When was the last time your jaw dropped/you were genuinely amazed by something gaming related?

[partious]

I must admit that it's been a long time since I was genuinely wowed by anything gaming/graphics related.

When I went from PS3/360-Ps4 it was just a case of "yeah the graphics are better I guess.." and then more recently when I upgraded my PC gfx card etc I thought "yeah, it looks a bit better than PS4 I guess".

It was all a bit meh, "this puddle is shinier on PC than PS4" etc. Who cares really ?

I tried an occulus rift back with dk1 and while I thought that it was interesting, it made me want to puke and also the graphics in the demos were awful compared to a "proper" modern game. I'm sure the upcoming consumer version will be much improved but I'm still not that interested in VR gaming.

My mind was blown by a gaming experience I had last night though.

Having sorted the PC out recently, bought a ton of games in the steam sale etc, I remembered that I have a Sony HMZ t1 cinema headset lying around, and was wondering if 3d gaming on pc was any good.

I remember being distinctly unimpressed by the 3d offerings I tried on ps3 and 360. It just felt like the hardware wasn't upto it. Also I hate 3d movies.

First up was Burnout Paradise. This has nvidia 3d vision support, so the 3d effect is good, but it's an old game and the graphics are pretty bad. Meh.

Next, assassin's creed syndicate. Not officially supported with proper 3d, just what nvidia call "compatibility mode". It's impressive but there are little annoying things like a weird glow around the character when you're running. Still better than a monitor.

Finally, I tried The Witcher 3. I had discovered a site where people make patches for these games to give them the proper treatment and not just the nvidia "compatibility mode" effect.

So I got the patch, started the game and my mind was absolutely blown.

Hands down the most impressive thing I've ever seen graphically. The 3d effect is so amazing and natural looking and the graphics just look so much more impressive than they do on a normal screen.

Galloping through fields/forests with the vegetation around you and the correct sense of perspective. Going down a hill that actually looks and feels like a hill. Looking into the distance and actually being able to judge how far away somewhere is.

I have never been so impressed by anything gaming related. I spent about 2 hours just trotting around taking in the scenery and just thinking "holy crap this is amazing".

I feel so excited thinking about playing through the entire game like this (I'm only a few hours in). It's a feeling I can't remember having about a game since I was a kid (I'm 29).

Pretty impressive for a failed and obsolete technology.

What are some gaming things that have made you think "wow".

[elmo]

Genuinely, Rainbow Six Siege.

It's happened a few times in that game. When a plan pulls off using the various abilities of the operators involved. It doesn't need to be by your team either. There was one round where we were protecting a bomb. It was quiet outside, all of the CCTV cameras had been shot out so we had no idea what was happening outside. Then one of my team noticed that there was dust falling down from the ceiling above. I had no idea that was a thing.

"They're upstairs"

The Bang, a window blows open, a door goes at the same time and a flash grenade gets dropped through a hatch above. Within seconds we were all dead and although we lost I was sitting there with my mouth wide open and wondering what the hell had just happened. Incredible stuff.

Destiny has also provided one of the best gaming moments I've ever had. Running the first raid for the first time without using a guide was exciting, rewarding and turned the hours and hours I'd spent with the game on its head. My mind was blown thinking about how the hell it was put together.

[Let us measure]

I must be pretty naive when it comes to games, as I'm still getting wowed on a fairly regular basis by this gen. I guess it comes from being a Nintendo boy for so long. The last thing to really impress me was the intro to Metal Gear Solid V over xmas - just a really bombastic, immersive experience that, afterwards, I had to put the controller down for and catch my breath a bit.

Before that was completing Journey for the first time.

[mdn2]

The seamless, continuous world in Xenoblade Chronicles X. Considering it's immense size and how amazing it looks, my mind can't comprehend how its possible.

[jonamok]

The last time my jaw literally dropped was waaaay back with SM64. Am hoping that VR will finally do that for me again.

[Down by Law]

Recently finishing Uncharted 2 as part of the Drake collection , scratching my head wondering how can a game from 2009 look this good?

[rumblecat]

Slight jaw drop recently with Monument Valley. One of the bits where the level opens up and becomes something else- it was a quite beautiful little mechanical sequence. It was unexpected and although I've probably never used the world delightful to describe anything... it was delightful.

Biggest two I can remember though is watching the sun set in GTA 3, sitting in a car on a ridge overlooking the water, beautiful sky, opera on the radio. Just this feeling that video games had leapt forward and were now completely amazing in a way I could never have imagined.

And then emerging from the Vault in Fallout 3. Looking out across the ruined country, the vastness of it, shimmering in the heat... feeling both totally excited and immediately overwhelmed.

[fat flatulent git]

Ridge Racers on PSP. So much better than any handheld graphics up to that point.

