The Greatest Graphics of All Time

Australia, March 17, 2009 - As we said in part one, the visuals on a game console are like fine wine – they mature with age. We're looking back through the last few generations of consoles for the leading graphical lights on each system: the games that made the biggest impact or the biggest influence with their visual style. We've done PlayStation, Saturn and N64, and now we're moving on to Dreamcast, PS2, Xbox and GameCube. What are the categories for the awards? Here's a brief outline:

• Most Memorable Graphical Jump: This is the game with visuals so good it changed the way you viewed the console. Suddenly, the true power of the system was revealed, and previous expectations were left in the dust.


• Technical Excellence: This is the game that best capitalised on the hardware from a visual standpoint. This is a developer who knows the system inside out eking every last ounce of performance and eye candy.


• Serving A Creative Vision: This game used visuals to serve a highly creative end or in conjunction with an expansive concept.


• Worst Visuals: This is the game that best showed how not to work the hardware. Bear in mind we're choosing winners for this category from well-known games – every system has truly awful obscure releases, but we want to shame developers that should have done – and known - better.

Most Memorable Graphical Jump

Winner: Shenmue
Released: Dec 1999 (JP), Nov 2000 (US), Dec 2000 (PAL)
IGN Review Score: 9.7

Most videogames aimed to take the player away to a far flung land, but Shenmue's goal was something quite different, and in many ways, much harder. Set in modern day Japan, Shenmue wanted to immerse the player in nothing less than real life, and the clash between tradition and modernity. It's debatable whether it succeeded, but it's hard to fault from a presentation aspect – the character models were first rate, while the wider world had bustling shopping areas, winding roads through quiet villages, and a large harbour area. Importantly, every location had numerous small touches and details to make it feel lived in and realistic, whether that's ever-present vending machines on the streets, the altar in Ryo's house, the Saturn sitting beneath his TV, or the books you were able to pick up and examine. The game also featured randomly generated weather, which could change over the course of each day. A big step forward.

So advanced was the Dreamcast that it enabled the designers to go forwards in time, steal Nelly's stupid cheek bandage thing and bring it back!

Technical Excellence

Winner: SoulCalibur
Released: Aug 1999 (JP), Sept 1999 (US), Dec 1999 (PAL)
IGN Review Score: 10

SoulCalibur was so far visually beyond every other fighting game (and its own arcade progenitor) when it came out on Dreamcast that it was almost laughable. Hell, SoulCalibur was well beyond just about every other game of any genre, end of story. This was a technical marvel – the characters were gorgeously modelled, with smoothly shaded, beautifully rounded skin, seamless links between limbs and nicely detailed outfits. The animations were incredibly polished too, with extra emphasis on the fluidity of motion and the plosive nature of combat created by the coloured weapon trails and strikes. It all ran at a super smooth frame rate, in some very impressive environments. So much style, such a big step forward, and one of very few games on IGN to score a perfect 10. This game was so pretty that we'd watch the Exhibition mode katas for hours on end... mind you, we were pretty ripped.

Ivy - the most awesome dirty ho in gaming.

Serving A Creative Vision

Winner: Jet Set Radio
Released: June 2000 (JP), Nov 2000 (US & PAL)
IGN Review Score: 9.6

Jet Set Radio (Jet Grind Radio in other territories) was the first game to really do cel shading properly, but it was so much more than that. It was pure style and pure attitude, with an utterly infectious sensibility that was suffused throughout its visuals. This was a game with dancing street gangs on rollerblades who fought for control of the streets through awesome graf pieces. Information was disseminated by Professor K's pirate radio station; a larger than life character with an inner sanctum whose walls were lined with booming speakers. Effortlessly cool visuals.

His eardrums blew a fuse shortly after this photo was taken, poor bugger. Well, that'll teach him for rocking out to Rick Astley.

Worst Visuals

Winner: South Park Rally
Released: July 2000
IGN Review Score: 4.2

South Park's name was truly run through the muck back when Acclaim had the license. We had South Park 64 (a first person shooter where you, erm, threw snowballs and fired Nerf guns against endless hordes of turkeys), we had Chef's Luv Shack (an awful quiz show) and we had South Park Rally. All three games were equally atrocious, and the three games deserve to be shamed regularly, but we only have room for one so we'll go with South Park Rally. This attempt to cash in on both South Park and Mario Kart evidently forgot that charm was integral to both, and failed completely and utterly. South Park's not the most visually interesting place at the best of times, but this game takes the word 'bland' to a whole new level. Soulless.

No, we really didn't.

Most Memorable Graphical Jump

Winner: Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
Released: Nov 2001 (US & JP), Mar 2002 (PAL)
IGN Review Score: 9.7

This was one of the games that really announced the arrival of the PlayStation 2 as a capable graphics powerhouse. The early releases on the system really didn't look anything special – especially not compared to the best that Dreamcast had to offer, so it was up to Konami to deliver the goods. And deliver them they did. It wasn't that MGS2 had more detailed graphics or higher poly characters than its competition; it was the sheer artistry and style with which the development team realised its world. And once again, the real-time cutscenes returned and they were staggeringly good.

