IGN: The Greatest Graphics of All Time Pt 2

As IGN said in part one, the visuals on a game console are like fine wine – they mature with age. They are 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. IGN has done PlayStation, Saturn and N64, and now they are moving on to Dreamcast, PS2, Xbox and GameCube.

[Sunny_D]

Real good choices. Lol at south park, i mean the show has crappy graphics. All they were doing was make the game models look like the show.
sarcasm/

But real good choices though

[Elven6]

I liked Chef's Love Shack!

Not sure if the Worst PS2 game is agreeable, White Van Racer is pretty hard to beat.

[barom]

I was banging on Okami being PS2's "Serving A Creative Vision". But Shadow of the Colossus not a bad choice at all.

[The-Director]

Looking at the scores for the good old classics and seeing the 9s and 10s made feel like we are really throwing 9s on not so worthy games this gen !!?

[swiftshot93]

I'd say this list is fairly accurate with the PS2, Xbox, and dreamcast. But I believe Metroid Prime deserves a spot on the GCN list.

[Lich120]

I completely agree, I'd have given it the greatest graphical leap because it came out before Resident Evil 4 and completely knocked my socks off. Although actually, I feel as though it could have easily earned most technical advancement also... certainly over Fzero.

[Aclay]

Never had a Dreamcast, Original Xbox, or Gamecube so I can't relate to those games, but I definantly agree with the PS2 games on this list and the categories they are listed in.

The the first most memorable graphical jump in a PS2 game was definantly MGS2 for me, and I would also probably say that ICO, and Jak and Daxter were also, but I think MGS2 had the biggest leap early on in the PS2's lifecycle.

Later on in the PS2's lifecycle, Metal Gear Solid 3, Shadow of the Colossus and BLACK pushed the PS2 to a limit I had yet too see, and those games really wowed me on both a graphical and technical level.... and God of War 2 was just icing on the cake.

I remember when I popped in BLACK for my PS2 for the first time, I almost couldn't believe I was playing a PS2 game, lol.

[moses]

I was going to say, where was Black on the list? That definitley was a breathtaking 6 hour run when I first played it! Plus it was for both PS2 and Xbox, they have room to at least mention it somewhere...

[OOG]

black came in near/at the end... so didnt really make as big of an impact...

[h41544]

god of war 2 scored 9.7 not 9.4

[Jubo1]

that's what i thought but the this is the au site.

[poopface1]

brings back alot of memories as I had 7 of the nine good ones from ps2/dc/xbox. Guess they couldnt use JSRF since they used the first one.

It doesnt surprise me that some of the greatest playing games are also some of the best looking.

[Marceles]

God of War 2 still looks sick. I had Splinter Cell on Xbox and I remember how amazing that was too, especially the lighting and shadows and seeing the lights shine through fences. I'm not surprised at all at Shenmue and Soul Calibur being on the list. I think the RE remake could've been on the list just as much as RE4 too, both of those games left me underestimating how good a game on Gamecube could look like.

[christian hour]

I was thinking the same about the RE remake, I still look at it to this day and i'm still stunned by how great it looks. It still holds up pretty well to some of todays multi-plat titles too!

It was nice to see wind waker on the list too. So many so called zelda fans boycotted the game simply because of how it looked. Which surprised me, since, well... didnt the original zeldas have a cartoony look to them too? Sure it was on 8 and 16-bit consoles and they couldnt really help but look cartoony, but the point is, why wasn't it a problem then but it was a problem on gamecube?

Thing is, windwaker still looks amazing, as do alot of the games on the gamecube. Gamecube was definitely the most underrated console in history (could be wrong). And its probably my top pick for last generations consoles. A shame they didn't continue the trend with the wii, and instead took a step back and dumbed themselves down for a much wider audience. Thanks nintendo.

One thing that caught me off guard was the splinter cell screenshot, i remember first seeing that exact screenshot, and thinking, wow, that lighting is amazing and so life like, looking back on it now, it looks dated and not realistic at all :P Now stop and think about that, and how scary it will be when killzone 2, bioshock, gears of war 2 or crysis (graphical powerhouses over the last 2 years) start to look extemely dated. Because everytime someone raises the bar in terms of graphics, i always think, wow, games cant get better looking or more close to reality or a painted or sculpted work of art than they already have. Yet each year im proven wrong with better looking games.

Of course none of them have yet to beat pong in terms of gameplay powerhouses. lets face it, pong is amazing!

Instant minus bubbles to those who cant recognize sarcasm in that last sentence.

