Best looking games of all time for when they came out

[andrewgpaul]

I was never a huge gaming fan, so I'm probably gonna sound like an ignoramus, but 2 that stood out for me were Beneath a Steel Sky and Gunship 2000. The latter allowed you to fly through railroad tunnels, which was a change from its contemporaries, wich just painted a black circle on the side of a hill

[MKSheppard]

I hear they recently got Strike Commander to run at 25fps on the latest PC.

Hahha, actually the last CD-Rom version that was released had a LOT of cleanups in code, and was very smooth.

[Master of Ossus]

Dragon's Lair - This game came out in 1983 and today's games still don't look quite as good. Of course, that's because it used FMV, but that was a damn impressive feat back then. FMV didn't really come to the consoles or PC until a decade later. It wasn't just the fact that it was FMV, the artists who drew and animated it were very talented. It looked almost Disney quality.

Most games today go for completely different styles, of course, but check out Silverfall, an upcoming game that has cel-shaded character models. My personal vote for the most beautiful game is Icewind Dale, which featured (IMO) better artwork than the BG series that usually overshadows it.

[TrailerParkJawa]

How can we have a thread like this with noone mentioning Defender of the crown?

Holy shit was that game good-looking back in 86...

Then there's of course The Last Ninja as well.

Actually I mentioned it a few posts before yours. It was a really cool game wasnt it? Remember at the end when you see the guy kiss the girl. My friends and I always thought you could see his erection. It totally occured to me while reading this thread that we might have really been seeing the hilt of his sword.

[starfury]

The old Robocop vs the Terminator games, on the Sega Genesis system, that was pretty nice.

[Shadowtraveler]

Sonic Adventure. Looked real pretty when it came out, and the effects when the dolphins jump over you at the end of Emerald Coast were cool.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Speaking of Genesis games, I nominate Ecco the Dolphin. I couldn't even believe that one the first time I saw it.

[Durandal]

Yea. FF6 pushed the limits of sprites and was actually good looking. The chibi freaks of 7 had me turned off from the game from Day One.

One thing that's curious about FF7 is that the look of the FMV characters changes pretty dramatically as you go through the game. In the intro movie, Cloud looks like a squat blob of polygons with color-fills being passed off as a skin. But by the end movie, he looks more like a real person. That's just how I remember it, but I haven't played the game in a while.

I'd actually attribute FF8 with really bringing out good-looking FMV's. They're still impressive, even today. You can't say the same of FF7's.

As to Unreal ... yeah, the game was fucking gorgeous, better than anything else at the time overall. I remember when I first got it, I was using the software renderer. Then I got my trusty Voodoo2 12 MB and could run it in Glide mode at 800x600 resolution, and I couldn't believe the difference. The game made Quake II look like ass. The waterfall on the first level was awesome; I'd spend a few minutes just looking at it.

As to MGS looking better than anything the PC had at the time ... please. It was released in 1998, at the same time as Unreal, Quake II and Half-Life. You're talking about a game that played at 320x240 resolution and had no texture filtering. Next to any PC game of the time, MGS looked like ass.

[Jade Falcon]

The thing I remember about Unreal at the time it came out was that 'rolling demo' where it panned round the castle. It looked amazing.

One other game that looked good, but unfortunately didn't play as well as it looked was Rebel Assault.

[wautd]

Has anyone mentioned Little Big Adventure yet?

[weemadando]

Has anyone mentioned Little Big Adventure yet?

Oh hells yes. That looked amazing.

And for sheer design greatness - Abe's Odyssey.

[Drooling Iguana]

The original Star Wars arcade game looked pretty cool back in 1983. Of course, it was mostly its sound that made it stand out.