Crysis left such an impression that I can't forget.

Petitioning for DF to do a Best Graphics of all time video (relative to the era).

MGS2 Tanker was a life changing moment

Lighting in Splinter Cell was pretty cool

For me it was resident evil 1 remake on GameCube. I understand that the backgrounds were pre-rendered but damn that game looked so damn good.

I made my Granny come into my bedroom to show her Sonic the Hedgehog on the Megadrive. "Look at the graphics Granny!". She hadn't a clue what I was talking about. 😅

To me it was Star Wars Rogue Squadron 2 for Game Cube. The cast shadows would change with the rotation of the x wing and the textures in my mind looked photorealistic. It was the first game I played in the 6th gen consoles. I was used to playing games like Banjo and Kazooie. Huge jump in tech for me.

Soul Calibur on Dreamcast

Gears of War really was a moment. I remember seeing the first screenshots of some of the architecture in the game demonstrating what UE 3 was capable of.... Man my jaw fell to the floor

The T-Rex model on the PlayStation Demo One was very impressive to me.

Seeing Mario 64 for the first time. Everything looked so smooth.

Mario 64 blew my mind when I tried it out in target back then, it made your imagination run wild with possibilities. When Tekken 3 came out on the PSX I couldn’t imagine anything could ever outdo that at the time.

GTA 4 was a game changer. That on 360 was special at the time. The physics and overall look of a realistic city was captivating

Soulcalibur on dreamcast was incredible

Gears 1 blew me away, I jumped from PS2 to 360.

Donkey Kong Country was the game that amazed me most.

My "Im blown away by these games moments" 1. MGS2 2. Halo Combat Evolved 3. Gran Turismo 3 4. Silent Hill 2 5. Half Life 2 6. Doom 3 7. Crysis 8. Unreal Engine 5 Matrix Demo As you can see most of my moments were from 2001 to 2007. It takes a lot to blow me away now, though revisiting the older games still looks great. MGS2 on a CRT TV still looks impressive for example.

I still remember reading about Halo in a magazine back in the day and there was a very specific note about the stitching in the clothes being visible (screenshot included), blew my tiny little mind at the time.

Shadow of the Colossus... Just the sheer sense of size and scope of the landscape absolutely battering the PS2's hardware, the fur rendering and lumbering gargantuan movements of the collossi coupled with practically seamless map exploration. Still has me blown away, even compared to the remake. That game filled shoes bigger than the PS2 even was.

Splinter Cell with it's amazing lighting at the time

The jump from SNES or Sega Genesis to Psone and seeing games like Tekken, Crash bandicoot, Tomb Raider, Wipeout, Die Hard Trilogy, Destruction Derby, Twisted Metal & the T-Rex and Sting Ray from demo 1 literally blew me away. It genuinely was next generation. On ps2, the to leap Metal Gear Solid 2 in graphical fidelity from the first game was also truly a generational leap.

Far Cry 1 hang-glider did it for me on PC. The scale of the map was phenomenal it was a revelation for open world games, but then having to use a hang glider to traverse bits was the icing on the cake. I remember shouting my dad to come see.

Doom 3. I really thought to myself that it couldn't get better than this.

Virtua Racing 1992 blew my mind.

God of War 3 opening. The whole opening scene with the Titans was just awe inspiring.

Everyone talks about Halo CE on the OG Xbox, but not DOA3? I remember seeing crowds circling the Xbox kiosks in malls when DOA3 gameplay came up, mesmerized by the visuals including me as a kid 😂 High fidelity models for the time with hair, cloth and um, "jiggle" physics, water spills and ripple effects from interaction, detailed surface reflections, one of the first if not the first to showcase realistic snow deformation... I could go on. The leap from DOA2 (which was already revolutionary for Dreamcast) to 3 was massive and easily the most impressive looking launch title.

