Have you had a genuine next gen moment on the consoles this gen? (Please no game spoilers)

Sorry if this topic has been made already but I recently got a PS4 and I may not have really paid close attention before. Game wise I've just started playing MGS5 and I know I have to get to The Witcher 3 but other than those, have you had a real next gen moment games wise or console wise?

The little I've spent with the console hasn't yet impressed me. It seems like a good game machine but as a multimedia hub, I get the feeling it's behind the PS3. UI wise, the XMB's strip down and simple interface, while long way from perfect, wasn't confusing and didn't feel cluttered. The main menu, after all this time, isn't really customizable. The touch pad on the controller also seems useless. There are other tiny little things that bug me (why is turning off the controller multiple menus deep?) but maybe it's to be expected considering it's a Sony product. All the sharing stuff, like Windows 8 with metro tile (or Star Craft 2 with ladder), is a cool feature but shouldn't be the focus because it's something most people (or is it just me?) don't really use that much or at all.

I know things change slowly and gradually. I don't reget buying the thing because I love shiny new toys and I know I'll get a lot of use out of it for many years to come.

I'm just wondering cause a lot of you have had it for probably 2 years now. This is about consoles, please no comparisons to your PC.

i def had a moment with infamous second son where since im not a pc gamer, i was extremely impressed with the fidelity of everything. same with batman arkham knight, specifically how few frames would drop whilst zooming around gotham.

Occasionally I start thinking about a game and if it could have happened on the previous gen. I don't think there is a game I've played and thought "there's no way this could work on previous gen." But, I think it's always been a gradual thing. I think there will be a point in a year or so when I go back and play Skyrim or something and just think how small it feels.

It's funny you brought up MGSV because that did release on 360 and PS3, no idea how those versions are though.

Unsurprisingly, the two highlights for me are Witcher 3 and MGSV. W3 set the bar on how to make your world look and feel alive, rather than static background (looking at you, DA:I). MGSV did a great job with lighting that both looked fantastic and fit the overall style, but also merged it with gameplay well enough to not have to include "stealthmeter" you see in most other stealth games. Other than that, I can't really remember any other titles from this year that have had impression on me, GTAV was fine but it didn't really push the envelope in any other areas than the budget.

W3 & MGSV felt like a new breed of classic. Had not been so impressed in a long, long time.

Next gen for me is whenever there is a title that pushes my PC and I can sustain it maxed out at 60fps

I think AC Unity on PC looked amazing and it still does, the lightning and interiors are breathtaking, near photorealistic.

GTA 5 on the high hill at night and watching all the traffic move as a tiny light bulbs was also a highlight.

And The Witcher 3 the way wind bends trees and bushes, how the grass interacts with Geralt and dusk/dawn is probably one of the most beautiful things in gaming. The way sun interacts with trees and the sheer quality of everything. And also choice and consequnce mechanic , when the consequences happen after 10 or so hours of gameplay and not instantly. Maaan Witcher 3 looks god damn good.

I haven't had a "next gen" moment since the SNES -> Playstation jump I think. Although I think I had a minor moment like that when I tried Serious Sam for the first time.

Yeah, I would say that Second Son was the first real "wow" moment of this gen for me, at least in terms of graphics, if not gameplay.

The first time I saw a thunderstorm in Witcher had me stop awestruck. Just the way the trees bent in the wind as the cracks of sunlight peered in from between the clouds and rain blew my mind.

I think the nemesis system in Shadows of Mordor was pretty "next gen" it's more subtle but I don't think it was in the PS3/360 versions.

Oh yeah quite a few and it always happens when I'm not expecting it. Phantom Pain had a few, inFamous did but it was all visual. A few more would be Metro Redux, Bloodborne, Project Cars, Driveclub (visual only), and of course GTAV even though I'd played through it on PS3.The Witcher was probably one of the most substantial, the weather effects were beautiful and even something as simple as branches swaying in the breeze made it all the more realistic. I'm sure Fallout will have similar moments in spades.