[Cheeseknight28]

Other than the lack of Metroid Prime, this article pretty much nailed it.

[drdistracto707]

im surprised luigi's mansion didnt get a spot on the gamecube list

[mrb3ar]

nice picks - shadow of colossus is crazy.

[WengYong]

I thought Tekken 5 was amazing on the PS2. Thought it would of gotten a mention. But yes God Of War 2 was..... Unbelievable

[tudors]

and have played all the games mentioned except the games that were PS2 only, you forget somtimes just how good these games were/are, I have to be honest Shadow of the Colossus still interests me now, in fact for some reason I have started buying the old games again.

"im surprised luigi's mansion didnt get a spot on the gamecube list"

perfect example, just started playing it again, the best thing about last gen is that you could never afford all the games but now there all cheap, I actually think Sony made a mistake not making backwards compatability standard in the PS3, I will definatly be getting a PS3 at some point and it would be nice to play some of the PS2 classics.

"Never had a Dreamcast, Original Xbox, or Gamecube so I can't relate to those games, but I definantly agree with the PS2 games on this list and the categories they are listed in."

@ aclayPS3.. dude get them bought you don't know what you are missing, seriously there are some great classics on all 3 consoles, I like the gamecube at the moment because my kids love the Nintendo style, after Luigis mansion I am going to get the kids one of the Zelda games, possibly Windwalker because Twilight princess is a collectors game now, on the WII it is £22 at my local store, on Cube it is £40.

Actually one of the best games I played on the original Xbox and is really underated is 'Odworld stranger', brilliant game with a fantastic cut scenes at the end.

I thought Doom 3 might have got a mention.

[KionicWarlord222]

splinter cell had the best graphics last gen.

[Scotracer]

Chaos Theory was incredible what the old systems could do. On the first level I was like :|:|:|:|:|:O

[spunnups]

I remember that one being way ahead of its time. Twisted Metal Black looked really damn good when that came out as well.

[itani]

Shenmue brings back happy memories.

[ceedubya9]

the game was ahead of its time. Cost way too much to make.

[pshizle]

for the Gamecube

metroid prime is the most memorable graphix.

[slinkey123]

Honestly RE4 is stunning compared to anything at the time, on any console. It could almost get away with being made this gen.

Also i think farcry should have been put somewhere for xbox, that game was just beautiful at the time :)

[ceedubya9]

RE 4, looks as good as a lot of games out now. Its still amazing what Capcom did with the Gamecube with that game. It was one of the few games on the cube that made me a proud owner besides the nintendo specific stuff.

Actually, I thought Star Fox Adventures looked pretty good too.

[Jubo1]

ps2 could have so many more

[caffman]

but doom 3 for xbox should've been on there. And I may go and pick up SotC since I've just got a 60gb PS3

[Cynical-Gamerzus]

BIG LEAP from SPRITE MAPPED TO GEOMETRY TO FULL GPU's!!

Games like Shenmue, Soul Calibur, God of War, Shadow
Says it all!!

Im sure with 512 of Vram these systems would stil stand the test of time till this day!!!!!
Shenmue was the originator of everything today SEGA used to be #1.

[Picnic]

In regards to the Gamecube games:

I guessed that they would choose Resident Evil as the best graphical jump but I was thinking of the remake instead- it has superb character models, beautiful cut scenes and detailed pre-rendered rooms. It's a work of great art.

I guessed that they would pick The Wind Waker for serving a creative vision.

I thought that as the award for technical excellence was described as being for a game that knows the insides out of the console, that it would be given to a game made by a studio exclusively synomonous with that console- e.g. Retro Studios for Metroid Prime.

I love the lighting, fire effects and animation in Luigi's Mansion.

[8BitSoul]

All of my fave titles are on it:D I feel a bit ashamed. Me and some pals used to play South Park Rally all the time back in the days:P We knew it was horrible, but we just couldn't resist. I'm just a sucker for bad games:P

[Nergardless]

i miss the gta's on the playstation i mean it was the first game u could do whatu like in a big city and my fav is vice city it had an amazin atmosphere

[Legionaire2005]

Chronicles of Riddick had the best graphics ever on that system and why say Halo 1 when 2 look better?

[BigKev45]

Yeah, Riddick & Doom 3 had the best graphics last gen for the Xbox.

[christian hour]

tis a shame the new riddick doesnt look as good this generation as the old riddick looked last generation. It really was something special, which is saying somethign for a game that had several things going against it (e.g vin diesel, game based on movie franchise, etc)