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"Games won't get better than this!"

Started by Kelvin, April 01, 2018, 03:25:26 PM

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Kelvin

A thread to discuss times you naively assumed graphics, music, stories or gameplay couldn't possibly get better than what you were experiencing right then, only for x amount of time to pass and realise how wrong you were.

For me, Turok 2 was one of the only times I distinctly remember thinking "graphics will never get better than this", in particular, a promotional picture of a raptor, which I can't find, but which basically looked like this:



and this cutscene from the game itself: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOEF3gDVB38

which seemed impossibly cinematic. So much so that I even showed it to a girl who I was trying to impress, and my little brother rightly called me a clueless knob. 

Coincidently, the most jarring difference in quality looking back, was actually the opening cutscene to Turok 3:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPkDoR06X7Y

which blew my mind when I first watched it, before the (awful) game released. Probably the facial animation made it look terribly advanced for the N64 at the time, but in retrospect, it just makes me think of Xavier: Renegade Angel. It's obviously hideous now, but at the time, I remember watching it over and over again, because I couldn't believe it looked so good.

Kelvin

Doesn't have to be graphics. Just times you distinctly thought that a particular aspect of a game was impossibly impressive, but which hasn't stood the test of time.

asids

Perfect Dark Zero and Tomb Raider Legend for the 360. I couldn't see how graphics were going to get better. PDZ in particular looks ugly as fuck now. Way too much flare/reflections.


Kelvin

I actually disliked the PDZ art style at the time, probably because it felt so far from the original's more 'realistic' artstyle. Ironic, considering how empty and ugly PD looks now.

samadriel

Half-Life 2 was a massive jump in graphical quality, and I was dazzled by the promotional material. I've never thought "it can't get better than this", but with HL2 I certainly thought "this is surely so good that further improvements will just be small tweaks."  A well-made Source game can still look pretty good (Black Mesa is a handsome game), but it's clearly been surpassed, particularly in the all-important area of lighting.

biggytitbo

I never thought we'd get better than Jet Set Willy, that seemed photorealistic in 1984.

Ferris

TimeSplitters 2 - never been bettered in some ways, but I remember being astounded at the graphics.


Yes, the art style of TimeSplitters 2 has held up pretty well, but it was astonishing at the time. Miles ahead of the now comparatively grubby-looking sequel, Timesplitters: Future Perfect

Mass_Panic

Half Life 2 was pretty amazing back in the day. And Oblivion, with its fancy waving foliage. Those games seemed like some sort of magic trickery.

biggytitbo

Wha? I played both those games recently and future perfect is a massive step forward in graphics over 2, which still has that kind of generic late 90s, early 2000s pc fps look about it. 3 looks a lot more like a modern game.

I remember playing Uncharted in 2009 and thinking how it was obviously something different from anything I'd ever seen. That bit where you're in the building and it topples over and all the furniture and stuff slides to the walls still looks amazing even now.

Ferris

Yeah Future Perfect was definitely a step up. The time portals all looked very slick as far as I remember.

Kelvin

Not so much a case of being blown away by graphics, but I remember being so impressed by the cockpit POV in the N64 Rogue Squadron, that my brother and I played it like a theme park simulator, with me flinging him around and replicating the dips and swerves, while he flew around going 'woooOOOOAAAArgh!'

Bhazor

First time playing GTA 3 blew my fucking mind.

monolith

Didn't Doom 3 come out before Half-life 2? I'm sure Doom 3 looked better...

monolith

Back in 1995 I hadn't ever played an RTS. I remember playing Warcraft 2 and thinking that this is a fun little game where you build units and occasionally things attack.

Then I discovered there was a fog of war and you could discover the fucking map and it wasn't just what you could see at the start of the game.

Blew my fucking mind.



Dannyhood91

I can remember an advert for Lylat Wars on the N64 and the man doing the voice going "ITS FOR ONE TWO THREE FOUR PLAYERS!!!" which blew my tiny little mind in the day.

