What games do you think were graphically well-ahead of their time?

[chameleoneel]

Silent Hill (1999) used a simple form of per polygon, realtime lighting that was novel for its time. Silent Hill 2 (2001) introduced real-time stencil shadows, and it took 3-4 years for most other games' lighting systems to look as good. Both it and SH3 still hold up pretty well today visually, especially on PC with mods. I think the attention to detail with the models, animations, and more is really impressive given the technical limitations of the time.

View attachment 542303 View attachment 542304 View attachment 542305 View attachment 542306

And artistically, the games are masterpieces in my opinion. They raised the bar for survival horror pretty high, and without them I don't think the genre would be what it is today.

SH3's character models are incredible. The PS2 could do a lot of geometry for the time. But, few developers took the time to massage it for such detailed models.

And the texture work is maybe even more amazing?----the PS2 doesn't have a lot of VRAM and was often less impressive with textures, when compared to Xbox. The textures here aren't high res. But, they still put a lot of detail in them. That combined with the huge variety of colors---the overall impression is really high detail. More than the sum of its parts, kind of thing. *it also helps that we were playing it on a CRT, of course. That lense is important to keep in mind.

 

[Blackstone]

1. Crysis
2. Battlefield 1942
3. StarFox
4. Unreal Tournament
5. Quake III: Arena
6. Doom
7. Far Cry
8. Grand Theft Auto: III
9. Grand Theft Auto: V
10. The Witcher III

 

[chameleoneel]

Shenmue deserves to be #1 on every "ahead of it's time" list.

Not only were the graphics amazing, it was open world like you said.
And it had voiced dialog for every single character. At a time when most games didn't have any voice acting at all.


This wasn't a pre-rendered video. This is in-game engine and you can control the camera. In 1999 on a Dreamcast.

It was the most expensive game ever made at the time. They put in around $50 million into it's development which was insane for 1999.

To be clear, the "passport" videos are basically a tech demo. The character models used are much higher poly----because they aren't in the final game environment.

That said, final game Shenmue is incredible. Which we already agree about

 

[gvx64]

Something which really stands out about Mario 64------is its all about traversal. Its practically a parkour game. Its brilliant to actually play, because its so dependent upon detailed mechanics. Few modern games have had the balls to require so much mechanical breadth from the player.

Gran Turismo 3 was a revolution, man. Looking at that game was incredible. Even though GT4 is absolutely a better playing game (and refined, visually). GT3 absolutely re-defined car game visuals. So much, that non-car game people were paying attention.


When I played Uru: Ages of Myst, I remember thinking it looked as good as pre-rendered stuff from PS1 and early PS2 games. It came out in 2003, which is a little later than I rememered. But still, not a lot of games were quite delivering on that visual impression, just yet. Especially for outdoors/natural type environments. It has a really clean presentation. The models/geometry are nicely crafted. And there is very little fog or other tricks to hide LoD, etc.

RE: Half Life 2
I thought the game was delayed too much and was at least a year too late, visually. Aspects of it were impressive, at release. But overall, I felt like it was kind of barely squeeking by. I mean, the flashlight looked terrible. and a lot of the environments have a really flat feel to their geometry. Nice water. but, that was a time when a lot of games were delivering 'nice' water, in various ways.

You make some really good points.

Mario 64: yes I never thought of it in that way before. If you think about it, Mario can do such a wide breadth of actions and movement that it almost approximates what a (super) human can conceivably do to traverse an obstacle course. Mario can tip-toe, walk at varying speeds, run, crawl, pick up and throw things, slide down things, climb trees and poles, swim, hang from monkey bars, and perform a litany of different types of jumps. How many games out there have given the gamer such an expansive move-set even today in 2022? Breath of the Wild is one of the few that comes to mind but even there it is more of a survival game style set of moves and things like jumping is fairly limited compared to Mario 64.

Gran Tourismo 3: yes, most top PS2 games list had Gran Tourismo 3 up with the likes of Grand Theft Auto 3, Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy X. It's pretty rare to see a racing simulator be that high up on a list like that. Usually, when you see racing games that are in the top 10 on a console's top games list it is usually something like Mario Kart 8 that is more of a party game and is accessible to a fairly wide audience. Gran Tourismo 3 carried the full weight of being a hardcore racing sim and still was one of the top games on what is possibly the most popular console of all-time. That tells you just how far ahead of its time those visuals were. Even today, Gran Tourismo 7 is such a super hyped franchise that is probably one of the most anticipated games right now and I think that a big part of why is because of the core fanbase it established back in the PS2 days.

Half Life 2: yes, I am sure that the delays hurt the graphical impact of Half Life 2 a bit, that being said I think that HL2 deserves recognition for having really nice visuals while carrying a comparatively low graphical demand on PC components. Back in those days, there weren't many games that had nice visuals but ran really well on even midrange PC's but HL2 did that. I had a Radeon 9600XT back in 2004 and I could run HL2 at well above 1024x768. Meanwhile, getting a game like PC Halo to run with my card at 1024x768 required significant graphical compromises and that game was no where near as impressive as HL2 was from a visual standpoint.

 

[Nytegard]

You make some really good points.

Mario 64: yes I never thought of it in that way before. If you think about it, Mario can do such a wide breadth of actions and movement that it almost approximates what a (super) human can conceivably do to traverse an obstacle course. Mario can tip-toe, walk at varying speeds, run, crawl, pick up and throw things, slide down things, climb trees and poles, swim, hang from monkey bars, and perform a litany of different types of jumps. How many games out there have given the gamer such an expansive move-set even today in 2022? Breath of the Wild is one of the few that comes to mind but even there it is more of a survival game style set of moves and things like jumping is fairly limited compared to Mario 64.

Gran Tourismo 3: yes, most top PS2 games list had Gran Tourismo 3 up with the likes of Grand Theft Auto 3, Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy X. It's pretty rare to see a racing simulator be that high up on a list like that. Usually, when you see racing games that are in the top 10 on a console's top games list it is usually something like Mario Kart 8 that is more of a party game and is accessible to a fairly wide audience. Gran Tourismo 3 carried the full weight of being a hardcore racing sim and still was one of the top games on what is possibly the most popular console of all-time. That tells you just how far ahead of its time those visuals were. Even today, Gran Tourismo 7 is such a super hyped franchise that is probably one of the most anticipated games right now and I think that a big part of why is because of the core fanbase it established back in the PS2 days.

