Ever had a case of graphics awe?

[quantum mechanic]

Mass Effect, sort of. But the most obvious instance was the first time I saw the TI graphics thing with the waterfall in a movie theatre.

 

[AKmontalvo]

Dead Space, walking onto the command deck for the first time, with the meteorites flying everywhere. It just looked so pretty...

YEUS
OT: same game actually, but it was when i saw the final boss for dead space rising up from the edge of the landing dock. The glaring sun, the hellscape atmosphere, a gaint slab of rock looming in the backdrop, and a feeling of "lone knight versus the dragon" unmatched by any vediogame experience of mine to date

 

[captaincabbage]

Recently, When I first played Red Dead Redemption.

 

[MazzaTheFirst]

Oh man. Abe's Oddysey, Castlevania: SotN, Silent Hill 2, Thief: Deadly Shadows, Age of Pirates 2, Condemned 2, Fable 2, Fallout 3.

Looks like someone already beat me to Abe's Oddysee. I spend a rather long time finishing that and Exodus because I always like to admire the backgrounds and scenery. The animations and the looks of certain characters and creatures is also really interesting and unique. If only they released Munch's Oddysee in the same vein. Ah well. Still enjoyed Munch.

 

[Crono Maniac]

Let's see... The moment when you step outside for the first time in Fallout 3 is amazing. Bioshock looks fantastic in general. Shadow of the Colossus is filled to the brim with hugely impressive environments. And the first 90 seconds of Final Fantasy VII will still fill me with awe fifty years from now when we mindjack into the overmind to play our video games.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

I'll get some flak for this, as it by no means pushes anyone's video card, but when I first got out to Northrend after I installed WOTLK for WOW, just seeing the art styles, and the sheer scale, and beauty of some of the areas really impressed me.

They brought a whole new feel to the game when I thought I'd seen it all, jungle, desert, forest, valleys, yeah yeah...

Oh and God of War 1 and 2, made me wonder why they bothered with the 360 and PS3, I felt they coulda kept going a few more years after seeing that. Seems that people just get the hang of really getting the most out of a console, then a new one comes out. You look at early games and then the last ones and there's usually a gaping chasm between them.

 

[TBR]

http://www.gamersyde.com/stream_gran_turismo_5_tgs_trial_mountain-17198_en.html

Not bad for a console that usually gets the worse-looking ports...shows what it's capable of when there's an epic dev behind it.

 

[Jezzascmezza]

The night skies in The Shivering Isles, the expansion for Oblivion.

 

[cheese_wizington]

Uncharted 2, especially the urban level not too far into the game with the helicopter. Literally mesmerizing.

 

[Offworlder_v1legacy]

Like some people have said Oblivion just blew me away.
Also some of the levels of StarCraft 2 are awesome.

 

[smudgey]

WindWaker. It felt like you were playing through a cartoon.

 

[minarri]

The new Pokemon games wowed me--so much attention to detail has been added. The Pokemon really seem to come to life.

Also the views from atop high structures in Fallout 3 tended to take my breath away.

 

[ilikepie59]

I was blown away when I first got the ps3 and played resistance 2. Such an amazing game

I have only just started it, but...
The first time you come out of SRPA III and look up to see the sky full of alien ships...
epic-gasm

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Ahh. I should crush it then, my specs will be very close to yours. My processor may be a bit better then yours, you'll have more RAM and my VC is a 470 GTX. So yeah, 5-6k would make me a very happy lady. <3

Wish I was a happy lady ;.;

Barring personal sexual insecurities aside ... NO WAY! You're telling me my skeletonised and ramshackle contraption is outdone by someone ;P

Just be forewarned ... whilst the benchmark for FFXIV is decent, I've heard complaints (whether valid or not I can't say) that the benchmark jumps around widely a bit despite people having similiar systems, or sometimes better. But for 90% of comments its sounds like it's a pretty good fit for determing whether you can run it or not.

Point is if you have specs near mine and I can score high, even if the benchmark tells you otherwise I wouldn't worry. By the sounds of some people average systems it should be a cakewalk.

Last thing SE wants to do is both compete with WoW and create a game in which only half the interested audience can play semi decently.

 

[Deadlock Radium]

Modern Warfare 2

I know it's hypocritical of me considering all the hatred of mainstream FPS's I have pent up.
but while I was playing MW2 the Sheer outstanding-ness of the graphics combined with glorious visuials,

Spoiler

like hanging off an ice wall, or battling through nuked Washington DC, or getting washed up on shore and stumbling around a helicopter wreck to get in a knife fight whit an evil general, only to have to pull the fucking knife out of my chest and throw it back at him in order to save the fucking day.

just blew my fucking mind

it made me completely forget that I had only started playing 6 hours ago

I agree with this.
But nothing can top the feeling of awe, joy and just stunning visuals that was the moment I stepped out of Vault 101 in Fallout 3.

were you playing on the PC version?
I can only Imagine how much better it would be than the console version.

I have played both Fallout 3 and MW2 on max settings on a friends comp.
My reaction was something like "...Oh shit, that looks gorgeous!"

 

[s0m3th1ng]

-Everything in Mirror's Edge

Ninjaed! Although not as advanced as it's contemporaries, the environment's were flat out gorgeous in a clean, perfect kind of way.

First time playing Battlefield 1943, just had never played an FPS on that scale before.

First time seeing those Source development videos.

Oh And Tribes, another large-scale fps. (Which Reach is totally ripping off now)

 

[deus-ex-machina]

When I first got my N64 and played Turok, I thought it was the future. Since then, I haven't really been in awe of graphic improvements. Assassin's Creed was impressive and I was also impressed with the Wind Waker graphics which I really wasn't expecting to work as well as they did.

 

[Feneture]

After playing the God of war 1 & 2 collection and getting to used to the graphics, when I completed those and started to play God of war 3 I was like "Woah..!"

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

If I recall correctly, when I saw Mario N64 for the first time I was speechless.

When I tried the Freelancer demo way back when, I was in awe.

Recently the most impressive graphics I saw was from Crysis.

 

[Jonluw]

Oblivion. I drooled over those screenshots for months before the game was released.