Summary
While the original PlayStation debuted more than a quarter of a century ago, its arrival alongside its contemporaries in the fifth generation ushered in a revolution in gaming. From cinematic FMVs to highly-detailed environments with a dynamic camera, the PSX took gamers into a new dimension (the third) thanks to an explosion of innovation in design and programming.
The following games weren’t just impressive because of their leap to 3D. Using optimization, crafty art techniques, or hacking memory allowances, they rewrote the game design rulebook (sometimes the computing rules of the console itself) to produce technological miracles.
In an era when fog effects or the clever use of walls were used to hide pop-in and pop-out with the limited draw distance the PlayStation could provide, the team behindSpyro the Dragonat Insomniac proved that the sky is the limit by developing now-ubiquitous level-of-detail scaling, which converts distant objects to a lower-resolution render, freeing up processing power in a large map.
This may have been developed in part due to the team’s aspirations to allow Spyro to fly freely through certain levels. Spyro was released before the widespread distribution of the analogue stick, and to compensate, a rocket scientist from NASA, Matt Whiting, was hired to provide players with space-age flight controls that would feel as smooth as flying on a real pair of dragon wings.
AlthoughGran Turismo 2was infamously riddled with bugs on release, its wins in the graphical realm and immersive instant replays department ushered ina bright future for theGran Turismoseriesand helped put the PlayStation in front in terms of production value.
The metallic sheen that seemingly reflected the track and surroundings made its cars look photorealistic to gamers of the time, a feature that could be admired from the impressive instant replay feature that blurred the lines between playing a game and watching an actual race on TV.
Even though they had no model to work from in 3D platformers (or 3D space in general), Naughty Dog had high ambitions for their first foray into this new dimension withCrash Bandicoot. They wanted to go beyond stiff animations and cumbersome loading times.
However, to get the processing power they would need,Naughty Dog’s lead programmer Andy Gavinwould need to squeeze every drop of memory out of the console. By injecting data chunks like information packets and eschewing textures in favor of memory-light shading, they were able to give Crash obscenely detailed levels and animations, cartoon-like stretch frames and bone weighting that contributed to thebandicoot’s astronomical popularityin the 90s and 2000s.
It is hardly difficult to appreciateMetal Gear Solidas a technically impressive achievement given its graphical fidelity and mechanical depth. From small details, such asthe lack of wobbling in the environment(caused by a console-wide pixel rendering issue) to the obvious high level of detail on each model and environment,MGSblows its contemporaries out of the water.
The cinematography the series is famous for was made possible by a suite of technological breakthroughs, from blurring to smooth animation rendering and audio compression. Some of the most memorablefourth-wall breakingmoments, such as the fight against Psycho Mantis, were made possible thanks to a thorough understanding of the PSX’s architecture.
Although the PS5 boasts the near-elimination of loading times as its main selling point, Crystal Dynamics managed to producea game with zero loading timefrom the moment the player starts or loads their save inLegacy of Kain: Soul Reaver. With the clever use of twisting levels and culling, Raziel is able to traverse the entire map without a single cut away (including during portal fast travel).
Not only is the game rendering a continuous level, but it renders two at all times. Raziel is able to shift between the material, physical world and the eerie world of wrathes and ghosts any time, any place. When he does, the then-groundbreaking audio manager seamlessly transitions between an alternate music track to match the atmosphere.
WhenQuake 2released on PC, it was a game-changer for first-person shooters. As the PlayStation did not come with the bleeding-edge rendering capacity of contemporary gaming PCs, the porting team was given a choice: cut and make compromises or build thenow-legendary 90s sci-fi shooterfrom scratch.
Heroically, they chose the latter option. They developed a brand new, PSX-oriented engine that used algorithms and dynamic level loading to milk every last drop out of the console’s processing power. As a result, the port ran just as smoothly and beautifully with no cut to frames-per-second, and is still known as being one of the greatest ports ever produced.
AsTerraconwas never released outside of Europe, it is not well known inretro gaming circlesas other innovative titles. However, this PS1 game may as well have been released as a launch game for the PS2 given its insane draw distance and ability to render detailed objects in these massive, fully-explorable environments.
Players traverse over 30 massive levels in search of launch codes to take down the Terracon, rogue machines intent on destruction.Terraconwas ahead of its time in big and small features, from its day-night cycle to its impressive, fully 3D and fully expressive facial animations.
The artists behindVagrant Storywere veterans of 2D and isometric art, but new to creating 3D characters and environments. While this would have been a handicap for any other team, they instead used what they knew about simulating lighting and creating fine detail with pixels on a flat plane to bringthe world of Ivaliceto life.
Not only are environments “lit” with the clever use of color shading, to the point where the engine can portray diffused lightwithout a dedicated lighting system, but character models are also “lit” in scenes thanks to model swapping. Facial expressions, lip movement, and realistic eye tracking are all portrayed on models with half the polygon count given to characters in other Square eyecandy games, such asFinal Fantasy 8.
