Besst Graphics?!!!

[dpful]

I know this is subjective, but I'd like to hear your thoughts anyways.

I havn't played rayforce in a long time, and I threw it in last night, and I was blown away by the polish on the graphics, presentation, and music. The game just seemed to be SOOOO well made-- super hugh production values I guess you'd call it. I mean, seriously, every enemy ship looks awesome, every missle looks neat, every background is doing something special, every boring part is short.

Then I played Darius Gaiden and felt the same way.

I know there's a lot of games with great art and production, but if you could make a little list of games that still blow you away, from any era, because they are just above and beyond in terms of graphics, music, and general presentation (rather than gameplay), what would be on it? Which games should they put in the louvre rather than the arcade?

Here's mine:
Rayforce
Darius Gaiden

I'm not into the psx polygons or the gameplay, but I thought Ray Storm had a pretty great flow, too. Einhander had some great first levels, I thought. Raiden II keeps the graphics up. I think Shienryu is great.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Warashi's Shienryu wouldn't have been made if it weren't for Athena Co Ltd.'s intial PCB release of Daioh, right? Can't forget the stellar 6-button setup on the USA region Daioh PCB from American Sammy though. ^_~

Upon seeing Blazing Star at my local arcade back in February of 1998...it was jaw-dropping with the cool anime opening intro + the rendered sprites gave it a cool visual aestethical flair. I'm impressed when the ol' MVS cart of BS is fired up on the MVS mobo for a casual gaming session. ^_~

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

Both Darius Gaiden and Rayforce are two of my favoritest looking games and definitely two of the best looking 2d games ever made. The black hole bomb always manages to bring a smile to my face every time I use it . Elevator Action Returns also looks superb.

2d nowadays looks so cheaply made (Muramasa the exception.) I can't stand the flash look of games like HD Remix and Castle Crasher. Where's all the fucking detail, quality animation, cool effects?

[undamned]

Wasn't Metal Slug from that era? That game still melts my face off.
-ud

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Wasn't Metal Slug from that era? That game still melts my face off.
-ud

Yep, Metal Slug hails from the year of 1996. Only if Nazca were to make a kick-ass tate arcade shmup PCB before folding...that would've been awesome with Metal Slug-like aestethics mixed together with a superb shmup gaming engine along with some new-fangled gameplay + game mechanics to spice things up.

I'd have to assume that most shmup developers don't want to spend the yen, time & resources to round up a dedicated 2-D sprite team for a hand-drawn 2-D sprite-based "old-school" shmup title nowdays. Sure, if done right, it would definitely pay homage to the all-time great arcade shmups titles from the likes of Toaplan, Seibu Kaihatsu, Cave, Raizing/8ing, Taito, etc. like how it was back in the early to mid 1990s. ^_~

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[BIL]

Silent Hills 2, 3 and 4. The level of sheer grimy detail in their environments still impresses me every time I replay the series, every two years or so. SH3 and SH4's character models look incredible even by current-gen standards, too.

Raiden DX also has some exceptionally fine graphics. The sprites and backgrounds alone are solid, but the almost schematic detail with which houses and buildings get damaged in real-time is distractingly impressive, never mind the showering shrapnel that makes countless individual impacts on the ground below. Even comparatively modern shooters like Under Defeat don't quite match the detail with which stuff blows up in DX.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Silent Hill 2 Factoid: KCEJ (Konami Computer Entertainment of Japan) sent a team down to Modesto, CA to take pics of the surroundings during the "tule fog" season...all that careful research in recreating the foggy atmosphere visuals is what lead them to make Silent Hill 2 all the more impressive. On some days, you can literally see the fog just slowly rolling in...and it's really thick fog too. ^_~

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[cools]

In general terms, Eternal Darkness stunned me then, and still does. As does the Xbox version of SSX3. But these are 3D, albeit massively, hugely polished, yet not STGs.

Fantasy Zone is still absolutely beautiful, and quite unique. The System 16 FZ2 remake is quite spectacular too.