Seeing that Star Wars: Rogue Squadron - Rogue Leader on The GameCube! What Factor 5 was doing at the time was so far beyond what we've seen in real-time graphics. They were literally running cut scenes from the movie in real-time, pulling insanely detailed models from Lucas Arts asset library. That's when I knew for certain GameCube was a beast! Seeing the Death Star level in real-time for the first time was a sight to I behold. So much detail was being presented on screen, lights from enemy and friendly lazers everywhere, and ALL casting realtime lights, tons of enemies of screen, etc - even now, that trench screen, looks like something you'd see on PS4... except at 60 fps!😜

The first time I saw the Virtua Fighter 2 arcade cabinate. Panzer Dragoon Zweii, Gears of War, Dead Or Alive 2 and a couple more I can't remember.

Daytona USA was pretty impressive when I first saw it. Textured polygons at 60fps was quite unlike anything else I’d seen at that point.

Ridge Racer on the PS1 probably had the biggest impact on me, I think at that point the best I’d ever seen was Star Fox and Virtua Racing (in the arcade) so to see such smooth, detailed polygons was truly mind boggling. That said, so many games from that era seemed to be a huge leap forward in some way or another, even little things like Core Design getting Lara’s ponytail to flop around realistically seemed like a massive achievement.

Bio Shock's water for me was wow, always appreciate good water physics and looks.

Oliver’s tone of voice is so soothing. And he’s a great contributor to boot.

Metal Gear Solid PS1 was the first time I had this feeling. The whole opening scene and gameplay. It was like watching a movie.

Seeing the ammo counter going down on other people’s guns from their third person model is the kind of detail games should have kept striving for over the years but seem to have forgotten. I love that stuff

The water from Omnimusha was unreal at the time, best water ive ever seen .

No matter which side of the console war you are, John is right : Objectively, nothing will ever come close to entering an Arcade in 1994 and Seeing Daytona USA in front of you while gaming on 16bits machine or Computer at home. It was like going from Wright brother plane to Apollo 11 in one step. Being born in 1982 here are some of my pick - Outrun & Hang on (Sega Super Scaler in general) - Street Fighter 2 (Arcade) - Aladdin (Genesis) - Flight Simulator 5 (PC) - Donkey Kong Country (Snes) - Ridge Racer (Arcade) - Daytona USA (Arcade) - Doom (PC) - Virtua Fighter 2 (Arcade) - WipEout (PS1) - Metal Slug (one of the last true 2D wahoo moment) - Unreal Tournament (PC) - Half Life (PC) - Soul Calibur (Dreamcast) - Gran Turismo 3 (First GT was incredible and masterfuly use the hardware but PS1 graphic was already yesterday news) - Halo (Xbox) - Far Cry (PC) - Half Life 2 (PC) - Doom 3 (PC) - Gears Of War (Xbox 360) - Crysis (PC) -------- Here is an inflexion point were the diminishing returns truly starts, I consider Crysis the last huge jaw dropping moment that makes you feel you are seeing the futur ------ - PGR4 (Xbox 360) - Uncharted 2 (PS3) - Killzone 4 (PS4) (everybody talks about 2 and 3, but 4 who came with PS4 was the only one who gave the feeling of generatinal leap) - Ryse Son of Rome (Xbox One) - The Order 1866 (PS4) - Forza Horizon 2 (Xbox One) - Drive Club with rain addon (PS4) -------- Occulus Rift & HTC Vive, VR headset that truely works AMAZING -------- - Red Dead Redemption 2 (PC - Xbox One X- PS4 pro) - Flight Simulator 2020 (PC - Xbox Series X) - Cyber Punk 2077 (PC) - Horizon Forbidden West (PS5) - Alan Wake 2 (PC)

I've had it happen twice once when I saw Star Fox for the first time and then again when I first saw Mario 64. They were just such huge leaps from what was expected at the time.

Back in 1991 I was blown away with F-Zero on snes. Just the very fast 60 fps 3d like racing game felt so ahead of its time.

