The beautiful games

[Big Seany]

Power Stone and its sequel have to be some of the best looking games ever, IMO. Lovely and bright, big and brassy - absolutely gorgeous.

[Flabio]

Two pages in and no mention of:

[112]

Like ive said elsewhere Biohazard remake Toasts my crumpet and lights my ring so much that i jus hafta yank that chain, again.

112 (ahem)

[Wools]

Well pretty much all of my favourite games have been mentioned like Outrun 2, Ico and various others but here's mine.

Metal Gear Solid 3:
Breathtakingly beautiful and is teeming with wildlife so natural it's the most effective jungle enviroment in any game.

Sonic Adventure:
My first taste of the 128bit consoles and still looks beautiful too this day. That the game can replicate a enviroment such as mystic ruins and then switch to speed highway is a massive achivment. And when I first stood atop the fallen island looking out into the mountain I was gob smacked.

Prince of persia:
Georgous falling water, hard heavy brickwork mixed with wonderfull level design. The only game to replicate Ico's castle background.

Moto GP 3 URT:
The most accurate and fast replications of real life racing circuits.

Resident Evil:
I think everyone rembers when they first saw the screenshots of this. One of the first remakes ever made toying with people's nostalgia of the game and then reinventing what your thoughts were. Horrifically, hauntingly beautiful.

I want to show a screenshot of Ico but Flabio has already mentioned it!

[Ady]

\kickss himself for forgetting Ico

[Concept]

\kickss himself for forgetting Ico

It's always there at the back of the mind. It'll never go away.

Let's mention some which don't necessarily spring to mind immediately.

Stranger's Wrath, The Sands of Time, Beyond Good & Evil, Wipeout Pure, Far Cry, Darwinia, Burnout Revenge, Half-Life 2 (well it does spring to mind fairly quickly) all look amazing from an artistic perspective.

You'll have to forgive the lack of screenshots. Slow connection.

[gingerj]

Homeland on the GC, I adore everything about the games artistic approach and design implementation.

Also Killer 7 but someone has already mentioned that one!

[marcus]

For me I always thought the Otogi series to be beautifully rendered games, heres one from Otogi 2

[eastyy]

Saw some of the footage from shadow of the Colossus that looks beautiful

Oh yeh have to agree with otogi very beautiful game deserves more recognition too

[Concept]

I've always found Otogi to be perverse. Some of the most beautiful visuals you'll ever come across... a banquet of dazzling sights... presented with a horribly broken camera system.

It's like having the world's most beautiful model sitting over from you in the corner of the room, having to photograph him/her with a disposable camera whilst being thrown about by their bodyguard.

[Sketcz]

Skygunner - PS2

Sorry about no images, can't be bothered to go to Atlus' website and find a URL of them. But this still impresses me. When you first enter the massive sky battle with dozens of cargo ships to protect and hundreds of enemies, including giant Grand Piano planes and Flute based airships, diving in and out of clouds and gunning down entire squadrons...

Good lord, the sheer beauty of such real time, ever moving imagery, is enough to make me weep. Almost. Utterly beautiful. Not to mention the sunset level, the giant enemy fortress level. There are simply too many stunning moments to mention.

[fiendicus_prime]

This generation I haven't seen anything beat Ico for sheer beauty, although Sands of Time comes close.

I wouldn't describe Killer7 as beautiful but I think people are right in saying that it won't date.


"Homeworld" on the PC is a contender. The design of the mothership is extremely elegant and the way squadrons of fighters were launched and left trails in space was real pretty

[vertigo]

If we're talking about the few minutes after you boot the game that still make you want to cry or hug your console, here are mine for now.

Metroid Prime (GC) The ominous intro music and theme captures the Metroid ethos perfectly.
Tales of Phantasia (SFC) It's impossible for me to start this up without watching all the way through the intro. Utterly gorgeous.
Halo (XB) I can't help it. That music and the two main intros can't help but get me in the mood for some hot Master Chef action.

[charlesr]

The bullet patterns in this are lovely to look at:

It's not as clean as ikaruga or zerogunner2, but just look at it!

When you really got going on the fast boards in 1080 avalanche, the motion enhancement effect of blasting through the snow with the screen shaking was really good. Here's a rubbish screenshot that doesn't show this


The epic space battles in Rogue Leader were a bit special on the candy:

[charlesr]

get me in the mood for some hot Master Chef action.

You love it.