Best looking games of all time for when they came out

Sam Or I · Post by **Sam Or I** » 2006-10-01 09:53pm

Vendetta wrote:Unreal. The first one.

Damn, I am dating myself, but you mean the second game of "Unreal" correct, the 3d one? Not the first old Amiga "Unreal" 2d hack and slash, and 3d (bitmapped) flying dragon ?

Darth Garden Gnome · Post by **Darth Garden Gnome** » 2006-10-01 10:35pm

Surprised no one has mentioned The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Easily the best game in the world, visually and otherwise, when it was released.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2006-10-01 10:58pm

Doom. Wolfenstein 3D was pretty fantastic, but true 3D (ie height) environments really made it come alive for me.

RThurmont · Post by **RThurmont** » 2006-10-01 10:59pm

The absolute best graphics I've seen on a computer game are in Myst and Riven, which were absolutely stunning (and in my opinion, one of the reasons why the two games collectively outsold all of their competitors in the PC/Mac spce, in the 1990s). The sales success of Myst, and its successors, in particular, remained unmatched until The Sims arrived in 2000.

Maxis games have always had good graphics, but more often than not, the real driver of interest is the underlying model. However, I loved the graphics of Sim City 3000, which were astonishingly radiant and immersive. Sim City 4 is more photo-realistic, but also sterile and less charming, which should logically appeal to my modernist tastes (remember, the walls of my office are painted silver), but which for some reason, do not.

However, off all of the games I've played, the graphics of the Commander Keen games (sans the mediocre KeenDreams) remain my favorite. Particularly in Keen 4-6, we saw the emergence of a distinct, highly integrated graphical style that remained consistent throughout the product, with consistently cartoonish avatars, bright, quirky color schemes, and brilliant, dynamic contrasts: sleek, ultra-modern buildings and controls contrasting with verdant jungle and ancient ruins in Keen 4, insane robots ruling an out-of-control technology center replete with flashing red lights and rapidly scrolling command prompts in Keen 5, and a mechanical nightmare infested with queer alien vegetation in Keen 6. It was just so cool, it's beyond words. The mediocre, self-indulgent typography was the only downside, but compared to the competition's use of plain jane ASCII typography, it was arguably industry-leading. No one had yet brought slick, crisp type to any computer software as of 1992, so you can't fault it for that.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-10-01 11:01pm

Darth Garden Gnome wrote:Surprised no one has mentioned The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Easily the best game in the world, visually and otherwise, when it was released.

No way. That was released in 1998. Half-Life was released that year as well, and looked clearly superior, or Unreal, which came out early 98.

Darth Garden Gnome · Post by **Darth Garden Gnome** » 2006-10-01 11:03pm

Well, um, guess not.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-10-02 12:15am

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:Yes, Wolf 3D was awesome when that came out. I remember chattering excitedly about it with my classmates and scheming about how to get our hands on it without our parents finding out.

I played the free demo and then actually paid for the full version. This was one of the first (if not the first) examples of a big-name game offering playable demos.

EDIT: But if Wolf 3D is to be mentioned when talking about graphics, its lesser known but better looking contemporary Ultima Underworld can't be ignored.

True; Ultimate Underworld's engine actually had some extra features. But Wolf 3D not only fathered the entire first-person shooter genre, it also fathered its obsession with frame rates; its engine was considerably faster than Ultima Underworld's engine, thus allowing the fast-moving in-your-face action that we now consider to be synonymous with the genre.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-10-02 01:02am

Yes, but it wasn't called a demo then. It was Shareware

. I paid six bucks for the Shareware version to be shipped to my house (well, my parents did). Ah, the things we did before the Internet. Glory to the blessed Internet.

Chris OFarrell · Post by **Chris OFarrell** » 2006-10-02 03:24am

Ah Wolf 3d. Back in high school all the old 386/486's in years 7-8 had the shareware version of Wolf3D. We never used it in school, but a few times a year in open days or the occasional 'do whatever you want' time, you could walk in and see two dozen people blasting Nazi's.

Damn those were the cool days.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2006-10-02 09:31am

RThurmont wrote:Maxis games have always had good graphics, but more often than not, the real driver of interest is the underlying model. However, I loved the graphics of Sim City 3000, which were astonishingly radiant and immersive. Sim City 4 is more photo-realistic, but also sterile and less charming, which should logically appeal to my modernist tastes (remember, the walls of my office are painted silver), but which for some reason, do not.

Maxis seemed to move to a more "realistic" simulation in SC4 and IMHO lost some of the charm of the series. SC2K remains my favorite of the genre, and it looked quite good for its time.

However, off all of the games I've played, the graphics of the Commander Keen games (sans the mediocre KeenDreams) remain my favorite. Particularly in Keen 4-6, we saw the emergence of a distinct, highly integrated graphical style that remained consistent throughout the product, with consistently cartoonish avatars, bright, quirky color schemes, and brilliant, dynamic contrasts: sleek, ultra-modern buildings and controls contrasting with verdant jungle and ancient ruins in Keen 4, insane robots ruling an out-of-control technology center replete with flashing red lights and rapidly scrolling command prompts in Keen 5, and a mechanical nightmare infested with queer alien vegetation in Keen 6. It was just so cool, it's beyond words. The mediocre, self-indulgent typography was the only downside, but compared to the competition's use of plain jane ASCII typography, it was arguably industry-leading. No one had yet brought slick, crisp type to any computer software as of 1992, so you can't fault it for that.

Commander Keen was awesome.

