Jump to content
Search In
  • More options...
Find results that contain...
Find results in...
Kute

Graphically Greatest game you've ever seen?

Recommended Posts

I'm not a big graphics guy, but I was watching some Quake 3 videos and it took me back to the wonder of playing that demo on our new family PC, which I think was a p3-500 mhz with a 32 MB card? 128 megs of ram I think? In any event, Quake 3 in 99 is the greatest graphics I've ever seen. There are portions of maps where if they popped up in a modern game, it wouldn't immediately catch your eye. That's absolutely wild. 20 years is a massive length of time. It'd be like if you were playing Quake and suddenly the graphics turned into an old Atari game. 

 

2nd - Doom 1. It doesn't need to be explained. The only reason this doesn't outrank Q3 is that in the early 90's arcade games were still wildly popular and extremely good looking. Doom 1 was revolutionary but you could go into an arcade and see some damn good looking games. By 99, I think Quake 3's only competition was UT - and though a better game, Q3 looked better

 

3rd - Half-life 2. Again, doesn't look so bad today. 

 

I realized I picked 3 shooters, but historically FPS games really pushed tech forward - it makes sense to me that the graphic kingpins of their day would be PC powerhouses from a time period of such wild expansion. Nowadays everything has access to Unreal engine, so every game looks pretty good. 

 

Share this post


Link to post

This thread it's weird, because, yeah, those games are beutiful in their time, and some still hold true, but it's not like the best i ever seen, it's not a thing that hold back, but it's still going and making more jumps in power.

For me would be The Last of Us Part II or Control with RTX.

Share this post


Link to post

Arkham Knight. AND it was only 30 gigs and looked better than games that take up 200.

Share this post


Link to post

Love it or hate it BattleFront II (2017) has to be one of the most, if not the most stunning game I've ever seen, on the graphics side ofc

maxresdefault.jpg.4a5cf261452fb68ffa22b237145e286f.jpg

Share this post


Link to post

QB was alright, I still have some screenies

 

20200526181725-1.jpg

 

20200527103404-1.jpg

 

20200529092335-1.jpg

 

20200526182428-1.jpg

 

20200602213112-1.jpg

 

20200526200122-1.jpg

 

20200526201424-1.jpg

 

20200526175828-1.jpg

 

20200526201744-1.jpg

Edited by sluggard

Share this post


Link to post

The detail and scale of Red Dead Redemption 2 are really blowing me away. Its not just a graphical powerhouse, but the way your character is affected and affects the world like moving through bushes (rather than them just flattening when you walk over them) or dynamic, fully modeled foot prints in the snow. I've also got to mention Final Fantasy 7 Remake. I'm not sure how they got that game to look that good on a PS4.

Share this post


Link to post

Quake 3 was impressive because of its shader system - Effectively a multitexture pipeline on top of fixed function hardware, enabling new effects. Unfortunately, actual shaders became a thing two years later, so Quake 3's system was to be short lived.

 

My personal faves are simple: Severance: Blade of Darkness, Outcast, and Trespasser. Full post is here.
 

Quote

I have a holy trifecta of engines i enjoy for multiple reasons.

Blade Engine:

Used in: Severance: Blade of Darkness/Blade: Edge of Darkness

 

Developed by Rebel Act Studios, Severance: Blade of Darkness can be described as a ''proto-Dark Souls''. Released in early 2001, but developed from 1996-2000, Severance preceded most modern gaming visuals by multiple years. Severance delivered Doom 3 style stencil shadows, marred with an at times amazing lightmap system, and it also had realistic particles and reflective water. It did all this on DX7 hardware and lower.. Anyone running a Voodoo or even a Nvidia TNT2 could have this kind of visual fidelity, which would only catch on when shaders became apparent.
 

Features:

  • New portal engine allows real time lighting, volumetric lights and shadows.
  • Real time physic and fluid system. (Weapons do not clip through walls but stop moving when hit against it.)
  • Volumetric fog.
  • More than 16 different realistic outdoor/indoor environments: frozen landscape, desert, Arabic Palaces, Hindu Temples, volcanos, Lost Island, mines,.....
  • Four characters to choose from, each one with specific skills.
  • Playing Character progression depending on your abilities.
  • Up to 100 different weapons: sword, axes, spears, bows, shields, magic weapons,.....
  • Up to 25 different races of enemies: orks, trolls, golems, demons, skeletons,.....
  • Up to 100 puzzles and traps combining physics, hydraulic systems, arrows, fire, stone balls,....
  • Up to 100 different types of objects you can take, burn, break, throw and use as a weapon (tables, glasses, stools, bones,...)
  • Powerful combat system:
  • Facing (locking) enemies. Dodging.
  • Amazing combos:
  • More than 1700 animations based on Motion Capture System. Up to 20 differents attacks per PC.
  • Shield blocking. Mutilations and wounds. Real time blood. Magic attacks. Destructor attacks.
  • Advanced AI System.
  • Different defensive tactics for enemies depending on their intelligence level (stupid and agressive ork, organized and efficient Dark Knights).
  • Frenetic multiplayer arena mode:
  • TCP/IP, LAN, IPX.
  • 4 Characters with a total of 12 different skins, Parental lock for gore (disable mutilations and blood). Training level. Original Motion Track.

 

 

Paradise Engine:

Used in: Outcast

 

1999's Outcast is a natural contender for this list. Unlike many engines of this time frame, Outcast went with a software rendered engine. Paradise was the name given to the API that controls all the 7! engines present in Outcast, including GAIA, the AI engine. Outcast pioneered a lot of real time visual effects seen only later on video cards with shader hardware support. The resultant look of the game and visual fidelity is, in my opinion, a predecessor to later Xbox 360 titles, over 6 years later, but in very low resolution (Outcast supported a resolution of max 512x384 at the time.)

