3D First-Person Games, So Far

Gernot Ziegler writes: "One of my professors (Stefan Gustavsson) has written a good summary that explains the history & technical background/innovations that Doom, Quake & Unreal brought with them when they were released. Check it out." It's a pdf file. Gustavsson ends with a list of hopeful questions about where such games can go, after nearly a decade of running and violence. What I'd really like to see is a goal-free 3D world like the Snowcrash Metaverse, but it will take games to get there ;)

Comments

historical revisionism

[kaisyain]

Ultima Underworld was out a month before Wolfensteinstein 3D.

Although he left out System Shock, I was pleased to see he at least mentioned Descent (but what does he mean by "the gaming environment was even more restricted than that of Doom"?) which offered true 3D environments ages before Quake claimed to be the first to do so.

Tomb Raider was the hardware "killer application", not Quake.

System Shock, Duke Nukem 3D, Magic Carpet, and Dark Forces were single player hits before Unreal and Half-Life hit the market.

Starsiege: Tribes was multiplayer only and came out six months before Unreal Tournament or Quake 3 Arena.

Rainbow Six beat Counter-strike to the punch for coop play and realism.

But other than that the article was pretty much factually correct.

Re:Anarchy Online

[lobsterGun]

Are you nuts?

AO = CRAP

Not one person I know who bought this game still plays it.