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[Tiago Rodrigues]

Man we will never have a time like this for many reasons...but looking back it's just crazy to me how by 1994 most games were still in 2D...and then by 2001 we were getting Metal Gear Solid 2, FFX and GT3.

There was also the fact consoles were in a weird place. There were plenty of them releasing. Many of them were flopping, others were expensive as fuck, etc. I feel that in 1994/1996 so much stuff was happening in the gaming industry. It was really exciting even for me as an 8 year old to witness.

But like...Like..how we got from this:

Final Fantasy VI (released in 1994) (and this first image is from the pixel re-release image...not with the same fidelity from back then):

to this Final Fantasy X (2001):

Ridge Racer (1994)

Gran Turismo 3 (2001):

7 years ago we were in 2017 and we were getting games that looked like this:

This could be released today and i'd still be like "wow that's amazing". Even something like Red Dead Redemption 2 was released almost 6 years ago and in many ways it remains unmatched.

What an amazing time to play videogames that was and see the evolution from each series with each game released.

I still remember playing Gran Turismo 3 and wondering what sorcery was that lmao.

It's such a shame that games take as long as they do nowadays and how expensive they are to develop and to buy. And how many people it takes to make just one huge title.

Just nostalgic for the time the top tier games (what we now call AAA gaming) was easier for everyone: Developers to deliver and for us to play them since they were releasing left and right.

 

[Skifi28]

The next jump will be from 3d to 4d.

 

[Mr Hyde]

I remember during PS1 era it felt like a new genre was born every week. Developers were almost tripping over themselves to produce groundbreaking games that constantly wowed the audience. It was so exciting to be a part of that.

 

[adamsapple]

1996

2002

 

[Diddy X]

Better graphics are nice but physics is gonna be the next game-changer, better interaction with the environment should be a priority since the begining in videogames, you add realistic physics to any game and it is 10x better.

 

[rodrigolfp]

Bad 1994 example.

 

[Ceadeus]

Yeah that was insane. Going 3D was massive. As a kid, it would take multiple try at playing PS1 or N64 to realize what was going on on the screen. Going from the Super Nintendo to this was black magic to your brain.

The last time I've been amazed by such novelty was to discover VR for the first time. My first VR experience was Resident Evil 7 on PSVR and it blew my mind. Like, for a moment, it renewed my love for gaming just like it was first time again. Who knew I could be genuinely afraid playing a video game? The joy of getting into the game was incredible.

 

[Bojji]

The next jump will be from 3d to 4d.

5D with smell

 

[ReBurn]

1995

1997

The leaps were amazing

 

[SJRB]

Three year difference.

Insane progress.

 

[LazyParrot]

Well, yeah. You went from 2D to 3D (which made a lot of games uglier in hindsight, but everybody was too hyped to see it back then) and then you had like 10 years where all you needed to make shit look significantly better was to up the polycount.

 

[Gaiff]

We went from retro gaming to the infancy of modern gaming. "Modern" gaming will last for a while. I feel the only logical frontier will be when we achieve something substantial with artificial intelligence, enabling us to craft worlds that are almost real, and VR to push the immersion to new heights.

Until then, we'll mostly be getting the same stuff we have been since the PS360 era.

 

[Švejk]

Not to mention, the change in sound/music and animation/cutscenes due to CD's. It was an explosion of gaming creativity that will never again be replicated.

 

[drganon]

Going from the genesis to the ps1, I thought need for speed 2 was the best looking game ever.

 

[The Cockatrice]

Sad times we live in huh? Back then developers focused on tech and stories. Nowadays they focus on how to keep us playing the game more or making more money. Sadly this will not change and it will get worse no matter what some of you naive trolls think.

 

[Grildon Tundy]

Yeah that was insane. Going 3D was massive. As a kid, it would take multiple try at playing PS1 or N64 to realize what was going on on the screen. Going from the Super Nintendo to this was black magic to your brain.

The last time I've been amazed by such novelty was to discover VR for the first time. My first VR experience was Resident Evil 7 on PSVR and it blew my mind. Like, for a moment, it renewed my love for gaming just like it was first time again. Who knew I could be genuinely afraid playing a video game? The joy of getting into the game was incredible.

