Game "Beauty"

I've been playing through the PS2 game ICO lately and it dawned on me that it is probably the most beautiful game I've ever played. I'm not talking about polycounts or dynamic lighting here, but just the overall "Whoa, look at that!" factor that occasionaly crops up in games.

For me I think Tomb Raider was probably the first, more recently Prince of Persia had a similar effect, and now ICO takes the top prize for its triumphant handling of the grandeur or a castle. Almost every room makes my jaw drop and I often find myself climbing up to high spots for no reason other than to get a good view!

What games have had this effect most on you, through all time?

Morrowind and Knights Of The Old Republic (especially Jedi Training center) had some nice looking spots too.

Call of duty. the immersion of the game is gripping. When youre fighting across pegasus bridge with a small group of british airbornes & have to hold off enormous masses of nazi squads & tanks you cant help but feel you could run for miles away.

The scale of the maps is huge & the fogging is excellently made so that you feel it always goes further.

There are several points in CoD where you get that wow factor, the 1st time you get in a car chase with the americans & youre trying to run n gun while the windows are smashing & unsuspecting german squads quickly try to stop you.

another point is the russians charge at red square, some of your russian comrades are gunned down for retreating & youl get the same if you do, you get a speach from your commander & all of a sudden 7 russians including yourself run screaming towards the german positions (no doubt to die)

Older games, final fantasy 7 was probably the 1st RPG I was really impressed by & loved the fact I could customize all my characters etc. Half-life obviously was brilliant, I loved the creativity of the story and the characters, I always wanted to save barney & the scientists & the 1st time I saw a garg on the demo I was genuinly trying to hide.

American car chase out of ste. mere eglise


Russian red square charge


Russian tank drive.

I would have got more but its so difficult to get good shots, its too frantic & I would die in a second. You really have to play it tbh because everything is happening around you, there isnt one place you can look at to get all the action.

I have to agree with ReNo on Ico...the architecture is painfully simplistic at times, but it has atmosphere coming out of its ears. Simple things like sun glare really add to it too. Scale and immersion make it a winner.

When I started Prince of Persia:SOT, it had a similar effect to begin with, running along the outside walls.

Far Cry is looking spectacular too - if the demo is anything to go by :smile:

I have to agree with korn the latest game I played and got a wow factor was with CoD That one where your fighting across pegasus bridge with the paras is just amasing, I also like where you are defending the chirch with the americans and you use the mg to kill the mass of germans coming towards you.

I also like where you have to take out the planes with the anit-aircraft gun and when you get them just before they fly over you bloody grate.

Ico is a really great game... I don't know why, but those shadow wriath guys are just great looking... And the ending fight, I just love the effect of her attack- looks great.

And how is POP:SOT (that makes for a really nifty acronym now that I think about it...). It looked neat, but I never really got a chance to play it...

Oh, and I just rented Fatal Frame II this week- it has some really amazing graphics in it as well. Nothing I can really pin down, but they really suit the atmosphere of the game, and come off looking just great too.

Most immersive game I ever played, I must admit, was Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, or at least up until about 1/4 through the Dark World.

Why? Because me and my brothers got it when I was but a small child, and whereas since then all of them had beaten it, I have yet to do that (!!). I'm still on Ganon after about eight years of playing and replaying that game, changing systems, losing copies, all of that. For a long time, this was because the story was so deep to me, and the visual style so unique. Now that I've gone through most of it I see it's not quite so deep as I thought, but I still think it stands as an amazing game.

The Nintendo 64 one is pretty good too.

So many I can think of. The one that comes to memory is Super Mario 64, which just had eye candy coming out of its ears. Another would be GTA3, which when I first played I was like "Games can be this big?" I agree with Cassius, Zelda on the N64 was another great game, but the zombies still creep me out when I play it!

Final Fantasy VII really introduced me to how potential video games are. It just looked utterly amazing, and was so immersive from beginning to end. Sephiroth is probably still my favourite evil character in a video game; some people might say that Kefka did a lot more evil things than Sephiroth, but Kefka was annoying. And he didn't kill my favourite character 1/3rd of the way through the game. :sad: I had played many RPGs and immersive games previously, but this set the benchmark at atmospheric levels.

Metal Gear Solid was another one; this was probably the game that really started to blur the line between cinema and video games; the plot was just great stuff, and it was fun to play as well. Some people say the cut scenes were too long, but they didn't annoy me; I really wanted to immerse myself as much as possible. Silent Hill is another culprit; the lone flashlight in pitch black areas and the radio alone were great touches. Not only did it really make you jump a few times, but it really kept you on your toes, scaring the s**t out of you bit by bit until an knife weilding baby cuts your legs off.