Last one I can remember was my time with Witcher 3 and the AI system in Shadow of Mordor. I haven't played MGSV yet though so I'm expecting to have another similar moment with that game

@lisatiffany: could you explain if possible? You named a lot of games. Also, what about GTA5? Isn't it more impressive that the last gen could handle it?

Not really. But playing through Ryse I was constantly blown away by the visuals. I just don't feel like we are getting that 2D to 3D jump again, unless VR catches on.

The Nemesis system couldn't work on older consoles, although I still couldn't get into it.

I know you said "other than Witcher 3", but that's honestly the best answer I've got. You couldn't have Novigrad or even Oxenfurt on the last generation consoles, they just couldn't have put that much data into RAM and the processors couldn't have handled that many NPC's.

My next gen experience has nothing to do with graphics. I just don't give a shit about how good a game looks. At all. I don't have a PS4 because all I'd play on it is Bloodborne, and my bff already brought his PS4 over here several times so I could beat it under his watchful (and hint-filled) eyes. Does Bloodborne look great? Yeah. But, like...so does Dark Souls. *shrug*. I just can't bring myself to care about that kind of thing.

You know what did give me legit next gen feels? Me and the gf just bought a Wii U. To most of you, that probably doesn't even count as next gen. You know what though? That gamepad is amazing. I can play games laying down, without even turning on the TV. Me and the gf can do local co-op on one console while having our own screens. She can play Mario Maker while I play something on the PS3 using the TV. It offers so many options. Aiming with the gyroscope while looking at the screen feels new and it feels good. It actually works well.That gamepad is truly revolutionary in a way the wiimote never felt like it was. It doesn't feel like a gimmick to me, it feels like progress. Actual progress, not just beefier chips and better graphics progress. It makes me wish all consoles from now on would come with a gamepad with a touchscreen.

In terms of actual system functionality I absolutely prefer my PS4 to my PS3. (And I did use my PS3 a whole lot.) Most things about the PS3 just feel so slow and clunky after spending so much time on the PS4. I hate hate hate going into the store on PS3 because it's so painfully slow. Accessing and sorting through games is way easier for me on PS4. If I want to text chat with another person I don't have to create individual messages with an obnoxiously low character limit. Although my favorite is how quickly and easily I can get back to the XMB while running a program and even open up other apps like Netflix without having to quit out of everything. It's a huge boon for me personally, because I do that a lot. Are these things true "next gen" features? I don't know, but they certainly make me want to use the system more.

As for games, both Dragon Age: Inquisition and The Witcher 3 had more than a few "wow" moments that couldn't have been done on a previous gen console. I also have some experience with a few multi-platform games on both PS3 and PS4, namely FFXIV and Destiny, and the difference was pretty dramatic. To the point that if I was only given the option to play them on PS3 I would choose to not play them. (Even after spending a good solid month with FFXIV: ARR at launch.)

Well with GTAV once I got out of the city and headed up into the mountains it looked even more lush and realistic than it did on PS3. The game itself didn't look terrible on PS3 but the extra draw distance and first person mode made it look and feel brilliant. There was no real sense of urgency in the PS3 version but I remember doing my first police chase in first person mode and thinking it was well worth the buy. Drive Club looked fantastic but played really poorly, I know they have released a number of patches since then but it was the audio that really felt next gen. With Project Cars it just looked and played brilliantly right out of the box, the audio too was spot on. I mentioned Metro because it made a big impression on me, I'd pretty much given up on shooters at the time. I remember the first time you come up out of the Metro and have to make your way through the city streets, small things like wiping the mask really added to the realism. Then there was a mission where you are outside in a storm and the enemy are trying to find you, it was the one game that made me not give up on shooters.

One of the moments that really stuck out in The Witcher was my first boat journey in Skellige, when the skies opened up and started storming it was done so well you would almost think it wasn't a game. Some of the locations and mountain top vistas also added to the realism, it might take about 10 minutes to scale your way up a mountain but once you get up there the views are amazing. I think inFamous concentrated too much on visuals and maybe they didn't think that maybe the main protagonist was so annoying that not everyone would enjoy playing as him, I wondered if that's why they released the DLC. It felt like a tech demo as if Sony were saying "look at all the pretty lights and colours we know", so visually it could be stellar at times.

