edit: This is actually an edited image I found years ago. I find the low poly bunnies slightly more funny than the original, which had skeletons.
Back in the day, just the idea of having an entire 3d world inside a computer was absolutely mind boggling. The first time I moved a cursor and the camera rotated, the entire game world shifting, I lost my mind. I remember thinking “how did they fit this world in there? How did they build this?”
It’s what sparked my interest in programming.
I still remember the first time someone told me about EverQuest. I legit thought they were trying to trick me.
As someone who was probably 10 or 11 when the Playstation came out I was absolutely boggled.
Gen alpha will never grow up with demo discs from pizza hut. I feel sorry for them. I spent so much time getting good at that crash bandicoot level though I was crap at that PaRappa the Rapper game.
Many forget (or don’t realize) it wasn’t the graphics alone, it was the smooth 3D motion.
Before the 3D console era (and the equivalent arcade machines) most “3D” motion was scaled and stacked sprites. The rest of the time we had 2D scrolling.
Two examples of the best of 16 bit 3D effects:
Which used 3x CPUs like the Genesis clocked at 12.5 Ghz
Compare to the first gen 3D console 3D effects:
This is a poor screenshot to show the capabilities of the PlayStation though. The first playstation game that boggled my mind was crash bandicoot with it’s fully expressive world, but the game that really blew me away was Mario 64 shortly after with its true freedom and wide open world.
Mario 64 is still a fantastic game, it’s just the camera that sucks.
Honestly, these were crazy at the time. After doing sprites for so many years it was awesome.
Although it seems we’re back here with the sprites.
A lot of the industry has finally learned that investment in the most realistic graphics doesn’t offset lack of fun. I credit indie studios the most for that
You have to put it in context and not look on it retrospective. I was absolutely blown away by the graphics of PS1
It sure looks old and dated as fuck today, but when the 3D games of the time had some 500 triangles at most and run at 10FPS, having a console managing a couple thousand triangles at 30FPS was truly mind-boggling 😀
“Yes, this is an actual PC game screenshot!”