Agreed with VR. Sadly, when I play now I'm very aware that I'm looking at a screen that's strapped to my face instead of feeling like I'm transported to another world

That's ok, because the next great leap will be direct neural interfaces that hijack your sensory organs!

 

[West Texas CEO]

and it will get worse no matter what some of you naïve trolls think.

As someone mentioned earlier, if we can make the jump to 4D, it might help to re-invigorate the games industry.

 

[RoboFu]

Why start there ? Atari through to the snes was an incredible 10ish years as well.

 

[SlimySnake]

Honestly, I secretly hated that era. I loved MGS, RE2, Tomb Raider, GT3, Ico and GTA3 but hated how they controlled, the ridiculous difficulty spikes, the awful graphics (no face on snake in MGS1, terrible character models in gta3), poor level design ( those retarded swimming levels in MGS2 will haunt me till the day i die) and just a lack of polish.

It wasn't until the ps3 era around 2007 to 2009 where devs finally figured out that you need to have an over the shoulder view with good shooting mechanics and platforming that isnt pixel perfect in order to make a game fun. I think MGS4, uncharted 2, infamous, Batman Arkam Asylum, Mass Effect, Halo 3, assassins creed 2 are games that still hold up because the devs finally realized that polish is just as important and dumb levels with insta fails are retarded.

The leap from ps1 to ps2 was fantastic but man the controls and level design were just too frustrating. code veronica might as well have been a ps1 game. it wasnt till re4 came out when people finally realized that games need better controls and mechanics. And even then you couldnt move. thank god for gears of war.

 

[_Ex_]

all you needed to make shit look significantly better was to up the polycount

And up your texture complexity, lighting models, shadow density, particle effects, frame rate speed, and resolution. Not to mention invent a little thing called shaders. My point is the evolution of 3D graphics through the '90s was premised on much more than just polygon counts.

-

I don't think we'll ever see technological growth, or game design evolution, as rapid and meaningful in this medium again, as we did in the '90s. I went from playing NES in 1990 to playing Dreamcast in 1999. It was a revolutionary time for gaming. The golden years.

 

[Romulus]

Yeah that was insane. Going 3D was massive. As a kid, it would take multiple try at playing PS1 or N64 to realize what was going on on the screen. Going from the Super Nintendo to this was black magic to your brain.

The last time I've been amazed by such novelty was to discover VR for the first time. My first VR experience was Resident Evil 7 on PSVR and it blew my mind. Like, for a moment, it renewed my love for gaming just like it was first time again. Who knew I could be genuinely afraid playing a video game? The joy of getting into the game was incredible.

Yup as a teenager in the 90s, AAA VR is the only thing that replicated that old 2d to 3d jump. Glad I got to experience it again because modern gaming the last 10 years has been awful in terms of technical advancements.

Played Ace Combat 7 campaign on PC VR recently and it still manages to blow my mind. I think killzone shadowfall was the last non VR game to wow me technically.

 

[Fbh]

Yup.
The evolution of 3D graphics in the early days was insane.
10 years is the difference between Goldeneye and Crysis.

A10 years old game now looks like this:

 

[Bloobs]

Yep, Im happy I expenciered it

 

[Roronoa Zoro]

Better graphics are nice but physics is gonna be the next game-changer, better interaction with the environment should be a priority since the begining in videogames, you add realistic physics to any game and it is 10x better.

Psh half life 2 already did it

 

[nkarafo]

You went from those Atari 2600 blocks to the NES where you didn't have to imagine how things must look.

Then you got that pixel art perfected, with more sprites, parallax scrolling, etc, with the 16bit consoles.

Then you got 3D textured games at playable frame rates.

Then you got those 3D graphics perfected and frame rates were not an issue anymore.

Then you got even more complex graphics to the point where big open world cities looked just as good as any linear game. And in HD.

And after that... Diminishing returns. To the point where a last gen (PS4) game looks exactly the same as a current gen game and the only way to see the difference is by looking at the details side by side or watching a DF video counting pixels and polygons with a microscope.