Camouflage can only do so much man.

Technical Excellence

Winner: God of War II
Released: Mar 2007 (US), April 2007 (EU), May 2007 (AU)
IGN Review Score: 9.4

If MGS2 announced the arrival of the PS2, God of War II saw it in full flight. This is another game that had jaws dropping around the world when gamers got their hands on it. God of War II was well ahead of most other action games on PS2 from a visual standpoint during 'normal' gameplay, thanks to the crisp, sharp environments and excellent animations, but it was the epic scale that really showed off what the system could do. God of War II featured sequence after sequence on a scale never before seen on PlayStation 2, and it ramped up perfectly. Gouging out the eyes of the Colossus at the beginning was cool, sure, but remember that sequence later on, on the four ridiculously huge horses? Where Kratos is fighting his way across their bridles before running down one of the chains that tethers them, becoming the size of an ant as he moved towards the towering cliffs and waterfalls on the other side? Very cool. And then there was Zeus, towering over Kratos... awesome stuff.

From one colossus...

Serving A Creative Vision

Winner: Shadow of the Colossus
Released: October 2005 (US & JP), Feb 2006 (PAL)
IGN Review Score: 9.7

Another game that made incredible use of scale, charging the player with the task of climbing towering behemoths to find their weak spot and fell them. The scale was incredible, but the reason this wins is for the sheer artistry of each of the colossi. On a technical level this game wasn't outstanding in the same way God of War II was, but each of the beasts to be conquered looked truly ancient – relics of some past when animal gods walked the earth. Their hides and limbs were impossibly tough – sometimes stone, their hair was coarse and thick and arcane symbols glowed about their bodies, while a primitive intelligence and wisdom was somehow conveyed by their eyes. Shadow of the Colossus made the player feel tiny, toying with forces beyond his knowledge, out on dust-swept plains. Magical.

...to another. Holy cheeseburgers this game still looks FANTASTIC!

Worst Visuals

Winner: Cricket 2004
Released: Mar 2004 (PAL)
IGN Review Score: N/A

Gamers were amazed when Cricket 2004 hit the streets. Amazed that in an industry where developers continually strived to make their games look better, that this game bucked the trend, instead being content to look for all the world like a PSone game from several years earlier. It's retro, man. Or maybe not. Maybe it was just really really bad. Still, full credit to the dev team for using the innovative technique of differentiating between different cricket stars via hair colour. Apologies to our American readers who may or may know what cricket is, let alone that it was a sport with yearly updates in our part of the world. For everything you'll ever need to know about cricket, please watch this instructional video.

An artist's impression of Cricket 2004. Sadly, this makes it look more enjoyable.

Xbox

Most Memorable Graphical Jump

Winner: Halo
Released: Nov 2001 (US), Mar 2002 (PAL)
IGN Review Score: 9.7

Halo was well ahead of the pack visually on release, and it stayed ahead for quite a while. This was a game that was technically adept, but the biggest reasons for its impact – in terms of visuals – at the time was twofold. It took the first person shooter – a genre traditionally filled with corridors, and it gave us rolling hills and beaches, upon which we fought against waves of enemies, and often alongside soldiers on our side too. Secondly, the style of design and use of colour was really striking – the patterns engraved on walls and the dominance of bright colours like purples and blues, gave it a very unique palette.

Halo sailor.

Technical Excellence

Winner: Ninja Gaiden
Released: Mar 2004 (US & JP), May 2004 (PAL)
IGN Review Score: 9.4

Tecmo's Team Ninja really hit its stride during the Xbox era, delivering two of the prettiest games on the system – Dead or Alive 3 and Ninja Gaiden. Both featured character models that were considerably more refined than anything else around, and both featured incredibly smooth animations and lightning fast gameplay. At the end of the day though, Ninja Gaiden gets the nod from us – we loved the way the setting was realised and the variety in the environments, we loved the attack speed and gushing blood, and we loved how smoothly this 60fps action game kicked along. This game fulfilled the promise of the ninja – flashy attacks, insane speed and all-round visceral ass-kickery – as well as the Xbox.

She's no Ivy.

Serving A Creative Vision

Winner: Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell
Released: Nov 2002
IGN Review Score: 9.6

Each subsequent Splinter Cell obviously hit the market with greater visual prowess, but for us it was the original (running on the Unreal Engine 2) that was most impressive in terms of the impact of its visuals and the refreshing way in which they were entwined with the gameplay. Subtitled "Stealth Action Redefined" to mark the difference between its take on the stealth genre as compared to Metal Gear Solid, Splinter Cell placed a huge emphasis on real-time lighting and creating or using darkness to hide. In fact, it will be for the lighting that this game is remembered – it really felt like a big step forward. Even though the themes were certainly reminiscent of Thief, this was very much a 'next-gen' execution. The character models, real world environments and real-time cutscenes were also strong.

