Biggest graphical 'whoooa' moment?

briany

It seems to me that we're well into the period of diminishing returns for graphical excellence with leaps between each generation being, or seeming, less and less, the exception now being games with distinctive art styles/designs. It's less exciting now but there was a time, when the tech was young, that we'd be blown away by the advancements made, they seemed like quantum leaps. For me it was firing up my brother's PS for the first time and just tooling around in that demo disk that came with it. Tekken just looked unreal to me then. A similar feeling came getting my N64 a few months later and playing Mario 64. Was that generation the biggest leap - the jump from 2D to 3D?

Genghiz Cohen

Not so great now but that first time you left the sewers in Oblivion.

TerrorFirmer

When I was a kid, I had no idea about the concept of hardware, video cards, and so on with regards my PC - I remember I got Quake II, and I was playing it on the settings that worked for my Pc - 320x240, low, or something to that effect, didn't really question it, just enjoyed the game. Got a new PC, went to play Quake II, and suddenly it was 1280x1024 or something similar - nearly fell out of my chair. Looked like a different game altogether. That was the point I started taking an interesting in computer hardware.

I think playing Crysis original on a very powerful machine at the time was probably a time when I was somewhat taken back, another one that grabbed me, not so much for having exceptionally advanced graphics, but absolutely stunning visual design, was Bioshock.

ShadowHearth

I played PC all the time, so I did not really Noticed huge leaps. Something Like Original Crysis was really WoW though.


For some reason Gears of war 1 looked impresive for me. It was my First game on xbox 360 when I bought it.

When I was still a little peasant I had Nes. then I sow Mortal Combat 3 on Sega Mega drive 2. Then I really knew - my nes was ****.

Headshot

crysis 3

The facial graphics were unreal

BMMachine

walking outside of the vault in fallout 3 was a big one for me as I had tended to ignore graphics in games up until that point

johnny_ultimate

Half-Life 2, both the facial technology and stepping foot outside the train station (after the requisite throwing cans around for several minutes). Even as my integrated graphics card screamed bloody murder, it was a sight to behold.

sweetie

When I got a hd tv and connected up dead space via hdmi on the ps3. my wife thought I was mad.

J. Marston

Playing Beyond Two Souls at the moment and everything in it looks amazing.

Sarky

Resolution and polycount have taken a huge back seat for me in recent years, and the market is too saturated with sandbox cities and military tropes for any of them to catch my interest. The most breathtaking visuals I've encountered recently have been the exquisitely-drawn artwork of Dust: An Elysian Tale.

I suppose the first serious "whoa" moment I remember from a shooter was the intro to Half Life 2. "Rise and shine, Mr. Freeman, rise and... shine." Chills down my spine tbh.

Myrddin

This

NTMK

MegaDrive to PS1 for me.

Resident Evil 1 amazed 7 year old me, why i was playing it is a different matter completely:pac:

the portable jump from GBA to PSP was also amazing

penev10

The intro to Arcus Odyssey on the Megadrive

Seeing Mode 7 in the top down sections in Super Probotector

The FX chip powering polygons in Starfox

MGS2 - the amount of detail. Playing with the dynamic shadows!

Splinter Cell on the Xbox was a real watershed moment with the lighting effects

Uncharted, the lush undergrowth and draw distance was amazing to me at the time

Retr0gamer

First time seeing Mode 7. Super Aleste blew my mind when in the second stage the level zooms in from the background:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Luut188O-o4

3D becoming a big thing around 93/94 was very exciting. The playstation really impressed me with stuff like Ridge Racer and the dreadful Battle Arena Toshinden, we only played it for the graphics.

Daytona USA in an arcade in 1994 blew me away. That games hardware was so advanced. I've heard it was the first game to have filtered textures. It would be another 18 months before hardware acceleration on PC offered the same technology and it wasn't until 1996 that the N64 offered it. Daytona still looked far better. If it came out of Dreamcast it would (and it did) it would still be considered a looker.

humanji

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

Not so great now but that first time you left the sewers in Oblivion.

When I saw the thread title, that was the first thing to pop into my head. It blew me away when I saw it. Fallout 3 used the same trick when you leave the vault, but a nuclear wasteland didn't have the same visual appeal.

jaykhunter

Playing Resident Evil Remake on the Gamecube. As a huge Resi fan I couldn't believe the upgrade from the PS1. A beautiful, lovingly-made remake.

Kirby

My first "Woah!" moment was Donkey Kong Country on the snes. It was so much prettier than anything else at the time.

The FMV cutscenes in final fantasy 7 impressed me quite a lot too.

Oblivion's foliage.

Entering the alien ship in Crysis. Beautiful looking if you had the rig for it.

Far Cry 2's jungle and open savannah blew me away.