[Don Wiskerando]

When, trying to complete the MCC, I replayed Halo 2 over the new-year holiday and realised that I was actually enjoying myself. Either it has had significant chunks of shit removed from it in the remaster or the really long, boring corridor sections that I remember were not so long and boring after all.

[mr_woo]

I've just started playing X-Com Enemy Unknown and I'm not very good at strategy games so I'm still finding my feet. So I'm doing a mission and have 5 soldiers all alive and well. Within 2 turns, one of them has been turned into a zombie, two are dead from a grenade thrown by a muton and the other two are practically dead with very little health. They get killed and mission failed.

As someone who's not that experienced with X-Com I just sat there dumbfounded that everything went to shit so quickly, on fucking easy mode this was Shall get back to it later tonight, amazing game though.

[Guest]

Not gameplay related, but the opening cinematic to Halo 5 is amazing. Shame the actual game couldn't live up to it.

[Alex W.]

Most recently: the first time you run into Elizabeth in Bioshock Infinite. An NPC escort who manages to be actively interesting to be around, and who manages to drive the storytelling. One of those "wow, this is going to be in every game within a couple of years" moments, shortly followed by "oh, hang on, that would've happened by now".

In reverse chronological order:

1) The running man in Rez

2) Scoping out some base from a mountainside in MGSV surrounded by the bluest skies of this generation.

3) Alien Isolation. Just Alien Isolation.

[Pavey]

Ridge Racers on PSP. So much better than any handheld graphics up to that point.

I remember this one, so it must have wowed back then. Also Driveclub's Scandinavian levels are pretty jaw dropping, the shiny ice is pretty amazing.

[NecroMorrius]

This first one sounds a bit technical and bereft of passion, but I promise it's not. A couple of weeks ago I moved from a 60hz screen to 165hz with G-sync. For pretty much my entire gaming life in memory, I've played at 30 or 60fps, and always at 60hz. It's always been fine, 60 looked silky smooth and 30 was fine elsewhere. I vaguely remember having a monitor that was higher back in the CRT days, vaguely. I fired up the new one, and even moving the cursor around Windows looks so much smoother than it does on my old screen, which is now sat next to the new one. I've been mopping up a bunch of games I've meant to finish for a long time, and it's given all of those games a new lease of life. Even accounting for the diminishing returns as refresh rates get higher. I feel like I'm seeing more animation, more content on screen per second somehow. It's really breathtaking and I just can't go back, it's like a broadband upgrade for your eyes. It's hard to express how awesome it is but it's a god-tier technical upgrade that no new graphics card or game engine or console can match.

As for actual jaw-dropping gaming moments, nothing comes close to the final of TI5 last year, nothing. The best of five final was between two teams - CDEC, who fought from the wildcard bracket all the way to the final, and EG, one the oldest and sporadically good teams around. It was gruelling in a way that no videogame has any right to be, the players were mentally and physically exhausted. They both deserved to win, and they were both making mistakes. A momentary gamble from CDEC and a perfectly timed combo of skills from EG allowed EG to wipe their enemy in an unlikely 2v5 scenario and turn the tide of the game in their favour, to win $6.6m dollars and the hearts and minds of players everywhere.

Just listen to these caster reactions.

[HarryBizzle]

GTA3 sounded like a pack of lies when my friend described it to me over the phone. Needless to say I was impressed when I saw it for myself.

[Vimster]

This is going back a bit but saw the opening cinematic of Wing Commander 2 running in a computer shop in the early 90s. This thing went on for ages and was like a film! It had speech and everything. That era of PC gaming, once VGA really took hold, was one jaw-dropping advance after another: Doom, Descent, Daggerfall. Then 3d acceleration came in and it just got even better.

[koefoed]

Way way back

The first steps in Super Mario 64, probably the most impressive thing I've ever experienced in a game.

Entering Tanaris in World of Warcraft for the first time. The treck as Alliance probably took a good hour or two, through hostile areas, and seeing the desert landscape open up before your eyes was utterly impressive.

[angel]

Not gameplay related, but the opening cinematic to Halo 5 is amazing.

Blew me away too, possibly the greatest intro I've ever seen.

Also, who has a Sony cinema headset just lying around? They look great, I want one.

[koefoed]

Way way back

Not really true I just realized.

ICO and CoD4 single player are latter games that really blew me away. The scene where you leave the crashed helicopter in CoD 4 is still among one of the most chocking things in a game I have experienced.

[dismembo]

Most recent one for me was Xenoblade Chronicles X. There's a bit not long after the game starts, where you've been wandering through an enclosed rainy ravine at night. You get to the end of this as the dawn is breaking and the rain stops. You come out into an open area as the sun rises and you see the most amazing vista, stretching off as far as the eye can see, a landscape filled with bizarre and exotic lifeforms, ranging in size from human sized, to the size of shopping centres. A real 'Wizard of Oz' moment.

