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[AtomicShroom]

(Lifeforce, NES)

This was really freaking impressive in those days. I still kinda love it lol

It still is very impressive when you consider the limitations of the system! Lifeforce is such an underrated game (most likely because of its difficulty), but it's a masterpiece in my book!

 

[pringles]

The killer whale sequence in Sonic Adventures was unbelievable at the time. Pure insanity.

The grass and fur shading in Star Fox Adventures were also next gen stuff. Actually those are still nice.

And the Halo:CE textures are amazing to this day. I especially loved the ice in the snow levels. That game still holds up really well.

 

[nkarafo]

Silent Hill 2 was the first time i saw real time shadows being cast by the flashlight. Especially shadows from the environment, not just 3D models/enemies.

That was a big "next gen" moment for me.

 

[lord_of_flood]

Lots of things regarding the visor in the Metroid Prime games were really cool at the time. Fog, rain drops, enemy guts/liquids, even seeing your own reflection in the visor are all really neat touches that people wouldn't be impressed by nowadays.

 

[HueyFreeman]

Rain, frost, and this were all pretty cool to see on the visor.

Killzone looked impossible to me at one point but now I can see right through its tricks

Rain and winshield wipers in PGR4

Couldn't find one with actual rain lol

I feel like there's a lot of stuff being posted in here that can't really be described as "now unimpressive"

That water that let me thirsty every time I play.

This could go either way, but actually if you boot up Waverace 64 today, the fluid dynamics are actually still pretty impressive

 

[Nephtes]

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.

I had Unreal working in my 166MHz Pentium with MMX, 64 MB of RAM and a Diamond Monster 4 MB 3DFX card plugged into another 8MB 3DFX card (I don't remember which)...

The game barely ran...
Insult to injury, I somehow got the Quake 3 alpha to run on that rig...

It was a sight alright... D:

 

[Commanche Raisin Toast]

i can't find a gif, sadly, but the water in Unreal and Unreal Tournament blew my mind.

it somehow didn't bother me that the water was jiggling at super speed for no reason at all. it just looked pretty.

 

[Lanrutcon]

Unreal. The original.

Colored lighting without a fancy video card? unheard of texture and model quality? Blew my mind. I remember running the tech demo eagerly to see if my PC could handle it, and getting it to run in a tiny window.

Edit: Holy shit. Lots of people mentioning Unreal. High five!

 

[nOoblet16]

Perfect Dark Zero in 2005 was the first time I had ever seen Parallax Occlusion Mapping in a game before. I didn't know what it was called at the time, but God damn did those walls and floors ever look good. It was the only thing about the game that looked good.

it's just parallax mapping actually..not POM.

 

[GodParticle]

Seeing the first images of super mario world with the underwater transparency effect. Just remember that standing out as amazing back in the day haha

 

[GeordieMark]

Loads of the little details in today's footy games blew my mind when I first saw them, but the biggest would be when FIFA started using licensed kits. FIFA wasn't very good back then, but seeing the teams in accurate, detailed kits was huge for someone who started playing footy games when the players were a handful of pixels in either red or blue.

 

[J3ffro]

The year was 1991. I was approaching my 10th birthday, and rented a gem for the SNES, Hal's Hole in One Golf. I rode my bike home, slapped it into the console and jumped in with both feet. On the first hole I had a par putt, and I ran it in. As the ball approached the hole, the game flipped over to a cutscene of a ball rolling into a hole, and my life changed. It looked so lifelike, so real, I wasn't sure how video games could look much better than this.

Roughly a quarter century later, I believe that impression still holds up. Maybe not.

 

[moozoom]

The glory of Phantasy Star Dungeons. 1987

Bought a master system for this and Space harrier... In france the master system was sold BEFORE the NES - and for me they were a generation apart in terms of graphics.

I bought mine instantly after watching a videotape with some future games like Zillion, Fantasy Zone and Shinobi.

