Okay, this is going to be a good one, I know it! What do you think is the best looking video game from last generation? There are no rules for this: it can be a technically gorgeous game like Uncharted 2, or it can be a game with great art direction like… say Super Mario Galaxy. What’s your choice?
It’s a tricky one. I’m tempted to say Rayman Legends on the Xbox 360, but I don’t know if that counts since it was released on next gen platforms. I also thought Super Mario Galaxy was gorgeous — the Uncharted series too.
Gears of War was the first game that made me go… wow on the Xbox 360. Actually, Fight Night Round 3 might have been the first.
Man, this is tough. What’s your choice?
Comments
72 responses to “Tell Us Dammit: Best Looking Game Of Last Generation”
One of: The Last of Us, Journey or Mirrors Edge.
Great minds, man!
Like minds.
Oh no, I’m not getting into that discussion again.
Technically gorgeous: The Last of Us
Stylised? Journey.
+1. Having just played Journey I thought it was easily one of the most visually appealing games of last gen (or really, to date since the current gen hasn’t really “wowed” me yet. But I feel like giving it to Journey ignores the technical accomplishment and rich varied environments of The Last of Us.
Yeah… that bit where you’re sliding along the sand with the sunset… making the sand look like liquid gold… still gives me chills every time I see it even now.
The Last of Us, I likes me some post-apocalyptic urban decay. (Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is a serious contender as well, for similar reasons.)
ohh this is hard. for me it’s a few.
* ACIV Black flag
* Rayman Legends / Origins
* GTA V
* FFIV Online (PS3)
There’s a stack of games that made me stop to smell the graphics, if that’s how we define ‘best looking game’. But Mass Effect 2 was probably the one that did it the most. RAGE also had some pretty damn good graphics for a console that came out in 2006.
Back in the day Mass Effect 1 blew me away. Ditto with Oblivion when it came out, but they got eventually superseded by other games.
Mass Effect certainly had some of the best “production design”- definitely felt like a world where all of the technology was consistent.
I loved the graphics in Mass Effect 2 and 3. The scale of the imagery was breathtaking at times.
The motion capture in LA Noire deserves a special mention. I know it was kinda cheating, but go back and look at it again, and the very best modern talking headshots look average by comparison.
I’m really surprised that technology hasn’t resurfaced.
I think that’s because it was so damn expensive to capture.
I actually went back to LA Noire a few months back and it didn’t feel like the game had aged at all!
The Last of Us and Red Dead Redemption stopped me in my tracks personally. Ni No Kuni?
Killzone 3
Really, any Unreal Engine game looks pretty damn… well pretty 😛
But Red Dead Redemption has to be one of the prettiest last gen games (excluding PC games because mods)
but in terms of overall style, i can’t go past Limbo… SO PUUURDY!
Ni No Kuni and Bioshock Infinite for me.
LA Noir and Journey for me.
First time characters had felt like they were real and not zombies was in LA Noir.
Journey just had me stopping and looking all the time, running in and our of sand-waterfalls to shake the sand off my coat. Just beautiful.
Ni No Kuniiii! Hot damn thats a purdy game, purdyest in my mind.
Except when it goes into the animated cutscenes which are done with terribly low budget and actually look jarringly worse compared to the way the in-game visuals look.
But IMO for stylized art, Okami HD beats Ni no Kuni by a mile.
No ways! Low budget or not, I was super impressed by what they did with the cutscenes, they were amazingly well done! I think we saw different cutscenes.
True, I hated the gameplay so I didn’t play very far. Maybe it was just the opening cutscenes that were awful.
Okami HD’s super smooth framerates, no tearing, 1080p and 4xMSAA is a sight to behold though. Pure artistry aside there’s not much like it this generation. Actually fun as well, which is a nice bonus
FFXIII. Didn’t like the game that much but, boy, did they make it look purdy.
ME 3 or Bioshock Infinite.
SO MANY CHOICES
I’ll go with New Super Mario Bros U
And just to be a loser: LOZ Ocarina of TIme with HD texture packs and AA etc enabled on the emulator. It had better textures than Crysis 2 when it came out.
NSMB U would be current gen, not last gen 😉
How does Ocarina on the 3DS compare cuz I’ll vouch for the 3DS port being a substantial graphics upgrade
3DS is 800×240 pixel display, so it can’t come anywhere close to full-resolution emulation plus AA. Then add in high-res texture pack, and you are so far away from the 3DS version that it’s not funny.
GTA V for the horizons and water! Damn, I need to get my 360 fixed asap.
While the game disappointed me, the halo 4 cutscenes blew me away.
On the Wii, it had to be Xenoblade Chronicles. Considering the hardware it was running on, that game looked phenomenal.
On PS3 – I’ll go a bit less mainstream and say Darksiders 2 was very impressive. I’ll also concur with @batguy that the facial animation in LA Noire was groundbreaking – however I think the rest of the game also looked fantastic and doesn’t get the recognition it deserves. That was a mammoth, historically accurate city they created, with authentic cars, clothing and weapons ti boot.
