What graphics most impressed you over the years?

Alternate Reality: The City for Atari 800. The programmer used a trick to divide the screen up into thin zones, each zone having the max amount of colors the Atari could display on the screen, thereby greatly multiplying the amount of colors that could be shown on such a machine…

Doesn’t look so hot today, but back then, it rocked.

There are games that really blew me away with their graphics,but I’d echo Rob’s comment about Intellivision-the graphics for those games were from a different planet than what I’d been used to on the Atari.An arcade football game that actually resembled real football-amazing!

Dragon’s Lair.My friends and I couldn’t wait to give all of our money to this one,and there was always a throng of spectators around the game.Of course,it’s really just a cartoon,but it was the first time any of us had seen a game look this gooood…

Pool of Radiance was a real thrill-wow,I’m really looking at Kobolds,right out of the Monster Manual,rather than having to imagine them!The first computer games,though,which really blew me away were the Space Quest games.Like Dragon’s Lair,really a bit like an interactive cartoon,but very pretty.

"Guys, no graphics can ever beat the images in my head while playing Infocom games! "

You pervert.

The 2 biggest for me were after getting my first CD-ROM and playing games like The Journyman Project 2. The interaction was limited but the music and graphics were cool. Then after getting my first 3D card and playing stuff like Quake2 and then after that Unreal. I never finished either game because both got quite boring after the graphics “wow factor” wore off but Unreal sure it cool pretty.

Intellivision was a great system, but the Colecovision blew it away graphically. I remember staring in rapt awe at the Coleco version of Donkey Kong, which looked exactly like the arcade version.

Heh. It’s funny to think how our expectations have changed. I remember being enthralled by games on my Odyssey, where the “graphics” were just white rectangles spruced up with acetate overlays that you stuck to the TV screen via static electricity. Take that, NVIDIA!

Yeah,I remember drooling over the Colecovision(alas,I never had one,nor did I ever get an Intellivision).Back then,GREAT GRAPHICS! meant that the games looked pretty much like the rather primitive arcade hits at the time.;-)

I forgot to mention the first flight sim that really wowed me with its graphics-EF2000.Buggy game and all,but,brother,it looked schweeeet.

I dont remember being particulary enthusastic about gfx in atari/intellivision games, i just took it for granted as was my first experience and had nothing to compare it too. Elite on the BBC impressed me, then some c64 games… Last Ninja springs to mind. In the Arcades, Star Wars, Salamander (the flame level), Space Harrier and Outrun were great at the time. With my first PC games Freespace 2 was amazing at the time, Serious Sam for its ability to throw 100s of enemies at you. More recently Virtua Fighter 4, Rez and MGS2 (especially the underwater bits) on the PS2, Warcraft 3s neat cartoony style, the jungle level on SOF2.

Each new advance in graphics is impressive, but I’ve only been transported by two games: Quest For Glory 1 in VGA - those magnificent paintings - and Dungeon Siege, which let me step into and explore those paintings. And it was even thoughtful enough not to put any obstacles in my path as I went.

In semi-chronological order…

Star Raiders (Atari 800) - it’s space, in 3D, on a cartridge! Still a great game.

Zybex (Atari XE) - really nice looking 8-bit shooter. 'nuff said.

Myth (Commodore 64) - ultra-slick animation and visuals, fun (if stiff) gameplay.

Dungeon Master (Atari ST) - atmospheric as hell. At the time, it felt like I lived in that damn dungeon.

Prince of Persia (Atari ST) - awesome animation, enthralling gameplay.

Wing Commander II (PC) - millions of rotating sprites, all coming RIGHT AT ME!

Doom (PC) - like Catacomb: The Abyss, but really really good looking.

Strike Commander (PC) - I used to just fly that damn plane around, in awe of the visuals.

Toshinden (PSOne) - at the time, this thing just blew me away. The big-screen showing the fight was just amazing. Crappy animation though.

Castlevania: SOTN (PSOne) - such design, such style. Ultimate 2D game.

Metal Gear Solid (PSOne) - Well, yeah.

ICO (PS2) - most. beautiful. game. evar!!@!

Splinter Cell (X-Box) - about time we started to get good lighting in games. The E3 demo blew me away.

(note, I did not include any arcade games. Not 'cause they didn’t blow me away, but because I always accepcted the fact that the arcades would rock on anything I had at home)

Stellar 7 - Apple II
The Bards Tale - Amiga/Apple IIGS
Toshindin - PlayStation
Soul Calibur - Dreamcast

All major visual milestones for me.

