deadscreensky
Member
I still sometimes reflexively oooh at colored lighting.
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Now-unimpressive visual details in games that once blew your mind
- Thread starter Phediuk
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supernormal
Member
https://youtu.be/jYGjiaChIdk?t=150
Seeing the reflections on the helmets and the catch light in the eyes of the players in Madden 2001 had me feeling like we'd finally reached photo-realism.
Seeing the reflections on the helmets and the catch light in the eyes of the players in Madden 2001 had me feeling like we'd finally reached photo-realism.
Oh I've got one. Dunno if it's been mentioned yet, but it blew my mind first when Square reanimated FFX-2's CG videos to match the lipsyncing for the English songs, and then blew my mind even more when they reanimated every character's mouths in game for FFXII. And then when FF13 did it for even the NPCs AND added tongue movement--holy shit that was unbelievable.
Now it's standard stuff that you expect from most games coming from Japan.
Now it's standard stuff that you expect from most games coming from Japan.
Page 5 and no Mario 64? Bout to date myself a bit with this post..
Metal Mario
The liquid metal pool in Mario 64
Don't even need to go that far ...
That press start screen was LITERALY a tech demo on our hands. It was MIND BLOWING to see this after the snes
I loved just messing around in the water not actually racing. God i hope they do a 60 fps NX version...
shinjimimura
Member
Two come to my mind immediately:
1. The cage dropping down at the beginning of the first round in Claw's stage in Super Street Fighter 2 on the snes
2. Rain falling on Snake on the tank level in MGS2: that, and the overall presentation of that first mission, gave me a sense of "nextgen" unmatched to this day
1. The cage dropping down at the beginning of the first round in Claw's stage in Super Street Fighter 2 on the snes
2. Rain falling on Snake on the tank level in MGS2: that, and the overall presentation of that first mission, gave me a sense of "nextgen" unmatched to this day
345triangle
Member
quake 2's spirally particle railgun. still looks better than quake 3's!
RoyaleDuke
Banned
I'd make a case for Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven.
It still looks good but the models and textures are... mixed. The lighting and particle effects are pretty good though.
F.E.A.R
It still looks good but the models and textures are... mixed. The lighting and particle effects are pretty good though.
TheRedSnifit
Member
For some reason, leaning in System Shock really blew my mind back then.
dcx4610
Member
Definitely Morrowind water. That was an event.
The opening intro to Unreal might take the cake. I remember you couldn't go into a computer store without seeing the intro on a loop to show how well the computer/video card ran.
I still love the look and atmosphere to it.
Also speaking of Unreal, I remember being blown away by the Earth map in Unreal Tournament. I just loved sitting there watching them orbit while the awesome sci-fi/techno music played.
The opening intro to Unreal might take the cake. I remember you couldn't go into a computer store without seeing the intro on a loop to show how well the computer/video card ran.
I still love the look and atmosphere to it.
Also speaking of Unreal, I remember being blown away by the Earth map in Unreal Tournament. I just loved sitting there watching them orbit while the awesome sci-fi/techno music played.
KnightimeX_Legacy
Banned
Pretty much the entire game.
Seeing those backgrounds scroll for the first time absolutely floored everyone!
Triscuitable
Member
It may not hold up visually in a lot of ways (characters are almost clay-like), but the game's particles and high-octane action make for some top-notch shootouts, even today. There's also some genuinely good jump scares (particularly the ladder scare).
I'd go play it again, but there's a Windows 10-related bug that prevents it from rendering shadows properly.
RoyaleDuke
Banned
What? I'm playing through now and the shadows look fine.
And gameplay wise yeah the game totally holds up big time. Amazing encounters, punishing difficulty.
SilverArrow20XX
Walks in the Light of the Crystal
Being able to knock around the pool balls and sink the into the table pockets blew me away when I first saw it.
Lots of things about Duke 3D were very impressive to me when I first played it. It had environments with recognizable geometry. Like, I could walk into a gunshop, or a theater, and recognize it as such. Before Duke 3D, I just didn't see things like that. Doom had hallways and rooms, but it was always vague what any room was actually supposed to be. It was just shapes for gameplay with themed textures. Like a "Hell level", or "space station level".
Being able to walk into a Dukeburger, see the counter and register, the seating area, and everything you'd expect in a fast food dining area really impressed me and made me think graphics had come a long way. Small individual doors, like bathroom stalls being openable also impressed me.
Note that before Duke 3D, all I had access to were Doom, some point and click adventures, and NES games.
XANDER CAGE
Member
The way Project Gotham Racing 3 nailed the look of passing through shadow back into light with that little HDR burst was one of the most mind-blowing things I'd ever seen back when the 360 launched. I'm trying to find a good video example but people who played it probably know what I'm talking about.
Cynn
Member
DOA 3 still looks amazing to me.The sand/snow deformation in Dead or Alive 3 was super impressive at the time.
Game still looks great in motion. Timeless.
Ryouji Gunblade
Member
Fur, shadows, and lighting effects in Starfox Adventures.
Chuck Norris
Banned
Not really visuals but:
Ok so I get in this car?
Ok so I drive down here... Wait.. So I can just drive anywhere? Holy shit there's a whole city
Ok so I get in this car?
Ok so I drive down here... Wait.. So I can just drive anywhere? Holy shit there's a whole city
Leona Lewis
Banned
I remember being blown away by all the graffiti in The Darkness, none of which was repeated. Really made that subway feel alive. Video for reference.
