DidntKnowJack
Member
Road & Track Presents: The Need For Speed (NFS1)
Need For Speed: High Stakes (NFS4)
Need For Speed: High Stakes (NFS4)
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PS1 Graphical Leaps
- Thread starter Barkley's Justice
- Start date
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Everyday people come to the conclusion that graphical leaps are getting smaller and smaller the better tech we get. It's how technology/graphical evolution works, it's pretty logical!
I'm not jealous of future generations with their close to photorealistic graphics in nearly every game. They will never know what it was like living through the 8/16/32 bit era. Sure they will have small games that emulate the look of that but it's not the same as having been there thinking "This is the best ever! They never gonna top that!" just to have it crushed by several magnitudes of better graphics a few years later.
I'm not jealous of future generations with their close to photorealistic graphics in nearly every game. They will never know what it was like living through the 8/16/32 bit era. Sure they will have small games that emulate the look of that but it's not the same as having been there thinking "This is the best ever! They never gonna top that!" just to have it crushed by several magnitudes of better graphics a few years later.
Breakfast at Noon
Member
I'm jealous that once we start truly getting nearer photorealism, development is going to turn more creative and art style will become a bigger differentiator when it comes to graphics. Performance might take a larger priority as well.
While watching the jump in graphics has been amazing, its the people at the end of the chain that are going to reap the benefits of all the growing pains.
R4 man....i remember how amazing that game looked compared to other games on PS1 or any console of that era honestly. The game literally looked like a next gen game, i mean it looked like a game we could expect (at that time) on PS2..it was that damn impressive.
It is amazing what they were able to squeeze out of PS1 at the end of its life, also it amazes me that by choosing the right color pallet makes a world of difference but it was not just that color pallet...Namco really optimized and used all sorts of nifty shortcuts to get R4 looking the way it did, impressive indeed! Its the kind of game that i could still handle playing today by a visual standpoint.
william_557
Member
only ever got to play the demo of ghost in the shell but i still remember playing that all those years ago
quite a unique game (demo)
Barkley's Justice
Member
Wow.
The Praiseworthy
Member
Did you see my quote ?
Tomb Raider
I like how it seems that 95% of the upgrades on the character model went into rounding out her breasts, while the rest of the character improved very little.
Krappadizzle
Member
Abe's Exodus. Only 9 months after it's first game comes out and it comes with more content, better controls, and more bad ass FMV's than Abe's Oddysee from Oddworld Inhabitants. I'm excited for the remake coming tomorrow and have been going back and replaying all these old games.
It's impressive... until you consider that the game was running at like 10 fps for that entire video.
The Praiseworthy
Member
Lara's model in TRII and TRIII are the same... just a little difference in the top's color.
jhmtehgamr20xx
Banned
You suppose?....
http://youtu.be/6REoftI1lbQ
Consoles didn't start to even touch this until 6th gen*. And it still looks better than a lot of 6th gen racers to boot.
EDIT: Maybe RR4, but it definitely lacks the framerate and texture smoothness of SR arcade.
sixteen-bit
Member
Ridge 4 looks great but it's 30fps. Ridge 1 was capable of 60 on PS1 hardware as evidenced by the bonus disc that came with R4.
HellofaMouse
Member
gta 4 and 5 looks about the same to me. maybe gta5s a little sharper, and water is better in it
D.Lo
Member
Lol no this R4 love is out of proportion. It used a motion blur filter well, and that weird shading technique that smoothed texture surfaces somewhat while creating a dot pattern.
But it wasn't that special otherwise, apart from being a lot better than the last RR game (as you'd hope, it was two years later, and GT had raised the bar by then). It was still 20fps and had all the PS1 pop-up, jittery textures and texture seam issues. Unlike Tekken 3 which I could not believe was on the PS1. THAT was a game that looked like a Model 2 game.
Fancy Clown
Member
Resident Evil
Resident Evil 3
Resident Evil 3
JPeeples83
Member
Toukon Retsuden 1 to TR 2 was an incredible leap given that there was only a year separating them.
bumpkin
Member
Indeed. What about Tobal, Sony? Why have we not gotten Tobal No. 1 as a PSOne classic or even better, Tobal 2 as a PSOne Japan Import Classic?
More like an STV game -- Tekken 3 had great character models for a PS1 game, but they're still not as good as AM2's work, and the backgrounds are just flat images.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnvKM2Ycdu0
vs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuJBAC8EiYY
FF7:
FF9:
daaamn
sixteen-bit
Member
Because this thread is about graphical leaps within a series. Is VS a sequel to something?
SkylineRKR
Member
Tekken 3 came out in 1997 and was quite ugly in fact. But the aesthetics, animations and flash made it look really good and it just played very god damn flawless. In our arcade VF3 stood next to T3, but EVERYONE went for Tekken 3. Though VF3 absolutely murdered Tekken 3 when it came to visuals. This was Model 3 ofcourse, which was pretty much Ps2 generation.
But Sega's Model 2 stuff beat Tekken 3 too, The 60fps, true 3d backdrops and lighting of Model 2 was a bridge too far for the PS1 generation. Model 2 is somewhat inbetween Ps1 and Dreamcast, though Dynamite Cop didn't look that bad for a DC launch game.
Stormhammer
Member
Well the thread is mainly about series that got better graphically during their PS1 lifespans, and I don't think Vagrant Story had a predecessor did it?
Tekken is unquestionably a sexier franchise so that sounds about right. wish I saw vf3 when it launched in 96 -- for me it was a dreamcast launch title alongside soul calibur which was its visual superior (well... in terms of character models. am2 had stages locked down til soul calibur 5!)
PHOENIXZERO
Member
You didn't quote it, but I found it so I see you were just throwing out examples of graphical leaps per generation.
