Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six (1998)

While Half-Life brought a new cinematic narrative feel to first person gaming, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six (Rainbow Six from here on) is the granddaddy of realism in shooters. Rainbow Six was released in fall of 1998, before the book by Tom Clancy was published.  If you’ve read the book and played the game you’ll know how the plot of each twists around one another but never quiet meet up together, this is due to changes in the book before publication.  Rainbow Six features all the gun porn any firearm nut could ever need, from the MP5SD all the way up to the Walther 2000.

Not only was the game chocked full of guns and their toys but the gameplay and movement were as realistic as games had come so far.  You moved at a realistic walking pace, there was no random jumping around with firearms, when you aimed it took a second or two to steady it to aim accurately and perhaps most difficult, one well placed shot meant a kill.  While many games up to this point had applied one shot kills to the head or with a railgun, this was the first time we had seen realistic damage from guns.  Let’s not also forget the real time strategy element of commanding and leading multiple fire teams through the game.  Since this original release the Rainbow Six franchise has been one of the most popular IP’s in gaming.

Starsiege Tribes (1998)

While many would be left to believe that the Battlefield series are the first shooter games that introduced players to large environments, vehicles, and infantry combat, Tribes brought all of the following together a few years before.  Starsiege Tribes was released by the now defunct Dynamix in fall of 1998, and now as freeware.   The first thing any player experienced in Tribes was the scale of the game you were in.  Instead of battling in hallways and common areas players now could battle on a planet surfaces that spanned kilometers, instead of fighting in a building that spanned a couple hundred feet in each direction.

To cover these large expanses of terrain players could use vehicles or, much more common, could use their jet packs to fly and ski across the map.  The Tribes Jet Pack, who can forget this wonder of game design.  Not since Tribes has such a innovative item been introduced, and sadly has it been utilized.  While Tribes featured vehicles to traverse the map, the majority of players simply preferred to use their jet pack to fly around the map while raining death down from upon with the disc launcher.  It really is a shame we haven’t seen a similar Tribes style jet pack implemented into more first person shooters, having a what feels like limitless vertical axis adds a whole new dimension to gameplay.

To really understand what Tribes brought to the first person genre, one has to have played it.  Not only were vehicles and large environments featured in this game, but players could also build bases, deploy turrets and sensors, and be able to access all battlefield information on their PDA.  Just think of all of the games that now use similar features, then realize Tribes did this all ten years ago.  Broadband was in it’s early days when this masterpiece was released.  If you’ve never played Tribes, do yourself a favor and download and play it.

Unreal Tournament (1999)

Unreal Tournament came racing out of the gates in autumn of 1999, bringing with it a rich, polished FPS experience. The game, originally designed to be played as head to head deathmatch, featured some of the most polished team gameplay as well as original and entertaining game modes seen yet with first person shooters. The game was best enjoyed online, however the Bots and their AI included with the game made fora very enjoyable offline experience. Unreal Tournament, like Half-Life, was a popular modding platform, which helped it remain a contender for years to come.

Perhaps the most influential features of Unreal Tournament were it’s introduction of the Domination and Assault game modes.  While most FPS had been Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, or Capture the Flag up to this point, Unreal Tournament added game modes that focused on controlling specific points on the map (Domination) and capturing the opposing team’s base quicker then the other team could do it (Assault).  The Domination game type has been given a new feature in the spotlight with the release of Call of Duty 4.  Terrific presentation, balanced weapons, new game play modes, and having AI Bot’s that were able to compete with other players all made Unreal Tournament a strong and influential FPS, however barely a week later a well known FPS titan would hit the scene.

Quake 3 Arena (1999)

As mentioned Quake 3 Arena came crashing on to the scene just ten days after Unreal Tournament was released.  Both games featured AI Bots for single play experience, but they were pure multiplayer shooters by design.  Gone were the days of looking for the red key to open the red door followed by searching for a blue key and so forth, now Quake was simply about killing those who oppose.  While there was a multiplayer mode, it consisted of battling bots on the game’s levels while progressing through tiers of maps to fight the ultimate boss, Xaero.

