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Pre-release screenshots that blew your god damn mind

Deleted member 1726

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
9,661
I'm struggling to find screenshots from early Play magazines but:

Destruction Derby
Wipeout
Resident Evil
Resident Evil 2

I couldn't believe what I was reading/seeing when reading those magazine previews

And on the PC front

Half Life

I remember them getting a demo disc which had a video on it and I must have watched it over 100 times.

A2Z90 said:
Dead Rising, and still the most awesome screenshot I ever witnessed in the magazine, with the massive amount of zombies shown there.

dead-rising-beta03.jpg
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This one as well, oh my! It's why I wanted a 360.
 
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Crow Pudding

Crow Pudding

Member
Nov 12, 2017
719
Pilotwings 64.

Coming from a 2D pixelated world, to full big 3d worlds for the first time was blowing my mind.
Mario 64 looked insane, but it was still small areas, but that pilotwings with that immense worlds for the time, that sunset, freedom of flight... it was something else.

I have never feel the same in a videogame until I tried the Oculus Rift.
 
Crayon

Crayon

Member
Oct 26, 2017
15,580
Fuckers passed off a picture of a real dude on a motorcycle in egm and said it was road rash 3DO.
 
nekkid

nekkid

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
21,823
Ben Ward said:
Oh cool, I made that screenshot. Glad to see you still remember it! It was a strange time - we'd release a screenshot and people would say it's fake ("too many polys", apparently). So then I'd line up the same screenshot but capture it in wireframe mode and release that too. The 360's capabilities were mind-blowing to some at the time!

The 3D screenshot thing was an idea I had to, in part, help show that this was a real game and not bullshots. I captured it frame by frame using an automated orbit camera and then stitched it all together in Flash. It was a time before high-def streaming video, so this was a creative solution to an issue that just doesn't exist now.

Not long after this I was able to travel to Tokyo, stand in the same spot at the Government No 1 building and take my own real-life panoramic screenshot (unfortunately without the F1 LM!).

Ben
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Hey Ben. Yes I remember you from the glory days of Bizarre!

There was definitely an air of "here, look, are you bloody convinced now??" about that shot at the time haha.
 
Skyfireblaze

Skyfireblaze

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,257
Fritz said:
final_fantasy_crystal_chronicles_3.jpg


Plus the fact that it was the first Square anything on a Nintendo console since the SNES
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What am I looking at, Crystal Chronicles?

EatChildren said:
Battlefield 3 still looks outstanding, especially at high resolutions with a lot of downsampling to clean up the IQ. The texture quality is excellent and the lighting/shading has a really balanced, realistic look. 4 onwards, particularly 1 and V, lather on Frostbite post processing to a far more excessive degree. They're technically superior but the clean, sharper look of Battlefield 3 lost. Changes made to the way Frostbite handles lighting give 1 and V this weird, not quite realistic look that I find hard to articular. Like materials don't look like materials they're supposed to be; a bit too soft or something.
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Interestingly enough that's how I felt about Bad Company 2 when playing it, it's hard to describe. I mean the game was still a blast and I put an ungodly amount of hours into it but something always seemed off.
 
Kyle Cross

Kyle Cross

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,411
I remember seeing copies of Metal Gear Solid 4 in stores, I didn't know anything about Metal Gear or most games at the time and was just blown away by the detail.

15460569327288ukqp.png


Nowadays elements of it definitely show its age, namely this was the generation that really pushed normal maps and gave a lot of characters a rather leathery look today.
 

baron doggystyle von woof

Banned
Jan 2, 2018
1,476
First Driver on PS1. I remember seeing someone playing it in my hometown videogame store and I was blown away! You could explore a whole city in a car while escaping from the police. 2 years before GTA 3.

Video-Game-Cars-015.jpg
 

Deleted member 2254

user requested account closure
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Oct 25, 2017
21,467
baron doggystyle von woof said:
First Driver on PS1. I remember seeing someone playing it in my hometown videogame store and I was blown away! You could explore a whole city in a car while escaping from the police. 2 years before GTA 3.

