The Games That Showed Their System's Power

This is actually one of my favorite subjects when it comes about retro games. These games simply wowed many people making us wonder: "How in the hell they pulled this off!?". I was surprised to see that there wasn't any topic about this subject here so i figured why not do one? These are the criterias that need to be highlighted in this topic though but i can vary depending of the title:

* Graphics
* Music
* Sound
* Gameplay
* Speed
* Programming

So, which games impressed you with their technical display? Either on a Console, Handheld, Arcade or PC? It would be cool to see your answers Oh, Unreleased & Homebrew games count as well. If you have some Demoscene stuff to show as well, do it! (NOTE: post a video about the title you're talking about and it doesn't have to be a good game anyways )

To give you some examples, here's some highlights...on the Atari Jaguar:

 

You'll definitely like this channel then.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfVFSjHQ57zyxajhhRc7i0g

He goes into some of how the seemingly impossible was pulled off on the Genesis.

 

For the N64, most RARE games along with Majora's Mask. Also Goldfinger 64 (which utilises the Expansion Pak for the system and was made by a team of GoldenEye enthusiasts)

 

For me it's got to be these two...





Not just because they're great games - they really did push the Dreamcast hardware.

It's interesting that the Dreamcast is one console where the games that pushed the machine were all released quite early on and then proceeded to get worse - Unlike just about any other console where it tends to be the other way around, or am I mistaken?

 

Dreamcast is not the only one on that regard. Look at the Gamecube's first year lineup

 

Jon Burton is the man! Also, here's some of the top games for the PS1 when in comes to this subject:

 

For the OG Gameboy, I'd have to say

X


Race Drivin'


And the unreleased Death Track (this video is a lower framerate then the actual game, keep that in mind)

 

Did Symphony of the Night really push the PlayStation hardware?

 

Shenmue was impressive, but Shenmue II pressed it too far. The constant loading in that game drove me crazy.

 

Did the XBOX version improve this? I've only ever played that version.

 

Really? I never noticed this, and I thought the lack of loading screen when leaving a smaller building to go back outside was awesome compared to the first one. They're both impressive, but the second one more so.

 

Yes, really. I was using a DC-X boot disk and maybe that had something to do with it, but Shenmue II was constantly loading areas of the map like there was not much memory available. Just my experience. I am sure the Xbox version was a much smoother experience. Never tried it.

 

It still blows my mind that games like Halo 4 and GTA V ran on a console with 512mb of memory.

 

Absolutely. When you look at launch titles like GUN, THAW and Amped 3 and compare then to late release titles it's crazy. I guess the same could be said for the generation before it but it's amazing what was able to be done.

 

wow, race drivin' is better than the snes port

 

Worlds better, the Gameboy version is actually playable and dare I say, fun. The SNES version is just a hot pile in comparison.

 

IIRC Shenmue 2 was developed parallel to Shenmue 1. It was done by a different team and uses a somewhat different engine and it was obviously rushed.

 

From what I understand, they actually started working on the sections that would eventually become Shenmue II before they began work on the parts from the first game. This is what I've read, though I could be wrong. Originally it was supposed to be just one game. They ended up splitting it into 2 games, because they realized it was too big for one game. Which makes sense; if it was all one game, it would've spanned 8 discs.

 

John Carmack and ID Software is famous for producing games that (back in the day) pushed the limits of what was possible on the PC hardware of the time. The Commander Keen games pushed what could be done with the graphics cards of the day (before Keen, no-one had done a side-scrolling platformer like that on the PC). Then Carmack did it again with Wolfenstein and then Doom and pushed the limits of PC hardware again.

The original Crash Bandicoot game on the PS1 did things no-one thought possible as well. They pulled it off via careful layout of the game disk, careful memory management and various other tricks. But they also bypassed a lot of the Sony libraries (which was against the Sony rules). By the time Sony found out though, the game was far enough along in development and far too impressive as a competitor for Mario and Sonic that Sony overlooked the use of more direct hardware access.

Later games on the PS1 would push the hardware even more but Naughty Dog were one of the first (they were doing things that even the Sony hardware guys looked at and said "how the hell did they pull that off?"

 

That's the impression I got as well - the reason Shenmue looks more polished than its sequel is because AM2 actually made large portions of the first game in their series later (which may explain why parts of the chapters set in Hong Kong were present in early previews, before development saw the overall project split into multiple volumes). Although it's a small detail, the animation that enabled telephones to have realistically-moving cords wasn't finished until after much of Shenmue II was already completed, so the effect was absent once Ryo left Japan. In many ways, you can see where compromises had to be made, and I seem to recall it being confirmed that the overall budget often quoted didn't just include work on both Dreamcast installments, but also the various Saturn era prototypes.