Half Life 2: yes, I am sure that the delays hurt the graphical impact of Half Life 2 a bit, that being said I think that HL2 deserves recognition for having really nice visuals while carrying a comparatively low graphical demand on PC components. Back in those days, there weren't many games that had nice visuals but ran really well on even midrange PC's but HL2 did that. I had a Radeon 9600XT back in 2004 and I could run HL2 at well above 1024x768. Meanwhile, getting a game like PC Halo to run with my card at 1024x768 required significant graphical compromises and that game was no where near as impressive as HL2 was from a visual standpoint.

So, the issue I have here with Mario 64 is that graphically, it wasn't really ahead of its time. There were 3D accelerators on the PC at the time which could do everything that the N64 could do. Granted, the 3dfx Voodoo 1 didn't come out yet, and 3D accelerators were still pretty rare.

Rather, I think the majority of what made Mario 64, Mario 64, was the gameplay. But that's really not graphics related. This is not to mock Mario 64. It was hugely influential in terms of camera and controls.

 

[Absalom]

Technically the original 3dfx Voodoo chip came out in late 1995, which would have put it ahead of the N64 console. But unlike the N64, there were barely any titles to play with a launch Voodoo 1. I think most launch 3dfx Voodoo gpus ended up in arcade cabinets. So there is that detail. Direct3D didn't even launch until Summer 1996, which meant you were limited to a few Glide API demos. There were other competing accelerators, but 3dfx hardware was clearly the best. The issue on PC was that everyone was pushing their own proprietary API. That made adoption slow. Direct3D and OpenGL were sorely needed to make 3D acceleration on PC mainstream.

However, by 1997 game developers hit the ground running with 3D acceleration. It was the hottest thing around in the PC space. If you were developing on PC back then, you wanted your game to be 3D. By early 1998 3dfx launched the monstrously performant Voodoo 2 which would go on to be hugely successful. At this point, 3D technology in a gaming context had hit an insane trajectory. And it would keep this pace up for the next 10 years.

So I would agree that for a very short while, Mario64 enjoyed some technical success. But I think that's more to do with consoles in general having a more out-of-the-box and stable experience. The PC space, while effectively parallel in timeline, was very much experimental. In retrospect, it paid off though. Some of those early era PC titles obviously look better than Mario64. But that's just a specific technical knock. Mario64 brought many interesting non-technical things to the table.

 

[chameleoneel]

Technically the original 3dfx Voodoo chip came out in late 1995, which would have put it ahead of the N64 console. But unlike the N64, there were barely any titles to play with a launch Voodoo 1. I think most launch 3dfx Voodoo gpus ended up in arcade cabinets. So there is that detail. Direct3D didn't even launch until Summer 1996, which meant you were limited to a few Glide API demos. There were other competing accelerators, but 3dfx hardware was clearly the best. The issue on PC was that everyone was pushing their own proprietary API. That made adoption slow. Direct3D and OpenGL were sorely needed to make 3D acceleration on PC mainstream.

However, by 1997 game developers hit the ground running with 3D acceleration. It was the hottest thing around in the PC space. If you were developing on PC back then, you wanted your game to be 3D. By early 1998 3dfx launched the monstrously performant Voodoo 2 which would go on to be hugely successful. At this point, 3D technology in a gaming context had hit an insane trajectory. And it would keep this pace up for the next 10 years.

So I would agree that for a very short while, Mario64 enjoyed some technical success. But I think that's more to do with consoles in general having a more out-of-the-box and stable experience. The PC space, while effectively parallel in timeline, was very much experimental. In retrospect, it paid off though. Some of those early era PC titles obviously look better than Mario64. But that's just a specific technical knock. Mario64 brought many interesting non-technical things to the table.

Yeah and 1 or 2 people made Goldeneye's multilplayer in their spare time. Not part of the official development plans. And its as good as anything PC had up to that point ( in terms of features, fun factor, and general visuals). Of course, Quake II came out the same year. But the point being that, an N64 would more likely be bought by the average household, than a PC capable of Quake II. And that's why Goldeneye is so fondly remembered. Because, it was great, lots of people had it, and you could play it 4 player-----all while PC was still expiremental and not nearly as accessible.

And I do think Goldeneye was graphically ahead of its time. Because its heavily based on a movie----and gives a good impression of some of the iconic set design motifs and the colors. Few games have ever nailed that let alone in 1997.

 

[gvx64]

So, the issue I have here with Mario 64 is that graphically, it wasn't really ahead of its time. There were 3D accelerators on the PC at the time which could do everything that the N64 could do. Granted, the 3dfx Voodoo 1 didn't come out yet, and 3D accelerators were still pretty rare.

Rather, I think the majority of what made Mario 64, Mario 64, was the gameplay. But that's really not graphics related. This is not to mock Mario 64. It was hugely influential in terms of camera and controls.

That is a fair point, I stand corrected here (protracted explanation as to why you are right is provided below).

When I argued that Mario 64 was graphically advanced my frame of reference was in comparison to the 3D entries that we had seen up until that point on the Saturn and PS1. Mario 64's graphics are clearly a level above anything seen on those consoles at the time and it really showcased that the N64 was going to be the graphics juggernaut to beat in that generation of console gaming.

That being said, I wasn't into high-end PC gaming at that point in my life and so I honestly can't remember what would constitute high-end 3D PC graphics in 1996 (my parent's were still using a Windows 3.1 PC in 1996 and the most advanced PC game I had at the time was an early 3D game from 1992 game called Commanche: Maximum Overkill). As a result, without doing a bunch of research, the easiest frame of reference that I can think of comparing the N64's graphics to a high-end gaming PC available at N64 launch-time is Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire which I know was released on both the N64 and the PC near launch of the 64. Doing a side-by-side comparison of the PC and N64 version's gameplay (not comparing cutscenes because they were obviously severely compressed into a slide show on the N64 version thanks to cart size constraints) it looks to me like the two versions have very similar graphical detail, I can't really say that one version is more advanced than the other. What do you think?

PC version:


N64 version:



So yeah, basically you appear to be right. A top-end PC that was available in the launch window (Q4 1996) of the 64 would appear to have graphical capabilities that were on-par with the 64 (in fact, a high-endPC was probably even faster since I assume PC gamers in 1996 were gaming at least at 480p compared to the N64's 240p). Thanks for the perspective here.

 

[chameleoneel]

That is a fair point, I stand corrected here (protracted explanation as to why you are right is provided below).

