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[daviyoung]

They looked bad even then because PS1 released while arcade gaming was in its 3D prime. The first games to look breathtaking on a home console were blessed Dreamcast games because arcades had slowly descended into cheap gimmickry.

 

[Celegus]

Not at all, I thought they looked like garbage too. The only stuff I could play that gen was JRPGs. Any kind of action game or platformer or 3d game just made me want to barf. I could barely tolerate Mario 64, and hated OoT. Definitely the worst generation of games.

 

[Phawx]

It's also not fair looking at these games without a CRT filter over them.

 

[LeleSocho]

Playstation 3d was incredibly ugly, N64 was much better on that side.
The opposite for 2d.

 

[Dusk Golem]

Also, before I forget, I love games that really try to make the most with limitations. For some reason this topic got me thinking of how amazing Alone in the Dark: New Nightmare looked on PS1.

 

[IN&OUT]

That's true, but I wish they'd have waited for texture filtering.

what kind of logic is that? waited for texture filtering? it's a freaking 1994 machine dude, games looked mindblowing at the time, after that we had a whole bunch of consoles that improved the graphics of games.

It's like asking phone providers in 1990 to stop selling old phones because they don't have touch screens. they should have waited for Touchscreen !!!

 

[mattp]

Emulated PSX games look like fucking garbage because of how smooth the blocky models are and the textures end up being filtered, too.

However... PS1 games rendering on the actual hardware are so, so sexy. That blocky, sharp jittery look the 3D had due to the shitty zbuffer was amazing.

yep
we're in the minority on this, but we're also right

 

[Damaniel]

I generally preferred the look of Playstation games to their N64 counterparts. Stretching tiny textures over huge polys always looks bad. The best looking N64 games realized this and relied on shaded polys in place of textured ones.

Both systems are pretty hard to go back to without emulators. The Playstation had more games that make it worth the effort.

 

[daninthemix]

No perspective correction and no bilinear filtering created that pixelly, squirmy look. At the time, plenty of those games were nonetheless visually amazing - my mind struggles to produce examples right now, but I was blown away time and again across the 200ish games I played on that system.

 

[kittens]

N64 graphics were almost good, you could tell they tried really hard to make the visuals smooth. The blurriness and framerates really hampered the visuals though. DC was the first 3D system where I was like "finally 3D games look good".

Yeah, totally. The visuals felt like such a huge step down, but I still loved the hell out of my N64. I wish we would have seen more sprite based games on the console. Imagine if we had gotten another 2D Metroid on the N64.

 

[Tayaya]

In 1995, no way. The PlayStation was amazing in its time. Totally blew 15-year-old me away and filled my gaming past with so many great memories (and is also when I started importing games)!

In 2014 - yeah it's ugly and it's hard to go back to very many of the 3D games with a few excpetions (mostly Tobal 2, Einhander, and Internal Section. See also Wipeout 3).

 

[MightyHedgehog]

Yes, it could look ugly and was made considerably outdated-feeling by the time DC and later N64 stuff showed up, but most PC games were still targeting software rendering for much of Playstation's active lifespan and the choice among those running or requiring GPUs was limited for a quite a while into the 2000s. Even though arcade 3D games made it looks positively ancient before it was a year or so out, PS1 3D was great for the time and, occasionally, amazing for what it was...even long after PS2 hit.

 

[Freshmaker]

I'll confess that I am delighted when I find aggressive dithering in a game. (Usually PSP games.) Hits me right in the nostalgia.

 

[Mugy]

There are some games i couldn't play in PS1 because they were horrible cut. South Park Rally for example. But overall i like PS1 graphics and style. The fact that a machine like that was able to pull things like Vagrant Story is just a miracle

 

[crozier]

N64 graphics were far superior at the time, but PS1 graphics have certainly aged better. I'll take blocky and pixelated over shit-smeared any day of the week.

 

[davepoobond]

Prerendered scenes were pretty nice and I think still are better than the "always has to be real time" crap were forced to always have nowadays.

 

[FuriousDark]

 

[Lumination]

Totally agree. Even as a kid, the PS1 polygons looked too sharp and pixelated to me. Never liked it.

 

[Ivan]

yep
we're in the minority on this, but we're also right

I'm with you guys

 

[FlyingSaucer]

Going from the luscious pixel art of 16-bits console to the horrible and arid 3D graphics of PS1 was such a major let-down at the time that I stopped playing consoles and went full PC - untill the moment I glimpsed the first screenshots of SaGa Frontier 2.

 

[LookAtMeGo]

Mind blowing visuals.

 

[sn00zer]

I liked them, but I was always jealous of the N64 open world games like Kazooie and Mario 64

 

[Z3M0G]

It was a strange era... We were playing games in 3D, but knew deep down that what we were playing was ugly.

Many of us were already playing games in 64 bit... N64 games were easier on the eyes, for sure... and many of us probably compared the two without realizing it.

But, you know, CD had to win out.

 

[LeleSocho]

what kind of logic is that? waited for texture filtering? it's a freaking 1994 machine dude, games looked mindblowing at the time, after that we had a whole bunch of consoles that improved the graphics of games.

It's like asking phone providers in 1990 to stop selling old phones because they don't have touch screens. they should have waited for Touchscreen !!!

PlayStation hardly looked mindblowing when stuff like Virtua Fighter 2 and 3 was out in the wild

 

[anexanhume]

Nope. I preferred N64 Mario Blurfest Italiana.

