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Games that Gave You "THAT NEXT GEN FEEL" !!!!!!!! this generation.

R

RyanReedyMusic

Banned
After playing Mirrors Edge for another 8 hours on PC with PhysX on max.

Im simply blown away by the art design and NEXT GEN FEEL that it still gives me to play it.

As of this generation of games there have only been a few games that I can count on my 2 hands that have made me feel I was playing a NEXT GENERATION feel of a game.

Mirrors Edge definitely being one of them due to the immersive feel of the environment. Ligthing, design etc.

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter is another one that just simply felt NEXT GEN as soon as I played it. There was just something amazing about the environments and the combat was so spot on to what I felt it should be as I played it.

Mass Effect 1What can I say this game pulled me in to what it set out to do. Introduce us all to a new space inhabited world. As soon as I began playing. It felt like something I was looking for that felt NEXT GEN

Bioshock I remember that first level like it were yesterday. Once again it was the gameplay and the water dripping world that pulled me in to that experience. It felt like nothing I had played before once again giving me that NEXT GEN experience I was looking for.


Some worthy mentions for me are Uncharted 2/3, Killzone 2/3, Dear Esther, Alan Wake but the above have always reminded me of why I play games and what NEXT GEN feel Im looking for.

Edit: I cant believe some of the titles I forgot to put in here as the comments pour in.
WHAT ABOUT YOU?
 
Just cause 2. Massive game, looks and plays really well to boot. Flying around the whole island really gave me that "next gen" feeling.
 
Metroid Prime still feels ahead of the game in many ways and it's 2 gens old now.

Just counting this gen? Crysis. Holy hell @ that game.
 
The original Uncharted where you get to the ship stranded on a waterfall. I remember the first level of Uncharted being ugly and choppy but the second level was pretty
 
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Rainbow Six Vegas



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Gears of War
 
Oblivion is one that immediately comes to mind. As soon as I walked out of the sewer and saw what lied before me I knew this was the next gen. Amazing stuff.

Final Fantasy XIII gave me tons of "hell yeah this is the next gen!" feelings. The visuals still amaze me.

And as many people have said, Gears of War. The first areas with the buildings with pillars amazed the hell out of me. Amazing architecture.

Uncharted 1&2 for many reasons.
 
In terms of sheer expanse and WOAH factor, its gotta be Xenoblade.

Close runner ups would be Just Cause 2 and Portal 2.
 
Gears of War and Dead Rising. My first two 360 games, all those years ago. I remember gushing about how nice the fountains looked in Dead Rising.
 
Generally -

Oblivion - just floored me coming from Morrowind. Until I played the rest of the game.
Gears - alot of things.
Call of Duty 4 - Just the lighting and shadowing in the helicopter at the beginning I remember being really impressed by.
UC2 - alot of things.
GOW3 - The opening minutes still feel like the most impressive thing this gen, technically and artistically. Craziness.

And surprisingly for so late in the gen (only played it a couple weeks ago) parts of KZ3. Especially nearer the end
nearing the mech
.
 
Wii Sports and SMG for the design; TLS for the combat mechanism in a jRPG; Skyrim for the expansiveness; being a PC gamer and already having played Doom 3 and Far Cry, I didn't feel anything special about the graphical jump.
 
I never really got a "next gen" feel this gen. Perhaps it was a combination of PC gaming and experiencing bigger graphical leaps before spoiled it for me.

Although there where still games that definitely showed the potential of 360/PS3/Wii.

I remember first seeing DOAX2 and confused it for "CG" at times
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Blue Dragon was another well done current gen game. Good textures and models although the frame rate could go to hell fast at times.
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Pokemon Battle Revolution was prehaps the first game that made the Wii stand out over the Gamecube/Xbox to me.
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RyanReedyMusic said:
After playing Mirrors Edge for another 8 hours on PC with PhysX on max.

Im simply blown away by the art design and NEXT GEN FEEL that it still gives me to play it.

As of this generation of games there have only been a few games that I can count on my 2 hands that have made me feel I was playing a NEXT GENERATION feel of a game.

Mirrors Edge definitely being one of them due to the immersive feel of the environment. Ligthing, design etc.

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter is another one that just simply felt NEXT GEN as soon as I played it. There was just something amazing about the environments and the combat was so spot on to what I felt it should be as I played it.

Mass Effect 1What can I say this game pulled me in to what it set out to do. Introduce us all to a new space inhabited world. As soon as I began playing. It felt like something I was looking for that felt NEXT GEN

Bioshock I remember that first level like it were yesterday. Once again it was the gameplay and the water dripping world that pulled me in to that experience. It felt like nothing I had played before once again giving me that NEXT GEN experience I was looking for.


Some worthy mentions for me are Uncharted 2/3, Killzone 2/3, Dear Esther, Alan Wake but the above have always reminded me of why I play games and what NEXT GEN feel Im looking for.

Edit: I cant believe some of the titles I forgot to put in here as the comments pour in.
WHAT ABOUT YOU?
Click to expand...

