First Person shooters… not frames per second… All jokes aside the first FPS I played was DOOM from id software… (well actually DOOM II) like so many people before me. It still holds up even through the nostalgia and the rose colored glasses I find it fun to play. It truly is one of the greatest games of all time at least as shooters go. BUT!!! There are plenty of others that people don’t mention as often. I will not go into a great length of detail on DOOM but we will cover it none the less on progression of the 90’s FPS’s I came to enjoy.
So Wolfenstein 3D DOOM’s older cousin set the pace for DOOM and most FPS for the early part of 90’s. Then 1995 happened, one of the games I owned as a kid was, STAR WARS: Dark Forces which played similar to DOOM, but you had the option to aim up and down(Using the PgUp & PgDn Buttons). Unlike DOOM where you could only swivel 360 degrees left or right to aim. The other advantage was a better sense of an 3D environment. Doom has height and depth but no floor structure can overlap itself. There are ramps and ledges and you move up to a new floor but nothing could be underneath it. Where as Dark Forces had true 3d level design with floors stacked up on top each other.
“Side note Star Wars : Dark Forces inspired several plot points for Disney’s series Star Wars : The Mandalorian.”
Also in 1995 another FPS came out… Way before the invention of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Bethesda was in between The Elder Scrolls: Arena(1994) and The Elder Scrolls II : DaggerFall(1996). When they made The terminator : Future shock an FPS that I can honestly say was the first time I remember using a mouse to AIM or MOVE the cross-hairs in any direction I wanted in a FPS. It was truly a game changer.( I am unable to determine who accomplished this feat first).
Moving on, latter in 1996 Id software decided to create Quake a spiritual successor to DOOM that had truly 3D rendered environments while retaining that fast paced strafing combat we all loved. Sadly I didn’t get to play Quake often because I didn’t own a copy of it back then.
Skipping ahead to the distant future of 1998… There was one game I can truly say I could sit down and play without any complaints to this day. Half-Life… it was one of the best FPS of the 90’s. The pacing, gun play, movement, and weapons were great. Not to mention the graphics, voice acting, enemies, and so much more just felt truly ground braking. I mean we had games that had some of those elements… But Half-Life had everything put all-together at the same time in one place that formed one of best FPS of all time. As all things tend to go time did not stand still. I don’t remember any truly spectacular FPS from 1999 but it doesn’t mean they aren’t out there.
And so that wraps up the 90’s and then we had the early 2000’s which I will write about later. After I get done feeling old… Just remember it’s closer to 2050 than 1990…
Dungeon Dudes Tryo 