Evolution of Video Game Graphics: Graphics Kings, 1971-2013

These are the games I would consider to be the technical graphics kings from 1971 to 2013...

MAJOR UPDATE 1: Separated Arcade and Home video games from 1980 onwards, and then separating PC and Console video games from 2000 onwards.

MAJOR UPDATE 2: Separated PC and Console video games from 1995 onwards, and before that, separating Computer and Console video games from 1980 onwards.

MAJOR UPDATE 3: Replaced most of the 2D games of the early 90's, and some in the late 80's, with 3D games.

1970's

1971 - Computer Space (Arcade, Nutting Associates) (Discrete Logic hardware)

1972 - Pong (Arcade, Atari) (Atari Discrete Logic hardware)

1973 - Space Race / Astro Race (Arcade, Atari/Taito) (Discrete Logic hardware)

1974 - Basketball (Arcade, Taito) (Taito Discrete Logic hardware)

1975 - Gun Fight (Arcade, Taito & Midway) (Midway 8080 hardware)

1976 - Fonz (Arcade, Sega) (Sega Discrete Logic hardware)

1977 - Super Speed Race (Arcade, Taito) (Taito Z80 hardware)

1978 - Super Speed Race V (Arcade, Taito) (Taito Z80 hardware)

1979 - Radar Scope (Arcade, Nintendo) (Nintendo Classic hardware)

1980

Arcade - Battlezone (Atari) (Atari 6502 Vector hardware)

Console - Boxing (Intellivision, Mattel)

Computer - Wizard and the Princess (Apple II, On-Line Systems)

1981

Arcade - Turbo (Sega) (Sega VCO Object hardware)

Console - Major League Baseball (Intellivision, APh Technological Consulting)

Computer - Ulysses and the Golden Fleece (Apple II, Sierra On-Line)

1982

Arcade - Pole Position (Namco) (Namco Pole Position hardware)

Console - Zaxxon (ColecoVision, Sega)

Computer - Danchi Tsuma no Yuwaku (NEC PC-8801, Koei)

1983

Arcade - Punch-Out! (Nintendo IRD) (Nintendo Punch-Out hardware)

Console - Baseball (NES, Nintendo R&D1)

Computer - Zarth (NEC PC-8801, Studio Jandora & Enix)

1984

Arcade - I, Robot (Atari) (Atari 6809 hardware)

Console - Wild Gunman (NES, Nintendo)

Computer - Plazma Line (Sharp X1, Technosoft) (Arsys engine)

1985

Arcade - Space Harrier (Sega AM2) (Sega Space Harrier hardware)

Console - Hang-On (Sega Master System, Sega AM2)

Computer - Dimensional Fighter Epsilon3 (NEC PC-8801, Bullet-Proof Software)

1986

Arcade - OutRun (Sega AM2) (Sega OutRun hardware)

Console - Space Harrier (Sega Master System, Sega AM2)

Computer - Amnork (Fujitsu FM-77 AV, ASCII) (Amnork engine)

1987

Arcade - After Burner (Sega AM2) (Sega X Board hardware)

Console - China Warrior (NEC PC Engine, Hudson Soft)

Computer - Driller (Amstrad CPC, Incentive Software) (Freescape engine)

1988

Arcade - Top Landing (Taito) (Taito Air System hardware)

Console - Super Thunder Blade (Sega Mega Drive, Sega)

Computer - Star Cruiser (NEC PC-8801, Arsys Software) (Arsys engine)

1989

Arcade - Winning Run: Suzuka Grand Prix (Arcade. Namco) (Namco System 21 hardware)

Console - Ys I & II (NEC PC Engine CD-ROM², Nihon Falcom & Alfa System)

Computer - Star Cruiser (Sharp X68000, Arsys Software) (Arsys engine)

1990

Arcade - Galaxian³ (Namco) (Namco System 21C hardware)

Console - Star Cruiser (Sega Mega Drive, Arsys Software & Masaya) (Arsys engine)

Computer - Indianapolis 500: The Simulation (Commodore Amiga, Papyrus Design Group)

1991

Arcade - Star Blade (Namco) (Namco System 21C hardware)

Console - Gunboat (NEC PC Engine, Accolade & NEC)

Computer - F-15 Strike Eagle II (Sharp X68000, MicroProse Software)

1992

Arcade - Virtua Racing (Sega AM2) (Sega Model 1 hardware)