I would NEVER forget that intro to Bioshock and crash landing into the water. I thought it was still a cut scene because the water graphics were just too amazing.

bioshock_01.jpg
 
Bioshock was the first video game I ever purchased.

Crysis was... holy fuck, Crysis. In fact, I find myself wondering if anything has hit Crysis' level yet. I'm not sure they have.

STALKER was the video game that made me go "oh. Video games can be way, way better than they are." No game has quite gotten to STALKER's level, which is hugely disappointing. Why can't more people be as ambitious as GSC? :(
 
Raising my hand for thinking the BioShock intro was a cutscene. Graphically that was probably the first big "holy shit" moment for me. I distinctly remember sitting there, watching the pre-rendered artefact riddled video intro, followed by screams to a black screen as the plane crashed, and then the sequence of seeing various debris float with myself to the surface of the water, the surface littered with the flaming wrecking of the aircraft illuminated against the night sky.

I thought the entire sequence was pre-rendered and sat there waiting for the sequence to continue. Moving the mouse to see it was all in real time, including the gorgeous looking lighthouse in the distance, was something else.

Then Crysis arrived later that year :P.

EDIT: BioShock was on PC, for what it's worth.
 
Super Mario Galaxy and Super Smash Bros Brawl. I was a huge Nintendo fan around the beginning of this generation so seeing my favorite franchises (at the time) look so good blew my mind. I also remember Metroid Prime 3's textures blowing me away when I got it.

Wii Sports Resort was the game that literally made me do a double take and have my jaw drop this generation. I purchased my Wii a little bit after launch and came to think that 1:1 motion controls just weren't possible in gameplay. The original Wii Sports had 1:1 control with the baseball bat but it would never affect gameplay so it was just a visual effects in the end. Around the time WSR came I out I had accepted the motion control jankiness of the Wii and was fine with it. When I popped in the game and tossed on the motion plus attachment my mind was blown. I was in awe for hours. It really pisses me off no other games really used the tech that much apart from Red Steel 2, Skyward Sword, and Nintendo Land. Everytime I try a motion plus enabled game I am reminded of WSR and how awesome it is.

I picked up my first own HD console with Final fantasy 13 (I was using my brother's launch 360 before that and he would rarely let me touch it). I didn't even finish FF13 due to how bad it was but the visuals were fucking incredible. Everything since then has been a let down tbh. FF13's visuals made me expect other games to look as good and they didn't. The brown and grey filled games during the first 2/3 of the HD consoles life spans didn't make me not really appreciate their technical proficiency. Every time a colorful game like Sonic Generations comes out I wonder why no one else likes to use bright colors with HD graphics.
 
Demon's Souls, not really for graphics, but more because it completely changed my view of what constitutes a good action game.

GTA4, although I love to hate it, from a technical perspective at the time it released was like a miracle.

RDR, everything from graphics to story to gameplay and immersion.

Bioshock. "A man chooses a slave obeys." Technical marvel / story and immersion.

Sometimes the technical aspects of graphics and rendering play a roll, but more often then not it's when the atmosphere and mechanics reach a new height that I am truly impressed.
 
portal - the idea had never been pulled off before. it blew my mind.

mirror's edge - one of the few games where visuals really made the difference and added greatly to the experience. its original take on the platformer really helped too.

valkyria chronicles - the beautiful presentation was greatly aided by the power of the ps3. that, plus it felt like a real evolution of the strategy rpg genre.

that's about it.
 
Stranglehold's destructible environments are still among the best in any game. I wish part 2 ended up being made.
 
Red Faction: Guerrilla - The destruction, and it's gameplay implications.
Arkham Asylum - The level of polish and thought in each area, and how they felt like part of a seamless whole world.
Bulletstorm - The size, scope, and general level of imagination.
 
Uncharted blew my whole family away at the time. That's what made me happy to buy a PS3 and it was a surprise hit to me considering I got it solely based off a few things some people here said since I just got home after not having any internet, TV, or even magazine access for half a year so it was kind of an impulse buy that exceeded all expectations and made my PS3 worth it.

After that, I'd agree with Fight Night Round 3 and of course The Show which had three people in my family fooled as they thought it was a real game when they kept walking by...lol

Uncharted 2 then melted my mind of course. :P
 
Halo 3 was just a breathtaking experience for me when I first played it. Nintendo was relative to last-generation's hardware so nothing from there.

I suppose for Sony seeing Killzone 3. I never owned the game, but the graphics on that are pretty stunning.
 
Perfect Dark Zero's wall textures.

There were also some character face models that belonged on the Dreamcast in that game, so it was a mixed bag.
 
Kokonoe said:
Halo 3 was just a breathtaking experience for me when I first played it. Nintendo was relative to last-generation's hardware so nothing from there.

I suppose for Sony seeing Killzone 3. I never owned the game, but the graphics on that are pretty stunning.
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i bought halo 3 day 1 and the graphics were underwhelming, it didnt look that much better than halo 2 tbh
 
Xanadu said:
i bought halo 3 day 1 and the graphics were underwhelming, it didnt look that much better than halo 2 tbh
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This was pretty much the general sentiment about the game that I remember when it came out. It had great lighting and great art, but was pretty low-res.
 
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