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[RoadHazard]

For some reason it feels like the games are extremely polish in one area at the expense of looking really poor in another. GT3 as I remember was extremely consistent and had none of these jarring elements. The only sort of give away that I remember the game having back then was that on headlight close ups you could tell they were 2D textures instead of being modeled.

Probably because a single "premium" car model from GT5+ is more complex and detailed than the entirety of GT3. Ok, that might be a slight exaggeration, but you get the point.

 

[emag]

SNES Wheel of Fortune

 

[Mr_Zombie]

Well, I mean... I can believe you're being sincere... but I honestly can't see how anyone can look at Silent Hill 3 against a lot of the stuff that we have these days, and be of the opinion that SH3 has better faces either in regards to the modelling itself or the animations, than current games. When the faces in SH3 move, I can practically see the limited bones they have at their disposal in order to move their eyes and lips (with pretty much everything else being as rigid as wood).

I agree with you that SH3 face animation has been surpassed this gen and in some cases last gen. However, I'm still in love with them, with how good and realistic the animation look (especially given it's a PS2 game), with lots of nuances, small in-perfections and little details that give those characters life.

 

[Captain.Arabia]

Best graphics ever !!

https://youtu.be/Nkay7-7LAzQ?t=43

 

[JaffeLion]

why people keep posting Ryse gif when most cut scenes are pre recorded videos. Play the damn pc version, video compression give away all pre recorded cut scenes.

let people enjoy things, ok?

 

[Dante83]

PS2 GT3 definitely blew me away, especially the night stage with water on the road, and you could hear the tyres grinding on the water-filled road. It also had the smoothest 60 fps replay I have ever seen at that time. When GT4 came out, it had some frame rate/tearing issues on the replays that took away from the awesome feel, and most modern racing sims now always have 30 fps replay. GT3 was ahead of its time, and showcased the ps2's power back in the day.

 

[Anarion07]

why people keep posting Ryse gif when most cut scenes are pre recorded videos. Play the damn pc version, video compression give away all pre recorded cut scenes.

Did you even read what they were talking about?

 

[Firenze1]

 

[fatherKratos]

During its days, used to feel like this with almost every other PS2 game.

 

[supernormal]

Probably because a single "premium" car model from GT5+ is more complex and detailed than the entirety of GT3. Ok, that might be a slight exaggeration, but you get the point.

It probably is, but the whole thing falls apart when you got those same GT3 cars running beside them and the shadows look like staircases.

 

[Prototype Viktor]

press X for Jason

 

[Gorger]

Street Fighter : The Movie (Arcade game):

I remember I saw this in an arcade in Greece and I couldn't believe how real it look like.

Toonstruck:

Real like actor (Christopher Loyd) in a Cartoon world ala Roger Rabbit.

Harvester:

A lot of point and click adventures blended in real life actors in the mid 90's. This is easily one of the fucked up games ever made.

Riven:

Looks good even today. Imagine how it was back in 1997

The Last Express:

It was a cartoon game, but they filmed and made everything with real actors then drew it in making all the characters look very real and lifelike. One of my favorite games of all time.

Phantasmagoria:

Again blending real actors who's performing in front of a bluescreen. This was the first FMV game I played, and it blew my mind back in the days.

Tex Murphy:

Tex Murphy went a slightly different way where they created complete 3D environments for you to explore in first person view and blended it in with FMV cutscenes.

The Black Dahlia:

One of the last FMV games to be made during the golden age of point and click adventures. This was probably one of the highest budged FMV game and came with like 8 CD's. (...and yes that is Dennis Hopper sitting in that chair in case you were wondering)

 

[owasog]

Riven:

Looks good even today. Imagine how it was back in 1997

I feel like it's only recently that this level of quality has been matched by realtime graphics . Not counting resolution and texture quality of course because those are shit in Riven when you look closely.

When I played the original Unreal it looked almost photorealistic to me. I don't know why because I also played Riven the year before and that looks a million times better to me now.

 

[Augemitbutter]

Soul Calibur on Dreamcast. i remember when i showed this to my cousin he totally freaked out "this is like real life". it really looked crazy.

tbh, i rarely had that feeling. maybe when i saw scud race in the arcade for the first time, or shenmue later on dc. i don't know.

 

[NewGame]

Yeah, Silent Hill 3 was just unbelievable for its time. A pure madness.

Fuck, what are doing the devs of that game now?

Konami threw them in the trash where they belong; Pachi slots for everyone!

 

[PdotMichael]

Commanche and the power of a Voxel engine.

 

[sn00zer]

Soul Calibur on Dreamcast. i remember when i showed this to my cousin he totally freaked out "this is like real life". it really looked crazy.

tbh, i rarely had that feeling. maybe when i saw scud race in the arcade for the first time, or shenmue later on dc. i don't know.

I remember seeing this in arcades for the first time and I could not believe how good it looked. I remember just staring at it thinking it was just the best looking game I had ever seen.

 

[Nokterian]

I feel like it's only recently that this level of quality has been matched by realtime graphics . Not counting resolution and texture quality of course because those are shit in Riven when you look closely.

When I played the original Unreal it looked almost photorealistic to me. I don't know why because I also played Riven the year before and that looks a million times better to me now.

