Trippy one.

The Last of Us

Its a survival game.

Yes it's only a survival game, but for me they have done a superb job with the graphics and I would consider it visually mesmerizing.

It might sound odd but the first Monkey Island is to this day the game that impressed me most visually, I was completely enthralled and hypnotized the first time I saw it. The only other game that had a similar effect on me was Little Big Adventure, those super smooth gouraud shaded animations and the crisp SVGA backgrounds were quite the visual treat. Syndicate had SVGA as well but a very limited color palette and only 2D bitmap characters.

Its not a game, but Razzle/Dazzle was quite the mezmerizing DOS screensaver.

Skyrim.
Crysis.
Sleeping Dogs.

Tetris, try taking your eyes off it for a few seconds.

Outland is the first thing that comes to mind.

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outland_(video_game]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outland_(video_game[/url])

The Myst games, in particular Myst 3 onward. Aside from the 4:3 ratio and some minor artifacting, Myst 3 still looks impressive to this day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAShllUlEK0

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is one that springs to mind. Some LOTR type visuals, and other visually interesting environments with interesting perspective.

And this might sound weird, but there were parts of Dear Esther in the caves with the glowing crystals that I still remember.

..whats weird about that? DE had some nice visuals and acustics really. I know some hated it for whatever reason, but personally i liked it.

One of the most visually mesmerising game experiences ive had was in -97 when Total Annihilation was brand new and i had just build my very first plasma battery. I think i watched it turning and shooting for like half a hour or so.

Also finding the swamp in Hexen -95 :)

I guess because it was considered more of a thinking person's journey type game, and in fact it was visually quite memorable.

As far as pure mesmerizing, I could just watch a lavalamp for hours :-) or the visualizations on windows media player.

I don't guess I ever made it that far in Hexen. I lost interest in that one and went back to Doom.

I never cared much for raw graphic horsepower, but some of the games that left me in awe when I saw them (whether because they had the "wow, this thing looks like watching a cartoon!" or because I really -- I mean REALLY -- loved the art direction) are, in no particular order:

- Broken Sword: Shadow of The Templars (I had played loads of point and click adventures before, but this one felt like playing through your own Disney/Dreamworks animated movie, at the time);
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (I know it's nothing special by today's standards, but back then I felt like playing an actual cartoon in video game form, at least for me);
- The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker (say what you will, cel-shaded graphics rock, and they age way better than photo-realistic ones, the original GCN version still looks absolutely gorgeous and charming);
- Psychonauts (The Milkman Conspiracy. Black Velvetopia. Need I say more?);
- Stick It to The Man! (awesome art design!);
- Guacamelee! (see Stick It to The Man!);
- Ether One (it's beautiful. Seriously. As soon as I get some money, it's going to be the first game on my GOG wishlist I'm buying!);
- Shadow of the Colossus (it's amazing what they did just relying on atmosphere and using minimalistic design. One of the best looking games ever, in my humble opinion);
- Silent Hill 3 (I played it on the PC and, my god!, it looked amazing! It's not my favorite one in the series, that honor goes to the second title, but 3 was the one that impressed me the most, visually. I think I had to get a new GPU in order to play it properly, too);
- Legacy of Kain: Defiance (I remember the game box quoting something along the lines of "the best looking Kain to date". And it was. Being a fan of the LoK series since the beginning, having fallen in love with Raziel and his storyline in Soul Reaver, after a "meh, just a cool vampire story" with Silicon Knights' Blood Omen, and having played every single game in the series along the years, seeing Raziel and Kain in such a level of detail and gameplay fluidity almost brought tears to my fanboy eyes);

Sacrifice