Old games that still look good today

[Neb]

X-com TFTD becouse it still has colorful and detailed graphics. It even sports full destruction of landscape/objects. Then we have that poker game with pinups in 256 color, the thing is they still look realistic to this day.

 

[MulciberXP]

...

 

[Npl]

UT99 + CD2 Textures

 

[Philip42]

Unreal 1, considering it was spring 1998' release, is very impressive.

Also, Shenmue 1 & 2 had some of the best art design, i've ever seen.

 

[-tkf-]

Monkey Island on the Amiga, Somehow the game still stands even at low res.

 

[Philip42]

Monkey Island on the Amiga, Somehow the game still stands even at low res.

I remember vividly a game called "shadow of the beast" on the Amiga, which at that time was the best looking game on any home pc.

It used the blitter chip(gpu) in such ways that was unheard of in it's day.

The Amiga was ahead of it's time, with the ability to display up to 4096 colors at once , and could throw out a good number of sprites as well.

Obviously that home pc blew the socks of EGA color(pc compatibles) and the NES/SMS, graphics wise.

 

[Afrikan]

Ace Combat 4 - PS2 release 2001...

Dead or Alive - PS1 game 1998 60fps
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZ7CFW8s2x0&feature=related

ONE- for the PS1 game 1997
check out the burning bad guys effect for a PSone game.... looks better than some games released today....

its at 2:15 of this clip..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHbC06XO9gg&feature=related

and of course one of my all time favorites.....

Colony Wars - PS1 game 1997...... 60fps...GREAT SOUND.... man.... what I wouldn't do for a PS3 version....

 

[ken_masters]

Actually I play on my Mac Quake 3 Arena, Deus Ex, Unreal Tournament and few more from these era that imo looks good today.

 

[Cyan]

My vote's on Rallisport Challenge (and RSC2) for the Original Xbox

Probably the game(s) that helped DICE become what they are today..

Man I wish they would make RSC3



PS:Obviously I know the Battlefield series helped too ;-)

I'd also add Ninja Gaiden Black for the Xbox 1. The game runs at 60 fps, amazingly enough, with both solid graphics and superb gameplay.

It's also rendered at 720p.

 

[AlNom]

I'd also add Ninja Gaiden Black for the Xbox 1. The game runs at 60 fps, amazingly enough, with both solid graphics and superb gameplay.

Definitely agree. Looks even better with 4xMSAA on 360.

It's also rendered at 720p.

I'm pretty sure it's only 480p.

 

[-tkf-]

I remember vividly a game called "shadow of the beast" on the Amiga, which at that time was the best looking game on any home pc.

It used the blitter chip(gpu) in such ways that was unheard of in it's day.

The Amiga was ahead of it's time, with the ability to display up to 4096 colors at once , and could throw out a good number of sprites as well.

Obviously that home pc blew the socks of EGA color(pc compatibles) and the NES/SMS, graphics wise.

Shadow of the Beast.. a DMA Design Game, aka Rockstar North

There is alot of games on the Amiga that were ahead of their time but sadly their gameplay sometimes suffered.

Sword of Sodan was one of the first games with big sprites, and was coded by a known Demo coder. +graphics -gameplay, a classic example.

Xenon + Xenon 2 looked amazing, Bloodmoney, another DMA game not only looked good, it also play good, one of the first from them afaik

 

[22psi]

Halo 2 is decent still today.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

There is alot of games on the Amiga that were ahead of their time but sadly their gameplay sometimes suffered.

I disagree with that. Gameplay was generally good, especially for the time. Games like 'Turrican 2' and 'Fire and Ice' looked all the better for the rainbow sky backdrops. Team17 used some of the best artwork on the platform in ProjectX for a very clean, effective, hard side-shooter.

Xenon + Xenon 2 looked amazing

The Bitmap brothers had a particular art-style, but their framerate sucked and they got better results from PC. Because of that i could never rate them as great lookers. Their games would be excellent conversions though.