All these old titles made me remember the first time I saw The Bard’s Tale. Specifically when the picture moved. It moved! Just, like, the jaw or head, or something really minor, but to a guy used to Wizardry such things weren’t possible!

I’m sure there are a ton of old games I could run through that amazed me when I saw them, but the biggest graphical showstopper I’ve ever laid eyes on was Soul Calibur. If you brought home a Dreamcast on 9/9/99 and put in that game, you know what I mean. There was literally nothing like it anywhere. The animation was so smooth, the characters so lifelike, even the backgrounds impressed. The opening “movie” was even rendered all in real-time which was just unheard of before that. Everything about it was just awe inspiring and it was a launch game on top of that!

That it still stands up three years later to almost any 3D fighter available today, and that its arcade sequel is only an incremental improvement says so much about how great looking that game was when it first appeared. Amazing.

–Dave

Wing Commander
Ultima VI (this one-two punch made VGA worthwhile)
Strike Commander
Alone in the Dark
Doom
Quake
Total Annihilation

Final Fantasy VII
Soul Calibur
Jet Grind Radio/JSRF
DoA 3 (even if you hate it, you have to admit it’s pretty unbelievable looking)
Splinter Cell

BTW, arcade Soul Calibur looked like crap. :D So SC2 is actually a big step up…

1.Zaxxon
2. Tempest
3. Star Wars (Arcade)
4.The Last Sarfighter (Star Raiders II)
5. River Raid/Keystone Capers/Robot Tank
6. Escape From The Mindmaster
7. Fight Night (Atari 800)
9. Pole Position
10. Food fight
11. Starglider (Atari ST)
12. Dungeon Master (Atari ST)
13. Bard’s Tale (Atari ST)
14. Wolfenstein 3D
15. Might And Magic III
16. Wing Commander I,II,III
17. Full Throttle
18. Command And Conquer
19. Crash Bandicoot
20. Final Fantasy VII
21. Jedi Knight
22. Jak And Daxter

i think a cautionary note should be placed here to acknowledge all of those games we spent our money on that looked AMAZING graphically, but had SHIT-POOR gameplay

how many times did we sink down money for something that had amazing screenshots on the box only to find the crappiest, most boring games inside.

and then friends would come over, see the game and beg to play it. we would tell them no, the game sucks, let’s play something else, but those WONDERFUL GRAPHICS had them entranced, and they had to find out for themselves how crappy and uninspired the game was as a whole

Actually I’ve got a new one.

Il-2 Forgotten Battles. If that doesn’t wet your panties, nothing will.

Robocop (Atari ST)
Shadow Of The Beast (Atari ST)
ANY Cinemaware Game
And of course…Myst

Crap. My inner dyslexic convinced me that “IL-2 Forgotten Battles” would be a new expansion pack for Independence War 2. Got my own hopes up.

It’s hard to remember now. Probably Tomb Raider.

I was already an adult when Pong came out, so maybe that’s why I was never impressed in the least by the block graphics of any early (i.e. '70’s and '80’s) computer- or videogames. I don’t know. I’m just guessing. I remember being impressed by X-COM back in the early '90s, but I think that that was more because of the destroyability of everything than it was the actual graphical quality (which was quite low–320x200 or something…“Z” mode, I think they called it). I also remember noticing how the world map in Balance of Power seemed so high-res and precise while the other graphics were more typically blocky. Of course, that was because a map is just solid colors surrounded by simple black borders, but it still looked impressive–probably also due to its running in a higher resolution under Windows 2 than I was used to under DOS. I also quite liked the full-screen portraits of the computer opponents in the original Civ. Oh, and DOOM. Whether they actually were any better or not, just like everything else in that game DOOM’s graphics seemed better than anything else available at the time. But Tomb Raider is the first game I can remember buying not only for the gameplay, but the graphics as well. That one was a jaw-dropper for me.

I take back what I said. I do remember Spy Hunter as being pretty graphically satisfying for its day. That could just be nostalgia speaking, though. I used to play it on a friend’s Texas Instruments Model Yada Yada.

When is someone going to remake that game, anyway?

They did for PS2 although I don’t know how good it is. IGN gave it a 8.9 (http://ps2.ign.com/articles/164/164896p1.html).

– Xaroc