The multiplayer was a new, refined, minimalistic Quake which rewarded skill and reflex over weapon choice.  Just as with Unreal Tournament, Quake 3 featured perhaps the most balanced selection of weapons seen in a FPS to date. Level design in Quake 3 brought new, refreshing gameplay by the use wide open maps as well as the use of launch pads as seen in q3dm17.  While Quake 3 Arena was a terrific game on it’s own, the use of it’s engine is perhaps the most significant contribution that Quake 3 Arena has added to gaming.  The Quake 3 Engine (id Tech 3) was the engine Call of Duty, Soldier of Fortune 2, American McGee’s Alice, Return to Castle Wolfenstein and a multitude of other games ran on, thus giving the technology behind Quake 3 one of the longest life spans seen to date for an engine.

Halo: Combat Evolved (2001)

Halo, the great divider.  As a lifelong computer FPS gamer it’s hard for me to accept playing a FPS on a controller for a console with autoaim.  Not only does it feel unnatural, but it feels dirty.  However for one to deny what Halo has brought to the console FPS scene would be asinine.  Halo brought the console FPS out of the split-screen era and into the online era.  Now before I go any further, understand that Halo didn’t feature any online play out of the box, nor officialy, but what it did was enabled players to LAN together and play in 16 player games, a true first for a console, let alone a console first person shooter.

While many, including myself will be the first to argue that Halo brought absolutely nothing new to the table, and in fact stripped alot of FPS features away, the impact it made on console gaming is huge.  Not since Goldeneye redefined how a genre is played or would be played from here on out.  Halo brought together entire dorms playing it networked, friends would have little gaming parties where everyone would bring their own TV and console to hook up together for some Deathmatch fun.  No longer was the idea of LAN parties and Online gaming a PC exclusive, now it was avaliable to the average gamer playing a game from the comfort of their couch.  Including Halo 2 and 3 along with Halo clearly shows the reach that the original Halo had.  There have been well over a billion Halo games played online so far now, and many more to come.

I know this has been done a millions time before, however this is the list that matters to me and if others feel the same, great! As stated, this list is purely subjective from my point of view, and all are free to agree or disagree with it. I don’t feel comfortable ranking these games, instead I’ll present them in a chronological order and let you readers decide how they should be ranked.

Wolfenstein 3D (1992)

Who can forget their first experience with Wolfenstein 3D? I can still remember it clearly to this day, heading over to my buddy’s house as a kid to check out this “amazing” game his dad had gotten from a buddy at work. Loading the game up on his blazingly fast 386 cpu, the main menu screen popping up with it’s awesome midi soundtrack. As soon as I first got in the game, nothing else to that date had prepared me for such an awesome gaming experience. I also remember the disappointment that I experienced when I learned my friend’s dad got the game on 3.5? disks and I only had 5.25?, with no way copy them to 5.25?. Keep in mind in the early 90’s computers were not near common place in a house hold, often costing $2000 and up.

While Wolf3D may have not been the “first” FPS game, it is the one that brought it to the main stream of FPS gaming. Battling your way through the game, killing countless nazis, taking countless (or so it seems) left turns had never been so fun. From the first time one would play the game, you could only see where this genre could and did go.

Doom (1993)

Good ol’ Doom, the first FPS to bring the joys of Deathmatch to the masses. Not only could you work your way through numerous levels of hell demon slaying, but now you and your buddies could get together and kill one another. Back in these days there wasn’t any fancy internet multiplayer, instead users would have to dial into DWANGO to frag one another from their homes across the country. This led to ridiculous phone bills, but hours upon hours of fragging zen. If you were lucky enough to have enough friends or be in a commercial or educational institution you could take advantage of the network play.

With Doom gamers were first introduced to Mods of their favorite game. I remember the first mod I ever played allowed me to joyously walk about the levels killing countless Barney the Dinosaur enemies. The thing I find most amusing about Doom was the awesome soundtrack laid over the game as you mowed the baddies down in countless swathes. Doom started the FPS multiplayer craze and it only became more awesome as time has passed.