You will never see those graphical jumps ever again. That's over. So the only real evolution, IMO, is anything that isn't graphics. Things like physics, NPC AI, Gameplay innovations and immersion with VR.

 

[Ceadeus]

Agreed with VR. Sadly, when I play now I'm very aware that I'm looking at a screen that's strapped to my face instead of feeling like I'm transported to another world

That's ok, because the next great leap will be direct neural interfaces that hijack your sensory organs!

Ahaha, jeez I'm not sure about linking electronics to my organs though that sounds extreme but who knows. Then porn will eventually find a way in

 

[Grildon Tundy]

Ahaha, jeez I'm not sure about linking electronics to my organs though that sounds extreme but who knows. Then porn will eventually find a way in

Lol, yeah, I think it's gonna be my turning point to where I dig my heels in and say, "No! Not doing it! I'll stick to monitors, thanks." But I do think it's inevitable. The trajectory has always been heading towards more direct and instant transmission of greater and more information, and neural links seem like the logical endpoint of that.

 

[hemo memo]

It was gradual. FF8 and 9 look great.

 

[HL3.exe]

Still remember this 'Gman 1998 -> 2004' leap blowing me away at the time.

 

[Sub_Level]

Oh I know. I was there, Gandalf.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Great era of games, but the drawback was some sloppy looking 3D, 30 fps if you were lucky (amen to Tekken games at 60!), and the worst load times ever. I swear booting up games from a floppy disk on an Apple clone computer back in 1985 was faster.

But seeing it morph into DC and what was around the corner with Xbox/PS2 was incredible.

Whatever happened to chip specs going from 32-bit to the next gen was Einstein levels of talent.

Now compare a 7 year gap now. lol. Basically the same shit.

 

[Muffdraul]

One day in May 1995 I was playing Super Metroid on SNES and Sonic and Knuckles on Sega Genesis. Literally the following day I was playing Virtua Fighter and Panzer Dragoon on Sega Saturn.

I have long since accepted that I will never experience a leap that significant in gaming ever again in my lifetime. It's simply been refinement upon refinement ever since.

We are MILES DEEP into diminishing returns and have been for years now. If you don't agree with that, then you have absolutely zero understanding of the concept of diminishing returns.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

One day in May 1995 I was playing Super Metroid on SNES and Sonic and Knuckles on Sega Genesis. Literally the following day I was playing Virtua Fighter and Panzer Dragoon on Sega Saturn.

I have long since accepted that I will never experience a leap that significant in gaming ever again in my lifetime. It's simply been refinement upon refinement ever since.

We are MILES DEEP into diminishing returns and have been for years now. If you don't agree with that, then you have absolutely zero understanding of the concept of diminishing returns.

Never had a Saturn, but got a PS1 a year after it launched in US/Canada. So I think I got it in Q4 1996. My first batch of games were I think TR, RE, Destruction Derby 2 and Formula One.

It was hard to find a PS1, so I ended up buying a used one at some shady game shop near downtown. It came in the worst crumpled box ever, but surprisingly still had a pack in sampler disk I played a ton. Thankfully it all still worked.

For those of you from Toronto, remember way back that shady game store in the Knob Hill Farms or sketchy strip mall at Dufferin/Dundas. That was the place.

 

[acidagfc]

It's kind of sad to me that new generations will not be able to experience this evolution.
Going from Load Runner on NES to The Last Of Us on PS4 (replace with any other games, if you wish, you get the idea) was a hell of a ride.

But if you started with something like a Fortnight on your phone, you probably wont have the same level of appreciation for the underlying complexity.

I am glad I was there.

 

[sigmaZ]

It was such a fantastic time to be a kid. Things were changing so rapidly and there was so much mystery and intrigue. I consider myself lucky to have been born when I was. Get the best of all worlds, analog and digital.

 

[fart town usa]

1996

2002

Was gonna post this.

