Stand out moments in visuals

Elessar

We've all experienced it. Those "Holy Sh*t WOW" moments in games where you are overwhelmed by the photo-realism or sheer beauty of the graphics. When you just stop playing and look around you, staring at the screen, just marveling at the visuals.

That I can remember:

Gran Turismo for the PS1: I would always watch the replays of my races because I couldn't believe how photo-realistic the cars looked with the blocky reflections sliding over them, especially on the night races. It looks cheap now, but back then it was the bees-knees in terms of visuals

Far Cry: The beginning when you come out of underground bunker and see the island paradise for the first time. It was incredible. I had never seen anything as realistic and beautiful before that. The sea, the grass, the trees, it was all so realistic. There are several times in that game I just stood and looked around at the graphics. Remember when you get inside the beached ship and see the light reflections on the metal surfaces? That was another one for me.

Doom 3: The flashlight. Need I say more? It was one of the first games to have realistic lighting like that IIRC. Pretty much everything in that game was a feast for the eyes.

Crysis: The bit at the start when you come up over the ridge to the first DPRK camp. It wasn't as powerful for me as Far Cry, but I knew when I saw that, it was going to be a visually sweet game. Also Time Of Day screenshots - WOW! (http://www6.incrysis.com/screenshots/65yib.jpg) (http://www6.incrysis.com/screenshots/realistic_forest3hm1.jpg)

Battlefield Bad Company 2: I only bought this last night but the first mission in Japan had me wide-eyed at the scenery for the whole mission. It was like an actual battlefield rather than just a map in a game.

What were yours?

Skerries

Tetris

the colours were just so rainbow like!

L31mr0d

Uncharted 2: When the Apache helicopter stalking you causes the building Drake is in to start collapsing while you are in it. The lighting, the ceiling and walls collapsing, all the furniture sliding across the room, all the bad guys who where shooting at you now trying to save their own lives... and then that final jump through the glass window into the adjacent building. That game is peppered with amazing cinematic moments, but that one was my personal favorite and the most visually impressive.

FEAR: It was the first game for me to truly create a tense atmosphere, with amazing use of shadows, moving lights, smoke and dust and Alma... shes's a little girl surrounded in fire, walking towards me.. DO I SHOOT!!! WTF??? She just vaporized all the flesh off those soldiers... Why Xenu why!!!! :eek:

koHd

Killzone 2 at the beginning when the lads are preparing to leave the base. The facial animation and lip movements were the best I had seen outside an FMV.

cherryghost

Super Mario World 2

glaston

MW2 when the nuke was launched from the Russian sub.
May not be the best visually but production of the scene were second to none; voice acting, sense of fear, panic and imminent catastrophe...I nearly crapped myself.

pwd

quake 1

ShaneU

Seeing Mario 64 for the first time.

And just the other day, an airship cutscene early on in Final Fantasy XIII looked amazing.

Ciaran500

God of War 1 & 2 from start to finish, epic scenes from start to finish.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-Xsy3tQNw0

Mataguri

Leaving the Vault in fallout 3 (skip to 1:35 in the video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCM3Meuwai4

Bioshock, the start with the fire on the water. I didnt move for around a minute or so when I played this because I thought I was still in a pre-rendered video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ju154Fzhhs

Roar

shadow of the colossus was just non stop beautiful from start to finish

PirateShampoo

Dawn of War 1 intro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX2v_cTG3K8

sink

Facial animation in Half-life 2. First time that in game characters looked almost like real people. And of course the spectacular ending of Episode 1.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXRt3g0TaLQ

weiland79

One of my favs was in Call of duty world at war.Just after the opening section when your squad comes into a little clearing with bodies laying around,then Bang! a flare goes up in the air, giving off a strob light effect and suddenly your in the middle of an ambush.Class.

Cravez

After just exiting the bottom deck from the starting boat in Elder Scrolls Morrowind. When i first got the game when it came out and had my new PC and surround sound speakers, literally looking at the vast and realistic world i was gobsmacked. I was really impressed with the water effects

silvine

Facial animation in Half-life 2. First time that in game characters looked almost like real people. And of course the spectacular ending of Episode 2.

Fixed that for you.

humanji

Oddly enough, one of the moments that made me seriously contemplate the graphics was Killzone 2, when I realised that they were nothing compared to waht everyone said they'd be.

Far Cry 2 made my jaw drop when I was in the jungle during a thunderstorm. Watching the trees blowing from side to side, the rain pelting down and the lighting flashing around me, was brilliant.

Canis Lupus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyH8f-bW-FY