When I argued that Mario 64 was graphically advanced my frame of reference was in comparison to the 3D entries that we had seen up until that point on the Saturn and PS1. Mario 64's graphics are clearly a level above anything seen on those consoles at the time and it really showcased that the N64 was going to be the graphics juggernaut to beat in that generation of console gaming.

That being said, I wasn't into high-end PC gaming at that point in my life and so I honestly can't remember what would constitute high-end 3D PC graphics in 1996 (my parent's were still using a Windows 3.1 PC in 1996 and the most advanced PC game I had at the time was an early 3D game from 1992 game called Commanche: Maximum Overkill). As a result, without doing a bunch of research, the easiest frame of reference that I can think of comparing the N64's graphics to a high-end gaming PC available at N64 launch-time is Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire which I know was released on both the N64 and the PC near launch of the 64. Doing a side-by-side comparison of the PC and N64 version's gameplay (not comparing cutscenes because they were obviously severely compressed into a slide show on the N64 version thanks to cart size constraints) it looks to me like the two versions have very similar graphical detail, I can't really say that one version is more advanced than the other. What do you think?

PC version:


N64 version:



So yeah, basically you appear to be right. A top-end PC that was available in the launch window (Q4 1996) of the 64 would appear to have graphical capabilities that were on-par with the 64 (in fact, a high-endPC was probably even faster since I assume PC gamers in 1996 were gaming at least at 480p compared to the N64's 240p). Thanks for the perspective here.

Probably the main difference for a PC at that time, would be (potentially) better framerate. Provided you had good hardware to push it. I mean, Goldeneye averages like 25fps in singleplayer. and like 13fps in 4 player multi.

Whereas Quake II PC was flying, that same year. But I mean, same as always, graphics cards cost as much or more, as a whole game console.

 

[Nytegard]

Probably the main difference for a PC at that time, would be (potentially) better framerate. Provided you had good hardware to push it. I mean, Goldeneye averages like 25fps in singleplayer. and like 13fps in 4 player multi.

Whereas Quake II PC was flying, that same year. But I mean, same as always, graphics cards cost as much or more, as a whole game console.

The main difference was the resolution. We forget, looking at things today, but the Voodoo 1 was the first consumer card which could consistently break that 30 fps mark at 640x480! Most of the 3D cards at the time, you had to play at 320x240 if you wanted a consistent 30 fps.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/real-thing,45-3.html

60 fps wasn't a thing unless you went with the Voodoo 2 SLI a little bit later on. It wasn't even until the Geforce in 1999 where you could play consistently at 60 fps either at 1024x768.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/429/6

I do love how the article mentions about how out of touch a $350 video card will be for most consumers. Even taking into account inflation, that's only like $600 today.

 

[gvx64]

Probably the main difference for a PC at that time, would be (potentially) better framerate. Provided you had good hardware to push it. I mean, Goldeneye averages like 25fps in singleplayer. and like 13fps in 4 player multi.

Whereas Quake II PC was flying, that same year. But I mean, same as always, graphics cards cost as much or more, as a whole game console.

I guess that it's always been the case that console's generally have not been on the graphical forefront given that gamer's always have the option to build a $2,000 PC that can basically cream any console, even one that has just been released. I know that is the case with the PS5, I mean the RTX 2080 outputs 10 TFLOPS and that is basically identical to what the PS5 can do and the RTX 2080 came out more than 2 years before the PS5 did. That said, for some reason, I had thought that console's were more on the graphical forefront back in the 90's. Maybe high-end PC gaming was just more niche back then (no Steam, discrete GPU's were still fairly novel)? All I know is that when my parents got me an N64 in 1996 every friend I brought over was awestruck at how great the graphics were in games like Mario 64, nobody had seen any comparison. For probably the only time in my life, I was actually popular since there was only two other kids in my immediate circle of friend's who had an N64 in the launch window and everybody I knew (who was male) wanted to come over to play it. Everybody acknowledged how great the graphics were: there was nobody that I knew who was like "dude, PC games kill this". I knew a few kids that had what I suppose could have been midrange gaming PC's in '96 but most of them were still playing pseudo-3d games like Doom or still in the 2D world with Mortal Kombat, etc. Myself, I was mainly playing 2D Lemmings and the Even More Incredible Machine on the Win 3.1 PC my parents had at that point in time.

Maybe it was the case that there was a bigger divide between youth and adult culture in the 90's? High end PC gaming might have just been something for mainly adults at that time? I don't know, I was too young in the 90's to have been aware of those nuances but it really felt like the N64 was on the graphical forefront for 96 and most of 97. I could feel the tide turning in around 1998 as more of my friends started buying PS1's as it became clear that the cartridge limitations were really starting to inhibit the N64 from moving in the direction that gaming was heading in. The N64 had a short but glorious stint being on top.

 

[chameleoneel]

The main difference was the resolution. We forget, looking at things today, but the Voodoo 1 was the first consumer card which could consistently break that 30 fps mark at 640x480! Most of the 3D cards at the time, you had to play at 320x240 if you wanted a consistent 30 fps.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/real-thing,45-3.html

60 fps wasn't a thing unless you went with the Voodoo 2 SLI a little bit later on. It wasn't even until the Geforce in 1999 where you could play consistently at 60 fps either at 1024x768.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/429/6

I do love how the article mentions about how out of touch a $350 video card will be for most consumers. Even taking into account inflation, that's only like $600 today.

I guess that it's always been the case that console's generally have not been on the graphical forefront given that gamer's always have the option to build a $2,000 PC that can basically cream any console, even one that has just been released. I know that is the case with the PS5, I mean the RTX 2080 outputs 10 TFLOPS and that is basically identical to what the PS5 can do and the RTX 2080 came out more than 2 years before the PS5 did. That said, for some reason, I had thought that console's were more on the graphical forefront back in the 90's. Maybe high-end PC gaming was just more niche back then (no Steam, discrete GPU's were still fairly novel)? All I know is that when my parents got me an N64 in 1996 every friend I brought over was awestruck at how great the graphics were in games like Mario 64, nobody had seen any comparison. For probably the only time in my life, I was actually popular since there was only two other kids in my immediate circle of friend's who had an N64 in the launch window and everybody I knew (who was male) wanted to come over to play it. Everybody acknowledged how great the graphics were: there was nobody that I knew who was like "dude, PC games kill this". I knew a few kids that had what I suppose could have been midrange gaming PC's in '96 but most of them were still playing pseudo-3d games like Doom or still in the 2D world with Mortal Kombat, etc. Myself, I was mainly playing 2D Lemmings and the Even More Incredible Machine on the Win 3.1 PC my parents had at that point in time.

