Picking The Top Ten FPS Titles Of All-Time

Thanks to GameSpot for its 'TenSpot' feature selecting picks for the top ten first-person shooter (FPS) games of all-time. The article argues: "So what makes a first-person shooter good? Is it a cohesive story and a well-designed campaign? A creative multiplayer mode? How about a devastating arsenal of weapons? Or fiendishly clever AI enemies? The games in this list exhibit one or more of these qualities and have all affected the way shooters are made in a tangible and lasting way." It goes on to identify top titles such as Duke Nukem 3D ("...good-natured attitude... great level design, and solid engine"), Battlefield 1942 ("...an excellent game made better by retail expansion packs"), and, naturally, Doom ("one of the true classics of computer gaming.")

Comments

hello? marathon?

[jaredcat]

I can't put much stock in an article that talks about the top 10 FPS and doesn't even MENTION Marathon or Maration 2: Durandal. It wasn't even on their list of alternative games to vote on...

Top _ _ _ _ _ of all time....

[Lust]

Is anyone else getting tired of these monthly polls that rank the top games, FPS, strange NPCs, in-game music, text-based games, etc. etc. of all time? How many times must we slice and dice the past? Contemporize! :)

No Marathon? grr...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, as the original Marathon never officially came out for PC, I can see them just leaving it off.

But they specifically mention Marathon in the Halo entry, and allege Halo is superior. WTF!

Halo is nice and all, but aside from graphics as such being better simply because it was made much later, it doesn't hold a candle to the Marathon trilogy in terms of story/gameplay/suspense/etc. By Marathon standards the game doesn't even feel finished. (In pre-MS days, Bungie had a saying "we'll release it when it's done" none of this rushing things out the door with cut features to fit with X-box marketing.)

Re:hello? marathon?

[arglesnaf]

They did mention Marathon, and that Halo is the current version. They even talked about how great it was. Probably not exactly what you were looking for, but it is there.

Re:hello? marathon?

[jabberjaw]

For those of you interested in finding out what it is all about, see here.

Re:hello? marathon?

[Distinguished Hero]

From the article:
In the mid-'90s, many gamers thought Bungie had reached its creative zenith with Marathon. They were wrong. By the time the classic Mac and PC shooter had wasted millions of man-hours worldwide in 1999, the Bungie wizards were repackaging Marathon's rich story and innovative visuals into a next-generation first-person shooter. That game was Halo: Combat Evolved.

Link

Seems like they mentioned it to me...

Re:Top _ _ _ _ _ of all time....

[Anonymous Coward]

Not me, but I am really tired of whiners. It seems these days they come out with every story.

Bah!

[Gothic_Walrus]

Shooters are meant to be simple games: run around, blow stuff up. Right?

If so, then "Serious Sam" is undeniably the best shooter of all time. That's all you do in the game - run around and blow stuff up. Simplistic, but hellishly fun.

Re:Bah!

[ziggles]

I'm surprised Serious Sam wasn't on their list since it was their 2001 Game of the Year.

Serenity Now!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, whoever keeps posting (and submitting) these damn "top ten" articles to slashgames, please, I'm pleading with you, stop.... Each "article" is obviously a thinly disguised fanboy rant by whoever wrote it for their favorite games in a particular genre.

There is no really meaningful list that can come out of a tep ten, when you're including all of time as your scope. At first, it was enjoyable to see people try, but the novelty has worn off. Give up the ghost...

Re:Serenity Now!!!

[obeythefist]

Actually, if you think about it, Slashdot is in fact a fanboy rant. It's just a really big, long ongoing one from a fanboy with multiple personalities, which explains the whole windows vs. linux vs. OS/X vs. Unixware vs. RIAA debate.

kinda off topic but related to your comment

[imr]

Here on slashdot, we hear mostly from site like gamespot, gamespy, whatevergamething.com. And most, if not all, of their interview/article are dull beyond expression (at least beyond polite expression).
So if there is ONE gamer around who know of one or more good related news/article video game site, where i can find original and personnal material to think and get informed from, i would gladly thank him. (i know at least one in my language, but none in english, that's why I ask).

Re:kinda off topic but related to your comment

[simoniker]

I think, if you look carefully enough, that a number of the articles posted at Slashdot Games aren't from the 'usual' sites, and there's plenty of interesting, alternate views out there.

How about Gamers With Jobs, GamerDad, Insert Credit, DIY Games, Terra Nova, Skotos, Curmudgeon Gamer, and GamesIndustry.biz? That's just off the top of my head.

And, of course the normal response applies - if there are alternate views and intelligent comment that aren't being covered here, then write it up, and send us the link - we'd love to include it.

Re:kinda off topic but related to your comment

[May Kasahara]

Lately I've been checking out Crunk Games. It's got more of a fanzine feel compared to these bigger sites, and the features tend to be interesting/witty as well. They also have a larger focus on Japanese imports than many other sites.

Kid Fenris is another "fanzine-style" fave of mine; updated randomly, but still worth checking out.

Re:kinda off topic but related to your comment

[Trashie24]

Penny Arcade can be awfully entertaining as well.

typo

[imr]

one or more good news/article video game related site

yay! another "made for ie" site

[zeenixus]

mainly just posting this just in case someone from gamespot sees this. rendering in Gecko is completely fubared. "Don't miss out! Evolve!" --Bob

Skynet

[BrookHarty]

I had to look up the dates, but heres the list of games that I played way too many hours on, in order. .

1992 Wolfenstien 3D
1993 Doom
1994, Heretic, Rise of the Triad (Overlooked as Doom came out before it and took most of the credit for FPS games)
Then later that year Doom2 came out.
1995 Hexen
1996 Terminator Skynet (My favorite at the time) and of course Quake.
1997 Quake 2, Hexen 2, Shadow Warrior, Blood
1998 Unreal, Tribes, Half-life, SiN, Blood2,
1999 Quake 3 Arena, Unreal Tournament
2000 Soilder of Fortune, Heavy Metal Fakk2 (That one collected Dust, But I Finally went back and finished it), KISS Psycho Circus (Didnt play this one much, but it was lots of fun)
2001 Return to Castle Wolfenstien, Serious Sam, Red Fraction, Tribes2(Many patch problems, but damn if it dont run great in 2004!) Max Payne, Ghost Recon
2002 BF1942, UT2003, SoF2, MOHAA, Serious Sam 2
2003 Call of Duty, XIII (Didnt get into this one as much), Unreal2.