Video-Game-Cars-015.jpg
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That takes me back. I didn't have the full game back in the day, only a demo that would let me drive for 2 minutes if I remember correctly. I've made it a challenge for myself to become good at the driving (ignoring the actual objectives) just so I could drive farther and farther away and see more and more of the town. On perfect runs I remember I'd cross a bridge and venture into an area with smaller houses. The game was very impressive for the times.
 
finngamer

finngamer

Member
Oct 30, 2017
37
Finland
Druffmaul said:
Nintendo was originally going to partner with Sony to go CD, but they ended up stabbing Sony in the back and partnering with Phillips instead. Then that fell through as well. This is literally why the Playstation came to exist... it was originally going to be a CD ROM add-on for the SNES, just like the Sega CD for Megadrive/Genesis. After Nintendo betrayed Sony, Sony said "Fuck it, we'll just finish this project as our own stand-alone CD ROM console."
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One of the best Kotaku articles ever, everyone should read this:

kotaku.com

The Weird History Of The Super NES CD-ROM, Nintendo's Most Notorious Vaporware

Nintendo never released a CD-ROM gaming system. But for a while in the early 1990s, it flirted with the idea. That protracted will-they-won’t-they romance produced pages of breathless gossip columns in video game magazines, a mountain of vaporware, some terrible Zelda games, and one priceless...
kotaku.com kotaku.com

There's very little backstabbing, and Nintendo and Sony actually were back to collaborating on the SNES CD-ROM after a year. It was still coming out even as late as 1994, while Sony was also developing their separate PlayStation console. The SNES CD-ROM never came out, but it wasn't due to any "betrayal".

"On October 14, 1992—the day before Sega released its much-hyped Sega CD in the States—Nintendo and Sony announced that they had mended fences, and that Sony would now be collaborating with Nintendo and Philips on the SNES CD-ROM add-on after all.

"Nintendo and Sony are teaming up on the next generation of video game technology," read an Associated Press article. "The agreement also allows Nintendo and Sony to license other companies to develop, manufacture and sell disk software, with all licensing activity going through Nintendo." A little over a year after the dueling press conferences, Sony and Nintendo had apparently resolved the key issue—Nintendo would now make its money from the licensing fees, rather than Sony being able to do an end-run around them."
 
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dude

dude

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,634
Tel Aviv
Not a screenshot, but I remember this trailer blowing my mind:
www.youtube.com

Neverwinter Nights 1 Trailer

After Baldur's Gate, here comes Neverwinter Nights !NWN is one of the best RPG ever. A solo campaign is available, along with the possibility, for Dungeons M...
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com
 
earthsucks

earthsucks

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,388
au
i remember being obsessed with a MGS1 screenshot (arctic soldier viewed through binoculars from memory) complete with japanese subtitles in hyper magazine.
 
KORNdog

KORNdog

Banned
Oct 30, 2017
8,001
MysticGon said:
hiresscreenshots11.jpg

hiresscreenshots21.jpg

hiresscreenshots31.jpg

hiresscreenshots41.jpg

hiresscreenshots51.jpg


Lies and deception but they got pretty close.
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i think if they actually had some AA for the character outlines the final game wouldn't have looked too far off that.

my vote goes for a game who's name completely escapes me. it was a car game. announced around the start of the previous gen. showed a lot of cars parked on the sides of roads, but i remember it looking suspiciously good...and considering it never saw the light of day, i guess that suspicion was valid. lol
 
Ninjadom

Ninjadom

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,191
London, UK
finngamer said:
One of the best Kotaku articles ever, everyone should read this:

kotaku.com

The Weird History Of The Super NES CD-ROM, Nintendo's Most Notorious Vaporware

Nintendo never released a CD-ROM gaming system. But for a while in the early 1990s, it flirted with the idea. That protracted will-they-won’t-they romance produced pages of breathless gossip columns in video game magazines, a mountain of vaporware, some terrible Zelda games, and one priceless...
kotaku.com kotaku.com

There's very little backstabbing, and Nintendo and Sony actually were back to collaborating on the SNES CD-ROM after a year. It was still coming out even as late as 1994, while Sony was also developing their separate PlayStation console. The SNES CD-ROM never came out, but it wasn't due to any "betrayal".

"On October 14, 1992—the day before Sega released its much-hyped Sega CD in the States—Nintendo and Sony announced that they had mended fences, and that Sony would now be collaborating with Nintendo and Philips on the SNES CD-ROM add-on after all.

