MrHappy255:
Um, ya Bioshock for the PC when I cranked up the settings and watched the opening my jaw was open the whole time. I mean cmon the water on the lens thing that movies do now a days just floored me because it looked so good.

Agreed. It's very very pretty.

Although I'm actually not that keen on the gameplay to be honest. It just doesn't feel quite right for some reason which is a shame because I'm enjoying the unorthodox storyline.

Apparently Bioshock has been commissioned for a movie coming soon. Let's just hope it's better than the Doom movie was!

Assasin's creed for visuals

Halo 3 for sheer funitude (i missed the memo to hate it)

"Halo 3 for sheer funitude (i missed the memo to hate it"
I didn't miss it I just burned it with my Halo green lighter.

I believe it was I got my TV upgraded to HD, and I was playing COD4 avidly back then. I started up the console, and was gob smacked at the visuals... I don't think I can go back to playing a game in non-HD again...

This "WOW" Moment happens every few months, so i'm kinda unsure.

I think the first one on the Xbox 360 was when the embassy blew up in Ghost Recon:Advanced Warfighter.
Somehow that impressed me more than the spectacular helicopter flights.

But, as said, the "WOW" Moment happens every few games or so

Like in Fight Night when you first see the the slow motion impact of a fist to a face.

Or in Just Cause, when you could fly so high that you could see the curvature of the earth.

Or when i got my 22'' Widescreen TFT Monitor, and put in every game i had to see it the first Time in High Definition.

Or the thunderstorms in GTA IV

or so many other things...

Frybird:
This "WOW" Moment happens every few months, so i'm kinda unsure.

I think the first one on the Xbox 360 was when the embassy blew up in Ghost Recon:Advanced Warfighter.
Somehow that impressed me more than the spectacular helicopter flights.

But, as said, the "WOW" Moment happens every few games or so

Like in Fight Night when you first see the the slow motion impact of a fist to a face.

Or in Just Cause, when you could fly so high that you could see the curvature of the earth.

Or when i got my 22'' Widescreen TFT Monitor, and put in every game i had to see it the first Time in High Definition.

Or the thunderstorms in GTA IV

or so many other things...

I recenly got me own 22" TFT HD monitor too and I love it as if it were my own child. I may hug it right now to say thank you to it for it's sterling good work so far. Crysis looks jaw-dropping on it.

My gfriend actually thought I was watching a DVD the other day until she realised I was shooting things! :D

I've had several WOW moments since i bought my xbox 360 and a 28" flatscreen..

The first and biggest however was when I first played Lost Planet in complete darkness on my xbox with my stereo turned up. That was incredibly awsome.. the look, the sound, the feel.. Its really hard to describe, but at that moment, all my doubts about spending that much money on a game system and a TV were completely washed away and I knew it was only going to get more awsome from here on

doublepost sorry

Mine was probs the first time you see the vast hordes of the undead trying to munch on your gooey blood filled body in dead rising. That was kool

The only one I can rememeber is launching a tactical nuke in World In Conflict....I'll come back when I can think of a better one.

*Walks away hanging head in shame*

Bioshock, no doubt. I liked it better than Crysis, which was immensely impressive but didn't breathe the amazing atmosphere of Bioshock.

It's pretty old but my First "Next Gen 'WOW' Moment" had to be PGR 3. At the time, the graphics were simply too amazing for my tiny brain to handle. I felt overwhelmed by their awesomeness. I thought I was playing a TV show, it felt THAT good.

Course now i can point out things like Aliasing and stuff. Time does games no favours.

The move from mono CGA to EVGA.

I'd have to say Burnout Paradise, seeing the driving around, the smooth graphical detail, and of course, the detail in the crashing just was great to see. Of course, part of this may be because I only own a Wii and not either of the other two juggernauts in the console business right now, but I really have to say the leap forward is significant if you look at these games compared to the last console generation.

Bioshock was the game that really grabbed my attention.I found myself looking for every diary just as an excuse to explore the beautiful landscape.The plane crash itself was a 'wow' moment, and everything after that was just as great.

Kedcom:

MrHappy255:
Um, ya Bioshock for the PC when I cranked up the settings and watched the opening my jaw was open the whole time. I mean cmon the water on the lens thing that movies do now a days just floored me because it looked so good.

Agreed. It's very very pretty.

Although I'm actually not that keen on the gameplay to be honest. It just doesn't feel quite right for some reason which is a shame because I'm enjoying the unorthodox storyline.

Apparently Bioshock has been commissioned for a movie coming soon. Let's just hope it's better than the Doom movie was!

Ya know what I kind of agree with you about the gameplay which is fun but not amazing or anything but I just totally became enthralled with the world and could not stop playing it. If more games actually used story to progress you through the game instead of checkpoints how much more enjoyable would it be for all of us.

I say this because I am not a total graphics whore but if it advances the story better than previous iterations of any style of game then I am all for it and secondly I love the physics of tossing people all over the place and blowing them up.

I haven't been blown-away by technical awesomeness lately, but a lot of pretty games have made me say "Wow." Bioshock for being so unique and Mass Effect for being beautiful. I like Mass Effect because it was one game where the developers didn't decide that the future will be a filthy, run-down mess.