A few years later you have the Nintendo GameCube which had Star Wars Rouge Leader which if I'm honest still looks good 17 years later

https://youtu.be/bhZQ1-LiuQ4

Dannyhood91

In fact I've just had a memory of a PC game from 1997 called POD. It was a bit like Wipeout but I think it can't out a couple of years after. Anyway I remember thinking this was absolutely stunning visually.

https://youtu.be/hYRPB2ssjkA

bgmnts

I think when I was a nipper playing Ocarina of Time, Super Mario 64 and Metal Gear Solid, i must have thought that was the zenith of game design.

I definitely remember playing Driver and thinking 'driving wont be better' and then I played burnout.

Kelvin

Quote from: Dannyhood91 on April 01, 2018, 05:10:02 PM
A few years later you have the Nintendo GameCube which had Star Wars Rouge Leader which if I'm honest still looks good 17 years later

https://youtu.be/bhZQ1-LiuQ4

Bloody hell, that has aged well!

Kelvin

I can't remember what SNES game it was, maybe the original Donkey Kong Country? But I used to think it looked so good, that I kind of tricked my stupid kid brain into believing it was 3D, and that the layers of parallax scrolling were actually real depth. It was one of those things where I both knew it wasn't true, but could almost see it at times. I remember getting my poor old grandma to rewatch levels with me, just so I could show off the "3D" graphics.

To think that only a few years later, I'd be showing Turok 2 to a girl I fancied.

Poor Grandma, left behind.   

gmoney

My dad came in the room while me and my brother played World Cup 98 on the PS1 and thought we were watching a real game.



Photo-realism!

popcorn

My gran watched me playing Sega Rally 2 and speculated that it was footage of "somewhere near Grange".

Kelvin


Dannyhood91

I remember thinking WWF SmackDown Just Bring It back in 2001 was mega realistic even though in just a couple of years it'd age horribly.

I think it was the commentary

"You need to watch out for KAAAAAANE with his devistating CHOKESLAM"

asids

Quote from: Kelvin on April 01, 2018, 05:52:21 PM
Bloody hell, that has aged well!

Yeah, RS II still looks good today, especially the Death Star level: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXpi-Yybv-k

All the lasers flying about and the detail in the little bits of the Death Star. They obviously used a lot of visual tricks, but it still looks really nice.

Bazooka

Yes Turok 2 with the expansion pack was something else. A few years later playing Phantasy Star Online on the Dreamcast, it looked gorgeous and online play at 2p a minute was a real can't get better than this moment.

bgmnts

#26
Has anyone played Goldeneye on the N64 recently?

Seemed peak FPS action back then but fuck me it is horrendous.

I'd also like to echo the sentiment that in many ways, most of these classics haven't been topped in many aspects, even graphically.

Phil_A

I remember seeing the first images of Doom 3 and thinking I would never in my wildest dreams own a PC capable of running that.

biggytitbo

Crysis in 2007, even though my PC could barely run it, I remember how amazed I was looking down at the floor and it wasn't a flat texture but actually bumpy, first time I'd seen that in a game.  TBH i'm still slightly obsessed by bumpy surfaces in games even now, almost as much as realistic water effects.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Bump mapping wasn't new in Crysis. I think I first noticed it in Halo back in 2001, or whenever it was.

Quote from: samadriel on April 01, 2018, 04:24:54 PM
Half-Life 2 was a massive jump in graphical quality, and I was dazzled by the promotional material. I've never thought "it can't get better than this", but with HL2 I certainly thought "this is surely so good that further improvements will just be small tweaks."  A well-made Source game can still look pretty good (Black Mesa is a handsome game), but it's clearly been surpassed, particularly in the all-important area of lighting.
I think graphical progress has slowed a bit in the last decade or so. Bloodborne for example doesn't look that far removed from The Batman Arkham games on the previous generation. Bump maps, Phong shaders and whatnot do a lot of the work of making things look flash, so adding more polygons doesn't have as big an impact as it used to. I suppose this could be as much to do with with budgets as processing power though.

Then again, there's this.  I don't know what hardware it's running on, but it is apparently in real time.