When the PS4 originally launched I wasn't all that impressed but I think next gen games are only now starting to get it right, Fallout will hopefully be one of those games that show off not just the power but the need for next gen. I'll still play the PS3 every now and then, but when it comes to realism I have to go with next gen. It can work both ways though, just because a game looks good it doesn't mean it's a guaranteed must play, Watch Dogs looked decent and felt real-ish... but was so boring I never bothered finishing it. Lords of the Fallen looked good too and played a lot like a Souls game but it didn't do anything new and felt broken. Theif was another game that could have been a lot better, it did look good and apart from it's many audio glitches sounded good but there was never enough to do on the map to ever make it feel real. Last but not least I'd have to add Arkham Knight to the list and there are many reasons why - at the opening when the camera pans up and seconds later you are controlling batman as you glide through Gotham it's nothing short of beautiful, they even managed to make the rain on his cowl look super realistic. In the end though they use all of that power to create what was essentially a tank simulator. They conveniently evacuated the regular law abiding citizens of the city and instead populated the streets with thug after thug that looked super copy and pasted. They nailed the visuals and the audio but there is too much time spent in the tank to make it feel any way realistic. Arkham Asylum didn't allow for vehicles and in the end it was a much better game for it, story aside it had more substance and actually made you feel like you were doing something worth while.

As a PC gamer, not really. Bloodborne certainly did some nice work with the cloth physics and blood, but otherwise nothing has been that great. Graphics are pretty average compared to pc, and framerates are still too low for me to actively enjoy playing on my ps4. It's shame, I was hoping for more out of them.

@davidh219: na Wii U totally counts. I'm not asking about graphics because that is a given.

Seeing Halo 5 at 60fps actually impressed me a lot and I only play PC games now.

Witcher 3 was a huge leap graphically from anything else on console, and after the patches the frame rate improved.

However, consoles have terrible game-load performance with games like the Witcher so :(

Batman: Arkham Knight. To me, it is the most impressive game on the new consoles. The frame rate almost never drops. There are no load times. I felt like on the 360 or PS3 that side characters would look worse than the main characters. That doesn't happen in Arkham Knight. Some of it is because of the great art style that Rocksteady has established, but man, does that game look great.

Second Son was and still is one of the best looking games on the current consoles.

Playing Battlefield 4 at 60fps on a console was probably the first "next-gen" moment I experienced this generation. Felt like I was playing something more akin the PC version, for once. Shame that hasn't quite became a staple with shooters on the PS4/Xbox One, but it impressed me that one time at least.

Battlefield 4. My last time with the series was BC2 on the 360, but the opening of the campaign where you're standing in a hallway made me go "wow." And the chaos of multiplayer with the larger player count blew me away. So not bad for a first day, and not just based on graphics. Infamous looked really great and Need for Speed: Rivals made good early impressions, too, but that was just visual (as Infamous was a step back in every single other department).

Batman was the most recent game to really impress. It looked absolutely incredible and performed well with all that rain. Battlefront also caught my eye during the beta.

Looks like seeing Halo 5 in my living room might be the next one to knock my socks off, possibly Tomb Raider or the new NFS.

This is going to sound weird because the game kind of isn't great.

But I was playing Watch Dogs right after it came out and while running down the street I saw a car rear end another car that was waiting at a red light. At that point the 2 drivers got out of their respective cars and started arguing with each other.

It's been very subtle, but where I have seen it so far has been in the character models of the major AAA releases. Specifically the faces and especially extremities (fingers and toes). Its' weird to see fingernails and toenails and such now that don't look horribly out of place on a character model with a very detailed face.

There also has been seemingly less pop in issues (although it still happens), and I've been pretty surprised by how much more immersive it makes the games feel to me.

Granted I've played them on PC, but those were ports of console games so I presume the same holds true there. Also granted it's not the kind of thing to just blow you away, but I feel like the improvements are beginning to show.

Crysis is still in the top 5 best looking games ever. 2007.

