/vr/ - Retro Games

>>7496203

>>7496203
the first time I saw RE4 I couldn't get over how incredible it looked, and 16 years later I still think it looks better than some modern games.

>>7496203
Shenmue

I remember playing the PSX on my first TV that was a bit bigger than this one. It blew my mind.

>>7496203
Walking into an arcade in 1993 and having my mind blown when I saw Daytona USA.

>>7496203
just the water, getting in the water was my favorite thing to do in games and they all never looked this satisfying

Probably when Dreamcast came out with Soul Calibur.

>>7496203
Descent on PC when it had its 360 degrees of movement ans flat textured killer robots but sprite animated HUD ans some weapons. Some of the robot last could sneak up on you ans that freaked me out

>>7496320
I have this game on 360 and it’s aged amazingly well

>>7496203
Probably picrel

>>7496519
OP here and I also had this back on release, it was good but didn’t have the same holy shit factor Unreal had

>>7496203
First time I was truly blown away was the half life 2 tech demo.

>>7496537
I didn't play Unreal on release, but Deus Ex (my first UE game) did have a holy shit factor to it, so I'm sure Unreal would have blown me away in 1998 even more.

>>7496203
Luigi's Mansion 1 honestly has great graphics and in particular lighting that people tend to ignore. I can't think of a single game released before 2001 with better lighting. It even shits on most modern Nintendo games, including Luigi's Mansion 3.

I'm just generally a huge LM1 fan and I think it's extremely underrated. It's one of the closest things ever made to a perfect game and it was revolutionary in ways that I feel like few people appreciate. Nearly every object in every room is interactable in some way. The environments feel dynamic and alive while modern games still often feel like they're full of static, immovable props that you'd never think to interact with unless the "interact" button pops up. And the pacing is perfect as well. It's so densely packed with content that there's never a dull moment. It's one of the few games I replay every year or so because it's short enough you can easily beat it in a couple days.

blew my fuckin mind. played it on the wii with this huge mitsubishi tv

>>7496203
god of war III

Probably a common answer, but very true. I was hyped beyond belief for this. I don't think any gaming experience can ever match those few minutes I was able to play this at demo kiosks before owning the console.

Gran Turismo 3. The early days of quality 60fps 3D being available on consoles is all pretty high in the wow factor category for me, but I love me some jaggy early ps2 3D

Rogue Squadron 2 was my first 6th gen game, a launch title, and floored me at the time. I realize that star wars ships are by their boxy nature very easy to make system-light, but that game looked like such a flawless rendition at the time that it was still incredible how good it looked.

>>7496203

>>7496737
It was the very first 3d experience for most of us

>>7496203
Got it for Christmas in 2001. The only games I played before was stuff like Wolfenstein 3D, NAM, Midtown Madness, Beachhead 2000, Red Baron II, Flight Simulator 98, and while they weren't bad at all for the time, RTCW was the first really blow my balls off. I could barely run it on my Windows 98 Compaq Presario, but I was so immersed that I didn't care. I feel like kids who played Half-Life when it first came out had the same exact experience, but RTCW was that for me.

>>7496203
Good ol' fashioned Doom. Shareware.

1996. Same year as Quake and Mario 64 and shitting all over from the greatest of heights.

did you not know about... like, the xbox

>>7496203
literally every game looked like shit to me before HL2

even in the n64 days, people would talk about games having "good graphics" and I was thinking, it looks like fucking muddy angular shit

>>7497274
good graphics did not exist before 2004 (PC)

It's funny looking back on just how primitive it is, sprites were used for almost everything. And hell, it's fucking 2.5D
Still, my only experiences with 3D were Stunt Race FX and Mechwarrior 2. So when my brother came home with this it was just insane to me.

I'd played quite a few 3D games before GT3, but playing this I couldn't believe what I was seeing. 60fps as well, which didn't mean anything to me at the time, but I knew it was smooth as fuck.