 

swimming%201.jpg

flyby%204.jpg

Features:

  • Depth of field
  • Self-shadowing
  • Dynamic shadows
  • Colored lighting
  • Lens flare effects
  • Terrain engine made up of voxels
  • Translucent water (Including dynamic water ripples)
  • Bump mapping

Trespasser Engine:

Used in: Jurassic Park: Trespasser
 

1998's Trespasser, led by Dreamworks, essentially tried to be Far Cry/Crysis, but in 1998. Sporting a large island to explore, Trespasser is the most known title of the trifecta described here. Not only did Trespasser support a unique physics system, it also had a rather unique animation system, the protagonist giving feedback on how many bullets there are left, along with a unique sound foley system, that could intermix any sounds in real time to produce new ones, a novelty feature that has not been featured in many games since. The game also attempted to give dinosaurs realistic behaviors, with agents employing a decision-based system based on emotions. In practice, this led to dinosaurs displaying rather erratic behavior, from being hostile to scared in a split second. Trespasser was too ambitious for its time, but became a cult hit, with a steady community to this day.


Features:

  • Bump mapping
  • Level of detail
  • Advanced ''Box'' physics (Everything acts as if it is encased in a invisible box)
  • Terrain engine
  • Reflective water
  • Player shadows
  • ''Advanced'' dinosaur AI

 

Share this post


Link to post

g7nlu2tg3yby.png

Resident Evil 7 was the first game in a long time to make me feel like I was there. The RE Engine has amazing lighting in particular. 

Share this post


Link to post
2 minutes ago, Mr. Freeze said:

g7nlu2tg3yby.png

Resident Evil 7 was the first game in a long time to make me feel like I was there. The RE Engine has amazing lighting in particular. 

yeah that game looked great! Resident Evil 2 Remake was one I would have mentioned in my original post.

Share this post


Link to post

Depends on if you are talking current or at different times. If we go with the latter...

 

- Doom was a big leap forward at the time. Even back in 1994 when I first saw it, it made other games look like cartoons.

- Unreal. That introductory flyby of the castle still looks pretty awesome.

- Bioshock though perhaps due more to the unique and well-realised setting than graphical quality per se. Though it was certainly no slouch.

- Fully modded Skyrim SE with high-res assets and ENB.

- Crysis

 

The current overall title holder for me though would have to be Doom Eternal. It's environments are stunning, expansive, and superbly realised, all the while running at far better framerate than my six year old rig should have any business running it.

Share this post


Link to post

The last Wooooow i had was Doom 3, just compare Games that came out on the same Time.

Doom 3 with HD-Textures and some other Mods looks even today pretty good.

 

Than it was just an Evolution in Graphics every Year.

 

And when i was 9 this Trailer on my DBZ Casette of the Sega Saturn was like "the Future".

Great Games and Music in it.

 

Sega Saturn Trailer Hobby Consolas

 

 

 

Edited by Azuris

Share this post


Link to post

When Fallout 3 came out, it was one of the first games I'd played that wasn't a SNES or PS2 game or Age of Empires. I remember thinking "How are graphics possibly going to get better than this?" - yeah, truly words of wisdom from a 13 year old. I now don't think the game was particularly graphically fantastic for its time, but for my experience of games at the time it absolutely blew me away. 

 

Since then, The Witcher 3, heavily modded Skyrim and more recently Cyberpunk have given me quite a few "Huh. Check that out. Goddam." moments. 

Share this post


Link to post
2 minutes ago, almostmatt1 said:

Since then, The Witcher 3

 

I knew I forgot something significant.

Share this post


Link to post

Unreal still has, tbh, some of the coolest graphics and artstyle. I think I don't have to say more since this game was one of the first games to showcase the true power of fully 3D graphics.

techtempledrei.jpg

 

I was lucky enough to have a PC that could run Crysis with stable framerate on Medium, and it looked like the future.

2014-12-06_00037.jpg

 

Battlefield 3 was probably the first war game that made my jaw drop in awe during the MP battles where you could have multiple tanks, helicopters and jets all crashing the battlefield.

ss_888515496687d61f4026f78e7adb9eb44542f

 

Dead Space 2 is, surprisingly, extremely good looking and has one of the most stable engines I have ever played. There's no loading screen at all. You can play the entire game without a single loading screen. Amazing and quite underrated engine.

3-dead-space-2-preview-screenshot.jpg

 

As a side note, the Source-Engine has the greatest water imo. It's also a pretty good looking engine. Very notorious for its ''backroom'' vibes.

 

hl2lost2.jpg

Share this post


Link to post

Resident Evil (psx) blew my mind back in the day. 

Castlevania Lords of Shadow was quite a stunner too (shame not as much effort went into the sequel) 

Looking forward to playing Demons Souls remaster eventually. 

 

Share this post


Link to post

Death Stranding, specially when you encounter BTs

20201209145815-1.jpg

 

20201209150429-1.jpg

 

22 hours ago, jamondemarnatural said:

Control

Loved the otherworldliness of the Oldest House

 

20200902163109-1.jpg

 

20200903100359-1.jpg

 

20200902172031-1.jpg

Share this post


Link to post

 

I think I found Journey to be the most visually appealing. Any time you see the end-game mountain you're headed towards it's always stunning

 

 

Share this post


Link to post

Apologies for my over-generalizing comment from earlier.

 

On a side note, though, pixels are not my fetish.

Share this post


Link to post

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×