Still waiting for gt7

First genuine next gen moment for me was being able to save a screenshot or video of something hilarious (I think it was for Black Flag). Sure, PC had it for many years but being able to do the same with consoles is a godsend. No more shitty phone screenshots!

My first next-gen moment was playing Dragon Age: Inquisition on the Xbox One. There were a couple of moments in that game where the sun hit perfectly (lighting) and the vista was just right. It actually had me just staring for quite a bit of the game.

Outside of graphical stuff, no, which is a shame.

@citizencoffeecake: yeah def, and also the ps3/xbox360 versions of dying light were cut as well. i guess you could say by those standards those games were definitely next gen, since the older consoles couldnt handle it.

Shadow of Mordor. The Nemesis System is a dope thing that should definitely be implemented into more games.

When I was playing Assassins Creed IV Black Flag, I would just be sailing along and my crew woudl start singing shanties and I'd be using my spy glass to see enemy ships and it was just magical.

I still think Black Flag was about as close to a "good" AC games as they had gotten. That's the problem with multiple teams, once one of them does it perfectly, the other team instead of learning from them are instead competitive trying to blot out the other games triumphs and ideas.. Unity and Syndicate are used toilet paper companies toe Black Flag. And meanwhile we are getting further and further away form what BF was doing right. There was talk of splitting off Black Flag into its own series, and they REALLY should have done that. However, I fear that idea has been binned forever, as Unity and Syndicate swirl down the bowl where they belong.

Nope. Nothing has in fact convinced me to buy a console yet this generation. I upgraded my PC and have played some newer games there, and if anything, video games are regressing. I imagine it's a reaction to the glitch and patch riddled games that the "triple A" developers have been pumping out the past couple of years. Games probably need to get a little bit worse before they can get better. Though. once we've got machines capable of some decent, real-time ray-tracing, I imagine we'll see some true graphical innovation at least. Game play or AI revelation will take significantly more time. AI especially doesn't seem to be improving in the slightest.

The thing is, I'm fine with this. Games don't need to be innovative to be fun. I spend most of my gaming time playing old games. Just because a game is innovative doesn't always make it good. In fact, a lot of the best games ever made innovated little to nothing and were just very well implemented examples of existing techniques.

The opening level of Killzone Shadow Fall and all of Infamous Second Son were some of the early ones. Maybe the rest of Killzone also looked incredible, but I couldn't bring myself to play past the third level or so. Infamous still looks really good, I think.

Other than visuals, there hasn't been much. Other than first party titles, almost everyone has been making games for last gen as well, which limits what they can do without making the last gen version missing huge parts of the game. First party support, especially from Sony, has been bad this generation as well. We haven't had the Gears of War or Uncharted 2 or Call of Duty 4 kind of games that really push your expectations of what games can do. The Witcher 3 is the closest I've come to that this generation, but I played that on PC, and the console version suffered from frame-rate problems until recently (and still isn't anywhere near 60fps).

Other than that, I've enjoyed when games run at 60fps, but there has been far too little of that.

Lots of examples for me. All kinds of shit in Witcher 3, environmental stuff especially. Steamrolling hundreds of zombies in DR 3, raids w/six friends in Destiny, racing in a thunder and lightning storm against 23 AI in Forza 6. Huge faction battles in ESO. BF4 big map, big numbers mp and all the organic insanity that you see very often. "Xbox record that".

Add me to the Shadow of Mordor Nemesis system bandwagon. I don't quite get what about it couldn't be done last gen (maybe just all the content involved?), but that system is the game, and the storylines that emerge from it are pretty deep.

For AI, Killer Instinct's Shadows absolutely demands a mention. This is probably the first time in video game history that you could play a legitimate match in a fighting game against the goddamn AI -- and, having made some educated guesses as to the tech behind the scenes, I think it's a genuine technological advancement.
KI also seems to be the first big mainstream fighter to adopt rollback netcode, but it's sad that a technology that has existed for a while has to be considered "next-gen". (Also MKX dropped the ball here, so maybe it's just false.)

Others that come to mind are Forza 6's puddles (I've played the demo, the qualifier where it's raining is nuts) and probably Crackdown's destruction physics.