>>7496203
It is still pretty fucking gorgeous.

>>7497335
it's hard to believe something this good was running on the wii

>>7496345
howd they do that

>>7496203
It was absolutely mind blowing in 2001.

Spyro was really impressive to me when I first played it back in the day. I still find it has a charm to it.

Somewhere around Half Life/Carmageddon 2 probably. Mario 64 like the other guy said was pretty wild the first time actually holding the controller and running around, bit that was more to do with how it felt than the graphics probably. Also GTA3, but more because of the feeling of being in a real city.

>>7496203
Duke Nukem. Especially mirrors.

That closeup shot of you turning the doorknob in Luigi's Mansion was the coolest shit

>>7496737
I had to travel an hour by bus to be able to see this running on demo. Saved up for an N64 for the next couple of weeks and bought the last one at Comet. Couldn't afford any games tho. I brought it home and sat and watched that one program that used to come on ITV on a satruday with a handful of game clips. Dad saw a short clip of Mario 64 and lent me another tenner so I could go all the way back to Comet and buy it. Probably walked 8 miles that day.

>>7496203
First time blown away:
Quake after being used to Doom(clones)
Other times being blown away:
Unreal, castle intro and walking outside first time (2nd level)
Tomb Raider 2 first level with the cave and water and the tiger appearing
Half Life trainride
Aliens vs Predator 1999 marine campaign looking at the mirror reflection
Duke Nukem being able to turn on water taps and lights etc
Soldier of Fortune for the extreme amount of gore
Blade of Darkness for the lighting and shadows

>>7496203
Donkey Kong Country.

31 years old, for clarification.

The first time I saw the Dam level in Goldeneye, I used to think those mountains looked photoreal, lol.

>>7496203
>>7496320
>>7497274
this

>>7496203
I couldn't believe what I was seeing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj3dPyk7hPI&ab_channel=destx

>>7497986
>geforce 3
uh really

>>7496203
No kidding, it was this and Devil May Cry. Been playing since Atari.

I couldn't believe how round the circles were, specially the rocket launcher.

Probably Chasm: The Rift.

It was not the first game I had seen, and it had been a bit dated back then. Still, those enemies, models, weapons, powerups, and special effects made an impression. Each object in the game felt heavy and thick, and tiny details like smoke puffs added polish.

IIRC, it was a bit picky about VESA support on various video cards (or buggy), and only offered about 3 slow legacy video modes on some. However, on a powerful computer at school I could use jaw-dropping 1280×960, start a multiplayer server, and watch 4 player chase cams at once! Way ahead of its time in many aspects.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZW5Tu8BMsg
I think Dosbox emulation makes certain things happen a bit too fast, and other things lag, but it runs fine overall. I might be wrong here, though.

>>7497274
HL2 is the one of the best sequels ever made
it also ruined gaming forever
people misread the artstyle for realism and now all we have is realistic looking pile of crap games

>>7498329
q3 still looks amazing

>>7498354
that was crysis

>>7498364
hmm maybe you're right

>>7496203
Rage Racer on ps1 demo disc 1 version 5, that came with my ps1.

>>7498354
No, Quake 2 is what started the whole “generic brown FPS” trend that continues to this day

>>7496203
I remembered that Unreal 1 indoor lighting effects were real cool when i was a kid. I was playing a demo that ran on a crappy Pentium II that my uncle had.

It looked way more pixellated than this video
https://youtu.be/WTRmZ6aFEWM

>>7498364
Crysis was great. Colourful, shiny water effects and big assplosions.
>>7498491
I thought it was CoD or some shit that started the grey brown and BLOOM industry?
https://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=222

Seeing virtua fighter at a kiosk as a kid. Before then 3D was basically the stuff of very top end PCs and arcade machines.

>>7498491
You simply do not know what you are talking about.

>>7498581
>Seeing virtua fighter at a kiosk as a kid.
I thought it was pretty ugly compared to the 2D fightans of that era.