"Nintendo and Sony are teaming up on the next generation of video game technology," read an Associated Press article. "The agreement also allows Nintendo and Sony to license other companies to develop, manufacture and sell disk software, with all licensing activity going through Nintendo." A little over a year after the dueling press conferences, Sony and Nintendo had apparently resolved the key issue—Nintendo would now make its money from the licensing fees, rather than Sony being able to do an end-run around them."
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Click to shrink...

Hi. Where is my quote on this from? I can't find it.
 
Lockheartilly9799

Lockheartilly9799

Member
Nov 23, 2017
4,990
FF VII blew my mind in 97. Seeing those FMVs made me go wild. The trailers' narrator also really sold it.

Killzone 2 at E3 2005 also blew my mind. It looks liked a high quality Pixar movie at the time. Sony really deceived us on that one.
 
Abdulrahman

Abdulrahman

Member
Oct 30, 2017
968
That MGS2 screenshot... I was blown away, the same goes to RE Code Veronica, Tekken 4, PES2001

I also remember being blown away by Heavy Rain early screenshots and teaser.

 

Deleted member 2254

user requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
21,467
Abdulrahman said:
That MGS2 screenshot... I was blown away, the same goes to RE Code Veronica, Tekken 4, PES2001

I also remember being blown away by Heavy Rain early screenshots and teaser.

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Click to shrink...


I must have seen that video dozens of times back in the day. It was breathtaking. Funny in hindsight, it looks pretty low quality beyond the (obviously not gameplay and therefore "boosted") zooming on the face.
 
KrangBakesaTurtle

KrangBakesaTurtle

Member
Mar 26, 2018
790
MGS2 was one of the biggest and was actually legit. I remember reading on gamespot I believe how people were droping their mouth and saying omg at the trailer during e3.

Some other mentions

GT cg preview, thought it was real. I think it played on GT2?

Motorstorm had me beyond hyped, I was hoping more of it was possible except the crash of course.. it still has a great art style and is a great game.

Doom 3, that was for sure ahead of its time and had me in a bit of an awe state.
 
Arex

Arex

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,496
Indonesia
I remember looking at some images of a wet track or something from the next Gran Turismo for ps2. Seriously impressed my young self and thought it was so realistic lol.

Can't seem to find the images anymore tho. I think it has the viper in one of the image.
 
LabouredSubterfuge

LabouredSubterfuge

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,341
Ben Ward said:
Oh cool, I made that screenshot. Glad to see you still remember it! It was a strange time - we'd release a screenshot and people would say it's fake ("too many polys", apparently). So then I'd line up the same screenshot but capture it in wireframe mode and release that too. The 360's capabilities were mind-blowing to some at the time!

The 3D screenshot thing was an idea I had to, in part, help show that this was a real game and not bullshots. I captured it frame by frame using an automated orbit camera and then stitched it all together in Flash. It was a time before high-def streaming video, so this was a creative solution to an issue that just doesn't exist now.

Not long after this I was able to travel to Tokyo, stand in the same spot at the Government No 1 building and take my own real-life panoramic screenshot (unfortunately without the F1 LM!).

Ben
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

That is fucking awesome. Thanks for sharing.
 
tiesto

tiesto

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,865
Long Island, NY
VgumIOi.jpg


I remember seeing FF6 for the first time in EGM and later in Gamefan - the EGM Mt Kolts bridge screenshot and a shot of the Phantom Forest lake in Gamefan had me absolutely drooling at the graphical leap FF6 had over every other RPG Square released to that point.

Gamefan Seiken Densetsu 3 and Tales of Phantasia screenshots had the same effect, as well as Nintendo Power doing a 2 page look at Star Ocean 1. It was such a tough time to be an RPG fan, drooling over pre-release or Japanese-release screenshots of amazing looking RPGs that probably weren't getting released in English.
 
zerosum

zerosum

Member
Oct 27, 2017
399
FyoMzkW.gif


Not the exact screenshot, but the Mega Man 2 preview in Nintendo Power had me awestruck. Coming from the Atari 2600, I didn't understand how this was possible.
 
Mona

Mona

Banned
Oct 30, 2017
26,151
i dont know if this was a pre-release shot, but if it was it would have blown me away

dims
 

Deleted member 56752

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May 15, 2019
8,699
Just the artwork of Bioshock infinite. I know most people dislike that game but I've beaten it like 8 times. It's an all time favorite
 
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