I'm curious as to what everyone considers the most technically impressive games to be on each console. I'm not asking what games were the most fun, but rather, which games really pushed the hardware to or past the limit.
I'm curious as to what everyone considers the most technically impressive games to be on each console. I'm not asking what games were the most fun, but rather, which games really pushed the hardware to or past the limit.
Summer Carnival '92 Recca - Famicom (for screen speed and objects onscreen as well as background effects)
Dynamite Headdy - Genesis (colors on screen)
Donkey Kong Country - SNES (animation and music)
Starfox - SNES (3-D graphics, speech and music)
Yoshi's Island - SNES (graphical effects)
Gran Turismo 2 - PSX (overall graphics and physics capabilities)
Outrun 2006 - PS2 (graphics)
Doom 3 - Xbox (graphics)
edit: not sure if these are ACTUALLY 'technically impressive' but they sure as heck look that way to me
Last edited by SpaceHarrier; 08-18-2008 at 11:18 PM.
I would say Gunstar Heroes for the Genesis off the top of my head.
i think Gears of War for the 360 is freaking unbelievable. i cant remember which games blew me away back in the day on their respective consoles. i remember thinking Super Mario World (snes) was the bee's knees. Also Golden Sun for gba was freaking fantastic. i couldnt believe those 3d fight sequences when it first came out (i was shocked i was seeing this on a portable in its day, they looked every bit as awesome as ps1 graphics. remember the gba was advertised initially as a 32bit console =P )
Garou: MotW and the Last Blades are absolutely stunning looking games, especially considering the age of the NeoGeo hardware.
On the more recent gens, God of War 2 really uses all from the PS2.
Final Fantasy XII - PS2
Pretty much stated exactly what I came to say. The animation, artistic style, and overall action no screen in both of those games is simply awesome.
Also, Blazing Star really makes the Neo hardware shine with its use of 3D rendered enemies and some backgrounds that do some great 3D tricks as well.
Gunstar Heroes is obligatory. But as far as games that have really impressed me for their system, I would have to go with:
Yar's Revenge - Atari 2600
Mike Tyson's Punch Out!!! - NES
Super Mario World - SNES
That's all off the top of my head.
One of the very first threads I made on here...
NES games that really push the system to it's limits
"Game programmers are generally lazy individuals. That's right. It's true. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Since the dawn of computer games, game programmers have looked for shortcuts to coolness." Kurt Arnlund - Game programmer for Activision, Accolade...
Tekken 3 (PS1) - Overall Graphics. Holy shit.
Virtua Fighter 2 (Saturn) - Resolution, Framerate, Model Detail. Holy shit.
Chronicles of Riddick (Xbox) - Holy Shit.
Conker's Bad Fur Day (Xbox) - Fur. Holy shit.
Pathways to Glory + sequel (nGage) - Didn't push it graphically, but the multiplayer component highlighted every advantage that the nGage had to other systems of the time.
Summer Carnival '92 Recca (Fami) - Framerate and speed. God damn.
More love for Outrun 2006 on PS2. I mean, I never thought that the Xbox port of Outrun 2 would turn out as well as it did (because of RAM limitations), but if you told me that the PS2 version of 2006 was going to turn out half as good as it did, I would have called you a bold faced liar and obvious raving fanboy. But god DAMN did it come off well.
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I think that Metal Gear Solid and Vagrant Story are beyond anything on Playstation.
Silent Hill also excells technically and Tomb Raider always impressed me with its HUGE levels.... i can remember the port of QUAKE II, it was an awesome job by HammerHead.
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Virtua Racing on the Genesis, with the SVP chip.
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I agree with the aforementioned Final Fantasy XII, Garou: MOTW, and Metal Gear Solid, but I would like to add:
Shenmue (DC) - I'm not familiar with alot of the Dreamcast library, but I think that Shenmue is very good looking game.
The World Ends With You (DS) - The best looking 2D game that has come out in a very long time, it is very detailed and both visuals and sound.
I didn't want to mention anything current-gen because it's not over, but decided to list the ones that currently impress me anyways:
Call of Duty 4 360/PS3/PC
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune PS3
Crysis PC
Gears of War 360/PC
Crackdown 360 (draw distance anyone?)
BioShock 360 (this was top dog... until COD4 came out a few months later)
GTA IV (top-notch physics, impressive draw distance and car damage modelling, superb lighting amongst other things)
Resident Evil 2 N64 (a given, no?)
Super Mario RPG SNES
Stunt Race FX SNES (at least I thought so, when I was a kid)
Uniracers SNES (same as above)
DKC SNES
Starfox SNES
Megaman X3 SNES
Yoshi's Island SNES
Willow NES (for some reason, I think this game looks incredible given it's on the NES)
SMB3 NES (very colorful game)
Monster Truck Rally NES (game looked incredible when I was young anyways)
Startropics II NES (at least I remember it being pretty colorful...)
I'm sure if I sat here for a while longer I could come up with more, but that's a good start.
Interesting thread, I like it. Now I'll have to think of a few games that impressed me. Might be a little off topic, but I really enjoyed Geometry Wars for the DS. Very basic graphics, very simple gameplay, but for a 2-D game in a totally 3-D world, I found it to be a title that holds it's own to basically anything out there.
Journey to Silius - NES. Makes very good use of the sound capabilities of the NES.
Tomb Raider - Has already been commented on, but it really pushed the limits with the sheer size of the game, as far as the area you are able to explore.
Twisted - 3DO. Again, maybe a little off topic, but a really intersting concept that has never really been duplicated, at least to my knowledge.
Burgertime - Intellivision. MUCH better port than the NES, which is interesting, because it's not as advanced of a system. As a matter of fact, I think INTV Burgertime is probably the most authentic arcade translation out there. Except the play control, of course.
Sunset Riders - SNES. Again, a very true-to-original arcade port. Hand over fist better than the Genny version. If you ever can compare side-by-side SNES to arcade, it is virtually identical. Makes good use of the technical capabilities of the SNES.
Dragon's Lair/Mad Dog McCree - Arcade. Using Laserdiscs when people had barely heard of CD's? If that is not technically amazing, I don't know what is. Playing either one of those games even today is still impressive. Admittedly, the acting on Mad Dog is weak, but you are literally playing a game in a movie setting. And Dragon's Lair...well, not much needs to be said there.
That's all I got for now, anyways.
Where is the love for Resident Evil 4 on the Gamecube? When I first saw that game, I was "wowed".
SNES: Tales of Phantasia and Star Ocean.
Those games were impressive, very much so.
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Rendering Ranger: R2 is the most impressive thing I've seen on SNES. On one shooting level 100s of ships fly at you and the game never slows down. It was jaw-dropping