Maybe it was the case that there was a bigger divide between youth and adult culture in the 90's? High end PC gaming might have just been something for mainly adults at that time? I don't know, I was too young in the 90's to have been aware of those nuances but it really felt like the N64 was on the graphical forefront for 96 and most of 97. I could feel the tide turning in around 1998 as more of my friends started buying PS1's as it became clear that the cartridge limitations were really starting to inhibit the N64 from moving in the direction that gaming was heading in. The N64 had a short but glorious stint being on top.

Of course, resolution can be higher on PC. But, I still think the key thing separating PC from console, at the time of the N64, was framerate.

Visually, N64 was on par with PC's of the time. It even had an native AA solution. But, with decent PC hardware (costing a lot more than an N64) Quake II can potentially run very fast. I first played Quake II in 2003 (local multiplayer), on a Voodoo II system. And it was very fast and smooth.

In terms of who gaming was for at the time: We hadn't made the transition, yet. Yeah, high end PC gaming was niche, for adults or kids/teens with parents willing to spend the money. But gaming itself, was still mostly marketed to kids and teens. PS2 and Xbox generation started seeing a transition in marketing towards 20 - 40 year olds. And by the PS360 generation, that fully became a focus. Those people have spending power and it was realized they are willing to spend on games. And many games were directly created for that demographic.
Really, those were the people whom had grown up with NES, SNES, PSOne, N64. It was the same exact people whom had always been playing games. The 40 year olds were just the older people whom had been attracted to gaming, from its beginnings.
-------------------------------------------------

and sorta back on topic:

Battlefield 3 pushed ahead of its time. It ushered in a new generation of visuals, releasing 2 years before the PS4 came out. That game looked terrible on PS360. PC was the correct version.

 

[Armenius]

No one remembers Mega Race(1993)? Lance Boyle? MS-DOS?

Just listening to the intro gives me chills!

It's $1 on GOG right now. Loved this game as a kid.
https://www.gog.com/en/game/megarace_1_2

Of course, resolution can be higher on PC. But, I still think the key thing separating PC from console, at the time of the N64, was framerate.

Visually, N64 was on par with PC's of the time. It even had an native AA solution. But, with decent PC hardware (costing a lot more than an N64) Quake II can potentially run very fast. I first played Quake II in 2003 (local multiplayer), on a Voodoo II system. And it was very fast and smooth.

In terms of who gaming was for at the time: We hadn't made the transition, yet. Yeah, high end PC gaming was niche, for adults or kids/teens with parents willing to spend the money. But gaming itself, was still mostly marketed to kids and teens. PS2 and Xbox generation started seeing a transition in marketing towards 20 - 40 year olds. And by the PS360 generation, that fully became a focus. Those people have spending power and it was realized they are willing to spend on games. And many games were directly created for that demographic.
Really, those were the people whom had grown up with NES, SNES, PSOne, N64. It was the same exact people whom had always been playing games. The 40 year olds were just the older people whom had been attracted to gaming, from its beginnings.
-------------------------------------------------

and sorta back on topic:

Battlefield 3 pushed ahead of its time. It ushered in a new generation of visuals, releasing 2 years before the PS4 came out. That game looked terrible on PS360. PC was the correct version.

The N64 RCP had hardware T&L 4 years before NVIDIA, too.

 

[matt167]

For me. Doom 3. I spent hours watching the alien growth animation out of the walls and catwalks, along with the lighting. I watched the tech demo trailer on The Screen Savers on TV and still have a cd copy which came with a collector’s edition of the original 3 games

 

[cjcox]

While it would definitely give you a headache, original Doom. 3D without 3D GPU... running on an i386.... pretty amazing stuff at the time.

 

[Absalom]

It's $1 on GOG right now. Loved this game as a kid.
https://www.gog.com/en/game/megarace_1_2

The N64 RCP had hardware T&L 4 years before NVIDIA, too.

That wasn't traditional hardware T&L though given it was actually software T&L running on a DSP, which makes it really a software renderer.

And it doesn't really matter anyway because just go look at Quake's software renderer. It still looks good today.

 

[UnknownSouljer]

So, the issue I have here with Mario 64 is that graphically, it wasn't really ahead of its time. There were 3D accelerators on the PC at the time which could do everything that the N64 could do. Granted, the 3dfx Voodoo 1 didn't come out yet, and 3D accelerators were still pretty rare.

Rather, I think the majority of what made Mario 64, Mario 64, was the gameplay. But that's really not graphics related. This is not to mock Mario 64. It was hugely influential in terms of camera and controls.

In 1996? You kidding me? Mario 64 shredded everything in the PC world at that time. The only thing PC had above N64 was resolution. But most people didn't really notice the difference nearly as severely then as now. Especially since everyone was often also using low resolution CRTs on desktops. 320i (EDIT: as has been correct 320x200, point remains the same. 320x200 being electron gunned onto a CRT that is “natively” 640x480 was indistinguishable) being roughly "equivalent" to 640x480.
Literally the only PC game in 96' that would make anyone question this was in fact Quake I. Another game that I also had in my list. But the issue with that is there wasn't a card fast enough to play it other than the Voodoo 1 and most people didn't have one. Everyone was stuck on 640x480 (or lower), software renderer, and low fps. Mario 64 played like butter out of the box. And its fluidity, use of polygons, etc, is a major milestone in terms of graphics.
Other than Quake I, basically all PC gaming graphics were still sprite based and "3d games" were mere tricks built around things like the Build Engine. And most of those games were still DoS based and also limited to 640x480 and below as a result (All the games from Apogee, 3D Realms, etc).

Believe me, I was there. Mario 64 turned heads, there just wasn't anything like it graphically at that time.

 

[LukeTbk]

Especially since everyone was often also using low resolution CRTs on desktops. 320i being roughly "equivalent" to 640x480.

320i being better than 320p that is a bit of news to me, I thought 1080p > 1080i, but I never had a firm grasp.

i do remember the tv ads of Mario 64 bakc in the days, and it is was indeed a crazy never seen effect to me.

 

[UnknownSouljer]

320i being better than 320p that is a bit of news to me, I thought 1080p > 1080i, but I never had a firm grasp.

