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[Aldynes]

BOOM!

Few things make such a impact and give you immediate gratification and catharsis like a good explosion when playing games, even if you end up getting blown up yourself at some point, at least you can't argue it's better to go out with a bang.
How many time a red barrel was placed conveniently near enemies during your favorite action sequences / levels? Too many to count, and for a Boss it's near mandatory the damn thing get blown up upon defeat, it's an unwritten rule, even if there no logical reason to explain why it did. Then you got Goldeneye on N64 who made EVERY objects explode when you shoot at them, multiple times even.
So with that in mind, what are the best digital explosions that you remember? Which game cranked up the destruction to 11 and took a particular care to render each BOOM the loudest and most impressive?

Here are some of my picks:


Lost Planet gotta be mentioned, same for Resident Evil 5 who shared the same MT Framework engine:









For the 90's personally i can immediately think of BLOOD with it's TNT :





And Shadow Warrior with the Nuclear Warhead :





Mercenaries 2 and Just Cause 3 :






And because of the unwritten rule :






What are your favorites depictions of digital explosions gaf ?

 

[celsowmbr]

 

[AV]

When I bought a 1080ti a few years back I completely forgot to swap out my old power supply. Booted up Wolfenstein The New Colossus, cranked up the sliders, threw a grenade, and boom - my PC hard shut down.

The explosion so great it carried over to real life. Don't forget to swap your PSUs, kids.

 

[Dr.Morris79]

I'm currently replaying Just cause 3. Is that an airstrike you can call in??

 

[NinjaBoiX]

That Mercenaries 2 one is great!

 

[Armorian]

Remake has great fire effects and explosions:

 

[Aldynes]

That Mercenaries 2 one is great!

Imagine this with current hardware power, we could have a killer Just Cause 5 or Mercenaries 3 (one can still hope)

 

[rofif]

Came here to post lost planet and blood explosions.
Lost planet is fucking incredible.

 

[Black_Stride]

Came here to post lost planet and blood explosions.
Lost planet is fucking incredible.

The post pro motion blur from explosions was so satisfying i couldnt get enough.
I played the beta to death even after it ended just watch explosions and listen to the mech minigun.
If an explosion happened off screen you could still tell exactly where it was just from motion blur.

Bring back motion blur on explosions! With new techniques available they should look amazing.

 

[Schmick]

Lots of good examples. The gun powder barrels in Sea of Theives. Very satisfying when they explode.

 

[Fess]

Lost Planet is a favorite of mine for sure.

I like what I'm seeing in The Ascent too

 

[Nem77]

Hell Let Loose





Battlefield V

 

[user1337]

world of warships has some good booms.

tbh, pretty much every war game does, especially battlefield series:

 

[Aldynes]

Came here to post lost planet and blood explosions.
Lost planet is fucking incredible.

The PERFECT examples, it's funny you thought of exactly these two, a true man of culture

Don't get me started on Lost Planet i have so much memories of the multiplayer!





Blood TNT on Zombie / cultist is the pinnacle of FPS moments, it's a point of no return, you got to the top of mountain and it's only downhill from there, the screams of the zombies, the loudness of the explosion, Caleb maniacally laughing with blood everywhere and the zombie flying across the screen toward you at mach 2 with his head popping, nothing topped it since.

EDIT : posted actual footage with explanation (civvie11)

 

[Aldynes]

world of warships has some good booms.

tbh, pretty much every war game does, especially battlefield series:

True, but it is expected for them, as for Battlefield the sound is what make them impact-full, i have flashback of operation metro with grenade spamming everywhere on choke points near the elevators, always awesome.

World of Warships spiked my interest ...
Can't wait to see BF6

 

[TheSHEEEP]

Look at these bad boys (Galaga):

 

[peronmls]

 

[darth.shrimp]

DID SOMEONE SAY EXPLOSION???

 

[Aldynes]

Nomura strikes again! retconing everything, decided to kill everyone because the plot got too much convoluted even for him.
Reminds me of this gem:

 

[Dr.Morris79]

Look at these bad boys (Galaga):

...So many 10ps spent!

 

[a multicultural team of v]

The explosions in Colony Wars were so good, I'm not sure why I can't find any examples without skimming through hour long videos but they were really intense for a PSX game.

 

[retsof624]

Mad Max has great explosions

 

[stranno]

This was unbelievable back in the day (when every single video on Youtube featured Carmina Burana or Remember the Name).

 

[Aldynes]

Look at these bad boys (Galaga):

Darius Gaiden explosions are a thing of beauty!