My two major moments for technical and graphical awesomeness were for Mario 64 and Half-life 2. At the time Mario 64 was so far beyond anything I had experienced that it shocked my system. Half-life 2 was the first game that I played on my "MONSTER GAMING RIG!!" That initial chase where you flee from combine and get knocked out only to awake to Alyx's beautiful, expressive face knocked my socks off. My "MONSTER GAMING RIG!!" is definately showing its age now (like a boxer who should have retired a year earlier). I'm now waiting for another "must have" PC game to come out in order to build a whole new system.

Verdammnis:
SPOILER...

When the two scarabs came down from the sky on The Covenant in Halo 3. My jaw just dropped.

I think that was mine too. Only because I bought my Xbox the year earlier and didn't play anything until Halo 3 because imo there was nothing good out at all.

When I got out of the sewers in Oblivion. It was the first game I played and the water, the forest and the butterfly that flew past made my jaw drop.

Playing Tom Claney Rainbow Six vegas 2 (which I hate) on my mates 80 inche HD projector with cracked up suround sound. The whole experience made the game good.

I remember being amazed by the graphics on Alex Kidd for the Master System, but if you mean the current gen, then I would have to say in Assassin's Creed, when looking up at the fortress at Masyaf.

First PC one-- Oblivion, coming out of that sewer and realizing... "This isn't a cutscene, is it..."

First console-- Bioshock DEMO no less, crashing into the ocean, surfacing, and realizing... "The cutscene stopped about 30 seconds ago, didn't it..."

First hand-held-- World Ends With You, realizing a few seconds ago that I have been sneaking fights in at work, at stoplights, between bites of food, in the middle of other games, and have managed to cause 10 copies to be purchesed... amongst 7 people.

Pretty Obvious- The first out of them all, when I first moved around in Gears of War. It was a beautiful tear jerking moment that I can only compare to the first time I saw Halo on The XBOX (having previously only had a SNES and PS1). Everything was so photorealistic.. mmm

On the PC- When I first ran into the portal in WoW Burning Crusade and came out the other side. The proportions of the world, the .. absolutely awe inspiring sky...

Oh yes and Bioshock was rather tasty and musically great. and fantastic and </fangirls>

Deadrising, probably the first next gen game I observed, watched it at my cousins and walked in to see he'd picked up a katana for the first time. oh. my. god. I have to get a 360 and this game, which I did and haven't regretted since.

ElArabDeMagnifico:
Yeah it's pretty much what Eye Spider said.

I'd like to add all the ways I could kill zombies in Dead Rising, but that was pretty much the only good thing about the game. >_>

Obviousley you didnt play it for that long. Mine would be the first explosion in Resistance. Blew me away.

Okay just for clarification. What exactly are we calling "Next Gen" ?
Anyway my biggest "wow" moment was waaay back when I first played FF VIII. I remember just sitting there all wide eyed at the opening FMV. Also later on in the game when you are in that really fuken pretty high tech city. Just the games a bit dated its one of the lat times I can truly associate fantastic grapics with decent storyline.

One of mine was seeing how well Halflife 2 ported over to Next Gen consoles

Xwii360:
When was your first next-gen wow moment?
Mine would have to be when I first stepped out of the sewers in Oblivion, I just had so much freedom I didn't know what to do with myself.

As soon as I saw the title of this thread I thought "Has to be the first moment seeing the world in Oblivion." And then you and eight other people beat me to it. :)

Oh, and I did think Bioshock had a beautiful game world and awesome sound and music. My problem with that game was there didn't seem to actually be very much to DO there, except find new and inventive ways to kill Splicers, and I'm not the kind of gamer who goes into that stuff too deeply (I was bought up on Doom in the good old days. If you could use the BFG9000, you'd damn well use the BFG9000, and stuff tactics!) I can see why other people loved the game though, it was one helluva spectacle.

Oblivion when I first stepped outside the sewers.
"Okay, so I gotta go see some priest, so I'd bett-"
...
...
"This is big..."

when i bought my 360... i wasn`t to amaze by it ... but a month later they bought a HDTv , and i was playing LOST PLANET ... it was something like WOW!!!!!!!!! , and the i put gears and i was SOOOOOO AMAZE by the graphics .. i almost cried...! xD

My first next gen (can we call it "current gen" at this point?) game was Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion on Xbox 360. After a few hours of playing I stopped running from quest to quest and just start admiring the scenery. The water effects, the trees, the grass, all of it made my jaw drop. I hadn't really taken the time to appreciate it before that.

First level of Resistance in Harvey Norman.

Bioshock was the first game to genuinaly scare me since donkey kong 64.

Sure I was impressed with the graphics when I first got a 360, but it wasn't until I experienced how awesome the physics were on GTAIV did it hit me.

My first "wow" moment was while playing Ratchet and Clank Future. Noticing that not only did Ratchet's position change slightly for each weapon, but that his shadow and everyone else's shadow matched them perfectly. And then realizing that there was an entire war going on in the background set against one of the most beautiful cityscapes I've ever seen in a video game. I had to stand still a few times and rotate in a circle just to get a good look around me. Oh yeah, that was a good afternoon. And most of the worlds after that were just as breathtaking, especially the ones where you could use the flight pack. Aside from the glider and the jet-pack in the second game, I was never really able to move around like that. I actually crashed a few times because I kept going off course to see more, and when I could finally "free fly" I just went everywhere I could. Okay, so I guess that's two, but they're closely linked together.