Before that, it was Alien Isolation, especially the PC version. If you are a fan of the original Alien film, then this gaming nirvana. It looks like the film in every detail, the locations are incredible. I've actually spotted little background details in the film now, thanks to the game. It's a much more terrifying experience than the film though, when it is you that is being hunted. I never knew crouching down behind a chair for minutes at a time could be so tense.

Finally, Mario Kart 8. I don't care what anyone else says, this is the best one, I have them all, I know my Mario Kart. This one is just so slick. Every detail on every track, like the pink frosting on the sweet track that leaves a dusty layer on your tyres if you touch it. Or as you slowly come to realise the true shape of the race courses you hurtle around upside down or up the walls. The little expressions on characters faces as you jostle for position. Incredible draw distances. Rock solid framerate. It really makes me think this is what a modern day arcade game would be like, if they were still being made. Everything about it screams fun and is a massive treat for the eyes. It's accessible and challenging and beautiful. Everything a good game should be.

[MansizeRooster]

The intro to The Last of Us. I was genuinely shocked.

[Coltrane]

When I picked up a PS4 last June, the first game I got with it was Witcher 3. I remember being genuinely amazed at the beautiful vistas and sunsets in the game - everything from the lighting, the weather effects and the environments all combined to blow me away. I spent a good few years away from gaming and was amazed to see how things had progressed, not only graphically, but also in the depth and complexity of games. It was a good sign to be playing a game that was pushing the boundaries and really going all out to produce a multi layered world where everyone played a small part in some way and had a background and story.

All of The Last of Us. Never felt so immersed in a game before or felt so emotionally connected to the fate of its characters.

Oh and the intro to MGS V, which has already been mentioned but is still the craziest first hour of any game I think I've played.

[robdood]

I think that the last genuinely jaw-dropping moment I experienced was Elite Dangerous in VR. The feeling of looking around your cockpit makes it so much more involving.. the way the computer screens pop up from the dashboard when you glance in the correct direction, realising the HUD isn't just an overlay on a screen but actually physically modelled at various locations around the cockpit, and the novelty of realising that there are handles / etc in place ot help you get in / out of the seat.

Each ship felt so different, the differences in size/cockpits was a thousand times more pronounced in VR - when I got my first Lakon Transporter ship, realising that the entire cockpit was basically a glass dome was a bit of a goosebump moment.

Then there's the sense of scale. Docked in one of the large space ports, and getting a true feeling of the sheer scale of the place, watching the little trucks and other background clutter ticking along their everyday lives. Dogfighting against an Anaconda battlecruiser, my stomach lurching when I misjudged a strafing run and nearly collided into the side of the thing.

And the vistas, slingshotting round a planet to save approach times, and catching a stupendously good sunglare as I crest the planet's curve.. Even standing up from my chair to have a quick peek back out of the canopy and look at the sun never got old

So fucking good. Can't wait for my consumer Rift!

[Venice Cull]

Strange one. For me, I only really find graphics amazing when something is done or shown that I didn't think the platform was capable of.

For example, fairly recently I was amazed at seeing Doom running on a ZX Spectrum, or seeing 'High rez' graphics on a ZX81.

[NEG]

Undertale, Genocide route.

Spoilers:

Before even the last encounter, there is certain dialogue by Flowey that comments on the nature of watching Let's Play's. It's so out there, even as 'knowing' as the game generally is about these things, that I had to stop and say 'Did he just say what I think he said?'. Because Flowey said this as I was being watched by a friend, whom would never do the Genocide route himself.

Then the last encounter happens, and my mind is blown even more.

[Wools]

The first time I started playing Super Mario 3D Land on the 3DS in true 3D.

I always thought I'll never have another moment like when I first saw Super Mario 64 for the first time in Toys 'R Us or when I saw Sega Rally 2 running on an imported Dreamcast in my local indie as they were such monuments moments in 3D technology.

But Super Mario 3D Land took my breath away and it recaptured that sense of awe and wonder that I never thought I would feel again. What a marvellous little game.

[PK]

[PK]

Oh, that's a terrible gif.

Well it was much more impressive in-game at the time. I'd just built my first gaming PC in about 6 or 7 years and couldn't believe what I was seeing.

[b00dles]

The size of Novigrad in Witcher 3, with the level of detail, refracting light in windows, weather, beautiful skies and then realising that it was MASSIVE and I hadn't even been to Skellige yet. First next gen open world I'd seen on my new PC and it blew my socks off.

it just made me think that White Orchard would have been a whole game and damn impressive about what 10 years ago? And that this sort of genre started with flick screen stuff like Dungeon Master, crazy.

[Jarik]

The Last Time? Seeing the Sunlight coming through the trees in Fallout 4. Probably not that big of a deal to folks who own high-end PC's, but it was the first time i'd seen such an atmospheric & beautiful effect in a console game, & really helped with the sense of immersion.

I'd been wowed by games a lot before that of course, most of them being the stuff already in this thread, but that was the most recent.

I hope there are plenty more moments to come.