Red Dead Redemption 2 is by far the best looking game I've ever seen.
Battlefront (2015) really blew my mind at the time. Still looks good.
Battlefront (2015) really blew my mind at the time. Still looks good.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
What's the most impressed you've ever been by graphics in a video game? Do they still hold up?
- Thread starter Uncle at Nintendo
- Start date
No game has ever blown my mind as much as this game, especially for its time.
I've been impressed by a hell of a lot of games but the times that I remember my jaw dropped hard against the ground were when I saw Zone of the Enders 2 and Panzer Dragoon: O.R.T.A for the first time. I still recall vividly just how impressed I was at how good those games looked.
Half-life 2 and Metroid Prime. Both had good art direction, and for half-life 2 the physics and some effects blew my mind at the time. Doom 3 also was very impressive, but I think it didn't age as well just because I always felt it looked too plasticy (and the human characters looked weird).
Doom3 was quite something with lights and shadows.
Those talks about faking flashlight with screenspace trickery were quite entertaining as well.
MGS2 is one of the rare games on ps2 which play very well on strenghts of the machine and sidesteps the weaknesses.
Amount of aliasing is reduced by amazing and clean art direction.
Destination alpha used to get varying specular.. etc.
Baldurs Gate:alliance was really good on ps2 as well.
SSAA, texture resolution matched to resolution and camera distance, baked lights and high poly environment tiles.
Lovely highpoly water with simulation running in VU1
The Order: 1886 really impressed me as the first time this gen I went "wow, this is a step above the previous."
Showing my age but when I was a kid with a C64 I used to read CU magazine and all of the Amiga game pics just blew me away. I used to buy the games for my C64 but they always looked so shit in comparison (still a step up form my mates Spectrum versions though).
Seeing Shadow of the Beast running for the 1st time is probably the most impressed I've ever been because it was such a jump form what I had at the time.
Recently the 1st time they showed Horizon ZD really impressed me
Seeing Shadow of the Beast running for the 1st time is probably the most impressed I've ever been because it was such a jump form what I had at the time.
Recently the 1st time they showed Horizon ZD really impressed me
The original Prince of Persia.
Or the 256 colour VGA version of The Secret of Monkey Island. Unless you were gaming in this era it's impossible to explain the difference between a 16 colour or monochrome experience, and a full-on 256 colour experience at a whopping 640x480 resolution.
Seeing the VGA version of Monkey Island on my then $1400 Zenith VGA monitor was the single most exciting moment I've experienced as a gamer.
Or the 256 colour VGA version of The Secret of Monkey Island. Unless you were gaming in this era it's impossible to explain the difference between a 16 colour or monochrome experience, and a full-on 256 colour experience at a whopping 640x480 resolution.
Seeing the VGA version of Monkey Island on my then $1400 Zenith VGA monitor was the single most exciting moment I've experienced as a gamer.
It's difficult to even explain what you're seeing when playing Rez on PS2 because any description of it tends to feel like a gross oversimplification. I just knew there was an impressively smart amount of minimalist graphic design going on, only maxed out to epic proportions same time, which is one reason it looks so good now. Doesn't even need a remaster - just increase the resolution and it's clear why it holds up so well. Not just the graphics but the way you're "conducting" what you see and hear in real time by playing it, and the feels you feel in the process make it something special to this day imo.
Last edited:
When I first saw SOUL CALIBUR running on a Dreamcast back in 1999.
That 60fps with these animations and hires textures... 🤤
That 60fps with these animations and hires textures... 🤤
Gta liberty city stories, God of war 3, Uncharted 3. This gen has been impressive but I started gaming on the gba sp and psp and went to ps3 to pc now. For me, the jump from psp to ps3 god of war 3 was a wayyyyyy more WOW moment. I think liberty city stories looks pretty bad today but back then it was WOAHHH. God of war 3 and uncharted 3 still hold up well today.
Gears of War
I was hit by a double-dose of seeing HDTV gaming for the first time so it's not really fair. It looked so much sharper and detailed than what I'd seen before.
Other than that its probably the Resident Evil remake. Yes, pre-rendered bgs are cheating a bit but holy hell it worked. That game came out in 2002 and still feels like a modern presentation.
I was hit by a double-dose of seeing HDTV gaming for the first time so it's not really fair. It looked so much sharper and detailed than what I'd seen before.
Other than that its probably the Resident Evil remake. Yes, pre-rendered bgs are cheating a bit but holy hell it worked. That game came out in 2002 and still feels like a modern presentation.
God Of War on PS2. Especially the moment when Kratos blows that horn.....dust settles and you see Cronos in a distance carrying Pandora's temple on his back. SSM has raised the bar with every subsequent entry(even Ascension looked bonkers on PS3) but at that time, that was among the most impressive things I've seen in a game. (PS: The entire pandora's temple level after that was quite amazing too)
Star Wars Rouge Leader: Rouge Squadron 2 (GCN)
Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire (GBA) ("Holy shit, they're standing on ground!")
Resistance 1 (PS3)
Resistance doesn't hold up, but the other two do. Rouge Leader still looks dope, and runs amazingly.
Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire (GBA) ("Holy shit, they're standing on ground!")
Resistance 1 (PS3)
Resistance doesn't hold up, but the other two do. Rouge Leader still looks dope, and runs amazingly.
Gran Turismo 3, I had been blown away by the first one (first time I saw a demo disk with it I ran to get my dad to show him haha) but genuinely seeing GT3 on TV the first time I honestly thought it was a clip of a real Super GT race for the first few seconds, was such a huge step.
https://youtu.be/r692QlJaFnU
Holds up surprisingly well, especially on a CRT.
https://youtu.be/r692QlJaFnU
Holds up surprisingly well, especially on a CRT.