Quake and QuakeWorld (1996)

Where to begin with Quake? This was my first real foray into online FPS gaming, sitting at home on my sweet 28.8kbps connection, playing against the myriad of other dial-up users. These were the days of “HPBs” viewing “LPBs” as cheaters, the infancy for “3D Game Engines” and most importantly the infancy of online FPS gaming. Quake’s network code was originally designed to be played over a LAN, however at the time of Quake’s release, internet was becoming more and more popular. With this increase in popularity the desire to play games via TCP/IP became evident, and in late 1996 QuakeWorld was released. Before the release of QuakeWorld, games were played via IPX emulation with such programs as the great Kali. From QuakeWorld came a server browsing program called QuakeSpy which later grew and turned into what we now know as GameSpy.

With QuakeWorld we saw perhaps the first major online game modification, the grand daddy of them all, Team Fortress. Team Fortress ditched the beloved deathmatch formula for a more structured, team-oriented, capture the flag approach. Team Fortress was a huge success, giving players unique classes with a variety of weapons and grenades (oh how we miss the grenades TF 2 Developers), and still kept to the roots of the fast paced, twitch, deathmatch style of gameplay. While Team Fortress wasn’t the only mod available for QuakeWorld, it is by far the most popular, spawning spin offs of the original mod for later Quakes, Unreal Tournament and not to mention the wildly successful Team Fortress 2.

Goldeneye 007 (1997)

Whether you love or hate FPS games on consoles, one cannot deny the impact that Goldeneye 007 has left on the genre. Goldeneye 007 not only had quiet possibly one of the most refined split screen multiplayer modes seen in a game yet, but also was one of the first FPS games on any system to encourage and reward players to use stealth to their advantage. However where Goldeneye 007 shined was in it’s four player split screen mutiplay.

Many hours as well as money have been spent playing Goldeneye 007 in impromptu challenges and tournaments with friends. While my first love was always Team Fortress not everyone had internet access, let alone a computer, but to play Goldeneye 007 all you needed was a Nintendo 64, 4 Controllers and a moderately sized TV. Many of a day’s wage was lost in a Goldeneye 007 tournament pool, however even more was won from my friends. Hardcore gamers and casual gamers alike could grab a controller and have a blast chasing one another around, not to mention the healthy selection of maps, options, and characters that could be chosen to play with.

Half-Life and Counter-Strike (1998)

Half-Life rushed on to the scene introducing gamers to the story driven fps. No longer was your goal to kill hundreds of enemies, find a key, unlock door with key and proceed to the next level, now you had a reason to turn off a piece of scientific equipment before slaying a baddie. Half-Life came out of nowhere, from an unknown company founded by a couple of ex-Microsoft employees, however since the day of Half-Life’s release Valve is a name known by gamers right up there with Blizzard. While the idea of story based FPS gaming may seem rather tired by today’s standards, Half-Life stuck you in the shoes of Gordon Freeman. Heavily scripted game sequences gave the game a truely cinematic feel without disrupting the game play to show a pre-rendered cut scene.

As great of a game that Half-Life was in it’s self, perhaps the greatest accomplishment that came from the game were modifications, most importantly Counter-Strike. Mods are what gave Half-Life it’s staying power, whether it was Team Fortress Classic, Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, or Firearms, Half-Life would probably not still be played to this day. Counter-Strike was and still is one of the most popular FPS titles ever, people are still playing the original, as well as having professional competitions, nearly ten years later now. Counter-Strike sucked gamers in with it’s quasi-realistic gun play, tactical objectives, and close knit tactical teamwork. Counter-Strike also brought upon the prospect of a third-party modification becoming an official commercial product. Half-Life and it’s mods are still played for tens of thousands of hours a day, ten years later, and will probably stay the same for another five years.

In the next part of this series, we will kick off from the end of 1998 until 2001 or 2002. I’m trying to keep these articles limited to five games each, to allow myself time to polish them without feeling rushed. So keep an eye out, and feel free to share your opinions.