Graphics that blew your tiny little mind. - The Bear and Badger

RedDave2

Cant do screen clips but these ones were the ones for me, in no particular order:

Turrican 2 (amiga) - only recently when using an emulator have I realised how much shit Turrican threw around the screen with seeming ease.

Street Fighter 2 (Coin op and SNES) - I think because of the other ports, this really showed the gulf between the conosle world and the then home computers. It made me have to have a SNES. The Megadrive version isnt too bad either, although I feel the colours are a little flat. In the arcades on the big screen, this just dominated. Even now, running on a pc cant match that wonderful coin op screen.

Daytona USA (coin op) - Just stunning. Only ever played the one track with mates. The noise and sound was unmatched.

Soul Calibur (dreamcast) - showed how good segas machine was compared to psone and n64. I think its the raft level that really blew my mind.

Geometry Wars 2 RE (360) - Not just because it is gorgeous to look at, but the jump up from GW on the xbox is vast. Perfect marriage of gameplay with graphics

F-Zero X (N64) - Sure, there's more detailed racers. But this game at full speed burned my eyes! Wonderful stuff.

Red Dead Redemption (ps3) - A game where the fast travel option took away more than added. So many amazing moments that had nothing to do with the actual game. So Atmospheric.

Far Cry 3 (ps3) - Similar to above, FC3 has a wonderful Island to epxlore and the animals are great fun. Just get rid of the pesky humans.

Outrun 2006 (360) - HD sega blue skies. Still holds up well.

Motorcross (ps3) - Made me buy a ps3. I'd hate to see how it stands up now, but even with a 360 under the telly, the bonus I had got from work had to go to Sony. It was jaw-dropping.

USF4 (PC) - It's not the best graphics but the little touches are really nice and sorely missed from V. The backgrounds have so much going on (favourite is the hippos).

Forza Horizon 3(xbone) - played at a mates house and its the best looking racer so far.

Star Wars VR (ps4) - Mind Blowing. Nearly sold me on VR alone.

cosmicjellybean

I agree with a lot of people on the more 'cartoon' effects blowing my mind, especially when I was younger.

I thought the Taz mania game on megadrive, although not great, looked incredible as a kid.

Moot_Geeza

I tried playing that again the other day. It's a weird one, I never really liked it but it looks great in screenshots.

davyK

Someone mentioned Ecco on MD. The Dreamcast version of that was very impressive.

Moot_Geeza

Aye, add that to my DC three.

superflyninja

One of the very first that got me was Loom on the Amiga:

Dreamweb also looked amazing. The graphics always struck me as being very moody and atmospheric.

Myst on Saturn was stunning also:

Homeworld was beautiful:

Populus: The Beginning amazed me with its spherical world:

Soul Reaver on PS1:

Tomb Raider:

G Police:

Smang

ahhhh homeworld!

GurtTractor

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Redux using Unreal Engine 4 had my jaw dropping at how incredible it looked and how well it ran. Really made me think how amazing it would be if they could make an Elder Scrolls game using this tech...

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JMW

One game on the Spectrum I can't remember the name of, but you were walking around a pirate ship. The way they did the sea seemed photo-realistic to me at the time; I think it was only white pixels twinkling on and off. Some Ultimate stuff too.
Magic Carpet on PC with its draw distance of about a foot.

hunk

Continued...

DC

MSR was cutting edge at the time of release. Amazing environments and handling model

Shenmue, stupendous detail everywhere. The game's a blueprint for the modern action adventure rpg.

PC
HalfLife2 was a milestone in many ways. Engine's getting on a bit now but still visually impressive.

FarCry, first open world sandbox shooter I played. The game that made foliage a thing.

Crysis-Console-ScreenShot0114.jpg?cb=1412974718

Crysis picks up where FarCry left off with more advanced visuals and gunplay.

Metro Redux still manages to impress. Shot may look prerendered but it isn't.

Witcher2, still need to finish this.

Mass effect 2 has some impressive visuals as well.

RedDave2

Also nod to the opening of bioshock. When you end up floating on the surface of the water i thought it was still part of the intro and didnt start playing for a good minute. Simple but my jaw did drop a little.

davyK

DC was for me the last real eye popping experience.

