Your reaction to graphic improvements each generation

What do you think as soon as the new gen system comes about?

I am part of the 16 bit generation of gamers. I didn't start getting into video games towards the middle of the SNES era. I was all about the beautiful graphics and great sound. The flat 3D scrolling blew me away.

Then, Playstation came about. WOW, I nearly went crazy. 3D people and beautiful cut scenes! I had never imagined this would come about. I was envious of all my friends who had a Playstation. I thought it would be great if someday the characters and details in the cut scenes were playable someday.

Then XBOX came out. I read magazines and saw screen shots. I couldn't believe it. Shimeu (sp?) looked ridiculous. I didn't want to believe that the screen shots were actual game play.

Now Xbox 360 has been released and it's getting ridiculous. I give it 5 more generations of systems to where the games look like real life. What then? TVs having better resolution than real life? Better graphics than the real world? (of course I'm being silly) Stuntmen in movies no longer employed? What does the future hold?



I can only imagine what oldtime gamers think now. Were the NES graphics mindblowing for it's time? What blew you away about them?

 

Some rich little kids, not naming names, know what PC gaming looks like when fully used, but I dont. When I saw the Xbox 360 in action, I was very impressed with what I saw. I was playing Call of Duty 2. I dont really like WW2 FPS games, but I was more interested in how real the game looked and flowed.

Every Generation I get more impressed with what the systems can do.

 

I will always choose console systems of PC games. PC games only look great and play nice if you're system is "tricked out". A consoles power is concentrated mostly on the gaming experience and isn't lagged by an OS and other background applications.

 

Its not really what you can do with big hardware that impress me now (apart of some exemples, of course), its more about what you can do with restricted hardware that is impressive.

Anyway, i thought the NES was incredible, i couldnt understand how you could move images all by yourself on your tv.

Snes was Mindblowing. Those baseball players and digitalised characters (mk,..), as well as the colorfull mario games where astonishin at the time. i couldnt belive how it could look better than that.

Playstation was like "cool" but i wasnt that impressed. Sure, it was 3d, but it looked slugish and full of pixel and texture bugs. i thought the mortal kombat fighters where more impressive (i didnt know it was actors digitalised in a game).
The ps2 was a deception, because its where i really entered the gaming, and followed news and all. I didnt know that sony was a fat lying bastard that wanted to hype everything, so i always waited for better: " in 5 months it will look as better as toy story man, devellopers need to understand the machine, thats it " .

The HD era with (360) was really impressive, but not really because of the poly counts or anything, more about the game flow, the 16:9 screen and high resolution.

It seems like more i advance, the less im impressed. After doom3, tm and hl2 where released, i never was impressed again, even if some games had better grahpics than those games. Its like if you know it will be even better anyway. :shrug:


i dont think we need systems more powerfull than a ps3 either. it will stagnate.

 

Not yet, anyway. I cant wait for there to be console games with user created content. Like new tiles, vehicles, etc. for certain games.

 

I'd argue that, especally with Halo and Halo 2... but i know what you're saying.

To be honest, I love good graphics. I'll even buy a game just for the visuals (rez comes to mind. I bought it for the visuals, kept it for the gameplay). Everyone always says that graphics will reach a level of stagnentation, but i think we're a long way from that now. The PSX wasn't photo-realistic, no matter what people said at the time. The Dreamcast wasn't photorealistic, no matter what people said at the time. The PS2 wasn't photorealistic, no matter what people said at the time. Neither was the Xbox, and the 360 isn't close to realism either. Granted each generation has come closer, but i think photorealism a goal that will elude us for at least another decade. On top of that, i think cell shading looks cool, i think i'm the only person on the planet that liked XIII. So while graphics will keep getting better, there are always alternitives to photorealism.

 

i liked xiii's graphics, but the gameplay was way too old.

 

I think we'll reach a plateau for graphics to where the hardware will be able to create realistic graphics at a whim, and technology will have more resources for AI, etc. We are kinda seeing this, but I'm talking about graphics the likes of which we can't imagine and they don't take a lot of resources in tomorrow's hardware.

 

In the old, old, old days my friend had an Atari 2600, and that was the first game system I played. I remember some games (like Solaris) that had fast graphics and great colour, which really impressed me. Very quickly after that the NES came out, and though we knew its graphics weren't as good as the arcade games of the time (compare Punch Out!), they were a definite improvement.