I still find myself playing CounterStrike and Tribes, with some Mohaa, Serious Sam1/2 action. Don't think all my choices are all mainstream.

But the first game that kept me playing for hours was Duke Nukem 3D on ipx lan parties, so that has to be my number 1 choice.

Then Tribes lasted over 4 years, then Counterstrike going on 5.

Re:Skynet

[mutewinter]

Wow, nice to see someone mention Skynet, much less say they enjoyed it! I could never figure that one out. For a game based off of a movie it was absolutely amazing at the time and completely sucked me in.

Sadly for me, my gaming timeline has a huge gap between the release of Quake and Q3A. I was stuck on a p100 with win3.1 until late 1999! I really missed out on alot, especially considering I was stuck with an aweful internet connection for years until I got broadband.

I have to agree with you on Duke Nukem 3D as well. While in Doom you were just kind of wondering around, Duke Nukem 3D had areas and a storyline that really pulled you in. And strippers. Oddly enough, I bought very few games at the time and was limited to shareware and demos. Duke Nukem 3D just happened to be one of the full games I had. (friend of a friend bought the PC version when he had a mac and never returned it, and somehow I got ahold of it.)

Instead of being called the top ten FPS titles, it should be called Ten Years of Doom Clones!

Re:Skynet

[Deliveranc3]

If you had Quake 1 you didn't miss anything. Now back to e1m2!

Re:Skynet

[obeythefist]

Holy cow. Don't ever post like that again. You had my life flashing before my eyes.

Re:Skynet

[Hettch]

e1m2?? What are you thinking. e1m7, the House of Chthon is where the best multiplayer map evar resides!

Re:Skynet

[Ayaress]

Hexen? I'll admit the game concept was interesting, but after the thrid hour or so stuck in the same area with nothing to kill because I missed some item hidden in a barrel behind a secret door that took me twenty minutes just trying to jump from undersized ledge to undersized ledge along a wall to get to, the novelty wore off. I like RPGs, and I like FPS games, and I've found some first-person RPGs quite nice, but Hexen is the demon spawn of a very unholy union between genres, if you ask me.

Re:Skynet

[Jad LaFields]

Hell yeah! Nothing quite like dying five times before you can actually step away from a respawn point... and then finally killing the guy with the rocket launcher, picking up his stuff, realizing that you now have every weapon and full ammo for all, and letting that smile slowly spread across your face as you embark on a massive albeit short-lived killing spree ...

Re:hello? marathon?

[Anonymous Coward]

They stylings may be similar, but Halo is definitely NOT 'the current version' of Marathon. They aren't even in the same universes.

The way they refered to it makes me question if the writers have even played Marathon.

I question the value of this poll

[SamSim]

I question the value of this poll. How many people can honestly say they have played most of the FPSs in existence (or at least most of the ones on the list) and are therefore in a position to judge which one is the best? People will vote for the only game on the list that they've played, so it'll simply boil down to "which game is currently the most popular?" and of course, the winner will be something that was released within the last year. This, in my opinion, is a subject best left to objective videogames reviewers.

Besides which, "best" is poorly defined. Are we talking the most fun games to play right NOW? Or the games that were the best at the time they came out? Or the games that were the most influential?

Re:I question the value of this poll

[metroid composite]

You know, there's the top 10 list linked by this article which GameSpy made and is linked by the article; that'll probably be more "accurate" than the popularity poll they're doing as feedback.

Re:I question the value of this poll

[TwistedGreen]

How many people can honestly say they have played most of the FPSs in existence...

My brother can. He never leaves his goddamn room!

Re:I question the value of this poll

[scabb]

"This, in my opinion, is a subject best left to objective videogames reviewers."

No such animal!

lame!

[Tumbleweed]

No mention BZFlag, the greatest FPS of all time?! *phbbt*

- Easy Target

Re:lame!

[IntergalacticWalrus]

FPS == First-Person Shooter, dummy.

Re:lame!

[Tumbleweed]

So, what's your point? First Person is a perspective, as opposed to games that use, say, Third Person perspective, ala, say, Rune (which I also love). Yes, BZFlag is a 'tank' game, but it's perspective is First Person, and you shoot, thus, it's a FPS. Deal with it, or no GM or Laser for YOU!

Re:lame!

[IntergalacticWalrus]

Nevermind, I confused BZFlag with something else.

Decent

[cgenman]

Most of these also leave out the truly excellent FPS Decent. Decent and Decent 2 were revolutionary for their time, creating an experience so original (and nauseating) as to never have been duplicated since. Sure, it's a ship. But it's in first person, it shoots, and it moves just like every other FPS character except that it also goes up and down and can rotate along its 3rd axis. I didn't even know I had a 6th finger until I played that game.

Imagine trying to explain to people that you need a PC because the Mac keyboard won't let you strafe down-backwards-left while rotating up-right and firing.

Decent was legendary at it's time, but because there have been few or no clones of it, it has faded into history. It deserves more recognition than this.

Re:Decent

[Canar]

Never heard of a game called Decent. Sounds decent.

I've played *Descent* before though, and that was a good game.

Re:Decent

[Cranx]

I agree...Descent was a truly revolutionary game. Humans probably need to evolve a little more though before you can expect such freedom of movement in an FPS to be widely accepted. I LOVED playing that game online, but it could be really disorienting, and I can understand how lots of people couldn't get into it.

Re:Decent

[obeythefist]

I believe that they left Descent out because it's more of a flight simulator than a FPS.

I understand that the perspective puts you in the "first person", so people are inclined to call it an FPS because of that, however. In Descent, you are the pilot of a vehicle designed to traverse mining installations. You don't walk, run, jump, or even wheel yourself around. You fly, with thrusters, and steer your vehicle. You can even set a constant forward velocity.

