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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.")
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.)
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.
For those of you interested in finding out what it is all about, see here.
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...
Uttering logically derived and empirically supported truths to the disciples of the orthodox establishment.
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.
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.
Never heard of a game called Decent. Sounds decent.
I've played *Descent* before though, and that was a good game.
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.
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.
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.
I'm surprised Serious Sam wasn't on their list since it was their 2001 Game of the Year.
Kid Fenris is another "fanzine-style" fave of mine; updated randomly, but still worth checking out.
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.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
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.
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
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! :)
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When I grow up, I want to be a kid again.
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.