Gears of War or any game with the Unreal 3 engine back in the day. It's a testament to how good the engine is that we are still using it all these years later. Batman Arkham Origins uses it and that's brand new.

ShadowHearth

The most recent wow for me that I just remembered was rayman origins on ps vita. It just looks so damn fantastic on that screen. The colours and visuals dropped my jaw.

ancapailldorcha

Uncharted 2: The train and helicopter sections. Actually, the game in general was simply glorious.

Oblivion: Escaping the sewers and seeing such a massive world ripe for exploration.

Tomb Raider: Seeing the garden and the T-rex was simply amazing.

Half-Life 2: The level of detail in the world and especially the characters is truly stunning.

Final Fantasy XIII: Some very nice detail in the (very linear) environments. Also has the shiniest cutscene I've ever seen.

SeantheMan

Metal Gear Solid,

When you come up the elevator and the cutscene starts using the Binoculars....but...it's not an FMV cutscene !!

Overheal

Planetside 2 for sheer scale

Crysis for vegetation and general scenery. Dynamic mountain landscapes and rolling hills while you blew chunks into the sides of tanks.

Shattered Horizon - full fledged introduction to the new dynamic lighting/effect features in DX10/11

Antichamber - if you don't know, its hard to explain.

But yes, for the most part I notice a lot of the biggest titles of the last few years mainly don't have jaw-dropping leaps in GPU performance. I think some of that is attributable to consoles, we've reached the limit of what you can develop for on those older GPUs and for a PC game you will add so much fidelity before you stop for compatibility and time reasons. Good for gaming though as it means we've seen a lot of titles which are really simple to just pick up and play if you're a PC gamer. Even Intel HD can whip up the Mass Effect series for you.

131spanner

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Uncharted 2: The train and helicopter sections. Actually, the game in general was simply glorious.

Was just thinking of this. The snow-storm scenes at the beginning and end were perfect, I liked the look and feel of the shoot-outs in the ruined villages too.

Will be playing that next weekend for sure

2Mad2BeMad

the first time I replaced my 1995 dial up connection pc last september to a new high end gaming one every game has wowed me so far

cloud493

First time I ever saw a game on HDTV, ratchet and clank tools of destruction in virgin megastores. I was blown away :eek:

MitchKoobski

First time playing Motorstorm on a HD TV. Seeing the dirt and dust and bits of cars flying everywhere in Monument Valley was mind-blowing for my first time playing a PS3.

Duggy747

Mortal Kombat and it's digitised characters. I remember seeing everyone surrounding this new cabinet in the arcades and the first thing I saw was Sub-Zero ripping Kane's head off with the spine connected. I saw Pit Fighter before but had never seeing a fighter like MK before, my jaw dropped at how cool the violence was..................took an age to finally play it because so many people flocked around the game all the time :pac:

Ditto on Daytona USA, savage looking when I first saw it. Was a massive upgrade from Virtua Racing.

Oblivion was definitely the biggest for me, I had never played any Elder Scrolls games before so once I left the sewers, saw the orange sky from the sun going down and realising I had an enormous world to play around was mind-blowing.............God, I loved that game, Skyrim was nowhere near as good as it was far too drab looking, Fallout 3 had the same effect on me with all the colours of grey.

Grimebox

Pixar making me feel stuff about lamps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdtHSyfcSDs

Gbear

This level in Crysis in particular (spoilers):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiEvWBY-7MA

Absolutely took my breath away.

RasTa

I remember going back to a friends house when he got Grand Turismo on the PS1 and we where both gushing at the replays.

krudler

Retr0gamer wrote: »

First time seeing Mode 7. Super Aleste blew my mind when in the second stage the level zooms in from the background:

The racetracks in F-Zero and the rotating chandelier level in Super Castlevania IV were amazing looking in their day. Or the scaling effects in Mario World like when you find a secret key and the big keyhole effect swallowed Mario, that was class.


Of the last/current gen definitely Uncharted 2, it still looks incredible. God of War for scale, especially the battle against Kronos, the weight and size of the character were immense. Half Life 2 had amazing facial textures and lip syncing. I think the first Xbox 360 game I saw running in person was Kameo, that was really pretty too.

Splinter

God of War 3 was incredible. As was Uncharted 2. I died so many times in those games because i was getting distracted by the fantastic graphics...

krudler

The Tibetan village level in Uncharted is staggeringly pretty looking, dem vistas...

QuadLeo

Yea for me it would be the Uncharted series. So much stunning scenery.

Another moment for me was Zelda Windwaker in general, and Zelda Twilight Princess where you first get to cross lake hylia and realise the scope of the game, even for the wii.

dreamers75

Hyrule field when walk out for the 1st time.