 

[Son Of D]

Tekken Tag Tournament on PS2:

This was a launch (or launch window at least) game for PS2. Actually sold me on the console.

 

[immortald3ath]

- Water in Morrowind, Wave Race GameCube, and Super Mario Sunshine.
- Grass textures in Halo: CE
- Fur in Starfox Adventures
- Lighting in Alan Wave
- Rain in Gears of War
- All the small little effects in Metroid Prime....face reflecting on visor, raindrops on visor etc
- Everything in REmake

 

[Oneself]

Fireball particles in KI arcade version.
Everything about DKC on snes.

 

[BobbyColtrane]

When the names started appearing on the back of sports jerseys, i was blown away.

 

[bobbychalkers]

I feel like there's a lot of stuff being posted in here that can't really be described as "now unimpressive"

Yeah, unimpressive is a heavy word for what I posted but its definitely doesn't' have the mindblowing effect it had back in 2013

 

[ThatOneGrunt]

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.

The liquid metal in Mario 64 was mind bending. And not so much visual, but I remember the first time I played that game and that area in front of the castle with the little wooden fence and the moat. I remember looking at that fence thinking there's no way I'll be able to jump over that and land in the water. Certain that there would be an invisible barrier and when there wasn't one I was blown away. Felt tingly all over.

I was also amazed by the final boss in Turok 64 where chunks of his body came off as you delivered damage to him.

 

[Beerman462]

Actuall these 3D mark 2001 images aren't that bad lol.

 

[jchap]

Gore animations in Soldier of Fortune

 

[Jonneh3003]

Most of these posts still look really good in my opinion.

 

[InfiniDragon]

This could go either way, but actually if you boot up Waverace 64 today, the fluid dynamics are actually still pretty impressive

Was about to say, there are games here and now that have crappy water physics compared to Waverace. I've always wondered why Nintendo had water physics like this back on the frickin' N64 and we're still getting static water with really nice shaders.

 

[ScientificPizza]

I thought call of duty 3 looked like real life the first time I saw it. I couldn't believe it

 

[higemaru]

On mobile so I can't post pics but Wave Race: Blue Storm blew me away with its water. Aspen Lake especially looked great.

 

[31GhostsIV]

The ripple effect on the paintings you jump into in Mario 64.

 

[JeremyEtcetera]

People tended to laugh at Perfect Dark Zero's promo image(with the guy behind a wall) but I remember the final game having amazing wall/floor textures and lighting effects. For a 360 launch game this looked incredible to me.

 

[draughn101]

Chronicles of Riddick. I remember buying it for the graphics and being blown away.

 

[MMarston]

Half-Life 2 Lost Coast was like a YO WTF moment for me in PC Gaming

 

[RoboPlato]

Moving mouths when characters talked in Half-Life.

 

[paradise_circus]

Ocarina of Time had a day and night cycle and I was extremely impressed as a kid.
MGS 2 had also so many cool things like glass. Glass was never really something transparent in games before or and you could should at glass windows and it would shatter according to the impact points.
Rain drops would also splatter on Snake.

 

[Zophar]

Motion blur and bloom lighting are the things that stick out to me in recent memory. I distinctly recall rapidly rotating the camera in Gears of War/Project Gotham Racing 3 for ages.

Now bad/old techniques for motion blur stick out pretty badly.

 

[forgeforsaken]

The fire and flamethrower in Kingpin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU-0qkTgifI

 

[N30RYU]

FFX grass moved by the wind... blew my mind back in the day...

 

[sp3ctr3]

That water that let me thirsty every time I play.

These separate fingers.

^this

the Wave effects really blew my mind back then

 

[ike_]

glQuake.

Yep, that's what I came to post. You mean if I buy a $200 video card it can do some of the 3D stuff in hardware, and you can see through the water?

No way.

 

[Kresnik258]

The ice in Spyro 3:

Couldn't find one showing Spyro's reflection on it properly, but thought it was just mindblowingly beautiful.