Not sure if you're trying to be sarcastic here or not. Obviously progressive is better, but the difference between a CRT TV and a computer monitor back in 1996 was a lot narrower. When not viewing text interlaced was nearly impossible to see vs progressive on a CRT: especially when discussing motion in a video game. Interlaced existed as a trick in the first place because electron guns fundamentally work differently than LCD screens.
The problems with viewing interlaced on a TV didn't become "a thing" until Plasma/LCD became common.

Resolution was still superior on PC, but as I mentioned, most people didn't have the graphics cards necessary to drive a game like Quake at anything other than software rendering at 640x480 or below in 1996. And because of a lack of excelleration and the fact that most games were 2D and still programmed for DOS, meant that most games were at 640x480 or below natively.

 

[Nytegard]

320i being better than 320p that is a bit of news to me, I thought 1080p > 1080i, but I never had a firm grasp.

i do remember the tv ads of Mario 64 bakc in the days, and it is was indeed a crazy never seen effect to me.

There was no 320i resolution on the N64. Mario 64 was 240p (320x240) and was capped at 30 fps, but did drop lower than that occasionally. But yes, CRT televisions would make it look better due to their technology, which was a bit different than a CRT computer monitor operates. Consoles like the Genesis would use this to their benefit to make dithered images appear translucent, which is one reason games tend to look far worse on modern devices. (CRT monitors are far more distinct in their scanlines than CRT televisions).

 

[gvx64]

In 1996? You kidding me? Mario 64 shredded everything in the PC world at that time. The only thing PC had above N64 was resolution. But most people didn't really notice the difference nearly as severely then as now. Especially since everyone was often also using low resolution CRTs on desktops. 320i being roughly "equivalent" to 640x480.
Literally the only PC game in 96' that would make anyone question this was in fact Quake I. Another game that I also had in my list. But the issue with that is there wasn't a card fast enough to play it other than the Voodoo 1 and most people didn't have one. Everyone was stuck on 640x480 (or lower), software renderer, and low fps. Mario 64 played like butter out of the box. And its fluidity, use of polygons, etc, is a major milestone in terms of graphics.
Other than Quake I, basically all PC gaming graphics were still sprite based and "3d games" were mere tricks built around things like the Build Engine. And most of those games were still DoS based and also limited to 640x480 and below as a result (All the games from Apogee, 3D Realms, etc).

Believe me, I was there. Mario 64 turned heads, there just wasn't anything like it graphically at that time.

This is how I remember it being in 96. PC gaming was absolutely a thing and was probably almost as big as console gaming was at the time, even among kids. That said, the kids I knew back then were still playing either outright 2D games or heavily sprite-based 3D games on the PC. I don't know, maybe the Vodoo 1 was, in 1996, like the RTX 4090 is in 2023 (obviously not in terms of price but in terms of market penetration). I didn't know anybody who had a PC in 1996 that could do anything close to Mario 64.

Now obviously, that didn't last long. By 1999, I remember that Nintendo was panicking over N64 emulation which tells me that PC's, by that time, were roughly 10x faster than the N64. Like I said, the N64 had a short reign, but for a good year or so it was the best thing out there and there was a lot of hype about its graphics. That was a big part of why people were so willing to pay the insane cartridge prices in its early days. I remember games like Doom 64 selling for more than $80.00 US up here in Canada, the games still sold like hotcakes despite the price because people wanted the graphics. High quality 2D sidescrollers like Mischief Makers on the N64 got hated on because nobody wanted to pay those prices for "last-gen graphics".

Even with Mario 64, the standout thing that made this game so huge in 96/97 was its graphics. Sure, the gameplay and controls, over time, proved to be the most influential aspects of the game but that isn't what people were focusing on during the initial hype. I remember even the 6:00 o'clock news showing Mario 64 gameplay just to talk about how realistic the graphics were.

For me. Doom 3. I spent hours watching the alien growth animation out of the walls and catwalks, along with the lighting. I watched the tech demo trailer on The Screen Savers on TV and still have a cd copy which came with a collector’s edition of the original 3 games

Absolutely, this game belongs on the list. That being said, I was on this board back in 2004 and I remember the insane level of hype that this game had to deal with. It was almost Start Wars Episode 1 level hype, there is no game that can live up to that. I remember so much complaining and negative threads when Doom 3 came out such as: "it's too short", or "it's too dark". That said, one thing I never heard people complaining about was its graphical realism. I think everybody realized and quietly acknowledged that this game's graphics were revolutionary. I mean, most people were still gaming on PS2's and Gamecubes when this game launched and there were people here playing this game at 2048 x 1536 experiencing graphical realism that was probably beyond what even the PS3 or XBox 360 could deliver.

 

[ChoGGi]

System Shock 1 ('94)

 

[Nytegard]

This is how I remember it being in 96. PC gaming was absolutely a thing and was probably almost as big as console gaming was at the time, even among kids. That said, the kids I knew back then were still playing either outright 2D games or heavily sprite-based 3D games on the PC. I don't know, maybe the Vodoo 1 was, in 1996, like the RTX 4090 is in 2023 (obviously not in terms of price but in terms of market penetration). I didn't know anybody who had a PC in 1996 that could do anything close to Mario 64.

Now obviously, that didn't last long. By 1999, I remember that Nintendo was panicking over N64 emulation which tells me that PC's, by that time, were roughly 10x faster than the N64. Like I said, the N64 had a short reign, but for a good year or so it was the best thing out there and there was a lot of hype about its graphics. That was a big part of why people were so willing to pay the insane cartridge prices in its early days. I remember games like Doom 64 selling for more than $80.00 US up here in Canada, the games still sold like hotcakes despite the price because people wanted the graphics. High quality 2D sidescrollers like Mischief Makers on the N64 got hated on because nobody wanted to pay those prices for "last-gen graphics".

Even with Mario 64, the standout thing that made this game so huge in 96/97 was its graphics. Sure, the gameplay and controls, over time, proved to be the most influential aspects of the game but that isn't what people were focusing on during the initial hype. I remember even the 6:00 o'clock news showing Mario 64 gameplay just to talk about how realistic the graphics were.


