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[mcz117chief]

why were we do convinced this shit looked real? like it's pretty obvious it's not. some kind of reverse uncanny valley.

well the TVs back then were pretty low quality so even regular broadcast looked pretty bad. I remember when we were in Morocco and some kids were playing Fifa on PS2 that some people saw it and shouted "look, guys. The match has already started!" (there was a World cup or Euro cup or something played around that time) and it actually took them about 5 seconds to realise it wasn't TV broadcast.

 

[Trilobit]

I was a bit too awed by this explosion effect and how it made the whole screen shake.

 

[LlamaJohnson]

When I had my Genesis, my cousin brought over The Last Battle. To this day, all I can remember is looking at the characters and thinking, "This is the greatest thing I've ever seen"

 

[ss_lemonade]

I remember being really impressed by the grass texture in Halo back in 2001.

Literally next-gen grass lol. Even PC shooters at that time tended to avoid grass, so it was really cool to see a high-res texture like that.

Its not just the grass. I remember zooming in on everything. Rocks, walls, gun models, etc.

 

[Rapscallion]

I remember thinking the water in Banjo Kazooie looked amazing.

It looks...fine?

 

[televator]

OMG! Sonic has individual fingers! Goodbye last gen meat fists.

 

[LurkerPrime]

The draw distance of Xenoblade Chronicles, giving it a sense of grandness and scale that impressed me to no end. Very ambitious visuals on a Wii, no less. It's one of the few times I've truly been wowed by graphics.

Here's Gaur plains as an example. Spectacular views, coupled with dat music.
(Hopefully this is a Wii screenshot!)

 

[lazygecko]

The bump mapped walls in the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion starting cell.

There's an extra layer of parallax mapping on them to give them even more depth than regular normal mapped textures. It wasn't featured much elsewhere though, so they probably put it there specifically just to make a good first impression.

And the next time you install Oblivion you ought to try using my texture replacements.

 

[Oregano]

I remember being really blown away by seeing a Vita running for the first time. it was a tennis game on a demo unit.

does anyone know what it was? virtua tennis? top spin?

I also remember being really impressed by metal Mario's chrome finish in SM64.

I imagine it was Virtua Tennis 4. Still regarded as one of Vita's most impressive titles.

 

[Fuchsdh]

• The way Lost Odyssey would layer in pre-rendered video mid battle.
  [*]Warcraft III's cutscenes.
• Map size in GTA:SA and still being a one and done loading screen (does this count as graphics?)
• Lighting in Doom 3

Ooof, yeah. The Warcraft movie made me rewatch the cinematics, and they're horrible-looking now. The in-game boxy cinematics have actually aged better to me.

On a related note, Blur's work for Halo Wars was stupendous for the time, but looking back on it some of the faces feel off, especially since the franchise has absolutely nailed some of the best in-game animation work on that front.

Spartans shouldn't float *hmph*



Nah, I'm with you on that one. Halo 2 has some things that look better but overall Halo 1 has a cleaner more colorful/vibrant (almost Jet Force Geminy-ish) look to it that I really appreciate.

I agree as well. The extra detail is nice, but everything got dulled down, especially Chief going from a rich iridescent green armor to a drab olive.

 

[John Petrucci]

Definitely Super Mario RPG for me. I think that was the first time I was really floored by graphics.

 

[Wishmaster92]

I've never been particularly impressed by graphics in games.

This doesn't look the least bit impressive to you?

 

[malboroking]

Perfect Dark Zero's bumpmapping

Far Cry Instinct Predator's water
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1qPue2I5qQ

Splinter Cell Chaos Theory's Lighting

Both of those examples are still pretty impressive imo.

yeah you caught me, i was trying to look like a really cool dude who is better than everyone else

(or maybe I was just sharing my opinion in a thread that asks for opinions)

Thread title: "Now-unimpressive visual details in games that once blew your mind"

So how did your comment add to the discussion? You literally have nothing that once blew your mind, so you literally have nothing to add to the discussion but white noise.

 

[Glass Shark]

This doesn't look the least bit impressive to you?

It's something that is attempting to look realistic that is still obviously fake, so not really. I prefer to play games that have more stylized looks.

