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[Koshiro]

Zelda: The Wind Waker.

 

[ButtonMasher]

I really dig alot of the sprite based 2D fighters, SF3 games and SNK Fighters, and Metal Slug games are very good.

The falls on Mark of the wolves are really cool, some of the Konami 2D game on PS2 also ROCK! Contra SS has some amazing water animation in the backdrops.

 

[Defensor]

Jak & Daxter series. Seriously.

 

[dark10x]

Plenty of great choices in here. The only other great one I can think of that I did not see mentioned here is Oddworld Strangers Wrath. Also, the weapon animations in Killzone (especially reloading). The rest of the game animates like crap, but the player weapon animation is tops.

 

[Blackace]

MVP 2005 animations are sick! Also, DMC 3's animations are crazy, along with RE4!

 

[JasoNsider]

Wind Waker without a shadow of a doubt. The funny thing is that I don't think it was nominated for best animation for that year's AIAS awards. Considering it has what I would consider the greatest game animation ever, I think that's pretty funny.

Resident Evil 4 comes close. It's really hard to compare hand-animated to motion captured animation though. Neither are easy, but hand-created animation obviously takes more flair and attention to detail.

 

[Forsete]

Jak 3 - for the smooth animations.. If one animation was cut of the cut of animation would morph into the new one.. Very nice.

Half Life 2 - the ingame cut scenes are remarkable..

 

[Musashi Wins!]

MVP 2005 animations are sick!

Probably the most convincing series of animations in a sports game. Their insanely accurate and varied. I've played this game a ton and I still see new ones. A bunch of other obvious and great exampes in this thread, but I'm glad someone brought this up.

 

[Stinkles]

Sprite based fighters often have some of the most beautiful individual frames of animation, but almost every single one, even this generation, suffers the second you jump as you go from liquid smooth idle animation to crazy two frame animation in mid-air.

 

[jett]

Sprite based fighters often have some of the most beautiful individual frames of animation, but almost every single one, even this generation, suffers the second you jump as you go from liquid smooth idle animation to crazy two frame animation in mid-air.

Erratic animation is Guilty Gear's trademark. Go play SF3.

 

[J2 Cool]

MGS3/2

ICO definetly

DMC 1/3 (Jaguar panther thing in the first and the sexy trench)

VF4

Metroid on GC

Mario 64/Sunshine (still have fast, smooth, and fun down pat)

RE4 (troll boss and other animations)

Prince of Persia

AKI wrestling games (nobody got wrestling moves down better)

 

[SpokkX]

First thing that made me fall in love with Fable was the animation. The way your Hero leans when he runs, the weight and movement is perfect (reminded me of Mario 64). When you go into berserker mode, cast spells, roll and dodge projectiles etc

Some enemies were missing a few frames like the damn hobbs, but everything else was fantastic.

Celda gets my vote for best animation. so smooth

uh Fable?

the animation in Fable is quite bad i thought.. missing frames all over the place, didn´t feel like hits "connected" and so on.... and the framerate destroyed all "nice" animations..

Good animation:

Ninja Gaiden
Zelda WW

 

[SolidSnakex]

The Bust a Move/Groove series.

 

[Anyanka]

For 2d it has to be SF III. I could watch Ryu just stand there all day.

for 3d I'd say Soul Calibur II. Everything is so smooth looking, especially the throws.

 

[TeTr1C]

Definitely Half-Life 2.