Support NeoGAF

[You Pay This Much]

The oblivious moment when I stared in awe, inspecting mario in SSB for the first time. Comparing him to mario in super mario world. Funny now.
Edit:

Look at those beautiful jagged edges

 

[FATALITY]

gran turismo ps1

 

[Choppasmith]

I've mentioned it in other similar threads, but Overdrive Osterich from Mega Man X2. The whole "leaping from the background into the foreground" blew me away as a kid. It was like some technical sorcery

https://youtu.be/WqTQivdmikA?t=108

 

[mekes]

I've been shocked along the whole way. Street Fighter 2 made my jaw drop. I used to just stare at Sega Rally. Donkey Kong 64 looked amazing. Gran Turismo looked real. I couldn't believe Tekken 3 on the original PS. Then Tekken Tag on PS2. Oblivion on the 360.

I grew up playing on a Commodore 64 so its nice to have seen so clearly how things have evolved. Same thing goes for handhelds. I'm sure some will remember the handheld games of 30 odd years ago!

 

[Tzmhero]

The fur effect's on Star Fox Adventure... and the wird pop-in and out when you paused the game.

 

[GoodMorningPluto]

I guess it's really easy to blew my mind, because most of the stuff here is still impressive to me, especially early 3D achievments.

 

[michalmarek77]

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!

 

[Avenger54321]

In Metroid Prime, when you shoot or a large blast happens nearby, you will see the reflection of Samus' eyes for a split second. I thought it was pretty cool back then.

 

[ScherzoPrime]

Shenmue's hands!
It seems funny in an age with Uncharted 4 and what not, but the wrinkles and veins on the back of the hand were super impressive for 2000.

Wait, isn't Shenmue set in the late 80s? What is he doing with a Sega Saturn?

 

[timetokill]

The transition from land music to underwater music in Mario 64 was just mind-blowing to me

I know it's not a visual detail though


I do remember thinking the infinite stairs in Mario 64 was insane at the time, too

 

[Mahonay]

The part in Max Payne 2 where you first shoot someone in the hospital. The way the body hit the shelf and all the boxes crumple on top of him in a dynamic way. I know we had ragdoll physics then, but this was on another level for me.

https://youtu.be/O9ulK0fJljU?t=6m23s

I remember this being pretty mind blowing to me at the time as well.

 

[HTupolev]

[*]Crysis 1 light shafts. Wow. The stupid sun beams shining through the forest. Another effect where everyone would go on copying it from Crysis

Far Cry 1 had this. Obviously carried over into Crysis.

Crysis had true god rays on the ultra and high settings, Far cry 1 only had a type of bloom around the sun.

Since this thread clearly doesn't have way too much Halo 1 yet...

 

[ApharmdX]

Another game that blew my mind, Nocturne:

Five years before Doom 3, Nocturne had real-time lighting, with volumetric self-shadowing, on the PC. It had some rough edges but was amazing for its time.

 

[Jamesways]

Don't think PGR will ever be considered unimpressive now. Holds up very well lol..

Man, does it ever.
Waiting for some smart as to post a new e3 GT Sport gif.

 

[Pantz]

NHL 94' (Sega CD) FMV when you scored or checked someone.

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter (Nintendo 64) All the weapons and particle explosions amazed me.

Kameo: Elements of Power (Xbox 360) One mirrion troops WOW, one mirrion troops. Extreeeeeme.

 

[bigmac996]

I remember in Half-Life 2, a little detail that amazed me at the time was how NPC's eyes would follow you as you moved around a room. So common now, but it felt like the future back in 2005!

 

[RowdyReverb]

The lovely backgrounds on the CDi version of Tetris. Especially the sand dune level.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoCFToFstSY

The video is low quality so you can't really see the sand blowing off the top of the dunes.

The CDi must be the most pretentious console ever made. It seems so "look at what we can do with technology, this is the fucking 1990s"

 

[HyperCroutons]

Starfox Adventures blew me away back when it came with its fur shader effects and water.

In Metroid Prime you can see Samus' reflection on the ice in phendrana drifts, I always thought that was a cool effect but is pretty common now.

 

[MrCunningham]

The mountains in Doom. Or was it Doom 2?

Doom 1. And they were photo sourced from a real area in China:

 

[forgeforsaken]

The realtime Line of Site in Nox was really cool at the time

you really need to see it in motion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OXvIj8l5Sk

 

[120v]

the early ps2/dreamcast/GameCube era I thought "shut it down, doesn't get any better from here"

though that era did pretty much set the stage for "modern graphics". A lot of those games would be passable now with AA, higher IQ, ect

 

[Formless]

I didn't know the distinction between CGI/prerendered graphics and real time rendered stuff. So, PS1 CGI cutscenes always blew me away.

