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So… This is kinda where I wish graphics stayed. It’s probably not the majority opinion, but I wanna feel like I’m playing a video game and not really life. Plus, I feel there was a bit more creativity in making graphics. I’m old, but I loved stuff in Doom and Duke Nukem and EverQuest. Everything now kinda just looks… Brown and dark? Or similar?
I dunno. Might just be the rantings of an old person!
Lots of good, new stuff in the boomer shooters. If you want to try something like Duke 3D, check out Ion Fury, which was made in a fork of the original Build engine. Seleco and Hedon for modern GZDoom stuff.
Don’t even bother making a new game unless it supports ray-traced light speculating through the anal-fog discharged from the main character’s arse. Every single pebble too within a 50 mile radius must be able to reflect the dripping, wolf-ey arse sweat drops too at all times using some buzzword engine tech or no one will buy the game
Doom had some pretty dark levels especially in a lot of the additional episodes and I personally think they were amazing. Half-Life 1 and 2 are similar and they’re both legendary games. Personally I would put the point where gaming started to go downhill at 2011 (with the release of skyrim).
(with the release of skyrim)
Oblivion. It was Oblivion with the stupid horse armor.
Oblivion was the start of the modern microtransaction issues, Skyrim was the point when game stories starting getting worse and more simplified (Quite sad that stories went downhill after Fallout New Vegas which was arguably the peak of incredible storytelling).
Corn Kidz 64 has the best graphics of any game of the last 20 years. I will fight and die on this hill.
I don’t think there’s anything stopping modern games from having the same vibes, and being creative with graphics. I’d say one example of a modern game with high res graphics, realistic water, and even ray tracing, which still looks very unique and distinct is Paradise Killer. Another one that also looks quite modern in some ways while still being very distinct in its own way, is Heaven’s Vault. It’s a choice made by AAA studios because photorealistic visuals tend to attract more eyes and sell better, even if people get bored of the game quite quickly.
And the thing is, AC Unity - which came out in 2024 - still looks better than the majority of AAA games I see nowadays, and despite the large crowds which are a bit CPU demanding it still has much lower requirements than those games that look worse.
EDIT: And if you just want games that actually look retro and old school, there are some from indie devs doing that; examples include: Dread Delusion, The Case of the Golden Idol, Death Trash, Felvidek, Return of the Obra Dinn.
Brown and dark was the Xbox 360 era. We’re in a post Fortnite, Rocket League, Minecart world now. The trend now is tons of color but in a way that I’m starting to get a little tired of everything looking like the same purple.
Honestly, it’s still impressive that they were even able to do that on the N64.
Gimmie these graphics with amazing physics and gameplay over the polished turds they make today. Thanks.
It’s tricky to rock a rhyme, to rock a rhyme that’s right on time, it’s tricky
You don’t want to see another polished turd with ray tracing?
And all the streets look like they’re wet for some reason.
Don’t even have a video ard that can do ray tracing. I’m immune to marketing.
I play a Quake 2 mod that converts it to a ww2 game and it’s as ugly as you can expect for a game from before the turn of the century. Ray tracing in this game is short of magic. No assets changed, and it makes it look so good, it’s unbelievable.
Of course sometimes we also play this game in software mode which doesn’t even colored lighting, just pure rendering on the CPU. So grainy…
Was that song in this game too? It’s been stuck in my head for decades from SSX Tricky on XBOX.
Oh man that gives me flashbacks. Especially getting ready for winter coming up. Might have to go dust that off and play.
I don’t believe so
Don’t forget there were a lot of unpolished turds back then!
Some of y’all are gunna learn today that on this same system there was StarWars Pod Racing, and you could use 2 controllers, one for each engine. You’re welcome.
I had the PC version growing up. So, I mostly played with a Gravis Stinger, or a that weird Nintendo branded joystick. The yaw was how you rotated your engines.
I wish I had known that back in the day. It was one of my favorite games on n64.
Yeah, I don’t think I knew about the two controller thing. I guess with emulation, PC releases, and dual sticks it wouldn’t be necessary now
A Switch with the controller disconnected gets you pretty darn close to the same feeling these days.
Good point
I am one of the lucky 10 000.
I always played podracer on my HOTAS like a pleb.
You could dual stick Goldeneye as well.