Unreal on 3dfx Voodoo 1 videocard blew me and my dad away.

 

[Atomski]

I remember thinking this was amazing back in the day

What..? even at the time it looked cartoony.

 

[Apenheul]

William Shatner's TekWar

 

[BGBW]

 

[Screaming Meat]

Man... I remember all the previews for that game and how being able to zoom in and snipe things at a distance was like a pretty new, groundbreaking thing. The MDK games were cool af, I love the world premise they had with the giant harvesting mobile citadels steamrolling the earth, the kind of humorously ogreish aliens, and then the sequel went bonkers with some cool, comic book-ish style on Dreamcast. Halo jumoing in through all the lazer fire was sick. Such a unique main character design too.

I never understood how his parachute thingy worked

To actually contribute something useful to the thread. Max Payne 1 blew me away when it first came out. One of the first games I can recall that actually used photographs for the textures.

Yeah, good shout. To be fair, everything about it was amazing.

 

[JensenBeeswax]

Hyrule Scare in OoT blew my mind back in the day, especially the cobblestone textures in the backstreets. I thought they looked like real life.

 

[user_nat]

Have to echo GT3. First game I got on the PS2.

No game has amazed me nearly as much ever since.

 

[Steve McQueen]

I'm more blown away by art than by gfx,but I remember EA Fight Night and that made a huge impression back then.

 

[Epcott]

 

[Zambayoshi]

Samantha Fox Strip Poker was the first time I thought that the graphics looked super realistic. That was 1986 on my C64...

 

[Zoggy]

Itt: people in their late 20s and early 30s

Samantha Fox Strip Poker was the first time I thought that the graphics looked super realistic. That was 1986 on my C64...

Edit: and some john McCain wannabes

 

[goonergaz]

the getaway

this.

 

[galv]

Seriously not enough Crysis love in this thread.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=124537

When I saw this game for the first time, I'd never seen anything like it. Hell, with mods, it still holds up ridiculously well.

 

[Shiggy]

Riven, released in 1997

 

[LeleSocho]

Soul Calibur on Dreamcast. i remember when i showed this to my cousin he totally freaked out "this is like real life". it really looked crazy.

tbh, i rarely had that feeling. maybe when i saw scud race in the arcade for the first time, or shenmue later on dc. i don't know.

I think Virtua Fighter 3 on Model 3 had a much bigger wow factor for that genre, it doesn't look as good as Soul Calibur but it was released in 1996 a full 2 years before it.
VF3 in 96 was like someone came from the future to show how realistic games will end up looking like.

 

[sixteen-bit]

Aged well....?

PS5 graphics

 

[nOoblet16]

Flight sims were always the titles that pushed this the most for me. The first time I thought a game was photorealistic was when I saw Flight Unlimited in 1995

Thats cause those are actual photos..heh

 

[Lux R7]

Rogue Squadron 2 on GC was amazing

edit: i remember thinking something like "it's like the movies".

 

[Hesh]

James Sunderland looking at himself in the mirror at the beginning of Silent Hill 2 always blew me away.

 

[tsab]

 

[Kurt]

2d: mortal kombat 1
3d : Doom for some reason

 

[Garlador]

Three pages and no Resident Evil remake?!

Those prerendered environments still blow me away.

 

[Megawarrior]

you might wanna check out Yakuza 0 or like two dozen other games

Not only Yakuza 0 but every ps3/ps4 Yakuza between 4 and 0. The way they animate eyes are so lifelike.

 

[nkarafo]

My first "photorealistic" experience was with Porsche Challenge on PS1, before Gran Turismo.

Racing games in general reached photo-real status earlier than any other genre ΙΜΟ.

 

[SiegfriedFM]

I remember seeing this in arcades for the first time and I could not believe how good it looked. I remember just staring at it thinking it was just the best looking game I had ever seen.

Soul Calibur in arcades doesn't even look like that. It looks like this:

It had ridiculous animation though.

 

[Oneself]

Another game I remember playing and feeling "wow, it looks so REAL!", was Need for Speed on 3DO (played in a shop, I stayed all day long there playing...).

This and Cruisn'USA in the arcades as well. It looked so real.

 

[Jashobeam]

pac-man

those fruits looked damn real

 

[Airola]

I played Space Pirates in the early 90's on cruise ship trips.

Hard to see realism anywhere else when you've been shooting real people in real environments.

 

[Nauren]

Sewer Shark!

 

[Lux R7]

Three pages and no Resident Evil remake?!

Those prerendered environments still blow me away.

yeah also this. REmake was something else.

 

[butman]

What's wrong with you people!?

 

[reactionman]

Virtua Tennis was the first game I remember being able to fool someone into thinking they were watching a TV broadcast.

 

[eso76]

Going from racing games in the previous gens, playing PGR3 blew my mind and that was the last time I was so impressed about a games graphics.

Tbh I don't think I've ever seen any racer quite like it when looking at parts of the scenery. I would just be in photo mode for hours and look at the buildings in Tokyo and NY and at times it looked 100% real, probably mostly thanks to textures being actual photographs, but still.

Wouldn't consider it old though.
Gt1 replays would be my pick.