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PS2 crappy graphics
Jack-UK
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I put my old PS2 on today and played a couple of games, and I couldn't help but notice how crap the graphics are compared to today's standards. I know it's an old platform but wow I was shocked at how bad the graphics really are. I played The Sims 2: Castaway and Just Cause. I think I'm gonna have to get these on the XBOX 360 to play in HD!!
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Now that's one I haven't played for a long time.
You are surprised the PS2's graphics are not as good as today's consoles? I strongly advise you do not compare a PC from the year 2000 against the gaming graphics of a PC from 2012.
I see your point. Wouldn't say I was surprised though.
That's true, although I don't own a PS3, the only latest console I own is the Xbox 360. Graphics are great on that but I'm sure PS3s are probably better being a newer generation console.
The very first console I owned was the PS1, now I must have been 5 or 6 years old when I got that and I thought it was amazing, but again I think if I were to play it today I'd be totally put off by the graphics.
Exactly, that's what I was trying to say but couldn't think of the words, thanks.
I think a number of things contribute to the perceived difference in quality though, think of the year 2000 (release of PS2) and the kind of TV you had, it would almost certainly have been a CRT and likely 32 inches at most, many were less. Smaller screens help to hide graphical limitations and CRT TVs are a lot more forgiving of SD sources anyway and do help to minimise the prominence of visual artefacts be they from over-compressed digital TV or jaggy textures on a PS2 game. Plus the resolution of the PS2 is a much better match to the SD resolution of CRTs while on LCDs it has to be up scaled a lot (again reducing the quality you see). Plus using the bog standard composite lead instead of RGB Scart or Component (though sadly few PS2 games support component properly) will further muddy the picture.
Aside from that the sheer longevity of this generation (which I am all for) has meant that graphics have been honed to an impressive degree only serving to emphasise just how much more advanced they are than the previous generation.
Saying that, some games hold up better than others as mentioned Gran Turismo 4 is one of the PS2 visual stand outs as is Final Fantasy XII which was very highly praised at the time, they even came close to getting realistic looking character hair which is pretty amazing for PS2 technology.
I also find that 2D games stand the test of time much better than 3D ones. I can quite comfortably still play 2D games from PS1 and even the 16 bit generation (SNES and Megadrive) where as I find PS1 3D games look absolutely shockingly bad today.
Agreed, consoles certainly have come a long way in the last ten years or so. I remember playing GTA Vice City and GTA 3 on the PS2 and you just can't compare it to what we have today with graphics. As for the TV I am using, I believe it is a 28" CRT. It was recently in the living room at my Mum's house until we upgraded to a 40" LCD TV and I had the 28" CRT TV moved to my bedroom.
I haven't played it for a while but GTA San Andreas was a good one too, I could play that for hours and the graphics wouldn't bother me. Now I play GTA IV on my 360, at my Dad's where I have a 32" LCD TV so I can play it in HD. Got to admit, I much prefer to do that than to play PS2 and look at crappy blurry graphics on my screen.
By the way, it's nice to see we live in the same area.
Look at the resident evil remake its,a stunning looking game to this very day and IMO is still up there look at the sheer detail in every room of that game its amazing sure its all prerendered but so what it looks amazingand can still scare imo
Silent hill 3 is another that looks stunning now even remastered in HD to show all the details from the game
you can tell these two games where made with love by the developers
The details on the character models on jilll,chris,barry etc from RE and heather from silent hill 3 is also still great even today
Resident evil 4 came late in the era but holds up very well even its gameplay design which inspired alot of what we see nowadays with third person shooters
A 60gb PS3 through HDMI returned a lot of that beauty.
Tbh back in the day i thought the graphics looked os real
I thought the game Black looked good on PS2 even though it was a poor game, i thought MGS 2 and 3 looked amazing and i can still play them today
I still play these! It's been years since I last played them, but my opinion on MGS2 has changed a lot, I actually think it's very under rated now, after MGS4, if you play back MGS2, that game does a perfect job is setting everything up and more! The Entire Tanker and Big Shell Incident is one amazing event that really flipped the world events over.
vice city, best game ever made
Resident Evil 4 looked and still does look fantastic on the PS2, loved WRC2, I thought graphics couldn't get any better look how wrong I was!