Which really makes Descent a flight/space combat simulator. Descent deserves no more recognition in the annals of first person shooters than Microsoft's Flight Simulator, Rollercoaster Tycoon and Baldurs Gate.

Also, if you're really sure it's faded, I suggest you check out the Freespace games, which is where Descent evolved into a full-blown open-space space combat sim in the same universe.

Re:Decent

[Kyouryuu]

After you get through their top 10, you can go and submit your own. Each game in the Descent saga is an option, so obviously they must count it as an FPS. Write a short blurb about why you think it's so great and maybe they'll include it in the reader's choice top 10.

I used to think Descent was the top dog before I was exposed to the almighty Unreal Tournament. But I still think it deserves to be on the list because it had an inventive concept that has since rarely been done with equal skill. Also, I would argue against the GameSpot article's claim that Quake had the best lighting effects of its time. One can hardly notice them compared to their use in Descent 2. You could destroy lights and areas would go dark. Most games today can't even do that.

It was hardly an average, run-of-the-mill FPS. Since its release, there have been a handful of clones. Some decent, like Forsaken. Others shoddy, like Terracide. But the idea hasn't been touched after the disaster that was Descent 3. One hopes that after Unreal Tournament 2004 and the upcoming Battlefield resurrect interest in flying vehicles that we'll see a mod that exploits this type of gameplay, and then maybe spur enough interest for a developer to build something like it.

Ideally, I would see a modern Descent clone utilizing a control arrangement like that of Freelancer. Use mouselook and WASD and merely don't restrict movement to the ground plane. Also, enable the ability to get out and walk around on foot, possibly to explore and find other ships to pilot.

Descent 3 was a disaster in the sense that it didn't sell very well. I think a key reason, aside from the lack of good marketing, was that it was too far divorced from Descent 1 and 2. Although they had a flashy new engine, it lost the gritty, dark corridors that the old games were notorious for. The robots weren't creepy, they were almost cartoon-like. And the whole appearance of the game had a plastic, strange look (it must be the textures or the lighting). The missions were also loaded with inane puzzles that had no place in a corridor shooter like this. It's unfortunate that because of Descent 3, no one has stepped up to the plate to try again. I hope someday, some developer will.

Thank goodness

[Overdrive_SS]

I was going to shoot someone if Goldeneye 007 was not on that list. I wasted many, many hours playing multiplayer Goldeneye against my friends. The AR, the RCP, rocket launchers, timed mines, proximity mines, grenades, all sorts of fun. Perfect Dark was just as amazing, with some even cooler weapons.

However, my friends now insist Halo is the best FPS ever. Halo is a fun multiplayer game. It looks nice, the controls are well thought out, the weapons are pretty balanced, and you can get the whole 16 player thing going on.

But for a game called Halo: Combat Evolved, it is lacking in the combat evolved part. I mean, they went to take over an alien planet with an assault rifle that has the firepower of an automatic Daisy Red Rider. They have an amazing pistol that works like a sniper rifle and the sniper rifle itself is quite nice. The vehicles are fun. But where are the jet packs or rocket boots or guns that fire through rock or around buildings or thermal vision or guns that don't need to reload or something evolved. Where are the bots? Would it have been that hard to add some AI to fight against in the multiplayer? I can play Halo a lot, but I never got bored of playing Goldeneye and Perfect Dark, there was always some new way to keep yourself entertained. Anyways, I just had to rant a little, maybe someone else here can sympathize with me.

Re:Thank goodness

[CashCarSTAR]

Me.

I can sympathize for you, because I feel the same way. Halo isn't a bad game. It's just not a great game. Sure it adds some pretty graphics and good AI, but the game itself tends to be on the boring side.

Problems with Halo:

#1. You're exactly right. Most of the weapons are on the boring side. The Needler is pretty cool, but rather weak at the same time. A nice pistol, I'm not a big fan of the sniping in that game however. The grenades are fun, but that's another problem..

#2. Because of the weakness of the weapons, the game can become a grenade fest.

#3. The single-player levels, as is, can become boring.

#4. Multi-player is fun, but just tacked on. Like you mentioned, no bots. BIG mistake. Keeps Halo from being a great game. Multi-player Halo is fun, if you're using the tunneling to play 4v4 CTF or something. Good teamwork required. The PC version would be great if it didn't suck technically.

Timesplitters 2, released around the same time by the people who made the original Goldeneye, is a much better game. Why it doesn't get the props it deserves, is beyond me.

Re:Thank goodness

[gangien]

I think halo and 007 are the number one and two FPS on the consoles. The reason I think halo is better, is because it had multiplayer on campaign mode. If goldeneye had that, which was certainly a technilogical capabilty of the 64, then it would be my top choice for best Console FPS. It had everything else, for it's time.

Re:Thank goodness

[obeythefist]

I imagine the Gamespot reviewers were mostly concerned with the PC games, as FPS games are at "home" on the PC where the interface is most intuitive and the platform has the most power to meet the demands. Including console FPS games in a "top 10" scenario would be like including the PC port of Mortal Kombat in a "top 10" fighting games list.

In that case I really think the authors had the right idea.

Re:Thank goodness

[antin]

Of course it is always a personal preference as to whether a game is good or not (I happen to love Halo) but just in reply to three of your points:

#1 The Needler is pretty cool, but rather weak at the same time.

Try playing the game on Legendary. On Normal or Heroic I rarely used the Needler, but on Legendary it suddenly became my weapon of choice - in fact I would go as far as saying it is the most useful weapon to use on Legendary (at least until you get the shotgun).

#2. Because of the weakness of the weapons, the game can become a grenade fest.

I actually think that was part of the point. Grenades afterall were given a dedicated button (unlike most FPS games) and most enemies drop them. I really think Bungie intended grenades to be used more than most games.

Although once you get good with the Pistol, you really won't use grenades much. In multiplayer, a good player with the pistol can take someone down in about 5 shots, from most places on the map (it is very accurate, and has the 2x zoom). Once you get in a game with people who use the pistol, you either have to do the same, or resign yourself to losing.

#3. The single-player levels, as is, can become boring.