 

[MrBadger]

Any crazy 3D effects on the SNES

 

[Timu]

Crysis 1: The thread

 

[jelly]

The rain level in Gears of War.


Barf.

What am I even looking at?

That bad huh. I thought that level was tech demo land. Absolutely nothing, same buildings, nothing but rain shaders.

 

[eso76]

One thing that hasn't been mentioned: bloom in early Xbox games.

Tbh, when I saw the first Wreckless trailer the light bleeding and choking backlit objects' edges is what made me say "yeah right, like we're supposed to believe this is not CG". It's something we immediately associated with prerendered graphics at the time, i believe that was the first game to implement the effect (at least convincingly).

I also loved how bloom was used in Otogi: it gave everything a dreamish look that really suited the atmosphere of the game.

As with most effects, there's nothing inherently bad about it, there's a time and place for it but devs overdoing it in the early days made people hate it although when toned down and used properly it's a necessity.


Oh, environment mapping in Gran Turismo. Those cars looked real ! It made such a huge difference I could never go back to racers not using it. After GT, it did become mandatory.

 

[KAL2006]

Gears of War blew me away especially because it was my first time playing a HD game in console. The motion blur when running, the huge detailed muscular characters, the war torn setting.

Now unfortunately it looks like one of them old Unreal Engine 3 games with a generic bald space marine art direction.

 

[SiegfriedFM]

The physics in Soul Blade - cloth flaps, flags waving in the wind, the grass on Rock's stage.

Also, I remember thinking that Track & Field II was photo realistic. Later, I thought Gran Turismo was photo realistic.

Oh, and Mega Man blinking in his idle pose was groundbreaking.

 

[Muffdraul]

MGS THE THREAD.

Basically all kojima games have minute details that blow my mind:

Pooping horse slips trucks in MGSV

Tried that so many god damn times, never worked once for me. HORSE POOP HOW DOES IT WORK

 

[Typicalrik]

First Wow graphic moment for me, was spell casting in final fantasy 6!!!

 

[Corronchilejano]

Coronas in Unreal. I thought they were incredible and super realistically represented lighting. Oh how the times have changed.

 

[xam3l]

From the top of my head NFS Underground had some sweet sfx at the time with car reflections and motion blur.

 

[AGoodODST]

The day/night cycle in OoT, I hadn't seen anything like it before and thought it was amazing haha.

 

[blame space]

I imagine it was Virtua Tennis 4. Still regarded as one of Vita's most impressive titles.

thanks! wish this was on the PlayStation store.

 

[Shikoba]

I always thought EverQuest spell casting/animations looked amazing growing up.

 

[bobbychalkers]

What are the tricks? Would be interested to hear them pointed out. I never played any game in this series, and that screen looks great to me.

Simple geometry, with nice lighting and reflections. Looks nice at the fixed angle in motion but the player isn't meant to get up close to break the illusion of depth.

 

[gatti-man]

The 12 levels of parallax scrolling in Shadow of the Beast, on the Commodore Amiga in 1989:

The (brutally hard) game also featured an amazing soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKyB51o9AJg

Simply jaw dropping for the time.

This. Truly amazing for its time. It captivated me as a child.

 

[Jack Scofield]

This doesn't look the least bit impressive to you?

https://abload.de/img/kratosicjw0.png[IMG][/QUOTE]

This isn't a render?

 

[Wishmaster92]

This isn't a render?

Nope. It's the gameplay character model

 

[CS_Dan]

This glorious boss battle.

 

[malboroking]

I always thought EverQuest spell casting/animations looked amazing growing up.

The best part about that was the higher your level and the higher the level of the spell gave you more particles. When you were capped casting high level spells, particles were flying everywhere. It still looks pretty cool. My favorite were the healing spells, they would have this sphere of blue particles around you while particles were shooting out of your hands like a firework.

 

[HTupolev]

I know it's technically a "wrong" opinion, but I still feel Halo CE looks better than Halo 2.

Nothing weirdly technically objectionable about that opinion. Halo 2's graphics are more complex and modern than Halo 1's, but not without compromises. Halo 2's ambitious use of unique textures and streaming led to both popping and smudgyness, and like-for-like dynamic phenomena are dialed down in general; smaller lights and less specular, fewer large transparencies and decals, far fewer particles.