 

[Samemind]

I remember having my mind blown when i realized how far sakurai's attention to detail went in melee (well presumably sakurai)

So the first part is somewhat impressive in its own right but peach has two parts that moved based on physics, her hair and dress. Probably some other characters have them (fox's tail i think). This is easily noticeable on a number of stages due to a simulation of wind being effected onto characters, so you could really see hair blowing in the wind. Now here's the cool part. On peach's castle, there's a periodic hazard where a huge bullet bill crashes and creates a long lasting explosion. That explosion actually creates an air current that realistically flows away from its center, which you could observe by seeing peach's hair and dress blow in the opposite direction if she's standing between the origin of the stage's natural air current and the explosion.

 

[Solid SOAP]

I thought it was amazing as a kid how Sonic and friends would actually look at important objects and things in Sonic Adventure 1 for some reason

 

[westman]

The antialiasing in Super Monkey Ball Deluxe for the PS2.

 

[sn00zer]

Actuall these 3D mark 2001 images aren't that bad lol.

3dmark 06 dragon was jaw dropping at the time

 

[A-V-B]

You know what would be cool? A game that replicated this effect as you progressed towards the end. Sudden graphical shifts that looked incredible compared to what came before. But not all at once. One element here, one element there. Get you used to one look, get you comfy and accepting, then BAM! Super water!

No 3D? SUDDENLY 3D!

No bump mapping? SUDDENLY BUMP MAPPING!

Every "mindblowing" graphical achievement of the last 25 years distilled into a 15 hour experience.

 

[Phediuk]

You know what would be cool? A game that replicated this effect as you progressed towards the end. Sudden graphical shifts that looked incredible compared to what came before. But not all at once. One element here, one element there. Get you used to one look, get you comfy and accepting, then BAM! Super water!

No 3D? SUDDENLY 3D!

No bump mapping? SUDDENLY BUMP MAPPING!

Every "mindblowing" graphical achievement of the last 25 years distilled into a 15 hour experience.

Wasn't EvoLand pretty much exactly this?

 

[LurkerPrime]

Thought of two other games:

The Witcher 1: Enhanced Edition. The crowds of Vizima really impressed me, really making it feel like a living, breathing place. It had a bevy of citizens going about their day, all conversing or doing things, making them feel like more than window dressing.

Stardew Valley. Mostly because it has these little animation flourishes, like animals bolting from some shrubs, that are details I haven't really seen in other, similar games. Really set it apart from other stuff. Unfortunate there aren't any good images I can find to show it off.

You know what would be cool? A game that replicated this effect as you progressed towards the end. Sudden graphical shifts that looked incredible compared to what came before. But not all at once. One element here, one element there. Get you used to one look, get you comfy and accepting, then BAM! Super water!

No 3D? SUDDENLY 3D!

No bump mapping? SUDDENLY BUMP MAPPING!

Every "mindblowing" graphical achievement of the last 25 years distilled into a 15 hour experience.

The Evoland series sorta does this, but specifically for RPGs. Going from 8 bit to polygonal, 2D to 3D, and stuff like that--it gamifies the visuals into "power-ups."

 

[TheVampire]

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.

Much better!

 

[SerTapTap]

Everything in Star Fox 64. You could shoot the water to make ripples, or a charge shot for a huge blast. The (frankly absurd) spikey bomb explosions. Scorch marks left after you blew up ground enemies! Pointless trees you could blow up!!

I'm actually rather disappointment that Star Fox Zero is missing a lot of these...

 

[mreddie]

Driver's 3 damage system.

 

[Kelsdesu]

Castle of illusion blew me away at the time. Especially coming off of an NES.

 

[Silphonica]

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.

The minute I saw your thread title i thought the exact same thing! I even remember complimenting the grass to my halo loving friend back in the day when he was trying to get me to like it.

Man, i feel so special right now my opinion matched right up with the op

 

[JaseC]

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

Yeah, bump mapping was my very first thought.