True - but anymore than most FPS games? Not many FPS games have a good enough single-player campaign to play through twice; and Halo at least provided co-op to make it more fun.

Re:Thank goodness

[Q-Mont]

I believe the thing that seperates good FPS games from great ones is the multiplayer factor. All of the FPS games that i have played get pretty boring after awhile, but with the multiplayer aspect there is always something new. AI tends to be predictable but another human playing against you is quite the opposite. I get bored with halo in single player mode, but when we link up a few XBoxes and play a team game, i can play for hours. A different game every time.

Piece of cake

[Apreche]

Can't argue with this list

01. Half-Life
02. Counter-Strike
03. Natural Selection
04. Tribes 2 (before it got fucked)
05. Quake 2
06. Doom 2
07. Wolfenstein 3d
08. Tribes 1
09. Doom 1
10. Team Fortress (all of 'em)

That's if you're like me and consider a mod to be a seperate game. If you think a mod isn't a seperate game, check this list.

01. Half-Life
02. Tribes 2 (before it sucked)
03. Quake 2
04. Doom 2
05. Doom 1
06. Wolfenstein 3d
07. Tribes 1
08. Quake 1
09. Duke 3d (not forever)
10. Rise of the Triad (wooo!!!!)

Notice Unreal or UT didn't make my lists. I throw Unreal and sequels in the honorable mention category with Shogo Mobile Armor Division. None of the Unreal games ever had the qualities that make a truly great game. Let me make an analogy.

Street Fighter:Marvel vs. Capcom::
Half-Life:Unreal

get it?

Re:Piece of cake

[randomdef]

I'll be the dumbshit who says it. no i dont get it, at all...explain again.

Re:Piece of cake

[obeythefist]

Quite a few multiplayer-only games mentioned in your list there. I tell you what. I *can* argue with your list. It's quite easy. Multiplayer only games, while FPS's, are lacking a lot of the important work that makes the difference between a *good* FPS and an outstanding one.

One of the reasons Half-Life was so successful was because of the powerful (for the time) AI. Without that people would have forgotten it easily. If it was multiplayer only, the AI would have been left in the dirt. In fact, if it was multiplayer only, the counterstrike developers probably would have been less enamoured of it and written CS in Quake or Unreal or something.

I consider Unreal to be a truly great game. Unreal 2 was too little too late, but it had some good features nonetheless. What are the qualities you mention that are lacking in Unreal? Graphic quality? No. Sound? No. Weapon choices? Definately not. Plotline? The plot was reasonable enough. Multiplayer? Can't be, UT2K4 demo is making enormous waves at the moment. Engine? The Unreal Engine is very close in fame to the Quake engine, you don't get fame through mediocrity. Originality? Can't be, you included Doom2 on your top ten list. The only original thing about Doom 2 was one (1) additional weapon!

Get it? No, no I don't get it. Your post seems a little baseless in fact. If you want to bag something, you'll need to come up with a few supporting arguments first.

Re:Piece of cake

[rhuntley12]

I can't see how Unreal Tournament didn't get on the list but Quake 3 did. Was it really that popular? At the time all my friends converted quickly to UT after trying it. Hell the college I went to even in 2001 you could always find games of UT going, probably 3:1 compared to Quake 3. Ah well, not like these lists aren't a dime a dozen.

Re:Piece of cake

[Have Blue]

You can't bring up UT2K4 as an example of Unreal 1's multiplayer. When it was first released, U1's MP was *horrible*; it was tuned for a LAN by default and took significant effort to get even halfway decent performance on a modem. It took several patches to resolve this, and the network code wasn't truly competitive with the Quake series until Unreal Tournament.

I do, however, agree that it had great sound, graphics, and level design (except for pretty much the first 5 and last 5 maps, which probably turned off a lot of people to it at first).

Re:hello? marathon?

[gl4ss]

sorry but as far as large gaming community goes nobody cares about them.

they may be the ultimate underdogs but that wouldn't change the fact that they just don't make the cut.

I myself am more intrested in what constitutes as fps since all the greater games have had deeper aspects than just shooting away(ultima underworld for one, system shock for another - they had advanced engines and a game that kicked some serious ass too. deus ex 1 as a more recent example).

well.. my list:
1. ultima underworld 1&2
2. system shock (1)
4. wolfenstein 3d
5. doom I & II
6. duke nukem 3d
7. deus ex
8. half-life
9. gunman chronicles
10. vietcong

+maybe dozens of games.. but anyways, first person is more of a view to the game rather than just a game type at all. this is like choosing the best isometric game of all time or best top down 2d game or whatever.

Erm... There the hell is Dark Forces?

[paulcammish]

So, where is Dark Forces?

That was truly one of the best first person shooters I ever played - incredibily atmospheric, and for the time had some very nice graphics.

For those of you who didnt play it (no excuse at all), its rather closely linked to the whole Star Wars (it was called that in '77, and so thats what im calling it) - not to mention the fun of running around Imperial Instalations being chased by Stormtoopers shouting "Stop, Rebel Scum!"

For a game released in early 1995, there wasnt much to touch it (apart from Doom) - you could Jump AND Crouch - pretty much a full year before Duke Nukem 3D.

Re:Erm... There the hell is Dark Forces?

[Have Blue]

That engine was actually pretty advanced...

• Jump and crouch
• 3D models (textured too!)
• Brushes that could move horizontally and rotate
• Fog and primitive colored lighting
• Real elevators (floor and ceiling move)
• Room-over-room, including some limited true-3D areas.

Re:Erm... There the hell is Dark Forces?

[fredrikj]

Agree completely, Dark Forces was immensely atmospheric, and probably the best FPS next to Doom.

Re:Erm... There the hell is Dark Forces?

[Haeleth]

Not only did they leave it out - well, they do say on the front page that they consider multiplayer to be important - it isn't even in the list of games they let readers vote for at the end.

Nor, unbelievably, is Jedi Knight - the first game I ever played with areas that felt large, unlike the claustrophobic experience of Quake. Even Jedi Outcast is missing.

I can forgive them for leaving them out of the top ten, but leaving every episode in a whole major series out of the list of other candidates beggars belief.