 

[bud]

the dynamic shadows in mgs2.

 

[Maxathon]

Simple geometry, with nice lighting and reflections. Looks nice at the fixed angle in motion but the player isn't meant to get up close to break the illusion of depth.

Thanks. Sounds like standard skybox stuff, which usually fools me good.

Illusory Wall did a great series of posts about the various LOD models for skyboxes in the original Dark Souls, if anyone's interested: http://illusorywall.tumblr.com/tagged/lod

 

[PassiveObserver]

The promo shots of the first Madden (2001) on PS2. Thought that shit looked so clean. Dramatic improvement over Madden 99 that I was playing at the time. That jersey texture seemed like real fabric.

 

[capylikesgames]

Luigi's Mansion was the first game I saw that made me realize how big the graphical jump between the fifth and sixth generation of consoles really was.

I remember seeing the E3 trailer, and being absolutely awe-struck by it. No more pre-rendered backgrounds; everything in the house was individually modeled, textured, and could be interacted with. The lighting was beyond anything I had seen before, with an incredibly warm feeling that bounced off everything, as well as casting dynamic shadows, something previously worked around through dark blobs on the ground. Plus, characters had much more detail than ever before. Even the loading animation, which involved Luigi cautiously grasping at a doorknob before opening it, was really cool to see.

I doubt this was the first game to do any of this, and obviously other consoles at the time were just as capable, but young me was a pretty big Nintendo fan. Seeing some of my favorite characters take a graphical leap was the first thing that really caught my attention. It made me stop for a moment and individually take in all the details.

 

[Beerman462]

Some of the old 3D Mark Demos. Nvidia demos too.

Also DKC1

 

[Nostremitus]

Faces on the players on Madden.

Not even likenesses, but just having a face instead of a shadow under the helmet.

Shadows of the Empire
Dash Rendar has a polygonal nose.


Side scrollers
Enemies that didn't reset as soon as they left the screen.

 

[Anion]

Rain and winshield wipers in PGR4

Couldn't find one with actual rain lol

 

[Mobius 1]

The water in Morrowind on Pc blew my mind...

I came here to post this. It was the hallmark effect for DirectX 8.1, and every GPU manufacturer was doing their best to point that feature out.

Remember the SiS Xabre? Yeah...

 

[darkwing-buck]

Thief Deadly Shadows blew my mind back in the day.

 

[PassiveObserver]

Luigi's Mansion was the first game I saw that made me realize how big the graphical jump between the fifth and sixth generation of consoles really was.

Played this in 2014 and I was impressed. Cloth physics, particle effects, and character animation that exuded charm rather than looking clunky like much of the 32/64-bit era.

 

[Nephtes]

CTRL + F "Unreal Castle FlyBy"
0 results first page...

 

[AHappyPanda]

I remembering playing GRAW back in early 2006 and thinking, "Holy shit, this game looks amazing. The lighting, the geometry, and textures all look great. Next gen is finally here." Now?



Not so much.

GRAW was the game that convinced me to buy an Xbox 360, I thought it was the most realistic game I had ever seen up to that point.

 

[psychotron]

Almost everything about the first section of the PS1 game One

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dbBVeFJSgeQ

Yes!! I remember it being really fucking hard, but gorgeous.

 

[zq_audio]

glQuake.

 

[malboroking]

CTRL + F "Unreal Castle FlyBy"
0 results first page...

Ooh, good one. I Remember getting a brand new computer around the Tim Unreal came out. Pentium 2 333MHz, 256 MB of Ram and a Monster 2 12 MB video card. UNeal was the game to show off to everybody, it looked amazing at the time. Nowadays not so much but it was a very memorable stepping stone to where we are nowadays.

 

[Saganator]

Page 5 and no Mario 64? Bout to date myself a bit with this post..

Metal Mario

The liquid metal pool in Mario 64

That shit blew my mind! Honorable mention to Pilot Wings 64, being able to fly in the gyrocopter, never had that kind of freedom in a game before.

Before that, I remember the first time I saw Sonic, I thought it was the best graphics will ever be. The rotating gold rings? OMG.