Biggest graphical 'whoooa' moment?

Wossack

I remember looking skeptically at screenshots of battlezone 2 in a magazine, thinking 'no way those are ingame graphics, gotta be from the CG intro' - but I was wrong!

Mike Litoris

There were lots throughout the years but probably the biggest was when I first saw the Wipeout intro on the PS1. I was floored.

Half Life 1, especially the intro, was pretty spectacular.

who_me

I thought Unreal was amazing at the time, but that's probably because it was the first game I played with my new Voodoo card.

Likewise, Oblivion / Fallout; it seems to be a theme in Bethesda games that they have you crawling through a poky, claustrophobic dungeon/sewer etc. at the start, only to be released out into the huge new world. To be honest, that's my favourite moment in either game! What to do.. which way to go... who will I meet...

The start of Call of Duty 3, only because I'd just saved up and bought a HDTV, surround sound system and Xbox 360 so it was my first taste of HD gaming. Yaaay.

Splinter Cell: particularly the first one. I remember sneaking down one dark alleyway, and the light shining through a fence cast shadows across me as I went by. Wooooo, real dynamic lighting.. think I must have zig-zagged that fence dozens of times just to see that again. The lighting in these games actually were a constant feature, across all the series.

The Assassin's Creed games look great as well. Sometimes you only notice how good when you see a freeze-frame.

I loved the bits in the Halo games where a huge ship would just come out of nowhere and hover overhead, gives you a fantastic sense of scale and Epicness(tm).

krudler

Splinter Cell is a good shout. Chaos Theory has a level early on, might even be the first one, where it's pissing rain and between the lightning, shadows on Sam's suit and the wet look of the rain on everything it looked so friggin' good on a decent pc.

who_me

Several but a few standout ones were some of the bosses in God of War 1 on PS2, like the minotaur for example. That game pulled off some amazing graphics for it's time and hardware.

On the current generation the climb up the outside of the hotel in Nepal in Uncharted 2 was amazing. The graphics, lighting and camera movement and looking down at the city below as you climbed really gave you a "wow" sense of scale.

who_me wrote: »

...I loved the bits in the Halo games where a huge ship would just come out of nowhere and hover overhead, gives you a fantastic sense of scale and Epicness(tm).

I loved the bit in H3 on the cartographer i think it was, where you destroy a load of anti-air wraiths to clear an LZ and then a huge UNSC frigate drops into the atmosphere as a little dot way off in the distance, and then flies towards you till it fills the entire screen and comes to rest just over your head and drops a scorpion tank for you to start obliterating everything in your path with. I was like "whoa" :eek:

I also loved every single time you blew up a scarab in those games. Board a giant mechanical enemy spider, fight your way past the crew to the reactor room, jam a couple of grenades in there, dive overboard and run for your life as the whole thing overloads and blows up. Now THAT's good videogaming

Arawn

Any FMV's in final fantasy 7 up

da gamer

Going from new to snes I though killer extinct looked so real at the time, the backgrounds and character movements looked great.

Resi evil amazed me when I first played it, the backgrounds looked so real at the time such as the shine off the marble floor in the dinning room.

Fifa 03 was the 1st real soccer game where u could instantly recognise a player and on the current gen halo 3 was one of the 1st games I played on the 360 and the surroundings in the countryside, particularly the water, were impressive.

Hallyington

I remember walking out of the train station in RdR and being amazed by the graphics.

wnolan1992

Oh another one was the original Gran Turismo. That was the first game I ever played on PS1 and I remember being blown away by it. The fact that your car got dirty from driving in the sand/dirt was the coolest thing ever back then. Still looks good today when I go back and play it for nostalgia.

penev10

wnolan1992 wrote: »

Oh another one was the original Gran Turismo. That was the first game I ever played on PS1 and I remember being blown away by it. The fact that your car got dirty from driving in the sand/dirt was the coolest thing ever back then. Still looks good today when I go back and play it for nostalgia.

Did that happen in the original GT? I thought Colin McCrae was the first time I saw that.

richymcdermott

Metal gear solid 1

The intro impressed me as a kid but once I stood onto the hanger and you see guards patrolling , Lights moving on the hanger and the snow I could not believe what I was witnessing

Creamy Goodness

first wow was probably the PS 1 demo disc.

GTA III, running on smart phones. It's amazing to see a game which required pretty beefy hardware on a console to running on a device that fits in my pocket.

L5

Riding across hyrule field in OoT

krudler

Creamy Goodness wrote: »

first wow was probably the PS 1 demo disc.

GTA III, running on smart phones. It's amazing to see a game which required pretty beefy hardware on a console to running on a device that fits in my pocket.

If someone had told the 13 year old me that one day I'd have a tablet the size of a book that would run arcade, snes, nes, megadrive , n64 and ps1 emulators on it my head would have exploded.

weemcd

In no particular order

Wipeout 2097 ps1 - I swore I had a post with this written on it 2 nights ago incl the youtube link, I must have closed the page and forgot about it (don't smoke reefer kids)

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

^ this stands up very well, I remember this was on a demo disc that contained Tekken 2 and a few other I can't name. Played this level over and over at my cousins house ( I didn't have a ps1), even had the aul folks standing around looking at it. Good frame rate and sense of speed considering how old the game is. I can still kinda weirdly remember the tracks/ships/weapons etc. Gonna have to buy Wipeout HD now and try it out.

