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1993-MYST
There's more to videogames than just graphics, of course. But there's no denying the power of a well-turned polygon. Often before we ever play a videogame, our first experience with it is purely visual: through screenshots or, more often these days, a trailer.
Over the last 20 years, game graphics have made astonishing leaps in fidelity, and the range of visual expression adopted by designers has broadened considerably. There's not a year that's gone by without us being impressed, startled, or shocked by a game that even at first glance looks like nothing we've ever seen before.
Here are our picks of the games that made the biggest impact with advancements in graphics over the last 20 years. For each year, we've picked out a game that made jaws drop. For some, it was largely because the game pulled off amazing technical wizardry. For others, it was because of a novel artistic approach. We've also weighed in on whether the game still looks good today.
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