Absolutely, this game belongs on the list. That being said, I was on this board back in 2004 and I remember the insane level of hype that this game had to deal with. It was almost Start Wars Episode 1 level hype, there is no game that can live up to that. I remember so much complaining and negative threads when Doom 3 came out such as: "it's too short", or "it's too dark". That said, one thing I never heard people complaining about was its graphical realism. I think everybody realized and quietly acknowledged that this game's graphics were revolutionary. I mean, most people were still gaming on PS2's and Gamecubes when this game launched and there were people here playing this game at 2048 x 1536 experiencing graphical realism that was probably beyond what even the PS3 or XBox 360 could deliver.

I do think age has a lot to do with it. The N64 for me was when I was in college, and I only knew 3 people who had one. And I was a Computer Science major, so yes, I had a top of the line computer back then, and everyone I knew had a great computer too. I had a Rendition Vérité before I switched to a Voodoo 1.

Let's forget memories. A newsgroup post from about half a year after the N64 was released, so we're looking at what people thought at the time, not their memories:

https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action/c/ScElX5yw1ug?pli=1

And yeah, I was in the PC crowd. The post that best reflects my feelings at the time

As for the quality of graphics, well, if I hadn't got a 3dfx card, I would
think the N64 graphics in e.g. Mario64 and Waverace64 are very impressive.
But as it is, they are ho-hum for me.

 

[UnknownSouljer]

I do think age has a lot to do with it. The N64 for me was when I was in college, and I only knew 3 people who had one. And I was a Computer Science major, so yes, I had a top of the line computer back then, and everyone I knew had a great computer too. I had a Rendition Vérité before I switched to a Voodoo 1.

Let's forget memories. A newsgroup post from about half a year after the N64 was released, so we're looking at what people thought at the time, not their memories:

https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action/c/ScElX5yw1ug?pli=1

And yeah, I was in the PC crowd. The post that best reflects my feelings at the time

Not discounting your position, you had what most didnt and wouldn’t for generations (I gamed on PC back then as well and it was a niche all through mid 00’s really). There wasn’t a push for 3d accelerated graphics until the Voodoo1 existed. And even then 3dfx’s early success was in arcade cabinets before coming to discrete PC.

Anyway, I say all that to say, what titles in 96’ were you playing that gave you your impression or position? Because there weren’t any true 3D titles other than Quake I.

EDIT: I had a Matrox Mystique 4MB in 1997. And then I got a VooDoo2 to go with it in either 98 or 99. And yeah, that changed my life in terms of 3d graphics and PC gaming. Half-Life, Shogo, Quake II, SiN, and a myriad of other FPS titles all came out at that time. At that point PC had asserted its dominance in terms of graphics.

 

[gvx64]

I do think age has a lot to do with it. The N64 for me was when I was in college, and I only knew 3 people who had one. And I was a Computer Science major, so yes, I had a top of the line computer back then, and everyone I knew had a great computer too. I had a Rendition Vérité before I switched to a Voodoo 1.

Let's forget memories. A newsgroup post from about half a year after the N64 was released, so we're looking at what people thought at the time, not their memories:

https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action/c/ScElX5yw1ug?pli=1

And yeah, I was in the PC crowd. The post that best reflects my feelings at the time

Thanks for this newsgroup thread. It's really hard to find info on public sentiment from that era as most messageboards like [H] weren't around yet. One thing that also stands out to me here is this comment:

You're kidding right? 3DFX on a PC is leaps and bounds beyond the
N64. I'm sure WaveRace's "wave effect" could easily been done on 3DFX
hardware. Right now there aren't any games that would benefit from an
effect like that so what. Also, WaveRace is running at really low
resolution, 3DFX is running at 640x480.

That's another factor here. Yes, High-end PC's exceeded the N64 graphically at launch but how many (popular) PC games were available in '96 that actually took advantage of that graphical power the way that Mario 64 or Wave Race 64 did? This can definitely contribute to a perception that PC's were potentially lagging the N64 in terms of hardware, even if it is not true.

I think another piece of evidence is that some of games that we saw come out in 1998, like Half Life 1 which clearly well surpass anything on the N64. Surely, Half Life 1 would have been designed to run reasonably well on a high-end 1996 PC, in other words it just took time for the most popular AAA PC games to fully utilize cutting edge PC tech from '96 whereas that lag didn't exist on the N64 as games came out on day 1 that were fully optimized.

I am not disagreeing or arguing with you. PC's being faster than N64 at launch certainly appears to be the case. I am just trying to rectify it with my childhood perceptions and memories which are dramatically different than this. In contrast, I don't think any kid today who got a PS5 in 2020 would have gotten too far thinking that their console beat the pants off of a decent gaming PC: every fourth or fifth gamer friend he/she had would have a PC with an RTX NVidia gpu that would be able to play games like Cyberpunk as well, if not better. Like you said, there must have been a much bigger cultural divide back then between adult and youth gaming cultures. Also, it doesn't help that Nintendo doesn't release any of their content on multiplats and developing for the N64 was so difficult that 3rd parties creating multiplats was generally not that feasible: it made finding a good apples to apples comparison back in that point in time (for the non-enthusiast) pretty challenging.

 

[Nytegard]

There's always been a console vs PC divide on which is better. Even up to the Xbox 360, I remember seeing people talk about which one was more powerful. That's about the last console I remember that happening with, as that's about when computer graphics shot through the roof, and the consoles were just intermediate upgrades.

One of the games I played pre 3dfx was Indy Car Racing 2, which had Rendition support. This was in 1995. (I went through who knows how many 3D accelerator cards pre-3dfx).



Technology wise, this could do much of what the N64 could do. It had Anti-Aliasing, it had bilinear filtering. But you're talking a racing sim vs a platform game. Technology wise, which is better? A racing sim is going to be flatter than a platformer. What we're really comparing here is artistic style.

But computer wise, every few years there were revolutions.

Compare any Commodore 64 game to King's Quest.





King's Quest is a massive step up, not only in graphics, but also what was possible. There's a reason why this game is the pivotal moment computer games went to adventure games.

One of my favorite quotes comes from Compute!

https://www.atarimagazines.com/compute/issue57/kings_quest.html

Byron and I were playing King's Quest-a new adventure game for the IBM PCjr written by Sierra. "But how does it work?" he wanted to know. "How would you even go about writing a program like that?" As a bright computer science major, Byron can write programs to perform reverse Polish notation, link-lists in Pascal, and all those other exotic things that students learn to do. But he couldn't begin to guess how King's Quest was written. Neither could I.