Onimusha, Resident Evil Code Veronica, and Dead or Alive 3 all around the same time blew me away. Thought those already looked photo-realistic back then.

Doom, N64 launch window, Unreal, Halo, Doom 3, Half-Life 2, Gears of War, Crysis, Battlefield 3, GTA V, Red Dead Redemption 2, Microsoft Flight Simulator, and Cyberpunk 2077 off the top of my head are the ones that blew me away.

PilotWings (SNES) = "Super Scaling" at home Wolfenstein 3D = I know it's all 2D really, but it was so smooth and so far beyond anything I'd seen before Comanche = Wow, real 3D terrain Gran Turismo = The cars look "real" PilotWings 64 = They weren't kidding about Silicon Graphics being involved

Sonic Adventure on Dreamcast. The jump from the previous generation was insane! Seeing Sonic's footprints 👣 in the sand on the beach of the first level blew me away. 🎉

Star Wars Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron 2 Phenomenal back then, and a simple resolution boost would make it look phenomenal still today.

The intro to the original Wipeout on PS1, jaw on the floor moment.

That Unreal waterfall was crazy. I vividly remember having that same experience.

This has happened a lot of times for me. First example that popped in my mind is Star Wars Battlefront 2015 on the PS4. My entire family was blown away and gathered around the tv for that visiting at Christmas for the tutorial mission. Crazy to think that was 9 years ago, still feels like a relatively modern game

Sonic 2 on the Megadrive - The 3D bonus level blew my mind. It was my first experience playing 3D, I remember it used to make me go crossed eyed and feel super dizzy 😂

Unreal 1. The moment you leave the ship and you see the double sun, the multicolor moving clouds, the cabin in the background with the little lake with fish + the epic sound that played. This was to me was the biggest leap. I played with a Diamond Monster 3d (original 3dfx).

Tatooine in Battlefront 2015 blew me away because it just looked like real life

Hearing Rich saying "game changer" keeps me alive

And Rebel Assault - one of the first CD-ROM exclusive titles. The feeling of interacting with CG quality Star Wars with FMV from A New Hope was a highlight of my early teens.

i worked for CEX and we were all saying how amazing it would be if we could have the same level of fidelity as the CGI of the time and no one believed it would happen in there lifetime including me but here we are.

Tekken on arcade back in 95, Gears of war 1, crysis 1 on max settings, matrix demo on unreal engine 5. All "games" that blew me away for their time periods.

My first big WOW moment in gaming was when i played Gran Turismo for the first time back in the 90's. That iconic intro made my jaw drop. Later when i switched to PC Far Cry and seeing the water in that game for the first time coming down the hill.

Final Fantasy VIII on PSone! I remembered those graphics were amazing

Zone of the Enders was unbelievable. Then 2 took it to another level.

As with some others, Soul Calibur on the Sega Dreamcast made quite an impression. Super fluid animation (60 fps) with amazingly colourful textures and lighting (for the time).

Dreamcast character having individual fingers compared to N64/PS1 block hands was mind-blowing to me

Wave Race 64, Gran Turismo 4, Metal Gear Solid 3 and Skyrim always stood out to me but the first game to "blow my mind" was Red Dead Redemption 2, maxed out on a very high end PC. I'm still in awe that some 1's and 0's can make something that stunning

-Going to my cousins house and seeing them play Resident Evil on the Playstation. My memory of what it looked to me at the time was so different when I look at it now. -The first Blitzball scene from Final Fantasy 10. -Seeing the X-Play showcase gameplay footage of Halo 2. -Playing the Silent Hill 4 demo (that game still holds up today). -Seeing and playing Shadow of the Colossus. - The scene from Metal Gear Solid 4 where the egg is cracked open and frying on the pan. -The snowy mountain level from Modern Warfare 2 when you see Soap next to you was incredible. -The Poseidon fight in God of War 3 when they showcased it. The water physics blew my mind! -PT. Like all of it. I still think it's one of the best looking games ever made. -Seeing the snow on Red Dead Redemption 2

For me, Forbidden Forest on the Commodore 64. That blew me away, but probably due to overall atmosphere rather than graphics. Seeing the agent running in impossible mission was something. Shadow of the Beast on the Amiga was something to behold. As was seeing Geoff Crammond’s F1 on the PC. Yes, it was on a 486 in the days before 3D accelerators but it was so fast and fluid compared to my Amiga.

