17th October 2020, 2:20 PM
The "wow factor" of the jump from SNES/Genesis to N64/PS1/Saturn was the greatest leap (from a user's perspective) of ANY gaming generation, and I doubt it will ever be topped until we implant chips in our brains. SJ's right, it's pretty much cheating. I mean, not a one of us thought "this looks like real life!" but we were absolutely shocked at what it DID look like, playable 3D environments. The generation before had a few odds and ends like Starfox and Virtua Racing (and on PC of course we were getting the likes of Doom) but this was something entirely different and we more or less just accepted what we were given because literally everyone was learning.
Back then, N64 and PS1 games looked "clearly better" than SNES and Genesis, but which one's artistic style aged better? That pixel art. Odd how it all went around. I wil say this, even as impressed as we were, we all couldn't wait until we got that "Toy Story" level of graphical fidelity. Every generation since has been an approach to that, and finally we have a generation using the ray tracing old CG movies like Toy Story required MONTHS to prerender, but in real time. I'd say we've arrived, but we can hardly tell.
Back then, N64 and PS1 games looked "clearly better" than SNES and Genesis, but which one's artistic style aged better? That pixel art. Odd how it all went around. I wil say this, even as impressed as we were, we all couldn't wait until we got that "Toy Story" level of graphical fidelity. Every generation since has been an approach to that, and finally we have a generation using the ray tracing old CG movies like Toy Story required MONTHS to prerender, but in real time. I'd say we've arrived, but we can hardly tell.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)