UNDER DEFEAT is undefeated for explosions

 

[Aldynes]

The explosions in Colony Wars were so good, I'm not sure why I can't find any examples without skimming through hour long videos but they were really intense for a PSX game.

THIS !

The sound too, crazy because you aren't supposed to have sound in space haha

 

[Aldynes]

This was unbelievable back in the day (when every single video on Youtube featured Carmina Burana or Remember the Name).

Fun fact : in 2007 doing this in the game granted your PC to explode too IRL.

 

[Rusty Shackelford]

 

[ZywyPL]

Killzone 2 explosions are for me still unbeaten:

 

[JohnSpartanLee]

 

[ZeroZeroQuatre]

Probably modded Crysis

 

[darth.shrimp]

For something a bit more serious than my previous post, Haegemonia: Legions of Iron had very nice-looking explosions.

 

[Chris_Rivera]

This was unbelievable back in the day (when every single video on Youtube featured Carmina Burana or Remember the Name).

Yaasss, wonder how remastered looks?

 

[Kuranghi]

Just Cause 3 and Mad Max already posted?:

 

[ProgenitorCastle]

 

[Kuranghi]

I love when game engines take into account all explosives in an area and if you set one off and the game knows the others will blow too it doesn't just spawn 20 smaller explosions it actually combines them together into a bigger splosion, Crysis did it and I think Just Cause 3 and 4 do it to a certain extent. I believe a lot of the physics are precalculated before you actually see it happening so every game should do it.

Any other games you guys know of that do this?

Also, shout out to blast waves in Just Cause 3 and 4, so great when you get blasted off a ledge by a giant explosion, makes it have so much more impact.

 

[Kuranghi]

Metal Slug series:

More gas expansion than explosion, but I still love these cannon muzzle flashes on the crab boss, and the boosters on the tank carrier VTOL are sweet:

I added some more, awesome smoke and guts explosions are allowed too I hope:

 

[BusierDonkey]

 

[A.Romero]

Mercenaries 2 and Crysis' are exceptional.

I remember being impressed by Star Fox 64's explosions back then when it came out:



Right now my favorites are Battlefield V's.

 

[ShinraMiddleMananger]

Battlefield has some great ones. Running into a building to hide only for a tank to blow a hole in a wall leaving you half dead and exposed.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Gotta be split/second.
I don't think there's any other game out there with this level of carnage and having it feel not only impressive, but also actually dangerous:

 

[Aldynes]

Gotta be split/second.
I don't think there's any other game out there with this level of carnage and having it feel not only impressive, but also actually dangerous:

The absolute chaos in driving games, Motorstorm Apocalypse and Burnout Revenge are there also IMO

 

[FreedomOfSpeech]

Mad Max has the sickest splosions. Also the sickest and most satisfying shotgun.

What about Splosion Man?



And what about disintegration?

 

[iamvin22]

Gotta be split/second.
I don't think there's any other game out there with this level of carnage and having it feel not only impressive, but also actually dangerous:

I wish WB would remake this game. It's so damn good.

 

[regawdless]

 

[Alright]

I always got a laugh out of killing molerats with the Nuke launcher in Fallout 3. Bonus lulz if it was a suicide bombing in a tight corridor.

I don't know if that counts?

 

[Aldynes]

I always got a laugh out of killing molerats with the Nuke launcher in Fallout 3. Bonus lulz if it was a suicide bombing in a tight corridor.

I don't know if that counts?

I'm amazed no one mentioned Fallout games sooner, totally counts

 

[Aldynes]

Mad Max has the sickest splosions. Also the sickest and most satisfying shotgun.

What about Splosion Man?



And what about disintegration?

Splosion Man count , as for disintegration in games... meh, to be honest, what's the point if the result on enemies are the same of an explosion but without the actual BOOM the giant fireball and the loud sound?

Mad Max is on top of the nuclear shroom scale of epic explosion in games though, absolutely.

 

[RaidenJTr7]

 

[Algan]

Call of Duty has some pretty nice explosion effects. It's great to see enemies being burned by Napalm Strike in multiplayer.

 

[Bankai]

First explosion which really blew me away was from Crusader: No Remorse on PC, back in 1996. The animation and use of color was beyond anything I had ever seen and REALLY impressed me. I even got myself a RAM upgrade (8gigs for a crazy total of 16gigs), because I hoped it would help the game run smoother; I had a Pentium 75 back in the day, 3d accelerators weren't a thing yet and DOS was the main OS to run games on.

Here's a pic:

Fire on characters was awesome as well:

And here it is in motion (timestamped @ 42:17)



Good stuff right?