Biggest graphical 'whoooa' moment?

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

CrazyRabbit

1. Playing quake for the first time with a 3D Card (Voodoo II), and switching from software rendering to 3D card rendering.

2. Deus Ex (original)...that area with the environment mapped tiled room/floor & giant marble statue.
Can't find a pic of the area, but this pic shows how good looking the game was at the time (2000).
http://i.imgur.com/1pwwAux.jpg

3. Mayhem in Monsterland on the C64. One of the last games ever made for the C64 and they got every last drop of performance and graphical ability from the C64. Great game as well..a mix of Sonic + Super Mario Bros.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayhem_in_Monsterland

TerrorFirmer

That Deus Ex one reminds me of the at the time incredible reflections in Mortyr, came out the year before DE, 1999.

The very first time we got a 3dFX card.. there was a bike game, which has pretty immense physics, where the driver would fall like a ragdoll. It was amazing.

pixelburp

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Deus Ex used environment mapping as such - I think they simply did a mirror duplicate of the map's geometry beneath a transparent floor Still an awesome effect and made me go 'cool!' when I first saw it...

Mal-Adjusted

CrazyRabbit wrote: »

Deus Ex (original)...that area with the environment mapped tiled room/floor & giant marble statue.
Can't find a pic of the area, but this pic shows how good looking the game was at the time (2000).
http://i.imgur.com/1pwwAux.jpg

you're not thinking of this by any chance are you?

http://www.visualwalkthroughs.com/deusex/hongkong3/36.jpg

first time iv'e ever heard Deus Ex praised for it's graphics!

Gbear

Deleted User wrote: »

The very first time we got a 3dFX card.. there was a bike game, which has pretty immense physics, where the driver would fall like a ragdoll. It was amazing.

Red Line Racer? Not sure if that was ragdoll or more, sort of, plank of wood physics.

YbFocus

Gbear wrote: »

Red Line Racer? Not sure if that was ragdoll or more, sort of, plank of wood physics.

I think he's talking about motocross madness to be honest

For me, it has to be the original far cry on pc, it was just amazing to walk around in!

R P McMurphy

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

Wossack

accidentally nudging the mouse during the half life intro, and realising it was interactive was pretty sweet - "you can move around the tram!? /gasp"

getting hardware acceleration going for the first time (either q2 with a voodoo2, or tomb raider with a matrox of some description, cant recall). Rememer shooting the laser pistol you start with in q2, and being amazed at the bolt lighting up the coridor as it flew down it O.O

Retr0gamer

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

That Deus Ex one reminds me of the at the time incredible reflections in Mortyr, came out the year before DE, 1999.

It had the first breakable glass in a 3D game I'd seen. Then when I played it I nearly vomited due to how bad it was.

Unreal was a very pretty game on release. It had some lovely bump mapping that made textures look amazing up close. It's strange that not much else uses that effect. I thought it was a pretty pants game though. Fur coat no knickers.