What's the first "HD" game you ever played, and what was your impression of it at the time?

I... don't even remember tbh. The transition into HD gaming was gradual for me - my first HD console was the Xbox 360, but at the time I still had a CRT. My first HD TV was a 720p Plasma one in 2010-ish, by which point I already had HD monitors on the computer, but the computer itself was only good to run old games. I'd say the 8th generation had a bigger "wow" factor for me than the 7th.

First game I played on that X360 though, hmm... I think it was Burnout Paradise. It was pretty cool, but definitely a game I've mostly forgotten about.

I remember going with my dad to a family friends house, and they had a 1080i TV, and they let me play Enter the Matrix at that resolution on the original Xbox.I was more impressed at the big TV than noticing any crispness to the image lol

The first game that really gave me that HD experience where I could really see the difference was Prey on the 360.

Playing CoD 2/Kameo on a Xbox 360 Kiosk. I was not impressed. It didn't help they looked "current gen" at the time. I tested Gears working at Gamestop but on 13 inch CRT. When I got to play Virtual Fighter 5 on a PS3 kiosk. Then I was sold. The magic SEGA used to have with color and visuals with Dreamcast to my mind made the jump to HD with VF5. I still think that game looked good. I did not get a 360 and PS3 until late tho for money reasons. So my first game I played was Darksiders. I came to a point in the game where it was raining. I was really taken back.

It's hard to say which was my first game in HD as I was a PC gamer with a CRT monitor that could do 1024p? But which was the first game in that resolution I can't tell, possibly Tomb Raider 2? Then in 2008 I bought my first widescreen 1080p monitor.

Given that, technically, 1024x768 is "HD Ready", just in 4:3 aspect ratio, sometime back in 90s. I think highest that PC games were tested when 7th gen's 1280x720 era kicked in was 2560x1600, with 1600x1200 being usual high end resolution at the time (all that coupled with lush amounts of AA).

So, resolution wise, very long ago. From my POV, HD era switch to wider aspect ratio was way more impactful change.

Links LS + Civilization 2 (both released in 1996)

Motorstorm on ps3 and it whas like OMG WOOOOW..

Around 1998 we got our first PC with a glorious 1024x768 monitor. I was amazed how beautiful Tomb Raider looked with a Voodoo2 or something. It looked like dog shit on PS1 in comparison. I would say that was the first time when I experienced something that would be considered HD. I wasn't too blown away by PS3 and X360 a few years later. I was rocking 1680x1050 on PC long before those consoles even came into existence.

Can’t say I remember… (I was still a toddler when the jump to HD was taking place). I do remember finding the graphics to Skylanders Trap Team to be very clean on Wii U compared to all the previous Skylanders games (which I played on Wii), though even so, I played all these games including TT on an SD TV. Switch likely would’ve been my first exposure to HD, which—at the time—I mistook for being 4k…so needless to say, I was very impressed lol.