Very tough decision here. Many games which I would be tempted to put here, like Flower for the PS3, or even Portal, I simply can't comment properly on because I haven't played them. Even Smash Bros Brawl has excellently detailed renderings of all of the characters which I love. But there is one game which I feel deserves this title.
Starcraft was made in the mid 90's and so obviously, can't compare with games made today directly. But it remains one of my favourite games graphically, and the reason is quite simple. The characters are relatively rather small and if you watch closely, they only have a few different poses, but that doesn't matter. Everything in the game is simply done, but still detailed and interesting to look at, right down to the basic Zergling. They only have maybe 5 different poses they can stand in, but when watching a massive battle take place, you can still see everything which is happening cleanly and clearly. There is no confusion about what is going on which you get in other, more graphically advanced games. Just watch the Transformers movie and tell me that improved graphics makes for clearer images. Starcraft was smooth, streamlined, and remains one of my favourite games as a result.
It is this graphical style, which was used similarly in Warcraft II at the same time, which is what I didn't like about the graphics increase they made for Warcraft III (and what I am afraid of in Starcraft II). It's more difficult to make out what all the units are and what they're doing in a big battle in Warcraft III because there is more to them. More to see, more to process, more to be confused by. Starcraft was simple, but it was elegant, and I think it deserves this title as a result.