Re:Erm... There the hell is Dark Forces?

[Cerpicio]

Ahh, glad someone else brought this up. I loved Dark Forces! My favorite was the grenades ("He's holding a Thermal Detonator!") with a timed delay (as opposed to ones that exploded on impact). I loved hearing them "tink-tink-tink" down the stair well, followed by a slight pause, then *BOOM*-"ARRGH!"

I wonder if I still have that around somewhere. Might be worth installing again.

-- C.

Re:Erm... There the hell is Dark Forces?

[GoofyBoy]

I agree with the parent.

Dark Forces has what made HL great for me. There was never a part where I had to go "where do I need to go now?" and not feel like it was a basic tunnel.

You just explore and let your natural curdirosities (sp) guide you.

Re:Erm... There the hell is Dark Forces?

[silicon not in the v]

Also, I think it was one of the first where you could aim up and down. Doom didn't have it.

blah

[Anonymous Coward]

What, no Deus Ex? This article is deemed wrong by default!

Re:blah

[Nick Harkin]

I'm guessing Deus Ex (an excellent game) isn't in there because it's really more of an RPG, than a FPS.

Re:blah

[vapspwi]

I'm guessing you didn't read the article, which stated on the first page why Deus Ex and similar games weren't included.

JRjr

Re:blah

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I didn't, you are correct. ;)

I do have a reason though, sites involving games are filtered out here, so I can't get on them (but I can get on games.slashdot.... go figure.)

Re:Top _ _ _ _ _ of all time....

[Lust]

With a world of good gaming stories out there, why recycle rankings/awards annually? Has the best FPS of 1995 suddenly changed!?!? Is there an old game found on the editting-room floor?!!? I propose a ban on these pointless stories.

And besides, I question the "good natured attitude" of Duke-Nukem 3D. If memory serves it has women dancing for money..."gimme some sugar"?

I could produce a ranking totally different and equally pointless. I suppose people who like the Oscars like these sorts of things. If you call this whining, try to justify these stories instead, AC.

Some favorites that didn't make the cut...

[Decaffeinated Jedi]

I guess it's tough to squeeze everything into a top ten list, but it would have been nice to have seen nods to the Thief, System Shock, and No One Lives Forever series.

Re:Some favorites that didn't make the cut...

[Spleener12]

RTFA:

Before we dive into the list, we should first define a first-person shooter. FPS games emphasize action, so you won't see games like System Shock 2 or Deus Ex on this list. Yes those are great games, and they are played from a first-person perspective, but really, they share too much in common with a role-playing game like Morrowind to be called true first-person shooters. Otherwise, we'd end up lumping games like Ultima Underworld together with Quake, and anyone can see that would be a silly proposition.

Re:Some favorites that didn't make the cut...

[xTown]

I didn't even think about NOLF until you mentioned it, and it's one of my favorite games ever. IIRC, I was truly surprised at how everything turned out, which almost never happens. The weapons were fun, the maps were good, and I liked Cate Archer.

Another one that was overlooked was Rise of the Triad. Back in the early days of multiplayer games, this was the one we fired up on the LAN most often.

Re:Some favorites that didn't make the cut...

[irokitt]

You're right, until you said that I completely missed that they didn't include Thief. So, why not just substitute that for Halo...

Re:Some favorites that didn't make the cut...

[Jacek Poplawski]

I guess it's tough to squeeze everything into a top ten list, but it would have been nice to have seen nods to the Thief, System Shock, and No One Lives Forever series.

I think you missed point of article. It was about shooters. It is possible to play Thief as shooter, but I don't think you could win this way (and I am sure you can't on highest difficulty).

While I disagree that shooters should be simple and stupid (never liked Serious Sam), I agree that game like Thief is not real shooter. It is something much better.

Duke Nukem Forever

[Anonymous Coward]

wins once again in the "most anticipated FPS title" competition for the 12th year in a row!

The reason Deus Ex / System Shock didn't cut it:

[M3wThr33]

Look at the end of the list:
Remember, we're not counting role-playing games like System Shock 2 and Deus Ex that are played from a first-person perspective. You won't find those titles on the voting list because they aren't action-games at heart.

My changes

[M3wThr33]

I would have combined CS into HL.
Then with the leftover spot, I would have included Jedi Knight, somewhere between HL and Halo.

Operation Flashpoint...

[Dr. GeneMachine]

Why is Operation Flashpoint and its sequels always missing in such lists? Strong tactical element, highly nonlinear gameplay, great mixture between all-out action and stealth, great replay value - I still am playing this game.

Decent

[cgenman]

Fading into history, one letter at a time. :)

My short list

[Cranx]

Unreal Tournament
Descent
Shogo

Re:No Marathon? grr...

[Anonymous Coward]

That revisionist apology does not explain away the suckage of the first Halo.

Console FPS fans, you have Goldeneye on N64 and Timesplitters 2 on every one of the current consoles. Make your time.

RIP Decent

[grumpygrodyguy]

Decent and Decent 2 were revolutionary for their time, creating an experience so original (and nauseating)

Yes, nauseating. Almost all succesful FPS games of today are constrained to 2 dimensions of play. Sure you can jump, and fly in some games, but for the most part they are simplified to 2d.

Decent was an attempt at marrying legacy flight sims(falcon, wing commander, etc) and games like Wolfenstein. It was very confusing, and quite frankly it didn't work.

Imagine trying to explain to people that you need a PC because the Mac keyboard won't let you strafe down-backwards-left while rotating up-right and firing.

You still can't explain it to people...much less enjoy doing it in a game.

Counter-strike, TFC, Doom, Tribes, Everquest, all of these are popular because they appeal to our nature. Plane contsrained first person perspective is natural and engrossing. If we were a species of fish, or birds instead of homo-sapiens...maybe decent would be more popular(and thus more copied) than it was. But we are for the most part 2-demensional beings, and we like our games that way too.