[nem]

Good art direction goes a loong way. Most of the Dreamcast library is starting to look a bit ropey (even Soul Calibur), but Jet Set Radio, Power Stone and Rez all still look amazing, I think.

Good 2D will always look good (Astal <3)

[BIL]

Silent Hill 2 Factoid: KCEJ (Konami Computer Entertainment of Japan) sent a team down to Modesto, CA to take pics of the surroundings during the "tule fog" season...all that careful research in recreating the foggy atmosphere visuals is what lead them to make Silent Hill 2 all the more impressive. On some days, you can literally see the fog just slowly rolling in...and it's really thick fog too. ^_~

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

You're awesome PCEFX. Hadn't heard that detail of SH2's development before. I keep meaning to watch the "Making Of" features for it and SH3.

[evil_ash_xero]

I think RayForce looks good, but i've never really cared much for the way Darius Gaiden looked. Sorry.

Metal Slug is old as hell, and still looks awesome. Parts 2 and 3 look grand too(wel, they all look pretty similar).

For me...I think BlazBlue and Okami look pretty stellar.

[t0yrobo]

Agreed on Darius Gaiden, heck all the Darius games really. Just goes to show that good art direction is more important than technical mumbo jumbo. I think Raptor: Call of the Shadows has held up really well also, it might not be the greatest game, but it does look real nice.

[undamned]

Only if Nazca were to make a kick-ass tate arcade shmup PCB before folding...that would've been awesome with Metal Slug-like aestethics mixed together with a superb shmup gaming engine along with some new-fangled gameplay + game mechanics to spice things up.

I think Air Duel was their pale attempt at this.
-ud

[Engineer]

Games that do not attempt to look realistic have the most longevity in terms of graphics. That's why I'll throw my vote in for games like Jet Grind Radio & Jet Set Radio Future, Nocturne and Murumasa.

Let's face it, today many 16-bit games look far better than Playstation, N64 and even allot of current gen stuff.

[Ed Oscuro]

Resident Evil remake on GameCube is quite stunning. I also thought the interiors of the police station from RE2 were stunning when I first saw it around 1998 or 1999, still do.

Half-Life 2 is still very good-looking as well, so BS at the "realistic duz not look gud" claims out there. It's all about how well the various parts of the visual experience mesh together to create a cohesive whole.

I rather like how Surprise Attack looks, and Thundercade's dropping buildings are IMO a great direction for gameplay; too bad Seta started focusing on "gardening by helicopter" too much after that.

Let's face it, today many 16-bit games look far better than Playstation, N64 and even allot of current gen stuff.

A lot don't, too. Let's not just ignore stuff selectively. The PlayStation's epic affine texture mapping doesn't look great in many situations, but I find that it adds some atmosphere, particularly to unsettling dreary cityscapes, or games like Tenchu.

Another thing you're not making allowance for (though perhaps considering, but I don't think it's an appropriate criticism) is what Will Wright discussed after developing The Sims - people expect if you get one thing right that you'll be able to delve into all sorts of other minute details. People were expecting things like holidays and other details that would be nice to have from the get-go but couldn't be added to development and which sort of pile up as people's expectations expand. The leap to get convincing visuals in 3D is massive compared to 2D where you can just stack cardboard cutouts by priority and people think crosshatch fog is good and where the visual scene can be completely controlled before rendering due to the locking of the viewpoint.

The N64's graphics are crippled mainly by the insanely small texture cache on-chip, but you can still get great results out of it, as some later games demonstrated.

Seta made (or planned) ugly games for both types of system, from Musya on the SFC / SNES (see what I said before about the visual design needing to be consistent, a problem that Seta suffered from) to that unreleased shooter thing and some other ugly games on the Aleck 64 system. Just because Konami and Nintendo put out some ugly stuff on the '64 doesn't mean that they didn't put out nice stuff as well, either (and I'll laugh if anybody says that Contra Hard Corps is an artistic masterpiece; I'm sure there's some worse offenders as well - Sparkster MD / Genesis comes to mind).