Console - Steel Talons (Sega Mega Drive, Atari Games)

Computer - Star Cruiser 2: The Odysseus Project (Fujitsu FM Towns / NEC PC-9821, Arsys Software) (Arsys engine)

1993

Arcade - Magic Edge Hornet (Namco) (Namco Magic Edge Hornet Simulator hardware)

Console - The Life Stage (3DO, Micro Cabin)

Computer - IndyCar Racing (IBM-Compatible PC, Papyrus Design Group)

1994

Arcade - Virtua Fighter 2 (Sega AM2) (Sega Model 2 hardware)

Console - Ridge Racer (PlayStation, Namco)

Computer - Magic Carpet (IBM-Compatible PC, Bullfrog Productions) (Magic Carpet engine)

1995

Arcade - Rave Racer (Namco) (Namco System 22 hardware)

Console - Jumping Flash! (PlayStation, Exact)

PC - The Need for Speed (Electronic Arts)

1996

Arcade - Virtua Fighter 3 (Sega AM2) (Sega Model 3 hardware)

Console - Wave Race 64 (N64, Nintendo EAD)

PC - Quake (id Software) (Quake engine)

1997

Arcade - Sega Bass Fishing (Arcade, Sega AM1) (Sega Model 3 hardware)

Console - GoldenEye 007 (N64, Rare & Nintendo)

PC - Quake II (id Software) (Id Tech 2 engine)

1998

Arcade - Daytona USA 2: Power Edition (Sega AM2) (Sega Model 3 Step 2.1 hardware)

Console - Godzilla Generations (Dreamcast, General Entertainment)

PC - Unreal (Epic Games & Digital Extremes) (Unreal Engine)

1999

Arcade - Brave Firefighters (Sega AM1) (Sega Hikaru hardware)

Console - Shenmue (Dreamcast, Sega AM2) (FREE engine)

PC - Quake III: Arena (id Software) (id Tech 3 engine)

2000

Arcade - Planet Harriers (Sega Amusement Vision) (Sega Hikaru hardware)

Console - The Bouncer (PS2, Squaresoft & DreamFactory)

PC - Giants: Citizen Kabuto (Planet Moon) (Amityville engine)

2001

Arcade - Virtua Fighter 4 (Sega AM2) (Sega Naomi 2 hardware)

Console - Shenmue II (Dreamcast, Sega AM2) (FREE engine)

PC - Aquanox (Massive Development) (KRASS Engine)

2002

2002 - Mazan: Flash of the Blade (Namco) (Sega Naomi 2 Multiboard hardware)

Console - Panzer Dragoon Orta (Xbox, Sega Smilebit)

PC - Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven (Illusion Softworks) (LS3D engine)

2003

Arcade - OutRun 2 (Sega AM2) (Sega Chihiro hardware)

Console - Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike (GameCube, Factor 5)

PC - Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne (Remedy Enertainment) (MAX-FX 2.0 engine)

2004

Arcade - OutRun 2 SP (Sega AM2) (Sega Chihiro hardware)

Console - Ninja Gaiden (Xbox, Team Ninja)

PC - Doom 3 (id Software) (id Tech 4)

2005

Arcade - The House of the Dead 4 (Sega Wow) (Sega Lindbergh hardware)

Console - Call of Duty 2 (Xbox 360, Infinity Ward) (IW 2.0 engine)

PC - F.E.A.R.: First Encounter Assault Recon (Monolith Productions) (Lithtech Jupiter EX engine)

2006

Arcade - Virtua Fighter 5 (Sega AM2) (Sega Lindbergh hardware)

Console - Gears of War (Xbox 360, Epic Games) (Unreal Engine 3)

PC - The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Bethesda) (Gamebryo engine)

2007

Arcade - Initial D Arcade Stage 4 (Sega Rosso) (Sega Lindbergh hardware)

Console - Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (PS3, Polyphony Digital) (Gran Turismo 5 engine)

PC - Crysis (Crytrek) (CryEngine 2)

2008

Arcade - Sega Rally 3 (Sega Racing Studio) (Sega Europa-R hardware)

Console - Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (PS3, Kojima Productions) (MGS4 engine)

PC - Crysis Warhead (Crytrek) (CryEngine 2)

2009

Arcade - Border Break (Sega AM2) (Sega RingEdge hardware)

Console - Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3, Naughty Dog) (Naughty Dog Engine 2.0)