The era post-Quake, but before 3D accelerator cards were completely required to run anything, around 1996-1999, were the formative years for me as a PC gamer so my game changer was a "beast" Pentium 200MMX running all kinds of ports and quirky yet fully 3D games in software on Win95. Stuff like SODA Off-Road Racing, Jedi Knight, Virtua Fighter, Rocket Jockey, Locus, Outwars (Microsoft's pre-Halo space shooter), Final Fantasy VII, Delta Force (an FPS with voxel terrain), Last Bronx and of course Half-Life.

Daytona USA was sure a killer app. I remember young myself playing it at the arcade and then wanting to buy a Saturn as it should "bring back same experience at home" (a friend of mine advised me against it and I bought a PS1 instead) I also remember the first time I entered the Wellspring city in RAGE. I know this game was not well received but if you had the right hardware and game patched it looked gorgeous. Max Payne series (all of them) also put the bar really high.

For me it was Soul Calibur on Dreamcast. That game was impossibly good overall when it dropped. The graphics were far better than anything I had seen on PlayStation/N64 or at an arcade. That game was incomprehensible at the time.

Duke Nukem 3D playing at a freinds house and we were amazed by all of the small interactions. YOU LEFT BULLET HOLES IN THE WALL! We honestly thought it would never get better than that lol

I've had several moments of this: 1. Seeing MGS opening on the Playstation and then the snow with the footprints. 2. Staying with Kojima and co...MGS2 and that opening sequence on the ship, just as John mentioned. 3. Smackdown HCTP, just the wrestler models were so damn good and better than models in pretty much any of the other sports games of the time. 4. 2004/05 is easy because that's HL2 and Doom 3...the overall environments particularly the water was remarkable in HL2 and the lighting in Doom 3. 5. The next big jaw drop moment came with Crysis and then Skyrim. Crysis is obviously just superior in every way but the size of Skyrim's environment, the weather and lighting effects and the number of NPCs walking around, man that was something, especially when a dragon flies over head or when a giant walks by. 6. I have to mention MGS4 as well, because it still looks great to this day but truly jaw dropping moments have just disappeared posy Crysis and that time frame in the late 00s and very early 2010s.

Daytona USA. Super Mario 64. Wave Race 64. Metal Gear Solid 2. Bioshock. Oculus CV1 Demo. Matrix Awakens.

I couldn't even imagine how they got Halo 2 to run on console but for me it was seeing the Dreamcast launch lineup of games for the first time

Battlefield 3 I was floored and couldnt belueve it woukd run on 360. It still holds up

Only _really_ got into gaming in my late teens. A relatively recent mind-blowing moment is the PBR and lighting stuff in the new Star Wars Battlefront.

Some of my examples: Killer Instinct at the arcade just blew my brain. The original Project Gotham Racing on the Xbox at launch. I couldn’t believe how hyper real the cars looked at the time. Rogue Leader on the GameCube. It was EXACTLY like the movie (it wasn’t)

MGS2 for sure. Incredible moment when the game was first revealed. Shenmue was also incredible visually for it's time.

The intro in the ship with realistic rain and sea waves crashing against, in CoD MW4, i remember playing it for each friend that came to my house 🤣

Had a friend (correct, singular) that had a PS3 about two years before I got a 360. GTA IV and Uncharted on a 32" FHD TV blew me away.

