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So… This is kinda where I wish graphics stayed. It’s probably not the majority opinion, but I wanna feel like I’m playing a video game and not really life. Plus, I feel there was a bit more creativity in making graphics. I’m old, but I loved stuff in Doom and Duke Nukem and EverQuest. Everything now kinda just looks… Brown and dark? Or similar?
I dunno. Might just be the rantings of an old person!
Brown and dark was the Xbox 360 era. We’re in a post Fortnite, Rocket League, Minecart world now. The trend now is tons of color but in a way that I’m starting to get a little tired of everything looking like the same purple.
I don’t think there’s anything stopping modern games from having the same vibes, and being creative with graphics. I’d say one example of a modern game with high res graphics, realistic water, and even ray tracing, which still looks very unique and distinct is Paradise Killer. Another one that also looks quite modern in some ways while still being very distinct in its own way, is Heaven’s Vault. It’s a choice made by AAA studios because photorealistic visuals tend to attract more eyes and sell better, even if people get bored of the game quite quickly.
And the thing is, AC Unity - which came out in 2014 - still looks better than the majority of AAA games I see nowadays, and despite the large crowds which are a bit CPU demanding it still has much lower requirements than those games that look worse.
EDIT: And if you just want games that actually look retro and old school, there are some from indie devs doing that; examples include: Dread Delusion, The Case of the Golden Idol, Death Trash, Felvidek, Return of the Obra Dinn.
Corn Kidz 64 has the best graphics of any game of the last 20 years. I will fight and die on this hill.
Lots of good, new stuff in the boomer shooters. If you want to try something like Duke 3D, check out Ion Fury, which was made in a fork of the original Build engine. Seleco and Hedon for modern GZDoom stuff.
Doom had some pretty dark levels especially in a lot of the additional episodes and I personally think they were amazing. Half-Life 1 and 2 are similar and they’re both legendary games. Personally I would put the point where gaming started to go downhill at 2011 (with the release of skyrim).
(with the release of skyrim)
Oblivion. It was Oblivion with the stupid horse armor.
Oblivion was the start of the modern microtransaction issues, Skyrim was the point when game stories starting getting worse and more simplified (Quite sad that stories went downhill after Fallout New Vegas which was arguably the peak of incredible storytelling).
Don’t even bother making a new game unless it supports ray-traced light speculating through the anal-fog discharged from the main character’s arse. Every single pebble too within a 50 mile radius must be able to reflect the dripping, wolf-ey arse sweat drops too at all times using some buzzword engine tech or no one will buy the game
Some of y’all are gunna learn today that on this same system there was StarWars Pod Racing, and you could use 2 controllers, one for each engine. You’re welcome.
You could dual stick Goldeneye as well.
That was the “kismet” config right? I remember you could still aim and shoot with the second controller during cutscenes…so it was possible to kill Bond or other characters during the short scene after beating a mission. 😂
I wish I had known that back in the day. It was one of my favorite games on n64.
Yeah, I don’t think I knew about the two controller thing. I guess with emulation, PC releases, and dual sticks it wouldn’t be necessary now
A Switch with the controller disconnected gets you pretty darn close to the same feeling these days.
Good point
I had the PC version growing up. So, I mostly played with a Gravis Stinger, or a that weird Nintendo branded joystick. The yaw was how you rotated your engines.
I am one of the lucky 10 000.
I always played podracer on my HOTAS like a pleb.
The first time I interacted with water and it did something in response instead of being static blew my mind.
Seeing my own reflection in a game hurt my brain.
I’m still impressed by the way wave race feels, not going to lie.
Honestly, it’s still impressive that they were even able to do that on the N64.
You’ll be hard pressed to find any games that have better water physics than this game.
I loved how the water was a part of the course, just like the track. It never changed no matter how many times you play it. My fastest times were based on knowing where the waves are going to be as I’m coming around a corner.
For real. They really went all out on the water.
Weird… the game has barely anything to do with water in the first place!
Wave race was legit. I still think about that game and I’m an old gamer
The original was great.
I developed an unreasonable hatrid for the GameCube version, however, when my younger brother would wake me up every morning with the sound of “beep, beep, beep, BEEP, BEEP!
WOO HOO! beep, beep, beep, BEEP, Beep! WOO HOO!
beep, beep, beep, BEEP, Beep! WOO HOO!”It was a solid sequel but god were the sound effects annoyingly repetitive, especially at 7am on a Saturday.
Water still looks and moves better than most games.
Also…
“FOLLOW THAT DOLPHIN!”
Wave Race!
I remember I somehow owned a Gameshark at one point and figured out how to add in Turbo and Big Head mode. I also dimly remember the title music for the game, which was awesome.
Here’s a deep dive into how the game works:
The waves of Wave Race 64 -MVGI still remember seeing this for the first time, absolute mind blower for sure back then.
I never had an N64, but my buddy across the street did. Waverace 64 was incredible for its time.
I remember going over to a kid’s house that lived up the street from my cousin. He had Pilotwings on Super Nintendo like right after it released. And he had a big screen TV!
My god man, you would not believe how picture perfect those pixels the size of a finger tip were.
Oh man you just took me back. I was dirt poor as a kid and my mom always busted her ass to get us the latest Nintendo, but we usually only got a couple games. We rented and borrowed the rest.
Anyway.
I went with my step brother to his grandpa’s house one day. He said nothing to prepare me for the glory I was about to see. When we came through the door his grandpa greeted us and said, “Jason, take your brother to the game room.”
We walked down into the basement and there in the coolest, most badass, teen movie room, was this giant rear projection TV. There on the floor sat a console I had never seen before. The original PlayStation with the original controllers and Nascar Racing. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I swear to god I said, “OH MY GOD IT LOOKS REAL!” We played Tomb Raider. I just kept jumping into the pool. Mortal Kombat Trilogy, man what a game.
That Christmas two of my closest friends got the N64. One showed me Doom, the other Mario 64.
I ended up with the N64, my best friend got the PlayStation.
I’d love to go back for a day just to hang out with him. I wish he’d lived to see the graphics of today. Shit, if he’d made it long enough to see The Last of Us I’d be stoked.
Its crazy how much graphics evolved during that time period, just two years later we got this:
It’s really funny to think about now, but we really were blown away by how nice this game looked.
I remember seeing Gran Turismo 3 for the first time. I was amazed, it looked like real life! When I tried it again in more modern times, Iike ish 2014, I was more like wtf, is that thing in the distance a car or a tree, can’t tell because the resolution is too low😃
Seeing SM64 at Walmart was crazy to me. I can’t remember which game it was on PS2, but I was thinking there’s no way they can improve graphics from here on out.
I remembered having trouble the first time a tried n64 at toys r us.
I couldn’t walk in a straight line easily.
I agree with you about ps2. I remember thinking that things could not get much better from that point on.
Is it possible the display controller was broken? N64 joysticks weren’t the most resilient and hoo boy did kids abuse those demo setups 😂
That’s actually a really cool thing we won’t see anymore: I remember those demo stands everywhere. Target, Best Buy, Toys R Us, whatever.
It was kinda cool walking up and just trying something… in my experience for like, 30 seconds before Mom was like “C’mon we have to go.” and I’d be hoping we passed by it again before trudging down the paper towel aisle or something… 😂
The water still looks better than some new games today 😅
Still looks fine tbh Can’t say that about most games from that time
Games that were more stylized are great but ones that tried to look realistic look super dated. I love all the different choices designers would make during this time to make it look nice in a cartoon style
N64 definitely aged better than PS1, especially in motion. Just a few too many compromises, like the integer positions and no perspective on textures.