MGS
MGS3
Deus Ex: Human Revolution, I don't own a Wii U or have any interest in having one, though I would like a hack at the directors cut, seemingly a much improved and tighter version.
GTA 3 at my friends house (I didn't have a ps3 )
Oblivion
FFX

Wipeout & GTA 3 probably stand out as the main ones.

Burky126

The jump between Ps1 and Ps2.

First games on both consoles were Naughty Dog games,Crash Bandicoot and Jak and Daxter, which really showed contrast to how far that company had gone in that period.

Also MGS2 at the time which was incredible as many people doubted that the gameplay would match the graphical quality of the cutscenes...boy were they wrong!

The first God Of War too was also another surprise as the scale of that game was fantastic,it really delivered in its 'epic' theme.

Can only wonder how further the envelope can be pushed with the next gen of consoles.

wnolan1992

penev10 wrote: »

Did that happen in the original GT? I thought Colin McCrae was the first time I saw that.

Maybe it was just over time, but the cars definitely got dirty and seemed to get dirty faster if you went through dirt. There definitely was a carwash in it.

Chris_Heilong

Strider and Sonic 1, going from Mario on the Nes to this was so amazing, next was the Arcade games like Virtua fighter and Ridge Racer. Playing the Toshinden and Wipeout demo at PS1 stalls when it was first released. Street fighter 3 in the Arcade was ground breaking.

krudler

Chris_Heilong wrote: »

Strider and Sonic 1, going from Mario on the Nes to this was so amazing, next was the Arcade games like Virtua fighter and Ridge Racer. Playing the Toshinden and Wipeout demo at PS1 stalls when it was first released. Street fighter 3 in the Arcade was ground breaking.

The character animation still holds up in that in fairness, gorgeous game.

Mint Aero

My graphical whoooa moments:

The first time I saw an ad on tv for Crash Bandicoot. This was my jump from megadrive to ps1. I've trawled youtube for that ad but sadly cant find anything that resembles it

Around that time or probably before it I was in a toy shop and some other kid was playing tomb raider. Them two moments delivered wooooa for me.

Final fantasy vii was my biggest disappointment. Saw an ad ( I really didn't get the not actual gameplay aspect to ads) it showed a train crashing on it's side, looked awesome. Got the game and was like wtf is this cartoony crap.

Mal-Adjusted

I have maybe two moments. the first came with these two games. It was when i got out of 2d stuff like Toxic Bunny and Dungeon keeper and I experienced URU. The game was actually kind of crap, but it looked beautiful. I just wanted to explore all of these lush worlds and abandoned cities.



The next one needs no introduction.


After that, I got out of gaming for a while but when i got back in, this was the first thing i bought and it looked stellar.

scudzilla

Around 90/91 and i played Fifa, the first ever one, on the mega drive.

I clearly remember a work mate telling me that there is no way the graphics can ever get any better, and i agreed with him :(

Agricola

Far Cry for me too. Back in 2004 it was jaw dropping. GTA3 had done the urban open world but exploring a massive tropical environment was something else. Knowing you could pick out a mountain top off in the distance and walk all the way there, watching the waves lapping up and down on the beach. Taking a dinghy out into the sea and looking into the turquoise water to see all kinds of fish swimming around. The HDR effect. That metallic sheen on all metal surfaces that made objects pop out at you and gave them a real weight in the world. I spent so long just soaking in the game rather than playing it.
Also remember doing LAN sessions on that game. In the days before anyone had broadband and Steam was just a rumour, it was incredible bombing around one of those big open maps causing havok with a RPG!

Just to mention a game I don't think has been mentioned yet, Metro 2033. Not the greatest shooter ever, but a very immersive experience due to the incredible graphics (and audio) Walking around on the surface with the gas mask cracked and fogging up while you scramble around for more filters was great.

The_Valeyard

The game that stood out for me as a young lad (graphics that is)

The Original Half-Life playing it on a Gateway p5-133 then on a 450, was some difference, and the detail and clarity was amazing.

That level when you are on the cliff edge, fighting the chopper was amazing.

brianblaze

Switching from VGA to QVGA graphics in Duke Nukem 3D.. Our old AST586 couldn't run it properly, but every so often you'd switch back and forth just to glimpse the future....

MadYaker

Coming out of the sewers in Oblivion was the most amazing wow moment I can remember, but I'm not old enough to have been around for the more fundamental shifts in graphics tech back in the good old days. Arma 3 and Planetside 2 are pretty amazing too for sheer scale and attention to detail.

Useful.Idiot

other than what others have already mentioned, was anyone really impressed by Unreal 2: The Awakening in 2003? such a colourful game with beautiful landscapes and fantastic spaceship design and outer-space scenery. gawked at the whole opening sequence.

TheLingKing

Red Faction 1, the first game with a fully destructible environment (i think?), absolutely amazing and stunning game at the time.

nesf

I remember being amazed by Magic Carpet when it first came out.

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

Before that maybe Mega Lo Mania from 1991:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBVDbTT0kzU

Since then, some of the Total War games have made my jaw drop. My issue with FPS style games is usually the physics is a bit off and that breaks the suspension of reality for me.

Zero-Cool

Biggest graphics moment for me was Total NBA 96 on PS One. Mouth wide open on what I was seeing, still fresh in my head. Then I looked up the below vid, thats not how I remembered it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzq3b2Jk9SA