Last edited:
The original Prey was my first "next gen" game and it blew me away coming from PS2. Detailed models, characters, bump mapping, lighting, that portal gimmick... I remember looking at the loading screens (which were screenshots of the actual level's area) thinking that they looked better than PS1 Final Fantasy's pre-rendered background and was amazed how far we had come. I guess nowadays the game looks decent but the characters are a bit blocky.
Gears of War was my first contact with the Xbox 360 and also looked cery impressive. I was amazed by the camera gimmick when you ran, it looked so cinematic. It still looks fine nowadays.
The most recent one was Detroit with it's detailed and well animated characters. It doesn't flirt with the uncanny valley like LA Noire, and I think it should hold up just fine in the future.
Gears of War was my first contact with the Xbox 360 and also looked cery impressive. I was amazed by the camera gimmick when you ran, it looked so cinematic. It still looks fine nowadays.
The most recent one was Detroit with it's detailed and well animated characters. It doesn't flirt with the uncanny valley like LA Noire, and I think it should hold up just fine in the future.
One of the first gen 7 and HD game i played was Assassin's Creed when I visited my friend who got an Xbox360. The lighting, animations and textures was just mind blowing at the time and I thought there was no way videogame graphics can improve.
Haven't played it in a while but looking at videos on youtube, I think the graphics can still hold up quite well on high resolution on pc. The gameplay though...
Haven't played it in a while but looking at videos on youtube, I think the graphics can still hold up quite well on high resolution on pc. The gameplay though...
Resident Evil Revelations on 3DS. I booted it up again last year and I was just as impressed. It's a game that feels like it comes from a different system.
Agree 100%, it looked like a console game, made me buy the add on stick.
Virtua Fighter 2 on the Saturn. It was one of my first games with 3D graphics, something I had not been sold on yet as I found most of them ugly looking in still screenshots in magazines. I'd bought the console for 2D games. VF2 blew me away though with the fact it used Saturn's high res mode and ran at a good framerate so it looked so smooth and fluid compared to anything else I'd yet seen.
There where a few other things that impressed me like the move to the Dreamcast in general and seeing stuff like Soul Calibur and DOA2 and I remember being impressed by the close ups on the G-Man in Half Life 2. Nothing has really compared to that first hit of VF2 and with each passing generation it's felt a lot more incremental so it's been diminishing returns for me since.
There where a few other things that impressed me like the move to the Dreamcast in general and seeing stuff like Soul Calibur and DOA2 and I remember being impressed by the close ups on the G-Man in Half Life 2. Nothing has really compared to that first hit of VF2 and with each passing generation it's felt a lot more incremental so it's been diminishing returns for me since.
Super Smash Bros. Melee because going to that from 64 is incredible. Similarly playing Golden Sun on GBA showed off amazing effects compared to the much simpler GBC not long before.
There's been a few, like Donkey Kong Country, Goldeneye, God of War 2, Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec, Half Life 2, Crysis, Horizon Zero Dawn and so on, but the one that blew me away the most at the time was Killzone 2. Shit looked bananas. I'd never seen anything like it.
Grand Theft Auto IV on Xbox 360.
What a jump from GTA San Andreas, that was released three years earlier.
What a jump from GTA San Andreas, that was released three years earlier.
Just got done with my first playthrough of Detroit: Become Human. Damn near looks like a next-gen game at times, good lord. Eye candy everywhere.
star fox was the first game my brain couldn't comprehend what i was seeing. added shock because the game looked horrible in magazine spreads
of course game didn't age well (graphically) but i don't think that "oh shit" moment was ever matched, not even with mario 64
of course game didn't age well (graphically) but i don't think that "oh shit" moment was ever matched, not even with mario 64
Horizon: Zero Dawn and Red Dead Redemption 2
We are finally at a point were games have as much visual details as they had during the pre-rendered backgrounds era (Resident Evil, Final Fantasy, etc). I was never really impressed by the PS2 and PS3 console generations, since they were mostly empty areas (with very few exceptions, usually in linear games), but holy shit between Horizon and RDR2 I'm loving this generation of consoles, it makes exploration such a joy.
We are finally at a point were games have as much visual details as they had during the pre-rendered backgrounds era (Resident Evil, Final Fantasy, etc). I was never really impressed by the PS2 and PS3 console generations, since they were mostly empty areas (with very few exceptions, usually in linear games), but holy shit between Horizon and RDR2 I'm loving this generation of consoles, it makes exploration such a joy.
Stalker
Blade of Darkness
Project Offset (never came out, but check out the tech demos on youtube)
Blade of Darkness
Project Offset (never came out, but check out the tech demos on youtube)
Need for Speed looked like real life.
Just the normal stuff after that I guess. Doom 3, Half Life 2, Gears of War, Crysis, Red Dead Redemption, GT Sport, Red Dead Redemption 2.
But for me Demon's Souls and Dark Souls also looked incredible for some reason. Crazy texture details, animations and really good use of per object motion blur in Dark Souls before I believe it became super common.
Just the normal stuff after that I guess. Doom 3, Half Life 2, Gears of War, Crysis, Red Dead Redemption, GT Sport, Red Dead Redemption 2.
But for me Demon's Souls and Dark Souls also looked incredible for some reason. Crazy texture details, animations and really good use of per object motion blur in Dark Souls before I believe it became super common.