>>7498590
Nah. Quake 1 started it, but CoD and Modern Warfares popularised the tvtrope.

Them particles mang.

Being able to possess creature in Dungeon Keeper seemed like the coolest thing ever, even though the graphics was kinda pixelated, all corridors, walls and stuff was made by you. It was like a real time level editor.

>>7498617

>>7496737
I tried to play this the first time at a kiosk and a little girl walked up and made fun of me to her dad for not immediately groking the N64 controls. I have hated it ever since.

>>7498491
>what is Quake 1

>>7498491
Q2 still had a software mode tied to 256 color VGA, it was somewhat unavoidable

>>7496203
Quake 2 on PC

This was absolutely mind blowing.

3D doesn't mean only first person you guys realize games used too literally be in 2D right? This is retro games come on now dont tell me no one played Starcraft or Diablo 2 and thought these were amazing graphically.

>>7498831
>Starcraft or Diablo 2 and thought these were amazing graphically.
2.5 D is fake 3D.

>>7496203
i used to think gta san andreas looked photo realistic

>>7498807
Came to post this

>>7498354
>people misread the artstyle for realism
It was. Once you reach a certain graphical quality, which HL2 was the first to do, you have a choice between realism and stylization, and HL2 chose realism. Don't blame them if later games made realism a curse word, which I disagree with. Would you prefer Overwatch?

>>7498712
>groking

>>7498392
Heading up that first hill with the waterfall, coming out the other side of the tunnel, going down that huge hill, seeing the greek ruins in the water with seagulls flying and reflections moving around.. man namco were good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDzuKH1mJsw

the entry shot of dire dire docks
my cousin was playing when we visited that christmas and this was my first time seeing 3d graphics

I went into a Target as a kid and there was an N64 kiosk. A kid was playing SM64 and I was mind-blown.

I'm a zoomer so having grown up with 3D visuals as the norm for games that were new when I was a kid, there wasn't a point where I was blown away in the same sense as seeing Mario 64 for the first time at a kiosk in a K•B Toys in late 1996 or something. My "blown away" moments more come from my appreciation of older hardware later in life. For example, I remember seeing Shenmue for the first time and being very impressed with how it looked considering the time. Knowing that games like OoT and MGS were only a year prior to it and the humans looked that much more human in Shenmue was amazing to me. I only ever got to experience being impressed like that when looking at something in retrospect. Once again with the Dreamcast, I was genuinely impressed by the stark contrast between the opening sequences in SA1 and SA2. Emerald Coast's orca and City Escape's GUN truck are similar in concept but wildly different in execution. For one, the orca is more or less just a cutscene whereas the GUN truck is closer to those levels in Crash Bandicoot where you run towards the camera away from some death obstacle. There's a lpt more gameplay involved as well as the GUN truck actually having some programming to back off a bit after hitting Sonic. It really showcased how far Sonic Team had come in their mastery of the hardware by doing fundamentally the same concept but far more intricately later down the line with more knowledge under their belt.

>>7498712
>faggot couldn't even groke the n64 controls
LMAO, serves you right. Maybe learn to groke next time, nerd.

>>7499715
Based zoomer. I'm a millennial but feel the same way. HL2 was my first "real" game other than PSP so my appreciation of /vr/ graphics comes more from the ingenuity of it.
>>7499720
Here's a cringe zoomer for comparison.

Super Mario 64

>>7496285
Are you me? It was also my first ps1 game.

>>7499725
I posted both of those lmao, I was just poking fun at a typo. Glad you enjoyed my first post though. HL2's a pretty good game.

>>7499360
I think they we're in their prime with the PS1

>>7498807
MW2 still looks good. I think it's all because of the very aesthetically pleasing color schemes.

Seeing Sonic Adventure for the first time at a Toys R Us in 1999 was mindblowing.
Earlier than that, I remember being extremely impressed with the way Manx TT Superbike looked in the arcade.