PC - Shattered Horizon (Futuremark) (3DMark Vantage engine)

2010

Arcade - Vulcan-M (RASSEN) (RASSEN hardware)

Console - God of War III (PS3, Sony) (Santa Monica's God of War III Engine)

PC - Metro 2033 (4A Games) (4A Engine)

2011

Arcade - Initial D Arcade Stage 6 AA (Sega) (Sega RingEdge hardware)

Console - Ace Combat: Assault Horizon (PS360, Namco Project Aces) (Ace Combat engine)

PC - Crysis 2 (Crytek) (CryEngine 3)

2012

Arcade - Gunslinger Stratos (Taito & Square Enix) (Taito Type X3 hardware)

Console - Halo 4 (Xbox 360, 343 Industries) (Halo engine)

PC - Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft) (Dunia Engine 2)

2013

Arcade - Gunslinger Stratos 2 (Taito & Square Enix) (Taito Type X3 hardware)

Console - Ryse: Son of Rome (Xbox One, Crytek) (CryEngine 4th Generation)

PC - Crysis 3 (Crytek) (CryEngine 3)

...Feel free to disagree though, or make any suggestions.

We've certainly come a long way.

Fun to scroll through.

Ryse for 2013...yeah this will go well

Why are you doing this again? Why not put it in Games discussion which then it would maybe attract some other peoples.

Also emulator shots and a few other issues, but no, this should be in games discussion. Maybe you can get LP out of the ashes slightly with this.

Feel free to disagree ? Hu I don't know where to start. Basically I disagree with everything starting from the year 1996.

Call of Duty 2 was released on PC first.

if you're going to disagree you should provide evidence why

Yup, that's quite the difference.

You chose

1996

Diablo

The Sacred Mirror of Kofun

Duke Nukem 3D

1997

Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter

Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

1998

Unreal

Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit

2000

Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed

Soldier of Fortune

Homeworld: Cataclysm

2013

Crysis 3

crytek are graphical bullies lol

lolryse

900p @ 20fps

What a shitty list

I think Sword of Sodan (Amiga, Apple IIGS) looked best in 1988

Didn't John_matherson already make this thread a while back? why another one?

Really cool thread for once, good effort! Expect hermits to whine though lol.

2013 = CRYSIS 3 NOT RYSE... THIS IS JOKE!!!

2004 = NOT FAR CRY BUT HALF LIFE 2 !!!

I think Sword of Sodan (Amiga, Apple IIGS) looked best in 1988.

In 1989.... Battle Squadron for Amiga.

In 1994, Road Rash 3DO or Need for Speed

Banjo kazooie for 1998, for sure. Unbelievable.

F zero gx and panzer dragoon orta deserve it for 2002 (orta, japan) and 2003, they still look incredible to this day, both the art and graphics. Lots of games aged poorly, these games haven't aged much, you need a crt tv though.

Luigi's mansion for 2001 possibly? Rouge squadron might have been doing more compute wise, but luigi's mansion had incredible attention to detail. Starfox adventures desrves a mention at least, even though the game sucked.

These games I know were the cream of the crop, gamecube and xbox had that shit on lock for at least the first 3 years. JSRF was another one, oh man.

Most *impressive* games are pretty debateable these days.

Ryse for this year though? lol

I figured some Sony or PC fans might be upset by this choice. The X1 might be the weakest of the three, but Crytek sure knew how to push it to its limit, whereas the PS4 hasn't really been pushed as far. Crysis 3 on PC probably looks better with mods though, but as far as vanilla graphics go, Ryse looks kind of better to me.

I don't think arcade machines really qualify to be graphical kings as they don't belong to SW.

yet looks better than 1080p KZ:SF or at the very least is comparable. Pretty much makes your 900p 20fps argument moot now doesn't it?

Not really. Ryse has high poly levels on certain charaters and some decent lighting, rest is shit.

to be fair, killzone won't be impressive for long.

I've now updated COD2 to both PC/X360.

I've now updated the OP to specify the different arcade hardware systems for the arcade games.

Giant mistake with Ryse... Otherwise pretty ok list

how can you possibly leave out mario 64, that's as groundbreaking a game that ever existed specifically because of the graphics

For 1996-2000, I assume you mean the best-looking games on home systems, right?

As for 2013, like I said above to lostrib, it was a very close call. It would have been more convenient to just have both, but I wanted to restrict the list to just one per year instead of making it bloated with multiple games per year.

