splinter Cell 1 to Chaos Theory is a huge jump. I can't really find good comparison pictures though.
 
Well, we are talking about graphics :P

Some samples (like CoD) have downgraded resolution.

Yes, but examples like Forza 2 to 4 are much more impressive considering they kept the 60fps. Forza 2 did look like crap though even when it was released so they had a lot of room to improve.
 
UC3 and R3 were much better then the originals

Disagree. U3 was a rage-inducing third-person shooter with terrible level design hiding behind personable characters, and R3 was a tacked-on bland horse-flog that ended a series without grace. Neither of the originals are things I'd put in a best games of all time list, but at least I has enough fun to finish both.

U3 will always be a reminder that sometimes it's better to just walk away than trudge through a game just because. I forced myself to finish it and hated myself for it. There was no pay-off, no epiphany. All that happened was that my hatred grew to such an unreasonable level that I questioned whether I wanted to play video games any more if this was what the critics acclaimed and the masses demanded.

On topic, I'm going to say Virtua Fighter to Virtua Fighter 2 on Satrurn. The former made the Saturn look cheap next to things like Toshinden. The latter was a graphical marvel and the jewel in the Saturn's crown.
 
Sonic 1 - Sonic 3 & Knuckles

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Not really like the other Sonic games so I don't know if this would count. Still impressive considering the hardware.

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The right answer must be Uncharted.
Especially Uncharted 1 to Uncharted 2, where only they were with only a 2 year gap.
The differences are immense!
 
These are from two separate generations.OP is asking for single generation leaps.

Forza 2 to Forza 4/Horizon gets my vote
People would probably argue that GC and Wii aren't sufficiently different, which actually also serves to highlight the issue counting PC games and those that leaped across platforms. It's probably worth bringing them up as examples anyway, but they got a jump partially from having stronger hardware on hand, not just making much better use of the same hardware. Else, I could destroy every example with old DOS games like Ultima:

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Ultima IV (1985)

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Ultima VI (1990)

And just for fun since the NES was technically still reasonably active in 1992 so that "generation" was still going:

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Ultima VII (1992)

Anyways, my same console pick would probably be Super Mario Bros. Whether you want to start with SMB1, Mario Bros, or even Donkey Kong it's crazy how big the leap was in those days.
Ghosts doesn't even look that good on PS4, it's clearly a downsampled PC shot.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure the 360/PS3 version does NOT look that good.

But even if you either went with that version or went to Black Ops II instead it's crazy how big of a jump that series had from start to end without cross gen shenanigans.
 
Got beaten to it but for me personally, Oblivion to Skyrim. While I think i ended up liking Oblivion more, Skyrim looks way better. Looking at the faces/characters almost looks like a generational leap.

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Disagree. U3 was a rage-inducing third-person shooter with terrible level design hiding behind personable characters, and R3 was a tacked-on bland horse-flog that ended a series without grace. Neither of the originals are things I'd put in a best games of all time list, but at least I has enough fun to finish both.

U3 will always be a reminder that sometimes it's better to just walk away than trudge through a game just because. I forced myself to finish it and hated myself for it. There was no pay-off, no epiphany. All that happened was that my hatred grew to such an unreasonable level that I questioned whether I wanted to play video games any more if this was what the critics acclaimed and the masses demanded.

What is this? I don't even...


To say U3 wasnt quite as good as 2 is very understandable. To say that although you liked 1-2, 3 almost made you quite gaming? That's beyond ridiculous. The games are too similar to warrant that strong of a contrast in opinion.


Resistance 3 I havent played, but it was the last PS3 game I purchased. The "Most Underrated Games" thread had a ton of good things to say about it though, and I rather liked the Resistance Series. Even the Vita version was a good effort.
 
Got beaten to it but for me personally, Oblivion to Skyrim. While I think i ended up liking Oblivion more, Skyrim looks way better. Looking at the faces/characters almost looks like a generational leap.

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I'm so glad Bethesda learned how to do good (tweakable) faces. Now if only they could learn to stop removing things from their games as well... I suppose it's a good sign that they've been reluctant to announce anything for their next game yet.
 
What is this? I don't even...


To say U3 wasnt quite as good as 2 is very understandable. To say that although you liked 1-2, 3 almost made you quite gaming? That's beyond ridiculous. The games are too similar to warrant that strong of a contrast in opinion.

I didn't say I liked 2.

The series went steadily downhill in my opinion. The puzzles and platforming took a backseat to the combat, and a story and characters that enhanced became the focus rather than complimentary. The boat level and the sandstorm level are some of the worst pieces of game design ever.

As shonky and inconsistent as Golden Abyss was, it was closer to the spirit of the original that any of the direct successors.

Anyway, my original point was simply one noticing that when the focus goes to presentation, the gameplay suffers. Whether that's because there's less freedom or corners are being cut to make way for the pretty or whatever. It was simply an observation that there's a correlation between my feelings on those games and their graphics.

This isn't a rule. I think Ridge Racer IV is a better game than Ridge Racer or Rage Racer.

I don't want to derail it too much. I just want to clarify my opinion and why I said it.
 
Actually, now I'm also wondering partially how old some people are and when they seriously got into games, because while I'm clearly underestimating last gen jumps they're not the ones that jump to mind as the biggest examples, but rather mainly NES games where we went from stuff like Ice Climber and ended with Kirby's Adventure.

And I just went with first US year of the NES for Ultima IV and last pre-SNES year in the case of Ultima VI specifically. If I went with the Japanese launch I could pull out Ultima III, which would make the jump absolutely unreal just from III to VI, maybe even V really.
 
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