Re:RIP Decent

[billcopc]

True, I both loved and hated Descent, and I was probably the only guy in my circle of geeks to play it for more than one evening. The main problem was that you really needed a flight stick to play it well; key+mouse was just hell. The game itself was also very difficult, with blowing up the generator and then you had only a limited amount of time to get out of there, meaning you had to spot the exit ahead of time and make sure you remembed the escape route.. kind of took the "instant action" aspect away from the game because you could literally spend hours on the same level just trying to find your way around.

A few years later there was Forsaken, which took the old Descent genre, dumbed it down a tiny bit and gave it amazing visuals (for its time). It was a fun multiplayer experience but laggy players were essentially invincible (you were shooting at their 'ghost' and they wouldn't register the damage). Descent 3 came out shortly after, fixed many technical issues but it was back to the hyper-difficult mazelike levels, focusing on exploration rather than action.

And now I'm waiting for someone to one-up Forsaken, which probably never will happen because the market is smaller due to most people being too dumb to fly a ship.

Re:RIP Decent

[Have Blue]

Some people do play games in order to do things that are absolutely impossible in the real world. Is it realistic to be floating, bodiless, over the field where the army you command is fighting? And yet, RTSes remain popular.

I hate to trot out this old argument, but sometimes a game and a person just don't "mesh" and the person will never be good at or enjoy the game. I'm like that with fighting games, which depend on combos and timing. I was able to grok Descent pretty quickly, but I could easily understand if someone doesn't.

Re:RIP Decent

[Ninja Master Gara]

I think Descent's weakness was that number of people who couldn't mesh with it was disproportionately high, with reactions going to the extreme of physical illness. But man, no other FPS could give that kind of rush. Forsaken was absolutely awesome as well. Those are the types of games they should use to test total immersion gaming. If the subject doesn't puke, it works! :)

Re:RIP Decent

[Sigma 7]

The main problem was that you really needed a flight stick to play it well; key+mouse was just hell.

After playing descent with a Joystick, followed by Keyboard+Joystick, and followed by Keyboard+Mouse, I eventually settled on Keyboard only for the first two of the Descent series.

It seems strange, but I seemed to have a bit more control over the ship than I used to, making it a bit easier to do 360-turns and a few other manuvers. (Or it could be that I'm a bit more experienced.)

For Descent 3, I find that Keyboard+Mouse works best for me. Not too sure on joystick, since it doesn't feel right when the stick is at the same level as the keyboard.

Descent 3 came out shortly after, fixed many technical issues but it was back to the hyper-difficult mazelike levels, focusing on exploration rather than action.

That's generally why I use the guidebot to get to the objectives. :)

Re:RIP Decent

[billcopc]

Poor guidebot, he/she/it was always getting obliterated so early on in the game.

Re:RIP Decent

[Sigma 7]

One of the patches for Descent 3 makes the Guidebot better at dodging player attacks. Once you install the patch, it is very rare that the Guidebot gets killed unless you explicitly try to attack it.

Whatever

[Anonymous Coward]

"the truly excellent FPS Decent. Decent and Decent 2 were revolutionary for their time"

Whatever. There were several commerical "6 DOF" first person flyers before Descent. It was only "revoluctionary" if believed they marketing hype.

Re:Whatever

[Cranx]

Just out of curiousity, what other 3DOF FPS game titles were available before Descent's release in May of 1995?

What, no C&C Renegade?

[jonwil]

I think Renegade has the best Multiplayer mode of any FPS to date. Plus, the SP missions are fun.
Now if only EA had given more support to the game so that the true potential of the Renegade game engine could be unlocked.

Re:What, no C&C Renegade?

[rhuntley12]

I remember playing the demo, that thing was so fun. Then when it got released I heard it sucked and never picked it up. That had some awesome potential just from playing the demo a lot.

IMHO

[Terminal Saint]

Just my thoughts: BF1942 is a nice game and all, but it's hardly top 10 FPS material. Also, if you ask me, any top ten list without Deus Ex, and both System Shock 1 and 2 is tripe. But that's just me.

I'm Mad too

[irokitt]

It also sucks in Mozilla FireFox/Firebird.

Re:No Marathon? grr...

[MMaestro]

(In pre-MS days, Bungie had a saying "we'll release it when it's done" none of this rushing things out the door with cut features to fit with X-box marketing.)

So in other words Halo would still be in production if Microsoft didn't buy Bungie?

What's with the Windows Media Player Viruses?

[Anonymous Coward]

Every time I advance to the next page in this article, one of the inline images is actually windows media player, which then happily starts firing up and downloading some installation codec shit from the internet. What the fuck?

Re:What's with the Windows Media Player Viruses?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are still using Internet Explorer as your primary web browser, why?

If you are using a better web browser but you have the WMP plug-in enabled, why?

Re:No Marathon? grr...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Halo was already in development for the Mac and PC when Microsoft bought Bungie out and turned it into an Xbox exclusive. Hypothetically, it's possible that it may have been released earlier than it was, as a better game, for multiple platforms.

But it was slowed down by the transition to Xbox, and all subsequent ports are tied down to using the Xbox version as a baseline. Halo saved the Xbox's ass, and that's the only thing that came of Microsoft's acquisition of Bungie. Gamers were not necessarily served a better or worse deal (that is, if you ignore every single Mac/Windows gamer that had been anticipating this game as a computer-first game).

Wolfenstein anyone?

[SphericalCrusher]

What about the VERY first FPS, Castle Wolfenstein! Maybe even Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

What about Rogue Spear? I'm sure they can add that, since they added Counter-Strike and Half-Life.

Personally, I'm going to have to pick Doom. I'm a HUGE Quake and Half-Life fan, but nothing touches Doom.

Re:Wolfenstein anyone?

[hambonewilkins]

Perhaps because Castle Wolfenstein wasn't an FPS? It had an overhead view and your goal (if I remember correctly) was to plant a bomb to kill Hitler while avoiding the guards. This was back on an Apple II, so I may be wrong.

Re:Wolfenstein anyone?

[SphericalCrusher]

That's Escape from Castle Wolfenstein. ;)

Castle Wolfenstein was the very first FPS.

Re:Wolfenstein anyone?

[hambonewilkins]

Really?

http://www.wolf3d.co.uk/castlewolfenstein.php

It seems to me this is the game I'm thinking of and it certainly is not a First Person Shooter

.