Shogoki · Post by **Shogoki** » 2006-10-02 01:19pm

I just remembered the name of that other game that made people's jaws drop by the sheer awesomeness of the graphics when compared to anything else out at the time on any platform, on any genere:

Strike Commander

I had this game back in the day, and then bought the voice pack when it came out, it was a real fun and arcadeish but with some decent realism touches, running it with full detail enabled was a sure way to get 1fps, though, i was only able to do that until much later when i got a 133mhz processor:

Remeber: this is a 1993 game.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-10-02 01:37pm

Yeah, but Strike Commander also ran like shit on any computer available at the time it was released. Its graphics were largely hypothetical for that reason. The line on that game was that the people who bought it had to wait a year so that a top-of-the-line computer would be powerful enough to play it.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-10-02 03:18pm

And now no one can play it because it only works in pure DOS. Grr!

Shogoki · Post by **Shogoki** » 2006-10-02 04:18pm

That's why i wrote the 1fps comment, it was playable, though, just not with full detail, and you still needed a good pc just for that, with full detail you got insane things (for the time) like the missiles actually shooting out from their place under the wings and leaving the empty spot.

Dennis Toy · Post by **Dennis Toy** » 2006-10-03 12:16am

Duke Nukem 3d was actually the best game of 1996, it had the best graphics, sound and gameplay of that time. I actually still have that game.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-10-03 01:01am

It was a hell of a game, that's for sure. But everyone was too busy salivating with anticipation over Quake's graphics to pay much heed to Duke. It was also the first game I ever played where a voice actor said "shit".

As an aside, Bloodrayne was the first game where I ever heard a voice actor say "fuck". Correct me if I'm wrong on the first uses of those expletives in gaming.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2006-10-03 01:21am

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:It was a hell of a game, that's for sure. But everyone was too busy salivating with anticipation over Quake's graphics to pay much heed to Duke. It was also the first game I ever played where a voice actor said "shit".

As an aside, Bloodrayne was the first game where I ever heard a voice actor say "fuck". Correct me if I'm wrong on the first uses of those expletives in gaming.

Incorrect. Ref: Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising was earlier than Bloodrayne.

"I could kill you just by fucking looking at you."
"Got the fucker."
"Haha, fuck you!"

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2006-10-03 01:40am

Ransom wrote:"Haha, fuck you!"

I loved Ransom. For some reason, even years after playing the game, I still hear that particular voice clip right after I absolutely demolish something in a game.

Post by **RogueIce** » 2006-10-03 03:13am

I'm just going to have to second Donkey Kong Country for the SNES. It had amazing graphics, music, and pretty damn fun gameplay (IMO). The graphics and music set it apart of course.

Starfox was supposed to be the big deal with it's special chip (I forgot what it was called) followed by Stunt Race FX (that game was mad fun to play, by the way). But DKC totally blew them out of the water.

As for FF7, while the character models in normal play are rather dated by today's standards, I still say that the various backgrounds and environments are still pretty damn good. I love looking at the pretty scenerey.

Shogoki · Post by **Shogoki** » 2006-10-03 03:27am

Those 3 games were good looking on their own terms, but they were far from being the best when compared to the competition, which is what this is all about, you must contrast Donkey with Doom, Starfox with Wolfestein and Strike Commander, and FFVI, well, i believe The Curse of Monekey Island, from the same year, is much much prettier, and it was nothing really special.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2006-10-03 04:55am

Starfox was supposed to be the big deal with it's special chip (I forgot what it was called)

Super FX. The Super FX2 was even more impressive (Starfox 2 did things the SNES just shouldn't be able to do) but it never was released.

Nephtys wrote:
Darth Garden Gnome wrote:Surprised no one has mentioned The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Easily the best game in the world, visually and otherwise, when it was released.
No way. That was released in 1998. Half-Life was released that year as well, and looked clearly superior, or Unreal, which came out early 98.

Half-life may have had a higher poly count but in the end it was just miles and miles of generic industrial corridor. There's more to "pretty" than the technical aspects.

you must contrast Donkey with Doom

Why would you contrast a 2D platformer with a 3D FPS? Not that DK would lose the comparison

AniThyng · Post by **AniThyng** » 2006-10-03 05:48am

I'm gonna go out on a limb an nominate the flight simulator TFX for the sheer atmosphere and detail of the scenery, even on a 486 in the early pentium era.

Also Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri , a battlesuit combat game with good (voxel shaded, i think) scenery and AI wingmen that was very good for its time, but overshadowed i think by Mechwarrior and earthseige in retail...

2000AD · Post by **2000AD** » 2006-10-03 05:49am

Metal Gear Solid 2 was pretty and also had lots of detail like Snakes bandanna blowing in the wind and raindrops bouncing off his body.

Half life 2, obviously.

Farcry, when it was released about a year earlier than HL2 was also cool.

Davis 51 · Post by **Davis 51** » 2006-10-03 07:15am

Super Mario 64 was pretty damn impressive when it came out. So was Starfox 64. Aw, hell, most Starfox games have had impressive visuals.

Post by **RogueIce** » 2006-10-03 05:26pm

Shogoki wrote:Those 3 games were good looking on their own terms, but they were far from being the best when compared to the competition, which is what this is all about, you must contrast Donkey with Doom, Starfox with Wolfestein and Strike Commander, and FFVI, well, i believe The Curse of Monekey Island, from the same year, is much much prettier, and it was nothing really special.

You're comparing console games to PC games? Isn't that a bit like apples and oranges?

But if you want to be that way, for console games, DKC, Starfox, and FFVII take the floor.

Bounty wrote:Super FX. The Super FX2 was even more impressive (Starfox 2 did things the SNES just shouldn't be able to do) but it never was released.

I should've realized that name, but I didn't. Ah well. Are there any screenshots of what Starfox 2 would've looked like?

And did DKC use the same thing, or was it something else. I just keep having "MMX" stuck in my head, but that was a PC thing.