Real stealthy Sam.

Worst Visuals

Winner: Bruce Lee: Quest of the Dragon
Released: July 2002 (US), Sept 2002 (PAL)
IGN Review Score: 3.9

Clearly this game doesn't look so bad that viewing it would make you vomit with rage. In fact, if you were an alien who'd just arrived on Earth from a world that didn't have videogames, and this was your first taste of the medium, you might look at it through your semi-permeable viewing membrane (taking a guess here) and say "squidzii-ooor!", which, roughly translated, means "The human race is doooooooomed!" Oh, erm, okay, maybe it is pretty bad. Rudimentary animations, rudimentary collision detection, rudimentary character modelling, rudimentary environments, we think you get the idea.

Try to imagine the worst sound effects you've ever heard to go with this screenshot. WAA-TAAA!

GameCube

Most Memorable Graphical Jump

Winner: Resident Evil 4
Released: Jan 2005 (US & JP), March 2005 (PAL)
IGN Review Score: 9.8

The Resident Evil series was always a little ahead of the curve in terms of graphics – remember how good the first couple of games looked at the time, with their polygonal characters on pre-rendered backgrounds? RE4 was no exception, and it was just what the GameCube needed – a game that showed that this was a capable system in the right hands. A game that would make Xbox owners insanely jealous. RE4 delivered that, with its moody environments, which ranged from dilapidated villages to creepy cemeteries, mining shanty towns and castles; with its terrifying bosses, its great character designs (Ashley excepted obviously) and its visceral bloodletting. This changed the way people saw the GameCube.

Non-anamorphic widescreen... pretty annoying actually.

Technical Excellence

Winner: F-Zero GX
Released: July 2003 (JP), Aug 2003 (US), Oct 2003 (PAL)
IGN Review Score: 9.3

A lot of people didn't rate the visuals in F-Zero X on N64 because they forsook detail for speed, but no one could deny just how incredible F-Zero GX looked on GameCube. This game combined the blistering 60fps speed and massive field of racers from the N64 game with visuals that really popped. Once again courses took players along undulating highways, through loop the loops and along the inside and outside of tunnels, but this time you'd be in surroundings like a gleaming industrial construction above a bed of lava, with jets of flames shooting out above the track, or speeding along a futuristic freeway, surrounded by pod-like buildings and azure skies.

The GX stood for Great eXpectations. Big Dickens fans on the team, you see.

Serving A Creative Vision

Winner: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
Released: Dec 2002 (JP), March 2003 (US)
IGN Review Score: 9.6

The Wind Waker was an aesthetic triumph, and easily one of the GameCube's finest hours – both in terms of visuals and gameplay. The expressiveness of Link's face, the enchanting primary colour palette, the assuredness of the animations, the purple puffs of smoke when enemies died, the water effects as you sailed from island to island, the clear blue skies, the sheer playfulness of the presentation in general.

Nintendo thumbed its nose at conventions with The Wind Waker and we're glad it did - this is still one of the most visually striking games around.

Link eyed off the whinging fanboys... and won!

Worst Visuals

Winner: Bad Boys: Miami Takedown
Released: Sept 2004 (US), Oct 2004 (PAL)
IGN Review Score: 3.6

DO YOU AGREE? RATE IGN's list on a SCALE of 1 to 10!

Cricket 2004 wasn't that bad, especially when it was a very low budget game, but it will be interesting to see what the PS3 cricket game coming this summer will look like (unannounced but inevitable)

PS2 choices were sooo obvious

God help me I want to make Link's expression there my new avatar.

Good list!

Technical Excellence for the Gamecube should have been Rogue Squadron III. The the best game in the series but the number of polygons this game pumped was very impressive.

Also, no mention of Riddic or Chaos on the Xbox is disappointing.

Ah yes, I forgot about the Rogue Squadron games. I think that it should have been Rogue Leader, though, not Rebel Strike, and it should have been Most Memorable Graphical Jump.

I would have gone with Okami over Shadow of the Colossus when it came to PS2's Creative Vision award, but it's still a solid choice.

Other than that (and IGN using the wrong boxart for South Park Rally), pretty good list.

I'm gonna guess Wii's choices:

Graphical Jump: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
Technical Excellence: Super Mario Galaxy
Serving a Creative Purpose: MadWorld

Biggest jump on the Gamecube should have been Metroid Prime...

You could make an argument that Metroid Prime still didn't look better than Rogue Leader - or at least, didn't make as big a jump.

No love for rogue leader on the gamecube, the game that really announced the console to the world!