What was your first HD game experience, and what was it like?

[SvennoJ]

Kaunisto said:

1998 I got PC with 1024x768. Early on I for a long time played demo discs. It's hard to say what I played on max resolution and what just 800x600 to run better, but those demos included Dark Forces II and Delta force.
Some of later games that likely were among first on my various computers include Star Wars: Episode I Racer, XIII, Prey and Mafia 1.

I didn't get over 1280x1024 until couple years ago, having latest PC on 1920x1080 TV, though I'm mostly using it at 1600x900. My first games on this were Dead Space 2, Flatout: Ultimate Carnage and Batman: Arkham Asylum.
Dead Space 2 was perhaps the biggest "HD experience" for me, for better and worse. It did feel kind of like bad CGI in modern movies compared to Jurassic Park or Terminator 2.
In general I've never been really impressed by graphics, it's always been more about how eye-pleasing style and colors are. So I was more impressed by something like XIII or when I only some years back played Okami on PS2.

Yep, that's why my early console memories are all about stylish colorful games like Wipeout 2097, Wave Race 64, Ratchet & Clank, Mario 64, Wind Waker, Jack & Dexter, Crazy Taxi, ICO, Okami, Mario Sunshine. While on PC I gravitated more around (what then went as) realism, IL 2- Sturmovik, Max Payne, HL 2, Doom 3, Far Cry, Flight Simulator 2004. Yet WoW was still the standout with style, colors and pristine at 1280x1024 on a LCD monitor.

On CRT monitors both 800x600 and 1024x768 looked great. LCD monitors changed that unfortunately and ushered in a period of soft upscaling. It still looks yuck when I use my gaming laptop at sub 1080p resolutions, yet games have internal scalers now. What you couldn't run in native resolution looked worse than it would have looked on CRT. Heck even 640x480 looked great on CRT as that was Riven's max resolution, playing that next to Half-Life's 1024x768 on the same 17" CRT monitor.