And off on a tangent, I feel the modern take on shooters are actually too over the top. What made R-Type so perfect for me on Sega Mastersytem was the pacing and clarity. You could see the shots moving slowly towards you and had to manoeuvre out the way. The gameplay was frantic despite being at a leisurely pace, yet because of the pace it was also controllable. The modern approach throws so many particles into the game the action is occluded half the time. The old Stardust was a better game IMO than the new one, because you were 100% in control, whereas the new one see moments where you just have blindly rush and see where you end up. In that respect Good Looking takes on a second mean 'Functional Presentation', that next-gen games can be lacking. Another example is 'Marvel Ultimate Alliance' which on XB360 had very rich graphics making it hard to isolate game entities, and a over-bizarre centre-of-the-screen dynamic light that cast huge shadows across the screen. I think devs are still running with the old ideas of 'must get more from the hardware to be impressive and look good' which was true, but now isn't. Temperance is needed with the right graphics for the job. Back in the day, that wasn't something developers had to worry about because the hardware provided the limits that kept things clear.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Halo 2 is decent still today.

How on Earth can Halo 2 be called an old game?! I guess the progress of Console Time must whizz along faster than I ever imagined!

 

[-tkf-]

I disagree with that. Gameplay was generally good, especially for the time. Games like 'Turrican 2' and 'Fire and Ice' looked all the better for the rainbow sky backdrops. Team17 used some of the best artwork on the platform in ProjectX for a very clean, effective, hard side-shooter.

Some of the early great looking games, like Shadow of the beast, Sodan and stuff like that werent exactly kings of gameplay. I clearly remember getting my Amiga 1000 and seeing great graphics in games that i hardly could be bothered playing. To some extent the Amiga introduced eye candy before gameplay. Xenon and especially Xenon 2 were pushing the limits but while the game was hard i dont recall dying because of a low framerate.

 

[AlNom]

How on Earth can Halo 2 be called an old game?! I guess the progress of Console Time must whizz along faster than I ever imagined!

I suppose you could make the case that the NV2A has aged ok.

 

[ninzel]

Undying
Unreal Tournament
AVP2
NOLF2
many N64 games..

Edit:which PS1 games are worth still downloading to play on PS3? I'm looking for some old school games to play. I've done all the N64 games I can find from Wii VC.

 

[Cyan]

Definitely agree. Looks even better with 4xMSAA on 360.

I'm pretty sure it's only 480p.

Oops, sorry. I am playing Ninja Gaiden via Xbox Originals on a HDTV and the image quality is clean and all but the point is that the game seems to be 720p compatible because you can play it full screen. I downloaded Fable 1 too and it looks diferent, I can't play it full screen because everything is rendered drawing pixels on a big square in the center of the display, not throughout it like Ninja Gaiden Black.

 

[vazel]

Oops, sorry. I am playing Ninja Gaiden via Xbox Originals on a HDTV and the image quality is clean and all but the point is that the game seems to be 720p compatible because you can play it full screen. I downloaded Fable 1 too and it looks diferent, I can't play it full screen because everything is rendered drawing pixels on a big square in the center of the display, not throughout it like Ninja Gaiden Black.

That's upscaled 16:9 480p.

 

[Pozer]

Its weird you guys mentioned Sword of Sodan in this thread. For some reason I was thinking of that one. I agree that a lot of Amiga games looked better than they played. The difficulty ramped up way to quickly on most. Many Amiga games had certain points near the beginning that had cheap death points I never got past. So did many c64 as well. Ocean and Psygnosis games were notorious for this. The whole impossible jump or insane level1 enemy=quick death=start at beginning=put in another game.

Some games I think have aged well.
1. Most capcom cps arcade based games.
2. Most iterations of Ghouls and Ghosts. (genny,snes, arcade)
3. Many NeoGeo games.
4. Glide based PC games.
5. Hand drawn 2d

Things that have not.
1. Saturn/PS1/n64 era 3d. (I never thought it looked good past 1997)