Lost planet and dead rising were pretty darn cool in those early 360 days

I specifically rented Zone of the Enders at Blockbuster just to get my hands on that MGS2 demo disc. That was probably the most impressive leap I’ve seen, and I’ve been gaming since the original NES.

Chronicles of Riddick on the OG Xbox blew my mind. I couldn't believe it could have shadows and textures that crisp.

As a kid I went from SNES to Gamecube. Rogue Squadron II was the first game I played and seeing a game look so close to the actual movies blew me away.

Titles that had me awe at the graphics 1. Burnout 3 takedown and revenge 2. Gta 4 3. Crysis 4. Uncharted 2 among thieves 5. Killzone 2 6. Forza horizon 2 7. Grid 2008 8. Uncharted 4 9. God of war 3 10. Gta 5 11. Red dead redemption 2 12. Cyberpunk 2077 13. Burnout paradise 14. The last of us part 2

I grew up in a PS household, so I only just recently played CE for the first time. It was an OG Xbox copy playing on 360, and it honest to God STILL looks impressive.

Truly mind blowing moments are as follows: Daytona USA in the arcade in about 1994. Virtua Racing on the 32X in the home. Then Gran Turismo 3 and Metal Gear Solid 2 on PS2 in 2001. The leap was enormous over the previous generation. Far Cry and Doom 3 in 2004, Project Gotham Racing 3 in 2005 on X360. Crysis 2007. Since then it has felt more incremental, or I have just gotten harder to impress.

Donkey Kong Country, Star Fox, Super Mario 64, or Mechwarior 2: Mercenaries also.

Megaman Legends 2 (PS1) really impressed me back then. They literally have in game cutscenes with animated mouths and eyes like in anime. I know it's just 2d textures on a static face model for the expressions but back then it was completely new and unique.

2:35 Thank you! I thought i was mad for years

This was a fun question, everybody had smiles on their faces once John finished reading the question lol

the video background in Mega Race 2 is honestly still mindblowing to me.

There have been several times in my PSVR2 that blew my mind graphically… light refractions off taillights in the garage in GT7 with the HDR looks unbelievable in VR. Also several times in Red Matter 2 some of the texture clarity is just crazy mind blowing at native resolution, 120Hz.

Crysis, without a doubt, the parallax occlusion, the water effects, it’s was mind blowing and started my love for building PCs.

God, in recent memory Battlefield 1. I couldn’t believe how good the game looked at times. It still feels a bit like Black Magic sometimes. Gears of War 1 was also pretty insane looking back in the day. The lancer blew my mind

Gears of War is mine. I remember being so awe struck even playing the multiplayer. Specifically, there’s a sequence in the first act where you’re slow walking through a hallway that always blew my mind.

The Order 1886

One of the Crysis trailers did it for sure, for me. Like, no way the jungle looks so great. "Cryengine 2 enables you to create killer quality games!""

Fight Night on Xbox 360. I was in awe.

For me I will never forget the visuals of Wave Race Blue Storm on gamecube. I couldn't believe how realistically the waves moved and affected the game. I am still impressed by the gameplay to this day.

Sonic Adventure's Emerald coast for the Dreamcast was like seeing a beach for the time.

Nice, all these immediately come to mind (as well as many in the comments). The one I'll add is Jet Grind(/Set) Radio, damn, may not be a realistic one, but that is as floored as I've ever been.

Seeing the heals on the women models in Perfect Dark, compared to Golden Eye models, is something I remember very fondly.

Rogue Leader on Gamecube was mind-blowing not just at launch, but for the whole 6th generation. On a CRT it arguably looked better than the Star Wars trilogy on VHS, The ship models were so detailed, the bump mapping was so advanced, and the game still holds up surprisingly well today, 23 years later.

The original Virtua Fighter at the arcades in the early 90's nearly blew my fookin head off , and then vf2 on saturn wow

The opening to metroid prime on gamecube blew my child mind. When you entered inside and that creature is there burning, it is super creepy