Spyro the Dragon launched in 1998, a year and bit after that issue of Next Generation linked. Spurs was one of the first games to make use of varying levels of detail to expand the view distance.

The level design of Spyro took advantage of this to encourage the player to explore the levels with Spyro’s glide jump by making interesting areas of levels in the distance more visible.

The game received a lot of praise at the time for its graphics and gameplay.