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Since the dawn of the humble FPS, I’ve played pretty much nothing else. Wolfenstein 3D kicked it all off, but Doom really cemented it in the public consciousness. From there we had Quake, Half-Life, and a myriad of other shooters, each getting better and better. It’s amazing to see just how far we’ve come, all in one video. Can you spot them all?
I’ve played every single one of them in that little run through, but my favourite still has to be Quake III Arena, I genuinely don’t think that’ll ever be bettered for sheer multiplayer awesomeness. Then again, I spent most of my teenage years playing that thing, so maybe it’s the nostalgia factor talking. What’s your favourite FPS of all time? [NoFrag via Kotaku]
My favorite has to be Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, i loved that game.
They sure have come a long way, in looks. In gameplay, not so much.
Fight endless respawning mindless enemies trudge from point A to point B, pres X next to flashing box to plant bomb watch graphical set piece, trudge from point B to point C repeat. Repackage, renumber, repeat. I blame Activision !
Postal 2.
YES!!! Awesome Game!! Nothing quite like peeing on someone from the top of a building then torching them!!
I prefer to taze people until they are on the floor twitching, set them on fire, piss on them to put them out and then decapitate them with the shovel while they try to crawl away.
That or drop a good amount of grenades in a pool of petrol and light it from a distance. The explosion is immense.
wheres unreal?, wheres chronicles of riddick, crysis, golden eye, half life 2, Hexen, Descent? Call of duty? .. walks away in disgust
Kingpin: Life of crime, Rainbox Six, Counter-Strike (deffo a different beast to H.L. and certainly the most famous and influential :/)
Far Cry (1) – did everything Doom3 & HL2 were doing (and more in the case of Doom3) 6 months before either of them. Still a genre classic. At least he got Crysis in there; it’s still one of the graphically best ever games, especially on the PC.
really? Quake 3 Arena?
It got shit on everywhere by unreal Tournament…… The only reason people even cared about Quake 3 was because of Quake 1 and 2
I was just far more responsive and twitch-like for me, which was what I was into at the time. And yeah, I’d take Q3A over UT any day.
Unreal Tournament. All the way.
Nothing beats Quake 3 for pure, fast-paced deathmatch. IMHO it’s a test of fundamental FPS skills more than any other game.
But the other game modes of UT just put it miles ahead of Quake 3, I still have it installed on my PC and its still my fav ever FPS…. the CTF maps were “unreal” and the mods and customisability was just years ahead of other games.
Graphically (the point of the video) I think it’s fairly easy to say Q3 was superior. I loved both games back in the day anyway.
Timesplitters 2 was AMAZING!!!
Oh yes, that truly was, but only because of the sheer number of bots you could fight against.
Plus the speed at which you played. Every other FPS felt slow after Timesplitters.
That’s because most of Free Radical had experience on Goldeneye/Perfect Dark! I love Perfect Dark for the same reason.
I’d love to see FPS that had a bit more involvement to it. A game that isn’t just Lobby. Shoot. Lobby. Shoot.
Going back to my childhood we would ways make bases before we went into ‘battle’. I think it would be awesome to be able to build your teams base before you fight against each other.
check out Dust514
Hmm interesting. Thanks
Interesting how you could really see the leaps in that video though. Half Life in particular stands out from the previous game by a long margin.
ah Wolfenstein & Doom. I was there man. I was there.
First FPS with half decent gfx that I had was Soldier of Fortune. Enjoyed the online play with that for quite a while. Counter Strike kept me going for ages, and Day of Defeat.
By the time the likes of Call of Duty arrived though, all my spare time had gone. I play nothing these days. Perhaps when i’m rotting in a home somewhere i’ll pick it up again.
My personal favourite has always been Tribes 2, but I can’t watch the video at work, so I’m not sure if it’s in there. If not, for shaaaaaame.
Counterstrike took 3 years of my life away – but doom stole my heart as the first fps i played, although Goldeneye will also be a massive cult favourite.
yh, but isn’t that true for every other game genre?
Metroid Prime on Gamecube blew me away. Still the best FPS i’ve ever played
It was pretty sweet when the NIN kicked in for Quake. Ohh the memories.
It might not have been the best, but Giants:Citizen Kabuto was just a fabulous single player game. It was one I always wanted to play multiplayer but never did…
For me, HL1 was just epic. Such a step-up, as you could see from the video, and the plot was great. Playing Black Mesa recently brought it all back again. Multiplayer (and that includes Counterstrike) was also phenomenal.
Project IGN is a beast game, if you have never played it download it…..
Also no MOHAA? Good graphics and the beach landing mission is the single best level in any game ever…..
This video shows how the graphics have improved but gameplay has remained fairly static since the late 90s. The addition of vehicles was the main improvement to FPS gameplay, but that happened like 10 years ago.
Glad to see Project IGI, that game was excellent. Loads of good games missing of course but it was 1 per year so what can you do.
It’s strange not seeing Duke Nukem 3D in a video documenting the progress of FPS. Quake took the 1996 slot. Quake had a much more advanced game engine, graphics and physics, but the gameplay was simple and it did launch 6 months later. Duke 3D was on the old Doom engine but the gameplay was unmatched for years (if ever).
Agreed with that MOHAA. Call of Duty : United Offensive FTW.
Had a clan server we played on for a good few years. Ah the fun we had before the clan went all weird and broke up. WLA (Window Lickers Alliance) then something else. I forget. Good times.
Look how much better FPSs were when we could use a mouse and keyboard.
And no Halo love?
Some great games, and some great memories of playing them. Surprised not to see the following though.
Unreal Tournament – All round, a better engine then ID ever produced and still being used today in it’s updated version.
Kingpin – A REALLY ground breaking game.
Duke Nukem 3D – How can you forget the DUKE ! The most un PC fun you will ever have.
Farcry – The Duma engine was simply glorious
Simon
Rise of the Triads was out in 1994. They could have used that instead of skipping a year.
I don’t comment a lot on posts due to not knowing my creds off hand to login! But felt obliged to comment on this one.
Where the hell is Duke 3D? and Golden Eye and Crysis? I think someone who actually knows about FPS and games in general should remake the video.
My bad, Crysis was in there, missed it first time around, but I’m still outraged about Duke and Golden Eye
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I’d like to know why the fascination on the same games, Quake 1,2,3 and Battlefield, surely there were other shooters out at same time to give a wider overall spectrum on offer.