Spare two cents, from a single-player perspective

[robson]

1.Half-Life
2.Deus Ex (I don't care what they say, I sure played it like a FPS)
3.Undying
4.SWAT 3
5.Requiem
6.Painkiller (I know, it's not out yet, but I can tell right now that it's going to be everything I wanted from Serious Sam but didn't get)
7.The Suffering (Playing right now in the PS2 in first-person mode)

Re:The reason Deus Ex / System Shock didn't cut it

[Hopelessness]

So they're trying to say the Deus Ex wasn't an FPS? It may not have been a pure FPS, but it in no way sacraficed anything in including RPG elements. Are they trying to say that it's not an FPS because it simply included other elements? I fail to see how it could be considered to not "be an action game at heard"
This is equivilent to excluding Final Fantasy X because it had too many cinematics. It may have contained been a bit bloated, but it was still an RPG. I'm quite dissapointed with that decision.

Re:hello? marathon?

[Anonymous Coward]

but anyways, first person is more of a view to the game rather than just a game type at all

True, but first person shooters are a fairly well defined genre.

Couple of Missing Games

[vjmurphy]

Tribes definitely should be on the list, as should Wheel of Time, one of the more original FPS games ever released. Undying was also a great game.

The list is too dominated by more recent games: Half Life I can understand (though I'd lump Counterstrike in with it). But Rainbow 6? Halo? Battlefield 1942? Eh.

Re:Couple of Missing Games

[Sigma 7]

But Rainbow 6?

Yes, Rainbow Six. By some people, it's called Rainbow "Aim-Bot" Six, but is otherwise worthy of being mentioned. It is around the time between Quake 2 and Unreal - an intermediate stage where 3d Accellerators were beginning to appear, and where the FPS AI was in the infancy stage.

We aren't talking about Raven Shield here - that game is the latest installment of the game that uses the Unreal engine and fixes some of the bugs that were appearent in the originals, as well as rebalancing the AI so that it doesn't do perfectly accurrate long range snap-shots with pistols (at least on Recruit - they'll still do it on Elite.)

WTF? No Daikatana

[Operating Thetan]

Some people have no taste

Re:hello? marathon?

[kommakazi]

Too bad Halo isn't related to Marathon at all...they are completely different worlds so to speak.

Hello? Deus Ex

[TheWordOfB]

'nuf said.

Re:Top _ _ _ _ _ of all time....

[metroid composite]

Simply put, top Xs of all time are meaningless...that's why we can't let there be just one.

One person's oppinions can easily get carried too far if there's only one list, which is why it's better to flood people with conflicting top 10s forcing them to decide for themselves, than to leave it at just a few.

Perfect Dark does, though

[metroid composite]

Perfect Dark, which is basically an upgraded Goldeneye, does have multiplayer on campaign mode (both working together and working against each other). It also has bots in the multiplayer, and a number of challenges against bots in multiplayer (expanding the one-player and co-op options).

Re:hello? marathon?

[Deliveranc3]

The games listed above are all single player. You and I would agree that A.I. Can't touch a human opponent on a number of levels the greatest being a challenge that remains possible.

The truth is in terms of weapon balance, complexity, challenge, longevity, personal development and fun games with decent opponents and the multiplayer to support it are ten times any single player game.

Maybe you enjoy playing an A.I. set to "kinda stupid" but I prefer playing a person who learns from their mistakes tries to fool me and does any of the 10,000 other things a good player does to kick your ass.

Americas Army is worthy of mention

[Roland of Gilead]

My #1 pick is Americas Army,

www.americasarmy.com

This is an awesome realistic FPS. There are over 3 million folks registered for this FREE game.

Free servers to play on, stats tracking and a great community, you cannot go wrong trying AA if you are a FPS fan, seriously.

Dod I mention that this is FREE!?

www.aaotracker.com

Re:Americas Army is worthy of mention

[inkless1]

Actually, it's only free if you ignore the tax money spent on it.

That stuff comes from somewhere, ya know ;)

Re:Americas Army is worthy of mention

[elasticwings]

Well, free means obviously not top ten. They gotta give top ten to the guys that sell games and buy advertising. :P

Re:Americas Army is worthy of mention

[Roland of Gilead]

Free as in the cost to the consumer, not the development cost. (throw a dog a bone here!)
AA is an incredible game, if you are a gamer and have not tried AA yet... what are you waiting for?

BTW, AA was created as a recruiting tool for the Army.

I thank US taxpayers for this most excellent game!

Hooah!

Re:Americas Army is worthy of mention

[Sigma 7]

Actually, it's only free if you ignore the tax money spent on it.

You don't even have to ignore the tax money spent on it - a large amount of the population resides outside of the US.

Re:Americas Army is worthy of mention

[Anonymous Coward]

Well spent!

Am i the only one..

[nemiak]

..that can't find a way to get interested in the latest permuation of the FPS? I'm sure this will be an unpopular post here at Slashdot but here goes anyway..

I enjoyed playing Doom(/2), Duke3d & Quake(/2) when i was in highschool but since then there seems to be an infinity of FPS games that are only a slight variation on each other.

The latest drawing/physics engines may be amazing when compared to the grand daddies like Wolfenstein and Doom but it seems to me there is a real lack of innovation in the FPS genre - with game development companies content to just slap some new maps and a few cheezy video interludes on the latest gaming engine and release a new game.

Seriously, how many different ways can there be to walk around a 2D map from a first person perspective viewpoint and shoot things?

Is it good for gaming that a single genre is so dominant?

Am i missing the point? Probably.

I feel like a relic, missing the Amiga/Atari gaming days.. and worse, increasing find myself turning to Nintendo for my gaming needs!

Re:Am i the only one..

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen. Super Smash Bros puts real fun back in video games.

Re:Am i the only one..