The one that really blew my mind in MSVwas when got the attention of a guard, he ran out into the road to check on what he had heard or saw and got hit by a vehicle that was passing.
The guys in the vehicle realized what had happened, got out to check in the guy etc. I was very impressed by that level of detail.
This isn't out of the ordinary in this series though. I remember looking into a toilet in the women's restroom in MGS2 and having Campbell and Rose flip out at me over it, but the really impressive part of that is that if you do that later in the game Campbell will actually bring it up again later. So much detail on something most players would never see.
thoseAREmySHOES
Member
This is definitely still impressive. It still outdoes games that try to mimic the pixel/art style 20 years later.
magnificenz
Member
Splashdown water physic and realism on ps2/xbox.
Also the first baldursgate on ps2.
Imo ps1/n64 games are never impressive graphically especially those 3D blocky polygons. 2D is the star.
Also the first baldursgate on ps2.
Imo ps1/n64 games are never impressive graphically especially those 3D blocky polygons. 2D is the star.
Nostremitus
Member
This shit right here, circa 1994.
https://youtu.be/v61_xNOvqqw?t=5m6s
realistic tire wear
aerodynamics/damage affected steering
amount of fuel in the tank affected weight distribution/steering
exploding car parts flying everywhere during crashes.
MS Paint styled car customization, you could paint anything you wanted or import other images onto your car in 1994.
After playing this, it took WAY too long for any other racing game that came out to finally check it's boxes.
https://youtu.be/v61_xNOvqqw?t=5m6s
realistic tire wear
aerodynamics/damage affected steering
amount of fuel in the tank affected weight distribution/steering
exploding car parts flying everywhere during crashes.
MS Paint styled car customization, you could paint anything you wanted or import other images onto your car in 1994.
After playing this, it took WAY too long for any other racing game that came out to finally check it's boxes.
Chronospherics
Member
The fur graphics in conkers bad fur day amaze me to this day. I'm sure games can do them better now, but they don't tend to. In fact, I remember at the time I would play this on my XBOX 360 partially to show off the games graphics, thinking they looked better than many XBOX 360 native games.
PdotMichael
Banned
All the NURBS talk around Quake 3 made me crazy.
PdotMichael
Banned
Also was there no love for voxels here?
capitalCORN
Member
The bullet ballet of Max Payne. Activating bullet time and watching all the debris kick up, watching as bullets and shotgun buck barely miss you. It was beautiful.
Also, everything to do with Far Cry. From the normal/spec, to the shadows, the endless foliage, and oh my GOD the HDR.
Also, everything to do with Far Cry. From the normal/spec, to the shadows, the endless foliage, and oh my GOD the HDR.
Compsiox
Banned
I'd make a case for Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven.
F.E.A.R
It still looks good but the models and textures are... mixed. The lighting and particle effects are pretty good though.
The guy who programmed the AI went on to create AI for other applications like drones and stuff
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Iriscomeback
Member
Every time a big ship blowed up in Colony Wars I was like whaaaaaaaaaaa!!
uhm yeah so let's begin
- FEAR bulletholes (with parallax occlusion mapping, didn't know that back in the day) was super impressive
- Crysis 1 breakable trees. Procedurally.
- Crysis 1 barrels would leak oil where you shot them and the pressure and amount would depend on where you shot them (so at the top there would be only a small stream, quickly coming to an end; a hole at the bottom would make it shoot out for a while)
- Crysis 1 light shining through leafs
- Crysis 1 water having chromatic abberation effects applied. Water in general holy shit
- Crysis 1 had the first real weapon aim depth of field i think. First time i saw it, was really impressed.
- Crysis 1 light shafts. Wow. The stupid sun beams shining through the forest. Another effect where everyone would go on copying it from Crysis (similar to SSAO etc.)
- Black and White 2 having soo much detail, you could zoom in until you saw ants crawling around. And they crawled around always in the same areas, not just procedurally added while zooming in. I later noticed my save files for BW2 were over a 1 gb. Back then!
- Black and White 2 the stones breaking very much where your cursor was. The walls and streets followed your cursor and were not just on a grid. Wow.
Jonneh3003
Banned
Few people seem to understand the thread, most of these examples still look wonderful!
We know who to blame for the impending robopocalypse then.
The fur, grass and water effects of Star Fox Adventures:
I found this game incredibly beautiful...
The high polygon models of Dead or Alive 2 Ultimate:
At that time no other game had such high quality character models. I would zoom and pan the camera around the models for hours, marveling at how smooth and round everything was. O:
The open world of Oblivion:
It has aged rather poorly...but back then it was my first open-world game ever and I thought it was the most amazing and beautiful thing ever.
I found this game incredibly beautiful...
The high polygon models of Dead or Alive 2 Ultimate:
At that time no other game had such high quality character models. I would zoom and pan the camera around the models for hours, marveling at how smooth and round everything was. O:
The open world of Oblivion:
It has aged rather poorly...but back then it was my first open-world game ever and I thought it was the most amazing and beautiful thing ever.
The sand/snow deformation in Dead or Alive 3 was super impressive at the time.
Game still looks great in motion. Timeless.
It's crazy how fighting games used to be so cutting edge in terms of graphics.
Nowadays they are just kind of decent. I found myself unimpressed with Tekken 7, for example.
NCR Redslayer
NeoGAF's Vegeta
When I first saw people modeled in bed under the covers i thought that was truly next gen.
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