So wild that it was only a 6 year gap. Seemed like a lifetime had passed back then and it's wild that the series was considered "stale" before REmake released. 20+ years later and vanilla REmake is still GOAT-tier when it comes to visuals.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

It's kind of sad to me that new generations will not be able to experience this evolution.
Going from Load Runner on NES to The Last Of Us on PS4 (replace with any other games, if you wish, you get the idea) was a hell of a ride.

But if you started with something like a Fortnight on your phone, you probably wont have the same level of appreciation for the underlying complexity.

I am glad I was there.

Our fam had a pong knock off but I never played it. When I was old enough to game, we had an Apple II clone and Intellivision. So seeing the journey from pixelated beep beep games and text based Zork to now is wild.

Back then, games could be the easiest shortest game ever. Or abnormally difficult and unforgiving. Those Zork-ish games were all or nothing, and all it took was fucking up an RPG missing a quest hint or dropping a required key somewhere and you were toast. Games are now all super streamlined, hints like crazy and not convoluted and I dont think too many games now would allow you to kill an important NPC or perma lose an iron key.

 

[Shake Your Rump]

1995

1997

The leaps were amazing

As a die-hard arcade MK player, going from MK3 to MK4 was possibly the largest downgrade of a series in my lifetime. MK4 was dreadful in every aspect. I haven't played an MK game since.

 

[Yerd]

The next jump will be from 3d to 4d.

5D with smell

6D it's dicks.

 

[Days like these...]

I feel bad for the kids that didn't get to experience the jump from 2d to 3d. Nah, not really.

 

[ReyBrujo]

Three year difference.

Insane progress.

In 3 years we went from Pitfall (1982) to Super Mario Bros (1985) as well.

 

[deriks]

It was

and it's not fair to compare nowadays with 2014

 

[thefool]

soul/souless

I'll gladly play the 94 games, the 2001 games aged like milk. To be fair their gameplay was always incredibly janky.

 

[Crayon]

Just nostalgic for the time the top tier games (what we now call AAA gaming) was easier for everyone: Developers to deliver and for us to play them since they were releasing left and right.

I don't think there were any AAA games back then. The term was used here and there, but it meant "the cream of the crop" or "near flawless". Now it just means huge budget.

 

[Drell]

The 90s tvemselves were crazy in term of video game hardware evolution: We basically went from the end of the 8 bit era to the beginning of the 128 bit one with the dreamcast. Four generations of consoles were basically sharing that same decade.

 

[Alexios]

If you're skipping all the years/platforms inbetween showing a more natural, way less abrupt (yet still extremely fast, you're skipping steps from wireframe to flat to gouraud shaded then textured polygons etc.) evolution, for no reason, sure...

Before GT3 you had stuff like these, clearly on par or even better in more ways than one (lighting, effects, physics, polycounts, textures, driving models, perhaps not all in one game but say 4 out of 6 each, in varying degrees & combinations).

Other genres looked pretty good before 2001 specifically or whatever too.


They didn't make it hard to imagine what an AAA level production could deliver with its extra polish, attention to detail and content. Before the above you had stuff like this, with texture filtering and other things well above Ridge Racer too.


Before all of the above you saw the future of home games in an arcade. 94-98 shown below (with the first racer to do varying terrain physics in Sega Rally) and with more games like Scud Race (in 96!) and Sega Rally 2 inbetween of course...


Etc.​

 

[TerribleAtThisGame]

It looks like nothing now but some shit Unreal did in '98 was fucking unbelievable at the time. We got our minds blown every few months I remember.

 

[Laptop1991]

Yeah it was a big leap, i started on the Amiga then went to PC in 95, but for me the reason was the release of the 3D accelerator cards like the 3DFX Voodoo cards and Nvidia's TNT's, they made games not only look a lot better and clearer, games ran so much quicker aswell, they did wonders for Tomb Raider and First Person Shooters at the time, which is why so many were made back then, by the early noughties most gaming system's had the 3d tech, and it became standard, but that jump was huge back then, not like in recent times, biggest wow moment in gaming for me was hearing the click of my Voodoo 1 and seeing Lara Croft in 3D for the 1st time, but you had to be there really.

 

[BobbyColtrane]

someone do GTA

 

[Phase]

It was the best era of gaming to me. Nothing compares.