 

[RowdyReverb]

Let's not forget Blizzard's cutscenes. The Starcraft cinematics in particular blew me away

 

[Venture]

The crash physics in the original Need For Speed on 3DO. The fact that they were fully textured objects and not stuck to the road was really impressive to me. I must've spent as much time causing crashes as actually racing for the first few weeks I had the game.

 

[MrSaturn99]

This early Mario Power Tennis screenshot blew me away with the tennis ball detail.

Believe it or not, that was two years before the game came out.

 

[CamHostage]

The way baked lighting worked on games in the PS2 era really impressed me with the ingenuity and efficiency. When you were playing full-speed, you got all these great lighting effects playing over your gun that took on the shading and brightness and color of the room, and it was only when you slowed down / stopped and the game had to catch up that you could see how it was done.

https://youtu.be/fEVUgrCeiuM?t=112

 

[mokeyjoe]

Nice to see some stuff here which instantly sprung to my mind:

Nathan Drake's wet clothes
RE4's fire
Castlevania IV's 3d effects
Waverace's water

Actually I still find all these pretty impressive. Sometimes even with better tech you don't see things executed as well.

 

[Omega Kirby]

That still looks good today

 

[blamite]

When the Gamecube first came out Pikmin's water was mindblowing.

 

[VGChampion]

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 funny thing is this is exactly the first thought that popped into my head. And honestly, it still looks pretty good to me. I prefer that look over the weird polygonal strands of grass every few inches we get in some games.

 

[Kurdel]

 

[IggyChooChoo]

I remember being amazed by Revenge of Shinobi's intro screen:

 

[Lonely1]

When the Gamecube first came out Pikmin's water was mindblowing.

Is that now unimpressive!? Better water than UC4!

 

[Plague Doctor]

I have a very odd one...

Quake 1. I remember seeing that for the first time on my pc and being floored. Now, in context with games from today, it was really really rough.

 

[Vanadium]

The box had fantastic graphics.

Spoiler

We couldn't afford a NES.

 

[terrible]

The vehicle damage in Nascar Racing by Papyrus.

The explosion and smoke effects in Goldeneye.

Lens flare in Ocarina of Time.

The reload animations in Perfect Dark.

The replays in Gran Turismo 3.

The foliage in FarCry.

Half-Life 2 water.

 

[Painguy]

Inverse kinematics in oot. Blew my mind man.

 

[Grief.exe]

This thread is so great.

 

[chrisPjelly]

Inverse kinematics in oot. Blew my mind man.

Holy shit I had no idea they could do this back then. Does anyone know more early uses of this?

 

[Hilbert]

Holy shit I had no idea they could do this back then. Does anyone know more early uses of this?

Virtua Fighter 2 on the saturn would do it. A character would sometimes do their win pose half on and half off the arena and one leg would be bent to be higher up. I always thought it was cool looking.

 

[theJwac]

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.

My roommates and I were amazed by this back in the day as well. When I revisited the game with the Master Chief Collection, I was reminded.

 

[jombag]

I was really impressed with virtua racing and starfox back then.

 

[boredandlazy]

Using the flashlight in Alone in the Dark on PS1.
Also the flashlight in Silent 2 and the shadows that it cast. Really impressed me back in the day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwhp3plm1WY

 

[StarStabbedMoon]

For some reason, in my head I remember Doom 3 graphics as good enough to even still hold up to this day, but I see screenshots and think I must be thinking of a different game entirely. Maybe it's the BFG edition.

 

[EatinOlives]

Inverse kinematics in oot. Blew my mind man.

Funny thing, when Guild Wars 2 was new people kept posting screenshots of their characters doing this exact same thing going "WOW LOOK AT THE AMAZING ATTENTION TO DETAIL". It happened frequently enough, and every time I thought to myself "uhh this was a thing since 1998..."

 

[Zekes!]

Inverse kinematics in oot. Blew my mind man.

The best part of this is that is that I remember playing some high budget games in the PS2/GC/Xbox era that didn't have inverse kinematics. Maybe even some PS3/360 games.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Soul Reaver. Raziel's animations, no loading times, cape physics. For a PSX game that was pretty damn impressive.

 

[Phreak47]

I was too young for that but it does remind me of Prince of Persia. I experienced this game for the first time on the SNES and the animation was so good.

There's a reason for that. The same guy made both games. Originally for Apple ][ also and ported a shit-ton.

 

[jizzlobber]

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

I remember looking at the tree trunks and rocks too, the textures looked soooo good.

Another halo moment was when i first got a cheap Yamaha 5.1 surround setup, halo just went to another level... Fighting the 2 hunters on the silent cartographer, hearing the plasma hit the cliff behind me followed be falling rubble just blew my mind

 

[Ragnarok]

I remember being really blown away by the batter sprites in World Series Baseball for the genesis. It seemed like a major upgrade from all the other console baseball games at the time.