[Ayaress]

You're not missing the point. Well, you are, if you ask the people who develop games, and the bulk of the people who buy them, but if you ask me, you've hit all too close to the mark. If you ask me, all the elements we see in FPS games to this day were present in them by 1995. Duke Nukem 3D and the other BUILD engine games, and Quake 1 pretty much wrote the book on everything in FPS games. Half Life added several important chapters, but I just haven't seen anything good since. I held hope that Duke Nukem Forever might just get me back to what used to be my favorite genre, but at this point, even if it is the revolution in FPS games as a concept, it's been vaporware for too long to make a splash.

Re:No Marathon? grr...

[prichardson]

I would pay good money to be able to play the marathon series with say, the quake 3 engine. I know there are some community things trying to capture the single player of marathon as mods for various games, but I think bungie could do a very nice job and make a pretty penny. If they did a complete remake with the same story it would absolutely fly off the shelves. Unfortunately, it will probably never happen. Even though most pc games don't know the story and they could almost release it as a new game. They could even use HALO's engine and port it to the x-box.

Re:hello? marathon?

[Anonymous Coward]

How could you put stock into it if it did? No pc gamers played Marathon. It was a huge hit on the Mac, but as we all know, the Mac is irrelevant as a gaming platform.

Re:No Marathon? grr...

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen, brother! Let us not forget Perfect Dark, Rare's follow-up to Goldeneye that used the Memory Expansion Pak to great effect, and also includes several original Goldeneye levels with high resolution textures. I still like Goldeneye better though.

Gloom

[DamienMcKenna]

I really liked Gloom on the Amiga (not Gloom Deluxe, which sucked) as it was _extremely_ atmospheric, with some levels giving me cold sweats, especially the ones with ghosts. Its cooperative multiplayer support was also very well done.

Re:hello? marathon?

[GiMP]

There is some conjure about the subject.

Missing

[robnauta]

What games are missing ?
No One Lives Forever was game of the year, I think it should be included. Along with Star Trek Elite Force of course. Those were solid FPS adventure games.

Duke Nukem 3D was OK at the time, but only 2.5D when 3D was arriving. It also sucked at multiplayer, the levels were too big and multiplayer just wasn't any fun. I don't know why it is on the list, maybe because it's old and came after doom, but the list is the top 10 greatest FPS'es, not top 10 FPS corrected with a release date factor.

Re:No Marathon? grr...

[hambonewilkins]

I believe it has been ported to the Unreal engine, which is close enough. I believe it is called Marathon: Resurrection. There is also Aleph 1, an OpenGL port of Marathon.

You can always try: http://marathon.bungie.org/
or
http://resurrecti on.bungie.org/index.html

You call that fast?

[IntergalacticWalrus]

What the hell, the article claims the original Quake as "fast-paced". Weird, the first thing that came to my mind when I first played it was "God, this is so slooow compared to Doom..."

It was looking good...

[Anonymous Coward]

Until they listed halo, which shot their all ready low creditability down to zero.

Yes one can argue; before it got fucked?

[Anonymous Coward]

When was the buggy piece of shit called tribes 2 not fucked?

They shoved the turd out the door, fired the devlopment team, and released paches that never worked for a game that couldn't work.

Then again, maybe you are one of the fanboys in denial about how crappy that game was. Seems like each time a fair review for the crashing unfinished game came out they were throwing a tantrum. They even told those having problems to STFU, and brown nose stuff along the lines of "how dare you insult the mighty programing GODS!!11!!!"

Besides that, WTF are you talking when you mention mods? Did you forget to add the respective mods to that list?

Re:No Marathon? grr...

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought the graphics were not that great. Mostly dark indoor environments, with dark textures, combined with a low resolution, made for a ugly game.

Re:hello? marathon?

[dougmc]

9. gunman chronicles

You're kidding, right? Gunman Chronicles was worse than Daikatana. (Of course, Daikatana wasn't nearly as bad as people said -- it was mediocre, not awful -- but Gunman was even more mediocre.)

Personally, my favorites were Deus Ex, Half-Life and Descent 2 (Descent 3 lost much of the magic, and I can't explain why. Perhaps it was Wingut always getting `stuck'.) Tribes and Unreal Tournament probably belong up there too (certainly, they're the kings of multi-player.) I'm not sure I'd call Ultima Underworld a first person shooter, but it was certainly neat at the time.

Re:The reason Deus Ex / System Shock didn't cut it

[dougmc]

You won't find those titles on the voting list because they aren't action-games at heart.

Translation: we never played these games, or if we did play them, we were then hit on the head and forgot. Had they actually played them, they'd realize that they had just as much action (and sometimes more) than the games they did pick. Which is a pity, because System Shock 2 and Deus Ex were some of the best FPSs of all time.

Yep. missing the point.

[AzraelKans]

Thats why the genere is called "FPS" First person shooter. Come on try to design a game that fits that description without coming out with something like doom. a: you can't. Is like saying: "Im going to do a platform game that doesnt play at all like mario!" you can't. Platform means a game where a characters moves around jumping in floating platforms hence mario. For your game to fit a genere it has to play and/or have elements of the genere ergo it will look like other games. Besides the FP, first person perspective has been used in several games that are not shooters. Shen Mue, silent hill 3, Morrowind to mention a few. they do not look or play like doom but they belong to different generes.

Re:hello? marathon?

[Sigma 7]

You're kidding, right? Gunman Chronicles was worse than Daikatana. (Of course, Daikatana wasn't nearly as bad as people said -- it was mediocre, not awful -- but Gunman was even more mediocre.)

I've played both Gunamn and Daikatana. In my experience, Gunman is actually better since you don't even need to download a slow-installing patch to get it working. While I now have access to a Daikatana manual installer, it only got made after noticing that the patch process takes over 10 minutes.

This setup time counts significantly, because I play multiplayer games on a DeepFreezed computer which negates all changes done to a computer's hard drive as soon as it is reset.

(That, and Daikatana seems to have some strange video card issues - but I'm not really supposed to hold this against the game.)

Re:hello? marathon?

[dave1212]

You're kidding, you think Halo is an updated version of Marathon? Sorry, do your research. Completely different and separate games. Mods, this is misinformation, and not informative at all. Plz fix.

Re:hello? marathon?

[arglesnaf]

No, I didn't say I think that, it is in fact what the article says.