Then pics of the SNES came out and I was floored. Great bright colours, scaling, rotation, etc. The games were great.

Then came the ugly digitized sprites and the FMV era... it was downhill from there.

When systems started producing fast, chunky 3-D polygons, that was the next time I was amazed. It didn't matter if it had texture-mapping or not (see Cyber-Sled in the arcade), a game that had bold colours and whizzy 3-D most impressed me.

So, after that, new systems came out, and the 3-D graphic routines became more complex, but I was feeling "ooh, nice. Ho-hum." Games with amazingly detailed 3-D models but it's all murky greys and browns make me feel like I'm back in the digitized sprite era again...

So you guys can infer what I think makes an impressive game in any era.

 

I started on the 2600 as well, and moved on to the C64. That machine was impressive indeed. It was the sound, however, that kept me - even if there were beautiful looking games.
I really wanted a NES and got it in 1990, but aside from the Super Mario games and some good rentals, great games were very few and far between in Mexico... and not having available reviews or heads-up for bad games... well, I preferred going back to the good old C64.
Yeah, some NES games looked better, and the Stick-less controller was very ultra-modern, but frankly, I was bored.

I was eventually turned into a SNES gamer because of sound and contents and the availability of magazine information (even if it was almost pamphlet-like back in the day). There was Zelda, F-Zero, MegaMan X, FF3, Chrono Trigger, Super Turrican 2... All the greats. The graphics had become so detailed, the stories and gameplay at the same time complex and easy to get into, and the production values were high as well, but never in the way of gaming... but... it was the music in games that really got me. That was the most glorious era I had as a gamer.

Of course, CD gaming offered a time of even better sound. Not having access to many newthings because of the 1995 monetary crisis, I never even had time to get interested (even if those articles on EGM some years back did make me believe the Sega CD was impressive).
Things eventually got better, and in 1997 I saw a commercial on MTV.
But what I saw was different. It trascended the Sega Vs. Nintendo war. It wasn't Mario jumping around, or someone shooting an N64. It was a familiar name with a very alluding new look: Final Fantasy VII. It had Sci-Fi, Drama, and the "grown up" feeling a 16 year old boy so desires...

I practically got up and started scurrying around, searching for money and things to sell. I just HAD to get that new Sony thing. There were no copies of FF7 in Mexico yet, though, so I got Wild Arms and Vandal Hearts instead... more than enough to keep me busy, but definitely not up to par with Chrono Trigger and FF6. FF7 didn't satiate my hunger either (because of other personal issues) - but a lot of other great titles did.
Another thing that got me back into gaming that time was the availability of mod-chips and Japanese software. After 1995, it was unlikely to get good games, or any games at all... but CD games in the black market started up at 6 dollars each, instead of the 800 to 1000 pesos a N64 game sold for, or the 65 dollars a Snes title would fetch.

So we were able to stay gamers and reach new horizons, with superb multimedia, voices, graphics, and anime licenses. We thought this would be continued in the PS2 era... but frankly, at least I was very disappointed. The few games there are, though, still impress me to death... but so does the Dreamcast.

X360? PS3? Frankly, I don't feel appealed enough. First, I'll get a serious amount of cheap and/or PS2 games (somehow) to finally enjoy this era thoroughly. I've seen X360 screens and the demo kiosk at GamePlanet, and I'm not sure the improvement is worth 5,000 pesos.

I'm very impressed with the DS, because it has changed the way people play. Also, for a handheld console, it has great graphics. I know the PSP looks a lot better, but I'm not really too keen on it.

 

Honestly hot graphics don't really impress me. The last game I went "wow" over was Resident Evil 4 on GC. Doom 3 (pc) really made impressed me too. I'm still sometimes impressed by Snes and Genesis titles.

 

I'm impressed by nice graphics, but it's definitely not a selling point. My last "wow" came from Deus Ex: IW with the shadow effects (sad, I know... ).

 

im still very impressed by games such as super mario world 2, even today.

 

I was just looking at some 360 screen shots and it blows my mind. Back when Tekken 1 came out, I'd always be amazed at the cutscene graphics. I always dreamed of being able to actually play with the characters in the cutscenes with the awesome graphics. Now, it's actually happening and it's just nuts. Heck now the current 360 graphics look way better than PS1 cutscene graphics. What the hell man, I'm scared of what's next.