Yes. I agree. Let us take 2 examples:

1) There is one stage where you fight on a platform following a space ship. This huge ship turns around and flies through nice looking space backgrounds. Then it flies very close to a huge planet - covering 3/4 of the screen. After that it enters the atmosphere with glowing heat effects and then it glides over landscapes through clouds and raises later into space again. All this is only a background while fighting at a platform.

2) The stage from Metal Gear is a Sci-Fi metallic room. But you can destroy the environment. If you destroy the main wall then huge robots appear in the back, almost as big as a house, animated, walking, threatening but still only backgrounds.

This is love for details.

Ah yes, great memories already Frank ^^

I especially like the scene where the view moves up thus your character needs to jump up as well to avoid instant death. But I like it so much due to the waterfall scene, it makes the environment so much more plausible

Btw, not only do the background scenes animated the users, they interact with them as well

Thus I can state that your son made a great choice and it was worth your money (to correct myself)

Cheers and I'll stop being off-topic related now ^^

Frazzle