I got my DC with VF3tb, MSR and Ecco as pack-ins. I can remember going from one to the other and saying, "Fuck Me, there are no compromises here". I personally don't need graphics to be any better. It's all been about diminishing returns since. Attempts at realism doesn't really do it for me.

F-Zero GX is a good 'un.

The Mario Galaxies are lovely too.

JonB

The speed of F-Zero X was amazing, even if the draw distance and overall detail suffered a bit.

F-Zero GX went too far though - such busy backgrounds and at that speed and it was hard to see the track some of the time. I couldn't get on with it at all.

davyK

I didn't get on with the Casino tracks in GX - the fact you could see through them was a problem to say the least with so much going on in the background. Once you learned the tracks it wasn't so bad but it is a design flaw. Stunning looking game though. As a game to play I prefer X despite the graphical imperfections.

hylian_elf

Half Life 2 and Crysis on mega high end PCs were among the very few games to wow me.

[Deleted User]

RedDave2 wrote:

Also nod to the opening of bioshock. When you end up floating on the surface of the water i thought it was still part of the intro and didnt start playing for a good minute. Simple but my jaw did drop a little.

I did this too. Also, the tower you swam to actually looked wet.

ShabbyMcCrabby

Dave mentioned Red Dead Redemption which reminded me of those stunning vistas. That was crazy impressive..But then Rockstar have always managed to have at least one element in the their games that would impress like that. The water in GTA4 and 5 is still impressive for an open world game.

Facewon

Ecco on DC is a great shout. Stunning.

Any time I think of Red Dead, I actually think of SotC. The desert is incredible.

RedDave2

Normally when consoles move up a gen, it really shows up the previous gen but i think from gamecube/xbox on things are holding up much better. Some ps2 looks a bit ropey but from ps3/360 things still looks good - bioshock is nearly a decade ago for example.

Cinema is at a point i feel where special effects are no longer special and its come down to art design as to what we like. Not sure if we are quite there with videogames but i dont think we are too far off.

djchump

GurtTractor

Naissancee really blew me away -

Simple geometry and no real textures, but the beautiful lighting and structures make it work so well.

Eric

Edit @djchump Oh my that brings back some memories.

[Deleted User]

Nice. I never got that far, should really try it again.

[Deleted User]

Apparently Space Invaders got faster at the end of a level not through design, but because the framerate got better with less critters on-screen. Everything got faster including the sound.

[Deleted User]

Yeah I have read that, they fixed it, or at least wrangled it in later versions sadly.

retroking1981

Might sound like an odd one but Pac-Man C.E. took me right back to the days of playing my Atari with the lights off in a mesmerising trance.

The game was well designed to do that with the way it flowed but it was topped off perfectly by the graphics.

Jaco

Beneath a Steel Sky on the Amiga. Utterly stunning visuals at the time.

Matt_82

I've been impressed with graphics over the years plenty of times but nothing 'blew my mind' the way Daytona did when I first saw it in the arcades.

I was a 12 year old Amiga fanboy and had been partially following that scene back then so was used to seeing things like Zool, Cannon Fodder and Frontier Elite etc. Sprites and vector graphics. I was with my mates when they went into the arcades to pour money into the fruit machines. I had no interest in them and would always wander away on my own to play the games and they'd come through in a bit when they'd run out of cash. Until I walked into the room and saw it on the screen, I had no idea what Daytona USA was. It hadn't appeared in any magazine I'd read.

I was stunned. I absolutely couldn't believe what I was seeing. I was used to playing Mario Kart or F-Zero on my mates SNES. This shit was like witchcraft. I really wish I could go back and see the look on my face. God knows how long I stood there in fucking awe of this thing with my jaw dropped.

Weird how such an insignificant event can stick with you. That was 23 years ago for fuck's sake. Funny thing is that I've never been a fan of racing games and Daytona was no different. I got bored after a couple of laps. But I still get goosebumps when I hear that music.

afgavinstan

Any excuse to post this:

davyK

Power Drift was nuts looking with its twisty turny undulating tracks at breakneck speed. Probably the pinnacle of scaling sprite work.

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