That was the “kismet” config right? I remember you could still aim and shoot with the second controller during cutscenes…so it was possible to kill Bond or other characters during the short scene after beating a mission. 😂
Its crazy how much graphics evolved during that time period, just two years later we got this:
?
Half Life
Thanks!
On PC, not N64.
I don’t think the post was explicitly about the N64, only impressive graphics
Wave race was legit. I still think about that game and I’m an old gamer
The original was great.
I developed an unreasonable hatrid for the GameCube version, however, when my younger brother would wake me up every morning with the sound of “beep, beep, beep, BEEP, BEEP!
WOO HOO! beep, beep, beep, BEEP, Beep! WOO HOO!
beep, beep, beep, BEEP, Beep! WOO HOO!”It was a solid sequel but god were the sound effects annoyingly repetitive, especially at 7am on a Saturday.
This was shit graphics even back in 1996 because it only uses primary or fully saturated colors. It’s “dev art”, made by someone with no artistic talent. Or maybe made for 4 year old kids. I missed out on a lot of games with good gameplay because I just can’t stand on this abomination of a color palette.
The worst thing? When games actually went with a more pastel or naturalistic color palette, moronic games journalists would say the colors look “drab” or some shit.
You’re a wacky little guy, aren’t you?
…so you’ve never played waverace: that’s the look of the brightly-lit tropical island environment for the first course, which immediately shifts a hazy muted marsh on the second course, then a stormy industrial-port waterfront, then a spectacular urban night course, each presenting entirely different takes on ambient lighting, dominant environmental color pallets, and even water and atmospheric weather conditions…
I just want to comment to say realism is not good graphics, even if that’s all the AAA studios aim for because the executives have no artistic sense. I don’t think that’s what you’re saying, but just looking more “real” doesn’t make it better. Vibrant saturated colors have a utility too, if they’re used well.
Something like AER memories of old?
Not to advertize, it just came to mind. I quite liked it.
Splashdown was the gen z equivalent. Loved those racing games.
Splashdown had like a sea monster that would throw you back if you went outside the map. Was fun
Fuck, dude, remember VirtuaFighter?
I’ve got the quarters if you’ve got the time to get your ass beat.
I’m still impressed by the way wave race feels, not going to lie.
I still remember seeing this for the first time, absolute mind blower for sure back then.
It’s all connected
Wave Race!
I remember I somehow owned a Gameshark at one point and figured out how to add in Turbo and Big Head mode. I also dimly remember the title music for the game, which was awesome.
When Sony saw Crash Bandicoot running on a PS1 for the first time, they had no idea how the PS1 actually was able to run it.
When even the developers of the system you are using have no idea of how a program is running on their new system, they you know you have some advanced stuff:
I’m 3:30 in and they’re just rambling. Who makes this kind of content?
I know the story because I’ve seen this video where the developers actually talk about how they did it. Watch it instead.
I love that video!
I was thinking of this exact video too.
I never had an N64, but my buddy across the street did. Waverace 64 was incredible for its time.
I remember going over to a kid’s house that lived up the street from my cousin. He had Pilotwings on Super Nintendo like right after it released. And he had a big screen TV!
My god man, you would not believe how picture perfect those pixels the size of a finger tip were.
Oh man you just took me back. I was dirt poor as a kid and my mom always busted her ass to get us the latest Nintendo, but we usually only got a couple games. We rented and borrowed the rest.
Anyway.
I went with my step brother to his grandpa’s house one day. He said nothing to prepare me for the glory I was about to see. When we came through the door his grandpa greeted us and said, “Jason, take your brother to the game room.”
We walked down into the basement and there in the coolest, most badass, teen movie room, was this giant rear projection TV. There on the floor sat a console I had never seen before. The original PlayStation with the original controllers and Nascar Racing. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I swear to god I said, “OH MY GOD IT LOOKS REAL!” We played Tomb Raider. I just kept jumping into the pool. Mortal Kombat Trilogy, man what a game.
That Christmas two of my closest friends got the N64. One showed me Doom, the other Mario 64.
I ended up with the N64, my best friend got the PlayStation.
I’d love to go back for a day just to hang out with him. I wish he’d lived to see the graphics of today. Shit, if he’d made it long enough to see The Last of Us I’d be stoked.
