Best looking game relative to release date?

HangTime

HangTime

HangTime

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Just thought I'd gather some opinions on what games you think are the most visually appealing, weighted for how old they are. So for the purposes of this thread you aren't judging graphics on merit - they could be considered ugly by modern standards - but at the time the game was released they could have been truly ground-breaking.

Here's a couple of my choices (didn't spend a lot of time finding the best vids to showcase each game, but hopefully you get the idea), I may return with more later:

Forsaken (1998):
This was the game I used to wow my console owning friends with, showing them what a PC was capable of in the graphics department courtesy of my shiny 3dfx card (4MB VRAM, bitches!). This was from what I like to call the 'bling' era, when developers were piling on as much coloured lighting, lens flare and OTT explosions as possible which probably looks a bit crass now but 'ooh, pretty!' was the feeling at the time :)

Unreal (1998):
Marred a bit by bugs and suspect performance on release if you didn't have a fast intel cpu with 3dfx card. However, Unreal was a big leap forward IMO, not only could it do bling, reflective surfaces etc but also very big outdoor environments which at the time was quite hard due to hardware limitations. In terms of versatility I think the Unreal engine is great, since it handles both indoor and outdoor environments well.

Far Cry (2004):
I fell in love with the visuals right from the moment I first played the demo, with the lush tropical environment and gorgeous water. Considering it came out before both Doom3 and HL2 it was IMO the best looking game in the world on release:
 
Oblivion. Whilst not gaming properly when it came out. Considering it is now 5 years old, it is impressive that it's still looking reasonably good (unmodded).

Oh and original crysis clearly

kd
 
I thought serious sam was pretty good when it came out, very big open areas with long draw distances (ie no popup fog) along with tons of enemies.

The odd mavity (pulled it different directions rather than just making you jump fast/slow) on the indoor bits was a new thing to me at the time as well.
 
i was console guy used to take the **** out my bro then i seen unreal it changed me from there ..2 voodoo 2 sli just was totally unreal never looked bak since then..and i also used to play forsaken and wargasm
 
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I agree about the original Unreal, was that the game where the lights went off in the corridor too? :p

Amazing.

I also, remember loading Half Life up for the first time and the tram trip in to work, really took my breath away.

Also, I'm loving Minecraft's graphics at the minute, really think it's a beautiful game.
 
Splinter cell chaos theory blew me away with the HDR rendering back in 05, while that's fairly recent it was one of the first games to feature this dynamic lighting technology that we see used in most titles today.
 
The original Unreal was incredible when it first came out. Everything about it was a cut above anything else at the time. Playing it on voodoo 2 SLI was gaming heaven :D I think that's the one that really stands out for me.

Also, I remember being incredibly impressed by GL Quake the first time I played it. That was more to do with the 3D acceleration than the game itself, though Quake was also pretty impressive on release.
 
I seem to remember Max Payne being a step up graphically, I can definitely remember being very impressed at the time, the bullet time animations were especially cool, and were the first implementation of it iirc, I upgraded my gpu to a Geforce 3 Ti200 for it!:eek:
 
Forsaken was one of the first games i played on the v2, you're bang on, the game looked a peach on release, and had a strange surreal atmosphere that no other tunnel shooter has ever replicated.

For me it'll allways be the original gran tourismo, just blew everything else away on the ps1 at the time. They'd been ramping the bar up with v-rally and the like trumping the earlier releases, gt came in and blew everything away:)
 
Metal Gear Solid 2

This game graphically blew every game that came before it imo. The transition from MGS1 to MGS2 was visually immense with life-like movements and facial expressions (except the storyline ofcourse :p)

This trailer (2000) just blew me away when I first saw it !!

Ofcourse youtube doesn't do it justice ;)





However to date imo Crysis is still the best looking game. I have played BF3 aswell but it doesn't have as rich textures as Crysis
 
i fired nfsu2 last night and did the widescreen patch to 1920x1080. it still looks cracking at that res. all the textures upscale brilliantly and the car models look good too :). still probably my fave nfs game
looked awesome back on november 2004 release

descent is on that sticks in my mind too. the dark passage ways and ambient lighting were cool and kept you on edge. at its time in 1995 it was brilliant

i remember being in awe of farcry in magazines etc too
 
I thought Quake 3's visuals at the time were pretty immense (1999), especially textures and lighting effects.
 
As previously mentioned Farcry and Unreal blew me away on release. I went to my first LAN and a few of the guys there had the newly released Voodoo 2 and were showing off some beta build of unreal.

Another game was Morrowind, due to the new water effect. It looked amazing at the time.

And although not a game some of the earlier 3D Mark stuff looked great. Anyone remember the matrix ones or the first use of realistic water?
 
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