Arma 3 when take a chopper up and the island just keeps going. Easily the most stunning game ever created.

snausages

Zanarkand getting blowed up in FFX

TPD

That completely scripted bit in Crysis 1 early on where you come over the edge of a hill and look down onto a few huts beside a bay, with the sun setting in the distance. Fantastic looking.

The biggest graphical jump for me was probably going from playing Alex the Kidd on the Sega Master System to playing Mario 64 and Lylat Wars on the N64. I remember thinking at the time that I couldn't imagine graphics any better than Mario.

alanmc

Playing Quake on a 3dFx Voodoo (passthrough) card. The Whoah moment was being able to see 'through' the water.

cherryghost

UT99 was one particular game that blew my mind when it came out. Was easily 2-3 years ahead of the game.

sombaht

Biggest graphical moment? Definitely the first time I saw this running on a Amiga

Not much compared to what we see on PC's nowadays but bear in mind it was 22 years ago, and this ran of a floppy disk on a 7Mhz machine with 1MB of Ram. Truly nothing has wowed me as much since.

Cheers,
sombaht

balkieb2002

My first real moment of WOW was coming out of the cave in the first Far Cry. Will never forgot looking over that vista and down to the beach.

Plenty of WOW factors along the way of course most of which have been mentioned here especially Crysis 1, Oblivion, God of War and Uncharted.

Recent mentions have to go to Far Cry 3, GTA V and The Last of Us.

kevin2800

train scene from uncharted 2

mise

Back in the day, flying around the planet on Rescue on Fractulus, I was blown away by the 3d geometry. I hadn't since anything like it before.

FortuneChip

The opening to Uncharted 2 was fantastic

But an earlier moment has to be Final Fantasy VIII; I'd never seen such amazing graphics as I did in the Intro, Attack On Dollet & Graduation Ball scene. They were amazing

danthefan

Can remember thinking Chrono Cross was pretty amazing the first time I played it, probably about 10 or 11 years ago now.

Kiith

Been loads over the years, but one i always remember is walking into the Deadmines in World of Warcraft for the first time, and being absolutely blown away. The scale of it, and attention to detail was amazing.

o1s1n

I reckon anyone who grew up in the 8 bit/16 bit gen era and made the leap into 3D polygons in both the arcade and home consoles experienced a leap in technology which will never be experienced again. To say it was amazing was an understatement. It was mind blowing.

I remember when I first got that PS1 demo disc with the Trex/Manta ray tech demo and then loads of demos of things like Wipeout 2097 and Die Hard Trilogy - blew my mind. Really. I've never played a demo disc so much or experienced anything like that sheer leap ever. It was like that moment in The Wizzard of Oz turns from black and white into colour*




*Footnote, I still play 2D games and 16 bit games are my favourite gen, I'm just talking about 'wow' experiences here

eddhorse

I went from a C64/NES to an N64 with Goldeneye, was wowwed at the time.
As Oisin says 8-bit/16-bit to anything was great. (Not saying the old stuff is bad).
Also had PC with Half life 1 and 2 which was so far ahead of anything else.
New gen, I have my PS3 since 2007 and got Motorstorm with it, that is eye candy.

Are we going to see such differences now with HD TV's and Graphics?
Sure the jump from PS3 to PS4 will be easy but won't have the same wow factor, same as XBOX 360 to One.

TerrorFirmer

Especially in Ireland, where once we were very behind in terms of modern tech, we've not only caught up, but the internet as a resource spoon feeds us daily as to what to expect in the near and far future, so nothing we see or experience is jarring or unexpected, really, in fact quite the opposite, it's expected. I personally think what the PS4 and XB1 are pumping out for BF4 is incredible for a console, but there are so many people complaining already, as if they expected the new consoles to blow their retinas out. Don't get it myself.

I do think though, that things like the Occulous Rift and the shift towards total immersive gaming, VR, and so on, are the next big 'WHOA' moments in gaming, simply because they have to be experienced to be understood, watching videos of someone playing them online is not the same - not unlike watching a 3D movie, in that it has to be experienced first hand.

corcaigh07

First game I played on my own HDTV was Red Dead Redemption, oh boy that was an impressive moment. Riding into the sunlight never looked better.

Cravez

Back in the mid 90's - Virtual On (Sega Saturn)
Late 90's/2000 - Shenmue (Dreamcast)
Early 2000's - Morrowind (PC). Leaving the ship and seeing DAT WATER
Recently - Metro Last Light

Penn

Notable ones include:

God of War 2, particularly the bit with the giant horses
Uncharted 1
Assassin's Creed 2, when you climb the tower with your brother
The Last Of Us (several points in the game)

And my first two PS2 games,
GTA3 blew my mind at the time
WWF Smackdown 3. Was just a huge leap from Smackdown 2

Probably more that I'm forgetting