Civ IV is indeed a sweet example.  The game is not that easy on low-end cards, like Intel's, but looks pretty good.  Terrain is very nicely crafted.

What spoils the graphics in FE further is also the way maps are generated.  For example, rivers look ridiculously bad and unrealistic, Quite often then start from nowhere, and end up in nowhere. 

Winner! 

I actually don't like the hexagonal look. But I don't claim one to be dated or not dated. Squares have a natural progression to 3 dimensions, whereas hexagons do not. Navigation done on the world is done via squares not hexagons.

I'm not arguing going for squares over hexagons, just saying I don't care for hexagons for maps in general.

That was caused by lack of memory. It was thought it would be 64-bit but one of the third party libraries they relied on had no 64-bit version.  A 64-bit version of Civ V would have been crazy fast in that department (they would have still had long turn times though as I endlessly needle them about).

That's intersting. Though I wonder with the new Linux Civ5 could they make that version 64-bit?

Yes the vanilla is dated, but mod support adds longevity to games which is why stardock is keen about adding it into GalCiv 3 as user friendly as possible

Minecraft with 2 Mods and 1 Texturepack

All I can say is that the quality of lighting effects makes a huge difference.

Maybe it's because I never really "got" Minecraft, but those pictures all look incredibly dated even compared to WoW, not to mention games with actual high requirements like Skyrim (modded) and crysis.

Minecraft has a couple apects that I think many people here would like.  - exploration and building. It includes finding a good location to build a house  (sound familiar?) and searching for materials you need to survive. The seach or materials isn't easy, and you have a good chance of getting killedin the process, especially in the ealy game, and also in the late game when you enter the "underworld" and the "end". Searching for materials has a similar "just one more turn" feel like when your picking off goodie huts. It also allows you to be creative and build all sorts of structures and mechanisms pretty much limited by your imagination.

I think the biggest thing that will date a game is the shadows and shading of the game, for example minecraft, the biggest killer was a lack of shadows and ambient light affecting the shadows

Minecraft also originally released with programmers graphics in place when the system was still being developed.

I would have to say the ground, mountains, and water. Trees too.

They're most outdated in FE:LH i believe.

Then nametags of cities is outdated as well, It simply don't have enough text space for long names.

However... the catch is if you overhaul the graphics of world then it's the units and cities that look outdated next

In my case, this is very difficult of a question to answer. Because I'm very tolerant of graphics of the game as long as the game is very fun to play.

Because you see I'm still playing skies of arcadia from it's release date in 2000 and it's 2014 now.. but even then I play skies of arcadia less and less due to uh obvious lack of new content And graphics for skies of arcadia don't feel outdated to me cuz it's very fun to play.

Ok I figured it out, if the game becomes boring to play then it's graphics will start to look outdated to people that got bored of such games.

i still have yet to check that one out, but i really ought to.  ive heard nothing but wonderful things about it, and i absolutely loved mrs. kodamas work on the original phantasy star series.  thx for the reminder.

Get the director's cut for skies of arcadia on gamecube if you can. Its most updated with added content.

"look for gamecube in basement" - mk.  ty

A friend of mine got into minecraft some 6 months ago. He convinced the 5 of us to try it, and did all he could within his power to make it enjoyable for us. He crafted us home-bases, homes (hell even churches when I joked that it was Sunday, and the Lord said you can't play minecraft on my day) - but honestly, none of us could get into it.

All of us had the High-res packs from day one. It doesn't matter - it's high-res blocks. Blocks look dated. The game is ugly - he is the only guy from our group that continues to play it.

Now, Planet Explorers, even though it isn't super modern, that I would play - because it is minecraft without the fugly blocks.

Yea, people seem to either love it or hate it, but it does have a big fanbase. And it's probably one of the few modern games that has been able to survive on its own without "linking" itself to Steam.

 Also to your other point - part of the fun/challenge of MC is finding resources and constructing your own buildings while dealing with the mobs. If you have those things pre-built/collected for you, like your friend did, much of the challenge and fun is gone.

ive never even played it and i love it.. it gave us aow3.

AoW 3 just isn't that good in my opinion. 

Lack of empire management depth was okay in the 90's. Now I need much more from my games. 

To be fair, they resurrected aow series after 10+ years of being dead xD I'm giving them time to get things up to speed. And AoW3 with 1.2v update is amazing for combat now. Its at the point where I can say I spend my money good! They even addressed my complaint about pikes being worst unit you could build. Now they can decently harm cavalry unless the said cavalry unit is doomspawn from hell. xD U get what i mean?

I would buy a expac whenever one comes out for aow3.

Lack of variety in the land (especially colors) is the biggest issue for me.

Okay back to topic what i believe makes games look dated is not trying to embrace their own unique art style and making last but trying to emulate others and lacking polish in the experience. And then static plain objects make graphics dated. If a dynamic element can be introduced that can add years in my opinion to the game. For example water/star maps/stuff like that

Unsupported screen resolutions or a new OS not running a game are about the only thing that dates a game for me. I like 3D, 2D isometric, flat, it doesn't really matter.

Games that don't use celshaded graphics or what Nintendo uses can be easily seen as dated. The first Unreal f.e is definetly dated today.

DOOM & Quake have pixels & polygons as big as my head :p