Things like Mario 64 imho were just evolutions in technology. But things like King's Quest, Wing Commander, Wolfenstein 3D, Quake, were revolutions in technology. With companies like Origin Systems, you knew you had to have the latest and greatest $3000+ computer (and that doesn't even include inflation) if you wanted to run their games at more than just a slideshow, and people bought them.

(And I'd agree that the original Super Mario Bros. was a revolution, but not Mario 64.)

 

[LukeTbk]

Obviously progressive is better,

If obviously progressive is better 240i is being equivalent to 480 what exactly ?

Like I said I am just roughly aware that something was going on that made i version better than half the resolution but P despite somewhat similar image because of the nice visual retention tricks, but not that a 240i would be the equivalent to 240p let alone equivalent of an higher resolution.

 

[UnknownSouljer]

If obviously progressive is better 240i is being equivalent to 480 what exactly ?

Like I said I am just roughly aware that something was going on that made i version better than half the resolution but P despite somewhat similar image because of the nice visual retention tricks, but not that a 240i would be the equivalent to 240p let alone equivalent of an higher resolution.

Firstly I'm wrong, titles like Mario 64 were 320x200. Secondly the point is you couldn't tell the difference on a TV CRT display. Do you have a point or a question past that?

 

[LukeTbk]

Firstly I'm wrong, titles like Mario 64 were 320x200. Secondly the point is you couldn't tell the difference on a TV CRT display. Do you have a point or a question past that?

Yes maybe I am not clear you could not make the difference between 240i and 480p on a TV CRT or difference between 240i and 480i ? (I must sound dumb has I imagine it is some well known fact of the time)

 

[UnknownSouljer]

Yes maybe I am not clear you could not make the difference between 240i and 480p on a TV CRT or difference between 240i and 480i ? (I must sound dumb has I imagine it is some well known fact of the time)

For the time period we're talking about, all resolutions were interlaced. Everything was 480i 30hz in NTSC. Unless you were PAL, in which case it was slightly higher resolution at the cost of being 25Hz. Because of alternating blanking it was 60Hz and 50Hz respectively.

The point is because of the way electron guns rendered these systems on CRT TV's, halving half the resolution wasn't something obvious. I've repeated this statement 4 or so times. I'm not sure what answer you want.

EDIT: Here let me elaborate. Consoles have been doing tricks with limited hardware for a long time. The Nintendo 64 is just an old example of that. Newer examples is that most modern consoles don't render even at 1080p. They render mozaic resolutions at something like 800p. If you put true 1080p side by side with it and render it on a PC as your control, sure you can tell a difference. But that isn't how most people see games, experience games, or play games. Now it's the same thing but in 4k. There aren't really any titles that can natively render 4k on either the PS5 or XSX (other than remastered/patched PS4 games, but you know what I'm saying). If I booted up a random title and handed you the controller and said: what is the precise resolution this game is rendering at? You wouldn't know unless you picked up a spec sheet or did a side by side comparison with PC.

Another example is the diminishing returns of 1080p vs 4k. They did double blind testing and found that in a movie theater with 100' screens, most casual audience members didn't notice the difference between 1080p and 4k.

In the case of consoles, pre HD-TV's, there were scan lines, it was interlaced, and CRT's introduced 'softness' to the image. CRT's also don't have defined pixel structure like LCDs. When off resolutions are used on LCD's it's obvious that it's lower resolution. But the dots can simply be projected larger on a CRT. How do you count dots when there are no dots? Much less even see dots when they are all "smudged" together? That combined with size of the TV vs subject distance (the same reason why 4k is indistinguishable from 1080p today for a lot of casual viewers) lead to no one seeing a difference.

Again, not sure what to tell you past this. Other than buy a 1995 or before year old CRT TV and a game console and see if you can tell the difference. The answer is, short of doing a side by side: you probably can't.

 

[LukeTbk]

The point is because of the way electron guns rendered these systems on CRT TV's, halving half the resolution wasn't something obvious. I've repeated this statement 4 or so times. I'm not sure what answer you want.

Is it possible that it was simply a typo, that you meant 240p which looked like 480i in the first statement ?

 

[toast0]

For the time period we're talking about, all resolutions were interlaced. Everything was 480i 30hz in NTSC. Unless you were PAL, in which case it was slightly higher resolution at the cost of being 25Hz. Because of alternating blanking it was 60Hz and 50Hz respectively.

Sorry, this is all confused. Let's start earlier. NTSC standard video is 60 fields per second, 240 visible lines per field, fields are commonly considered to be even or odd scanlines. So that's 480i@60Hz. An NTSC video camera doesn't capture 30 frames per second and then split it into fields, it captures 60 fields per second (with a rolling shutter). Doing 30 frames and splitting it would require memory and nothing had memory until the late 90s.

The NES and almost? all 8-bit systems did a trick, all even or all odd fields. No interlacing, 60 fields per, 240p. SNES and other 16-bit systems could do either 240p or 480i, and mostly did 240p, except sometimes. Same with the n64 and friends, although there was a lot more 480i; now that things had enough memory for real framebuffers and rendering took a while, it more often made sense to render to 480 (or close) at 30 fps, and then scan out odd and even lines; or useful for playing back interlaced video that was popular on disc based systems.

All that said, I believe Mario 64 was output in 240p, but the fps was more like 30fps; frames were generally repeated twice.

The next generation (gamecube, ps2, dreamcast, xbox the first) all could do 480p or higher with the right output cables, but still not necessarily in all games.

For PAL, change everything from 60/30 to 50/25 and add more lines, whatevs, same story.

 

[gvx64]

There's always been a console vs PC divide on which is better. Even up to the Xbox 360, I remember seeing people talk about which one was more powerful. That's about the last console I remember that happening with, as that's about when computer graphics shot through the roof, and the consoles were just intermediate upgrades.

One of the games I played pre 3dfx was Indy Car Racing 2, which had Rendition support. This was in 1995. (I went through who knows how many 3D accelerator cards pre-3dfx).


Technology wise, this could do much of what the N64 could do. It had Anti-Aliasing, it had bilinear filtering. But you're talking a racing sim vs a platform game. Technology wise, which is better? A racing sim is going to be flatter than a platformer. What we're really comparing here is artistic style.

But computer wise, every few years there were revolutions.

Compare any Commodore 64 game to King's Quest.

King's Quest is a massive step up, not only in graphics, but also what was possible. There's a reason why this game is the pivotal moment computer games went to adventure games.