PC – I dunno, pretty much anything looked awesome once you cranked everything up to maximum. The Assassin’s Creed games in particular looked stunning.
At the risk of sounding like a fanboy, the art in Halo: Reach is amazing with its colourful yet grit textures and the designs come off as practical in a futuristic and alien setting.
I love the atmosphere and design of Dark Souls.
Journey was great.
Raymen: Legends is amazing.
Mark of the Ninja was stylised to perfectly fit its theme.
Both Castlevania games look fantastic.
Best realistic graphics: Max Payne 3, GTA V, Splinter Cell Blacklist, Hitman Absolution
Best style: TF2, Borderlands 2, Mirror’s Edge
Best Animation: anything by Rockstar, TF2, Assassins Creed anything, Splinter Cell
I should point out – early in the cycle GTA IV and Assassin’s Creed were basically system sellers (to me) thanks to their incredibly photo-realistic graphics and animation.
I’m going with Mass Effect 3 and Final Fantasy XIII.
Going to add Remember Me for style.
The last of us, gta 5 where the better ones for me. Also for me beyond two souls was a fantastic looking game .
This really is tough. From a purely technical point of view, it’s hard not to be amazed at what Rockstar managed to get out of the 360 with GTAV. Another technical stand out has to be the tech used to bring LA Noire’s characters to life.
In art direction though, this generation has been great to gamers. I adored Bastion’s art. Mass Effect’s sprawling universe was gorgeous. Mark of the Ninja had some great comic styling. Borderlands 2 deserves special mention for adding some much needed variety that was missing from the first game.
I just can’t pick one. The more I think about it, the more games I want to add to the list.
Despite it’s awfully bland gameplay and story, Remember Me had some really pretty looking environments and characters. Aesthetically speaking, Dark Souls was really nice looking too.
Yeah I have it on PS3, I’m impressed.
God of War: Ascension. Absolute witchcraft on a ps3.
Rage.
You’re funny.
The Last Of Us
Uncharted 2 & 3
Journey
God of War 3 (actually found that more impressive than most of Ascension, but that may be because I reckon the series was pretty much played out by the end of GOW3, so Ascension never really impressed me).
Killzone 3.
Early on the in the generation, Gears of War, COD4 and Uncharted really looked stunning, although obviously by the end of the generation they were looking a little dated after being superseded by their own sequels as well as other games.
Halo 4.
Oh yeah, good call.
Crysis. The first one that was PC only.
Console wise – gotta go with Journey.
Uncharted 2/3 on the consoles. Ni No Kuni, Red Dead Redemption, Final Fantasy XIII and Skyrim as honourable mentions.
On the PC, I’ll be controversial and say World of Warcraft, mainly due to what art design can do for a 10 year old engine…
The Last of Us, Borderlands 2, Ni no Kuni and Motorstorm Pacific Rift
I’m a huge sucker for little details, so with those in mind I’m torn between The Witcher 2 and
Hitman: Absolution, both on 360.
Last of Us looks amazing in this regard as well, but I havent played it yet. I know I’m missing out. Decided to wait for PS4 version, I’ll buy a PS4 and Last of Us: Remastered when it comes out.
The facial animation in LA Noire was phenomenal… playing through LA Noire again at the moment actually.
From a technical perspective however, and im going to get flamed for this, i thought Rage was incredible… I realise many people had issues, but im judging based on my own personal experience. i was one of the few that had a flawless experience with it… The megatexture tech was incredible, but the ones that really stole the show, and in my opinion received virtually no recognition for their efforts, were the animators. the mutant animations were incredible.
Still on the subject of rage, what ID pulled off for a couple of consoles that were released circa 2006, the game STILL looked incredible.
And at a SOLID 60fps on last gen consoles, no bullshit, “game drops to 35fps when shit is happening”
Have to agree, just finished this the other day on 360. When you install the discs to the hard drive the pop-in is pretty much gone. The environments were pretty static, but have to agree with the animation and reactions to being shot at, looks really good. You can kind of see it in Wolfenstien too which uses the same engine, also pretty good animation
Actually, I agree with you on this one, and thought precisely this myself. I’ve only ever played the game after installing (given the nature of MegaTextures I figured this was a no-brainer), and it looked be-a-utiful. 😛
Dammit
Beyond Two Souls without a doubt. The Last of Us would be a close 2nd. Although I think throughout the last gen I was continually surprised on how the graphics improved by a fairly large amount over time. Lots of stand out titles graphically, but I think those 2 titles late in the dev cycle pushed the limits of last gen to absolute max.
Funny how 90% of multi-plat games looked and ran better on the 360, but when it comes to choosing the best graphics, PS3 exclusives rate much higher than the 360 exclusives for me. Still don`t know why people thought the first Gears was wow. It was a washed out mess graphically for me personally.
Truly? I mean, the mocap was impressive in regards to facial animations, but a lot of the rest felt blurred and jarry. Environments and background objects in particular.
EDIT: RE Beyond, that is. The Last of Us feels much more impressive in almost every department rather than just a focus on the actors.
