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.

As said the familiar Total War interface remains mostly the same, however it now features some additional movement options for moving full armies of troops.  This small addition makes a world of difference to moving your force.  We all know the unit formula in the Total War games; light infantry and heavy infantry, skirmisher, ranged, light and heavy cavalry, artillery and the occasional elite unit here and there.  Perhaps the most radical change is moving from swords and bows to gunpowder and swords. With this new technology comes a new set of tactics and strategy that must be applied to the battlefield.

Instead of ordering your soldiers to hold the line while you wait for the enemy to move, you are now subjected to volleys of musket rounds as both sides attempt to hold the line.  The general game play remains the same, but adapting to colonials tactics will challenge return players at first.  Unfortunately, this familiarity to Total War players is welcomed, this very same perk may very well turn off the new Total War player.  The Total War series has always been a very strategic, thinking man’s RTS and it still remains this way, however it’s also a daunting task to learn in a quick manner, which automatically turns off a vast majority of potential players.

Perhaps the most significant new feature in this installment is the addition of real-time naval battles, and boy are they gorgeous.  Aside from being gorgeous they also play very well.  The controls and interface during the naval battles are the same as land battles, however it seems much smaller and more interactive.  Saying it plays a bit like Sid Meier’s: Pirates would be a fair analogy, mind you alot more hardcore, except you’re controlling multiple ships instead of one.  However, controlling this many ships can also feel daunting.  Perhaps some assists or probably more practice on the user side would remedy this, but alas it is a demo impression.

Sadly the demo also suffers from quiet a fair amount of issues and bugs.  The loading times when starting the game, changing video settings, and loading a map is completely unforgivable.  Not only is the time asinine, the loading bar races up to 90% complete and sets there for the remaining four minutes of loading.  Selecting multiple units in game and trying to issue a move order results in the order being given clear across the map from where you commanded.  Thankfully this is a pre-release demo and we’ll hopefully see these issues addressed before release.

Awesome

• Graphics – This is the first time the Total War series has utilized motion capturing in the unit animation process and it really shows.  More importantly who can deny the detail and the environments in a game of such scale.
• Total War Gameplay – If you’re a fan of the gameplay of the Total War series you’ll feel right at home here.
• Revolutionary War – The first Total War to take place in the era of guns. Who doesn’t want to play as the Americans and whoop a bit of red coat ass?

Bad

• Total War Gameplay – While many of us love Total War it is also a very daunting game that isn’t casual friendly.
• Performance and Bugs – While it may demo, it would be silly not to mention issues with the build and it’s engine.

The Empire: Total War demo is avaliable on Steam with the game set to launch on March 4th, 2009.