One of my favorite quotes comes from Compute!

https://www.atarimagazines.com/compute/issue57/kings_quest.html



Things like Mario 64 imho were just evolutions in technology. But things like King's Quest, Wing Commander, Wolfenstein 3D, Quake, were revolutions in technology. With companies like Origin Systems, you knew you had to have the latest and greatest $3000+ computer (and that doesn't even include inflation) if you wanted to run their games at more than just a slideshow, and people bought them.

(And I'd agree that the original Super Mario Bros. was a revolution, but not Mario 64.)

Thanks for the interesting retrospective. Yes, I agree with you, while it's before my time, I can definitely appreciate the significance of advancing from a simple jump + move style of 2D gameplay to something that is clearly a story-driven, object-oriented style of RPG. Certainly, the changes affected by Mario 64 were smaller and more incremental. I mean, there were fairly popular 3D adventure games like Tomb Raider that predated Mario 64 by a year or more that did a lot of the same things technically, just not as well. Mario 64 more just took the 3D style of gameplay and (in typical Nintendo fashion) elevated it to a different level of quality and polish (similar to what BotW did for open world adventures). That said, I would take it one step further and argue that the Nintendo 64 took a level of graphics that was maybe reserved to PC audiences with $1,000+ machines (which today would probably be $1,500+) and made that same graphical experience largely available to $200 price-point gamers with no other competitors on the market doing anything close to this at the time. So yeah, Mario 64 was not a graphical revolution in terms of technical achievement but I think that it was still a significant leap in terms of market penetration of high-end graphics and was probably the last time that a Nintendo first party game ever really wowed a large number of people in terms of sheer graphical capability (maybe you could argue that Metroid Prime did this as well, but this was after games like Halo had already moved the bar so far forward).

Is it possible that it was simply a typo, that you meant 240p which looked like 480i in the first statement ?

Just to clarify, most N64 games used a 320x240p resolution combined with heavy antialiasing (Mario 64 was one of those games). The N64 allowed developers to go up to 640x480 but as soon as you went past the 320x240 ceiling the use of progressive mode is disallowed and the resolution must be interlaced. 640x480i was generally only ever used for menus or things with low computational demand because with 4MB of RAM, a double frame buffer using even 16-bit color would occupy over a quarter of the N64's RAM capacity. There were a handful of games that offered hi-res modes (mainly with the Expansion Pak which doubled the N64's RAM to 8 MB), but even there the hi-res mode was 480x360i or some widescreen resolution with weird aspect ratio that was less than 640x480i.

 

[funkydmunky]

So, the issue I have here with Mario 64 is that graphically, it wasn't really ahead of its time.

If you take a still frame of a game and upon looking at it, it blows your mind, then that is good gfx. I've had many a game steal my monies with such advertising tricks over the years. Mario64 doesn't overly impress with a screen shot. The world it creates, the animation and how one navigates this new found 3d realm do. Level design, fluidity, colours, animation and music/sound fx are truly magnificent which all combine to make it an amazing experience.
Me and my roommates in our mid 20's at the time had a large house party with kegs and a BBQ in a large backyard. Good times. I had a N64 in the living room attached to my roommates impossibly big at the time 32" crt with a rented Mario64 cart. Ya mine never had the bundled game. About mid evening the living room became packed with about two dozen peeps, boys and girls watching and playing Mario64. People laughed and screamed with delight as the controller got passed around after every life loss. For many in that room it was their first experience of a 3d game on a TV. It was like watching a REAL CARTOON at the time. First time I had ever experienced the "girls" clamoring for their turn screaming "I'm next, I'm next!"
Something similar happened a year or so after involving Golden Eye 64, but that Mario moment stands out in my mind as something special.
It WAS so ahead of its time. I had nothing on PC that would wow a crowd and command their attention for hours. No one needed to be taught how to play (it's Mario) and everyone not playing loved to watch.

 

[vortexware]

HALF-LIFE 2 by far, for a 2004 game it was WAY ahead of its time

 

[funkydmunky]

HALF-LIFE 2 by far, for a 2004 game it was WAY ahead of its time

I do recall HL2 being an amazing experience which I didn't know my ATi 8500 128GB was capable of until I played it. So good.
But for me, funny enough, I remember being in a Virgin Mega Store and walking past a HL1 demo and being shocked. 3D characters lip-syncing and moving about a 3D environment interacting. Just saying HL1 for me was more impactful but I was also blown away at HL2 with my lowly pencil tricked Duron 700 to 1000 and my trusty 8500 experience.

 

[gaminggodfather]

HALF-LIFE 2 by far, for a 2004 game it was WAY ahead of its time

Agree! It was a visual experience at the time.

 

[Zepher]

I fired up Crysis Remastered the other night to show my friend what it looks like with all the settings maxed out. I am not sure when they added it, probably for the Remastered Version, but the highest setting is "Can it run Crysis", lol.
Everything maxxed out with HDR and Raytracing at 3440x1440, I was getting between 40 and 120fps, averaging around 75fps on a 5900X and 3080Ti FE..

 

[sharknice]

HALF-LIFE 2 by far, for a 2004 game it was WAY ahead of its time

All of you guys keep saying stuff that is not "graphically well ahead of their time" that the threads title states. There is a difference between something being good and something being ahead of it's time.

If something is well ahead of it's time it should be years before anything matches it.

HL2 had great graphis but they were not ahead of their time. Unreal Tournament 2004 and Doom 3 were already out before HL2 and had better overall graphics. I wouldn't call something "ahead of it's time" when it's not even the best at the time.

I don't even know if I would say HL2 as a game overall was ahead of it's time. HL2 is an amazing game, one of the best of all time. It did everything well, but it didn't do anything other games didn't do soon after or even before it was released.

 

[Armenius]

All of you guys keep saying stuff that is not "graphically well ahead of their time" that the threads title states. There is a difference between something being good and something being ahead of it's time.

If something is well ahead of it's time it should be years before anything matches it.

HL2 had great graphis but they were not ahead of their time. Unreal Tournament 2004 and Doom 3 were already out before HL2 and had better overall graphics. I wouldn't call something "ahead of it's time" when it's not even the best at the time.

I don't even know if I would say HL2 as a game overall was ahead of it's time. HL2 is an amazing game, one of the best of all time. It did everything well, but it didn't do anything other games didn't do soon after or even before it was released.

Agreed. As I said earlier Far Cry was more impressive than HL2 and it came out the same year. Its oversaturated aesthetic really did not prepare us from CryEngine 2, though.