[Engineer]

Resident Evil remake on GameCube is quite stunning. I also thought the interiors of the police station from RE2 were stunning when I first saw it around 1998 or 1999, still do.

I agree that it looks good but I've never been terribly impressed by realistic graphics. You take a photo of something and then say "OK now let's recreate it in game", while I'm sure it takes a ton of talent, how much creativity does it require?

Half-Life 2 is still very good-looking as well, so BS at the "realistic duz not look gud" claims out there. It's all about how well the various parts of the visual experience mesh together to create a cohesive whole.

Let's face it, today many 16-bit games look far better than Playstation, N64 and even allot of current gen stuff.

A lot don't, too. Let's not just ignore stuff selectively. The PlayStation's epic affine texture mapping doesn't look great in many situations, but I find that it adds some atmosphere, particularly to unsettling dreary cityscapes, or games like Tenchu.

The N64's graphics are crippled mainly by the insanely small texture cache on-chip, but you can still get great results out of it, as some later games demonstrated.

Seta made (or planned) ugly games for both types of system, from Musya on the SFC / SNES (see what I said before about the visual design needing to be consistent, a problem that Seta suffered from) to that unreleased shooter thing and some other ugly games on the Aleck 64 system. Just because Konami and Nintendo put out some ugly stuff on the '64 doesn't mean that they didn't put out nice stuff as well, either (and I'll laugh if anybody says that Contra Hard Corps is an artistic masterpiece; I'm sure there's some worse offenders as well - Sparkster MD / Genesis comes to mind).

I don't mean to generalize here and that's why I said most 16 bit games, not all. It's just my opinion stemming from my sense of aesthetics. Quite a few Playstation and N64 games look horrible to me. I'm not saying they have bad art direction, they just graphically look like shit while many SNES and Genesis games still appeal to me from a artistic and graphic standpoint.

[Ed Oscuro]

Resident Evil remake on GameCube is quite stunning. I also thought the interiors of the police station from RE2 were stunning when I first saw it around 1998 or 1999, still do.

I agree that it looks good but I've never been terribly impressed by realistic graphics. You take a photo of something and then say "OK now let's recreate it in game", while I'm sure it takes a ton of talent, how much creativity does it require?

Well, that's just hilarious.

Half-Life 2 is still very good-looking as well, so BS at the "realistic duz not look gud" claims out there. It's all about how well the various parts of the visual experience mesh together to create a cohesive whole.

I don't mean to generalize here and that's why I said most 16 bit games, not all. It's just my opinion stemming from my sense of aesthetics. Quite a few Playstation and N64 games look horrible to me. I'm not saying they have bad art direction, they just graphically look like shit while many SNES and Genesis games still appeal to me from a artistic and graphic standpoint.

You can't separate out aesthetics and design from the end product based on hardware, ultimately. This has more to do with just the general trajectory of graphics hardware and software competency than aesthetics, though. Generally speaking, sure, most people can't get the best results possible on any given hardware, and affine texture mapping is always going to look goofy and be a worse result than having a wider range of artistic control. Also, the sky is often blue. Great points all, I'm glad to thrash those old horse bones another time.

I guess so I don't lose the legitimate points in all of this, I'll just say again that 2D is EASIER (also there's a lot of 2D art in 3D, people just don't know where to look it seems). Also, it's easy to say "creativity!" as a slam against "realistic" graphics, but then we could slam anything coming out of one of the assembly line production houses for cartoon art just as easily - if not more, since it actually is quite difficult to get "realistic" graphics in any system, including new ones, due to the sheer amount of detail that has to either be approximated or flubbed somehow. Original art can easily be tailored to whatever system you're working on (or somewhat below the specs) and nobody will be the wiser.

[t0yrobo]

Resident Evil remake on GameCube is quite stunning. I also thought the interiors of the police station from RE2 were stunning when I first saw it around 1998 or 1999, still do.