 

[fertygo]

Not gonna lie, PSX 3D's game maybe that aged worse for today standard.
Tried to play Chrono Cross, goddamn the model make my eyes hurt.. even if its not FF7 bad.

 

[Tiktaalik]

There were plenty of reaaally rough looking PS1 games. I recall that when I played FF7 for the first time I couldn't believe the massive gap between the good looking battle scene models and terrible blockyness of the main game. Graphics at times in FF7 are just outright terrible.

Later on the PS1 started to look fantastic, with I think some of the highlights being Spyro and MGS.

 

[shandy706]

I liked both my PS1/N64 at the time.

There was a time where I considered the N64 the much bigger "powerhouse" graphics wise.

Conker, Perfect Dark, Banjo, Zelda: OoT, Mario 64...those games blew me away. It was games like those that made me start to really hate the jumpy textures and flickering in PS1 games.


Fast forward to many years later and I'm not bothered by the PS1's graphics shortcomings. There were games on it I played and loved despite the way they looked. I think I wore out 2-3 discs of Destruction Derby at one point.

 

[MercuryLS]

It was a strange era... We were playing games in 3D, but knew deep down that what we were playing was ugly.

N64 games were easier on the eyes, for sure... and many of us probably compared the two without realizing it.

But, you know, CD had to win out.

I don't know how I dealt with N64 framerates. I went back and played Goldeneye a few years back and got motion sickness. That whole era was so bad, some good games came out of it but when it it comes to visuals...just gross.

 

[petethepanda]

The refined chunkiness of late-era PS1 games like Vagrant Story and Chrono Cross looks so damn good. The way characters get reduced to a chunk of pixels as you walk further and further out into the Ocean at Opassa beach... man.

Edit:

 

[Camoxide]

Dat N64 smoothness

 

[Always-honest]

It is bad now, back then it was incredible and breathtaking for me.

Nah, i hated the first 3D graphics. Actually, this is the first gen with PS4 where graphics on consoles (and in general) have become a bit mature.
Gow the first time i played Ocarine of time on the N64 the graphics almost made me vomit. Amazing game and amazing what they acomplished on the hardware, but fugly as hell.

 

[jstripes]

I hated them too, honestly. Didn't like the N64 much either.

That era had some great games, but damn, barring some exceptions, they looked like shit.

 

[mattp]

Dat N64 smoothness

hrm, are these real screenshots?
that n64 shot looks way higher res than the psx one

 

[Vecks]

They looked terrible, sure, but that ain't stopping me from playing them games.

 

[Z3M0G]

hrm, are these real screenshots?
that n64 shot looks way higher res than the psx one

Why would that be strange?

 

[Kaybe]

I prefer the lack of texture filtering when the textures are as low-res as they were, I like the sharp look of them. I hate the blurry, smeared-out, filtered textures most games on the N64 had.

 

[LaserHawk]

I, too, was not very fond of the PS1 era 3D graphics. N64 3D was not much better, but I still preferred it.

I've said it before, but I think the PS1/N64 era was puberty for the video games industry. Games were a bit rough and funny-looking, but only for a while.

 

[Phediuk]

I find them nostalgic now though. There was an abstract, bizarre quality to a lot of PS1 and N64 game worlds that's been lost now, since there was no expectation that basic polygonal environments would conform to reality.

 

[Z3M0G]

I also want to throw in... PS1 games look fantastic on PSP/Vita.

 

[MizzouRah]

hrm, are these real screenshots?
that n64 shot looks way higher res than the psx one

I don't think it is. The N64 one has way too much Anisotropic Filtering on the floor.

 

[SmokedMeat]

3D was the hot new thing back then, and while it's ugly as sin now, it looked great back then.

 

[Dr. Zoidberg]

It depends on the game, really. Some of it looks really bad, and others don't bother me.

Tekken 2 looks good, for example, whereas Tekken looked like ass.

 

[Halcyon]

I used to argue with people in my highschool about this. PS1 rendered 3D like garbage. Compare Spyro to Banjo and the differences are obvious.


The N64 did look like a blurry washed out mess when they tried to push the system past its limits, but I'll take that over the hot mess that is something like Tenchu.

 

[Shoogoo]

I didn't like them either. Until I played Front Mission 3 and fell in love with it. I think at that point I started enjoying them.

 

[Freshmaker]

Playstation 3d was incredibly ugly, N64 was much better on that side.
The opposite for 2d.

They both spit out some bad 3d.

I loved F Zero X but man that was an eyesore.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TH1T_U3ctA

 

[GamingIsDead]

I liked them more then the n64's for sure. Textures seemed more detailed, mgs was pulling off effects like motion blur, distortion effects and color correction.

 

[Orayn]

Mixed feelings. I have a nostalgic appreciation for the low poly models and pixelated textures due to nearest neighbor filtering, but the jerky 3D really turns me off.

 

[Pimpwerx]

Compared to the Saturn? Yes. Compared to the N64? No. PS1 had the best visuals by a noticeable amount when it came out. PEACE.

 

[Monty Mole]

It is bad now, back then it was incredible and breathtaking for me.

At launch perhaps, but not for long. As a PC owner with a 3D card in the late 90s, PSX was almost unplayable. I know people talk about a 'gulf' between consoles and PC now, but it's nothing compared to how things were back then.