>>7497361
Wave Race and Crash 3 did it in gen 5, so no doubt gen 6 can

Jak and Daxter looked phenomenal at release, and it ran at 60FPS. Really was advanced for the time.

Off the top of my head I'd say that games from the early 2000s with physics, especially open world games where you could crash into stuff and have it fall over "realistically" e.g. Simpsons Hit and Run (weird example I know), really blew my mind considering how old they were.

The landscapes in Outcast and their size was incredible for 1999. The resolution sucked though.
>>7496320
I remember it costed more than any other game in the arcade and it was by far the most impressive.
>>7496276
>>7496397
Yes, these two were absolutely incredible at the time.
>>7496635
>Deus Ex
As much as I love Deus Ex, its graphic was all but impressive at the time.
>>7497792
>Blade of Darkness
Indeed.
>>7497986
Even when it came out in 2004 it was still incredible. It was the last time I was really impressed by the graphics.
>>7498329
Wasn't it the first game to have "round" surfaces?

>>7500106
Oh and Rayman 2 and 3, if not for the graphic fidelity, then the fucking beautiful visuals of the worlds in either game. Had just enough to give you an idea of a detailed world that wasn't just "desert level" or "ice level," but not outright tell you all, if any, of the lore of a given location so your mind can just wander and think about how it came to be and what the backstory is. I mean,
>The Woods of Light
>The Walk of Life
>The Marshes of Awakening
>The Menhir Hills
>The Sanctuary of Stone and Fire, along with the other sanctuaries
>Tomb of the Ancients
>The Cave of Bad Dreams
>The Bog of Murk
>The Land of the Livid Dead
>The Desert of the Kanaaren
>The Longest Shortcut
Not all of them are perfect, but there's just something about the names of these levels alone that still resonates with me and sounds so goddamn fantastical and stimulates the imagination.

>>7496203
honestly i was way overthinking this question and I realized...Star Fox. Specifically the Armada level of the easy route the first time i rented it.

then it wasn't much longer that I got to see stuff like Descent and US Navy Fighters on a PC and that was like holy fuck.

I had a Sega Saturn with nice 3d games, but for some reason Pilotwings 64 sticks out as the game that took my breath away when I first saw it.

This with song related:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byuPl7yjovU

>>7498807
is this a high-res mod? Haven't played MW2 in probably two decades now, and I thought 800x600 was the highest it would go.

I remember seeing screenshots of Doom 3 in magazines thinking that we had reached the endpoint, that graphics couldn't possibly get better than this.

>>7500191

Same. Birdman on Little America was my favorite way to relax after school during middle school

Holy shit, he went BEHIND the trees. We're motherfucking 3D now.

>>7497432
I'm a PS2 zoomer who experienced a few PS games growing up, and Spyro set unrealistically high expectations for me: I just assumed that every PS game had big, quality 3D worlds like that one did. What blew my mind even more was learning the Saturn had Croc, and that was basically it in terms of "proper" 3D platformers in the West.

>>7500353
I remember back then I couldnt stop watching the trailers for this thing.

>>7496203
Bioshock was pretty amazing. But crysis was years ahead of the curb when it released.

>>7496371
I remember playing the demo to the second one.
Weren't these voxel based? Or use some other unconventional rendering?

>>7496345
it's a shame that game was such a piece of shit honestly

>>7496612
>>7497274
>>7497986
>>7500353
This.
HL2 and Doom3 were just incredible. Almost untouchable when it came to graphics. I was drooling over both games, but I probably drooled more over HL2. The physics system was just incredible. It had more gameplay potential than Doom 3's shadows.

https://youtu.be/k1hh2hcv_do

>>7496695
Oh, good one. TP was the first "mature" brown and bloom game I played and it was pretty mind-blowing at the time. The style didn't exactly age amazingly but there's a reason people were so hype for it at the time.