I didn`t find Beyond blurry at all, in fact I felt that the choice of focus was always spot on. Particle effects, environments, 3D models and facial details where breathtaking. Sure if you zoom in on any background object in any game including the Last of Us it will be meh. TLOU had fantastic lighting and was indeed visually stunning and yeah the environment effects and maybe lighting would be better than Beyond. But my choice for Beyond is based on graphics as a whole (which includes mocap, smooth animations, effects, particles, environments, lighting, objects, etc.. eg everything you see) I stand by my statement TLOU is a close 2nd for me.
Edit: To be clear I give both games a 10/10. I loved them both.
So many of the above mentioned.
Mirrors Edge for sure.
Red Dead Redemption.
Bastion, Journey and Limbo.
Can I count Ico/Shadow Of The Collosus HD?
Borderlands 1 & 2.
Just Cause 2. Oh god, Just Cause 2.
Bioshock 1 & 2.
And Forza. Oh my god, Forza.
Just Cause 2 has incredible environments but the characters are about as animated as an old Thomas the Tank Engine episode
The Last of Us (goes without saying)
GTA V (Down to the finest details)
Journey (Art style / beauty)
God of War 3 (Oh the animations!)
Metal Gear Solid IV (especially the weapon models)
RAGE (I know it may not have been perfect as a game, but it was beautiful)
… Man, this IS tough. One of the very first games on last-gen systems that made me go “WOWWWWWWWWWWWWWW” was actually the first Motorstorm (launch title). From the isolated beauty of the canyons, dust trails and mud tracks, to the metal and parts flying everywhere when someone crashes. All in crisp high definition (720p, but it -was- a launch title so this was new to me).
Skyward Sword.
Seconded. What EAD could do with the Wii hardware was amazing. Xenoblade was a looker too.
I’m struggling to think of anything that made me stop and go “wow”. I think Xenoblade might have done it though.
Oh actually, Rayman Origins. That looked really nice. And Kirby’s Epic Yarn too. Oh, and Muramasa! That was gorgeous. Heh, all 2D games 😛 I think I quite liked the look of Red Steel 2 as well.
South Park: Stick of Truth. I was floored all the way through, and the amount of times I forgot that what I was looking at was a game is unbelievable. Not the prettiest game, but technically one of the most impressive, especially for game to TV parity.
SEGA’s Daytona USA, Sega Rally Online Arcade, Afterburner Climax and OutRun Online Arcade on XBLA/PSN still blow me away. So clean, so smooth, and so much attention to detail.
Assassin’s Creed and AC II still look gorgeous, as do the Mass Effect games.
Also, Geometry Wars II in 1080p. Stunning.
Technically gorgeous: Does anyone remember Race Driver: GRID when it first came out? Mmm.
Art direction: For me, its a toss up between Dust: An Elysian Tail, Journey, and Muramasa Rebirth. Maybe not that last one, cos I guess Vita is current generation.
GTA V, BioShock Infinite & L.A. Noire all nice lookin’ games.
Even GTA IV was really impressive in 2008 with it’s new game engine and such.
Across the whole generation;
Oblivion: Was sublime – I still remember how great the grass, flowers and foliage looked at the time (Xbox360).
The Darkness (Xbox360): Looked amazing! “Demonic-Noire” (Xbox360).
Mass Effect (Xbox360): The detail in the close-up, animations was astounding! Gave the effect of film-quality render.
L.A. Noire (Xbox360): Never have I been so amazed and repulsed at the same time. The effect of knowing what an NPC was actually “feeling” based on nothing but my natural, human instinct has not been replicated since. I actually do not understand why the game industry has snubbed the most important development in real-time 3D graphics since Assassins Creed made seamless, character animation the standard (which too hasn’t really been adopted by the industry…).
Metal Gear Solid 4 (PS3): Graphics as clean and fluid as you could ever want. (I actually bought a PS3 just for this game – then sold it a couple of months later… Kojiimaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!) On that note (PS3), the God of War 3 intro was mind-blowing.
Skyrim: Breathtaking! The Art-Direction was/is mindblowing and the way the textures were painted was very smart. (And no, I’m not talking about texture-resolution. The actual art itself – the illusion of high-detail, on what was essentually average texture quality, cleverly painted in a way that the illusion is only broken when you put your virtual face up against it; but from normal distances, blends in like a pixelised picture printed on a sheet of paper and viewed from a distance… (thuffering thuckatash)
PS3: The Last of Us – Just beautiful
360: GTAV – love the art style and the sheer amount of detail that was thown at you all the time.
PC: Crysis (on ridiculous settings) – all those leaves!
PSP: MGS: Peace Walker – very pretty for a PSP game
DS: Chinatown Wars – great art style and super smooth gameplay.
Wii: Super Mario Galaxy 2 – looked like it pushed the wii pretty hard.
imho.
i know not many people played the game but imho beyond two souls is the best looking game on last gen consoles, followed by the last of us.
Metal Gear Solid 4 was the first game to really “wow” me.
Then along came Uncharted 2 and shit on everything.
But my favorite was The Last Of Us. That game was incredible in every way.