Are you mad that this thread is better than all your shit threads?

Not sure about Half-Life 2 for 2004. I remember Doom 3 looking more impressive on a technical level. But Far Cry was the game that impressed me most that year in terms of graphics. The foliage especially looked really good for its time.

@jun_aka_pekto said:

I think Sword of Sodan (Amiga, Apple IIGS) looked best in 1988.

In 1989.... Battle Squadron for Amiga.

In 1994, Road Rash 3DO or Need for Speed

Those are some nice-looking games. If this were a list exclusive to just console & computer games, then I'd definitely include a few of those games. But because arcade machines were a lot more powerful back in those days, you'll notice that everything from 1972-1998 are just arcade games.

Yeah, but I think it was a copy paste that he edited to make it shittier

Ryse? what..

Might as well put Forza at the end while you're at it.

The thread isn't using examples of graphics for each year, it is naming the graphics kings (and their platform) for each year. Which is why fanboys care so much because there system has to have teh grafix king

It's because of the "graphics king" in the title. Makes people get all upset about it.

It's not like he listed Lococycle instead of Ryse. Like you said, it's just a retrospective, and it's pretty damn cool.

@Jag85: There were variants of the 3DO which looked even better than the natove 3Do version such as the 3Do Blaster which is basically a 3DO on a card that utilized the PC's graphics subsystem. I recall seeing one demoed somewhere. It looked practically identical to the later PC version shown here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b821-IBq0U

2013 is crysis 3 on pc.....

Funny doesn't look like shit on my TV and none of the websites that gave it best graphics on console seem to think so either. I think I'll go with my eyes on this one.

KZ isn't impressive. Looks good but impressive would be a strong word to use.

That´s a pretty decent list( I´d say that for 96 Scud Race would be the best and clearly Aquanox in 2001),it would´ve been more interesting if it was just counting home systems though,otherwise it was expected that arcade games would steamroll almost everything until their mainstream demise.

Also,Crysis 3 is clearly the best looking game of 2013,at least certainly not Ryse.

2013 graphic king is Crysis 3. Ryse isn't in the same league as Crysis 3 on the PC

FEAR was 2005 and it looked better than CoD 2. It can be argued that Doom 3 or Half-Life 2 were the best looking games in 2004.

I also love how once dedicated GPUs for the PC were released, the PC quickly started becoming the go-to platform for best graphics.

Crysis 3 is also a 2013 game and played on a proper high end PC looks better than Ryse. They do run the same engine, only you can push a lot more graphics on a PC than you can on an Xbox One. Ryse has a better artstyle though with more vibrant colors.

Has it been that long since Fear? I felt like that game came out just last generation. It was gorgeous back then. Its a shame that the sequels were not great.

Ryse as the last evolution? hahaha

It's amazing how much graphics have improved in such a short time.

Ryse graphic king confirmed.

Must be seen to be believed.

Yeah it's an older game. The lighting today is pretty primitive but it is pretty dynamic. The effects are great as well.

The biggest snub is easily Dragon's Lair. That game came out in 1983.

Like I said above, 1972-1998 is dominated by arcades because they were a lot more powerful than home systems back then. Nevertheless, Mario 64 did have some of the best graphics on a home system in 1996. I think we could do another list that focuses on home systems, excluding arcade systems, although that would be a lot more difficult.

Road Rash for the 3DO looked very impressive, combining 3D polygons and 2D sprites in an almost seamless manner. It easily rivalled some of the early PlayStation games.

I wasn't sure whether to go with FEAR or COD2. To me, both looked just as good as each other. But trying to limit my list to just one game per year makes it really difficult. Same goes for Crysis 3 and Ryse.

By the way, Ryse uses a 4th generation CryEngine, while Crysis 3 uses CryEngine 3. While Crysis 3 has higher resolutions and more texture details, Ryse has higher polygon counts for the assets as well as improved cinematic lighting & shading effects. Ryse could have looked a lot better if it was a PC game though.

In terms of FMV animation quality, Dragon's Lair would have easily taken it for 1983. However, the problem was that it was completely lacking any real-time graphics. On the other hand, Bega's Battle used both FMV animation overlaid with real-time sprite graphics, which I would consider to be more technically impressive than just plain FMV animation.

i dont see a difference. jeez it looks like no progress has been made :P j/k

nice to scroll through. cool to see the progress being made.