Half-Life 2 is still very good-looking as well, so BS at the "realistic duz not look gud" claims out there. It's all about how well the various parts of the visual experience mesh together to create a cohesive whole.

I love how HL2 looks. Valve seems to understand some things that so many other devs get totally wrong with visuals. Like that every thing in the goddamn world isn't glossy, or reflective, or extremely textured.

[Acid King]

Samurai Shodown 2. Though my favorite is 4, the art and character design is just so damn good on 2.

[dcharlie]

Rez art design will always keep it looking good - it's pretty minimal and it just has that style factor. The HD XBLA version obviously helps too.

Agree on Half Life 2 - it's realistic looking but builds a completely believable world that still looks fantastic some nigh on 5 years later (okay the engine has been upgraded along the years)
Also - the feeling of claustrophobia in that game is unparalleled, from the start you know you are "in it" (amazing use of music in HL2 too - Triage at Dawn is one of the best 40 seconds of music in any single game)

[captpain]

Metal Slug 3 -- Just great... every segment except for the shmuppish part, really.
Darius Gaiden -- Probably my favorite presentation and style of any 2D game ever.
Viper Phase 1 -- Cool intricate 2D art.

[Dave_K.]

Only if Nazca were to make a kick-ass tate arcade shmup PCB before folding...that would've been awesome with Metal Slug-like aestethics mixed together with a superb shmup gaming engine along with some new-fangled gameplay + game mechanics to spice things up.

Although its not tate, In The Hunt is what you are describing PCEFX!, and should be in the top 5 of anyones best graphics (for shooters) list.

[brentsg]

My #1 game that would meet that criteria is Tempest 2000 on Jaguar.

There are a number of games over the years that do that for me, and Metal Slug still does continue to amaze. If only every game could age as well as that one has.

[Marc]

I still think the original OutRun, looks absolutely gorgeous, something about that pixelly sprite-scaling still makes me warm inside. Power Drift for attempting such abitious design with sprite-based hardware, and OutRunners for possibly being the last sprite racer ever.

Thought Half Life 2 was one of the most cohesive-looking gameworld I'd ever played around in, Resi on cube blew my legs off on release and still looks good today, and I think F-Zero GX is one of the most astounding looking racers to grace any platform ever.

Honourable mentions for both Sega Rally (Revo) and OutRun 2, just for that blue-sky, crisp happy look.

[cools]

I'm actually quite surprised at the HL2 comments. In terms of believable and immersive environments, I found it shockingly lacking. Wouldn't go so far as to call it a bad game, just not great. Played through, completed, never again - it was really quite boring. If it had had any frustratingly difficult parts it's quite likely I'd have hit them and never finished it.

For pure realism, I always found Metropolis Street Racer's use of real world locations, textures and absolutely superb use of lighting spot on. Nothing I've seen since has been quite so good. When travelling around London nowadays, at the same hours I would play MSR (late afternoon/evening/night) it's quite amazing how much I recognise and recall solely from the game. I'd even go as far as to say my appreciation of the architecture in England's capital was fostered solely from that single title.

[Marc]

It varied in quality, but City 17, Route Kanal, the fights along the coast, the suspension bridge and the finale with the Striders all stand out in my mind as being some of the most enjoyable (current/last) gaming I've had, not bad for one title.

[crithit5000]

Lump me in with the Half Life 2 crowd. The only parts I didn't really care for were the underground sections in Episodes 1 & 2, and that's about it. Also, put me down for some Team Fortress 2. I love the style and art direction that game has.

[dcharlie]

i like to pretend that Episode 1 never happened, Episode 2 was absolutely ball rockingly brilliant though.

So lets ignore Ep 1 and throw Portal in as HL:Gaiden (assuming that Apature Science play a part in Ep 3)

[nem]

I've really grown to like Saturn's blocky polygons. I don't think the Panzer Dragoon series would look quite the same on the PS1

[dpful]

I played Rad Racer last night. I think that one has a lot of style and a very consistently exciting presentation.