SkylineRKR
Member
I did, and its a good wish to make. Because there was nothing like it. When I saw it for the first time I nearly fainted. VF3 was basically a Ps2 game during the first or second year of the PS1 lifecycle. I never experienced a bigger graphical revelation up to this day. Arcades were always a step ahead of consoles, but not a leap this huge. That hardware was business, but I think it also did cost some 30k. The first game to beat it was SC on Dreamcast which came out a good 3 years later.
sixteen-bit
Member
Dat Lockheed Martin tech. VF3 was mindblowing at the time.
DAMN, my bad, guys, put this in my dumb posts account.
For my defense, it looks freaking good anyway! (._. )
It's very impressive indeed, but I had forgotten how ridiculously long and exaggerated some of FF8's summons were. Eden in particular is hilarious because it keeps escalating over and over and over.
Shpeshal Nick
aka Collingwood
Virtua Fighter 1 to 2 was a giant leap. I still think VF2 on Saturn looks better than just about anything on PS1.
NinjamicWZ
Banned
It got pretty dope towards the end of the game, strafing up skyscrapers and stuff. Looking back, the only thing I wasn't fond of were the 2 or 3 on-rails levels... at least not the one where you're on a raft in the water, anyway.
I'd love to see a modern FPS push every-surface-is-a-floor concept to the max with a great world/story concept, with the dual analog standard we have now that we didn't then.
jhmtehgamr20xx
Banned
True point, but (and this is on the demo disc that comes w/ the game actually) a dev note says they only managed to get that demo to 60fps by cutting out all of the other cars.
I mean in a way, you don't really have RR1 w/o those bastard yellow and black cars. That demo also felt much easier.
If you can get past the hippie-ish visual style, Visioneck looks like it's gonna try some of that and a lot more. It's PS4 only tho, and an arena vs. shooter. Don't think story is gonna be the main focus there at all.
Innocuous choice of words at a glance..
...notes Saturn VF2 was missing the bridge in Shun's stage..
...Saturn was part of PS1 ge- -
I see what you did there.
giancarlo123x
Banned
TheContact
Member
FF7 compared to FF9 is night and day
We need some Twisted Metal series screenshots here! Those games got muuuuch better looking between the first & Small Brawl!
Cause its recently made it into the retro gaming system rank an retro is in these days!
Goodacre0081
Member
totally off topic but I think Jumping Flash would make a great Project Morpheus game
jhmtehgamr20xx
Banned
He's not wrong tho. He's obviously not talking about games like TTT or SSX, but stuff like this:
Looks good in a screenshot, runs like shit during play. I was mega-disappointed b/c I was so hyped on supercars back when I played this too.
That pretty much goes without saying
Barkley's Justice
Member
The intro to that game was crazy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fllxBaIe9aA
Stealth edit:
(I just realized the hand-drawn animation and even the voice acting is pretty much the same as the Stand Alone Complex team. But this game came out in 97 and SAC didn't come out until 2002...Pretty interesting.)
Tomb Raider
Graphics comparison
Tomb Raider
Tomb Raider 2
Tomb Raider 3
Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation
EDIT: Fixed. They made a lot of graphical updates to the 1996 engine. Angel of Darkness for PS2 looks spectacular (plays completely different though).
He's not wrong tho. He's obviously not talking about games like TTT or SSX, but stuff like this:
Looks good in a screenshot, runs like shit during play. I was mega-disappointed b/c I was so hyped on supercars back when I played this too.
That pretty much goes without saying
If you think Ridge Racer 4 looks better than that game, let alone "much better" as the poster originally stated, then you're blind, no offense.
jhmtehgamr20xx
Banned
I said "in motion", and this for me also pertains to art direction going towards the overall look of the game.If you think Ridge Racer 4 looks better than that game, let alone "much better" as the poster originally stated, then you're blind, no offense.
Trust me, I've played both. RR4 looks and feels much smoother in motion than SSC.
If you want to take it even further, RR4 pushed the PS1 much more than SSC pushed the PS2, but that sort of discussion isn't what this thread is focused on.
EDIT: Even if SSC is 60fps.
EDIT 2: Okay, SSC looks more fluid than I remember. But it's such a mediocre game compared to RR4, smooth framerate doesn't make up for that.
NinjamicWZ
Banned
Yeah it is... never thought about the timeframe but it did always seem like a forgotten "chapter" when SAC came into play.
Watching that intro makes me realize I just want that a brand new, modern version of that... not some other new ip to do it.
PHOENIXZERO
Member
Shit frame rate talk just reminded me of Driver 2, I remember being so hyped for that game because of how much I liked the first driver and was hyped for getting out of the car! But then it sucked, awful pop-up and the frame rate I swear had to max out the low teens. Developers really got too ambitious, it's still my go to example of developers trying to do way more than the hardware was capable of. It also made GTA III on PS2 seem even more amazing with it only coming out less than a year later to me back then and yes, I enjoyed the jab at Driver 2 DMA added.
But Driver 2 still did at least one thing that after 13 years Rockstar has yet to do and that's motherfuckin' drawbridges! Granted that was because of the Chicago setting and Rockstar hasn't gone there. Reflections has now at least twice counting their involvement with Watch Dogs though drawbridges aren't as fun in that game, like a lot of things. =\ But man, I really like jumping off drawbridges as they're rising. Oh well, there's Mafia I guess.
But Driver 2 still did at least one thing that after 13 years Rockstar has yet to do and that's motherfuckin' drawbridges! Granted that was because of the Chicago setting and Rockstar hasn't gone there. Reflections has now at least twice counting their involvement with Watch Dogs though drawbridges aren't as fun in that game, like a lot of things. =\ But man, I really like jumping off drawbridges as they're rising. Oh well, there's Mafia I guess.