The most memorable part of Silent Hill: In the Elementary School you go into the locker room. You hear some banging. You go up to the locker, and just as you're about to open it, a cat bursts out and runs into the corridor. When you go into the alternate Silent Hill, in the School, you go into the locker room again. You hear the same banging. You go up to the locker, and open it. The locker opens very slowly....but nothing's there. You turn to leave, and BOOM! a dead bosdy goes flying out of the locker in front of you and makes the loudest f**king crash. I swear, my heart must have missed a beat. My chest actually stung for a half a second.

The last game to really smack me in the face in terms of presentation was probably Max Payne 2. It just oozed pure Noir from every crevass. and the story nd characters certainly gave it a much more adult feel to it.

Hitman 2. The enviroments were great and the physics were lovely. GTA:Vice City also, wich I personally think is one of the best games ever. Others have been mentioned..

What games have had this effect most on you, through all time?

As of late, mine has been Final Fantasy XI Online. There are monsters with such awesome AI and movement...as in this screenshot I took a few weeks ago:



...and the worlds are quite impressive as well as some of the caves and shrines.

I also enjoyed Prince of Persia:Sands of Time and the CG of Final Fantasy VII...and it's summon monsters.

But so far...yea, Final Fantasy XI Online takes the cake with the most impressive beauty and design so far in a game I've ever played.

Caption for that picture: "Castrations done, no challenge too small!!!"

:wink:

ICO was definatly an eye opener, although it came out almost a year and a half ago (so think about that if its looking better then Prince of Persia).

Some other games: Syberia (the second one is coming out soon too), Max Payne 2, mostly the world objects and not so much the characters. uh.....Enter the Matrix while slowing things down looked pretty good. That was just because of a blur factor though. Also, Snake Eater is looking pretty good.

Reno, someone will probably know which magazine I'm takling about, but, there's a game magazine which gives the "ICO Award" every year to ICO, because no one plays it here. Their reasoning is "it will continue to get this award until you play it".
I wish I could remember the magazine........hmm...

i like cod the grafix are ok i think its a prity cool game and btw gimpin is that avatar of yours sopos to be offencive agenst jesus? christ or whatever becase im not likeing it

i like cod the grafix are ok i think its a prity cool game and btw gimpin is that avatar of yours sopos to be offencive agenst jesus? christ or whatever becase im not likeing it

How in hell did you get that idea? Looks more like Smeagol than Jesus.

looks like a cross in white and a red circle with a line going thru it like the smoking thingy.... like no smoke.. no christ.... mmm yeah

What red circle? There's no red in it. it;s just a negative image of some guy's face. Who looks like he's drooling. And there's no white cross in it either.

[EDIT]

Nevermind

[/EDIT]

that looks like a cross with a big red NO sign on it... dont you think?

Yes, I know. I see a negative image of some guy's face. no cross, no red circle...

[EDIT]: A-ha, my 'net cache was deceving me. :smile:

thats his avatar man.. your comps fuked

Edit - lol

Then delete your internet cache, dude.

[EDIT to below]
I can't see what you're editing within the same minute I'm posting
[/EDIT]

Um, I did. I already came to that conclusion. :razz:

yeah can u change that avatar plz?

I dont honestly see why he should change the avatar just for the possible offence somebody can take to it. Not everybody agree's with religion you know.

It has nothing to do with christians as far as I am conserned its the Bad Religion logo check out the top left of there site.

and if you didnt know there a punk band which made the 2 amasing songs Amerian Jesus and Kerosene.

Death, if you're that religious you probably shouldn't have put "from Hellzor" in your profile. :rolleyes:

Or have 'devil.com' as your homepage. Idiot.

And don't have your avatar as your picture! :biggrin:

wow....

gimpinthesink said:
punk band

amasing

Two terms that should never be in the same sentence.

Don't forget Generator, New America, Sorrow, Better Off Dead...

And Cass:

SOME PUNK BANDS = AMAZING!

Retort that, bitch! :razz:

Cassius said:

gimpinthesink said:
punk band

amasing

Two terms that should never be in the same sentence.

sure they do, consider.. i find it rather amazing that anyone could ever consider punk as a band at all

Ah, the true stars of 'punk':





How much makeup you can put on while simultaneously maintaining the image of having the most anorexic tendancies is not proportional to how good your music is.

What the hell does Jane's Addiction have to do with Bad Religion? And since when does Jane's Addiction qualify as punk? Jesus, that's about as far from the mark as you can get.

I was expecting better. :sad:

Wow, the beautiful game topic didn't last too long, huh? :smile:

Bleh, Sex Pistols tbh.

The Clash, Sick of It All and Amen all the way.

You all might laugh, but I'm rather partial to Agent Orange, as far as punk goes anyway . . . don't really know if they're REALLY considered punk, but almost any band album you can purchase isn't 'punk' by definition, so.

gimpinthesink said:
and if you didnt know there a punk band which made the 2 amasing songs Amerian Jesus and Kerosene.

Along with many, many others.