I'm the Best - The History of FPS

[Cutlock]

So this is the third in my official FPS thread topics:

 

Read First: Call of Duty vs Battlefield

Read Number B: Call of Duty

 

Now lets look at the wider scale? How does it all start, Campaign. Up until Halo, nobody gave a rats or opossum's ass about Multiplayer.

 

Who started it all, the master studio: iD Software. What did they do, its simple, they invented DOOM. The first First-Person Shooter ever that anybody cared about, you cant say it was bad, it was good, now awesome, but good. Good enough to be loved, good enough to enjoy, good enough to be considered Revolutionary. What did it fail to do? Inspire. You can contest that, but what did it do well enough? Sell enough copies to make Hell on Earth. Hell on Earth was still good as the aforementioned, but it added a component to that good, its called inspiration.

 

Then in 1996, many Doom Clones were released of which the only good one was Disruptor, but the genre still was not popular enough to really inspire, it was still all Hell on Earth for FPS' and iD Software, bad to good. While platformers were gaining more fame, through Mario to Crash Bandicoot [who's better? Mario 64 or Crash 2. You decide]. When Quake came out in 1996, it changed everything. Now it was gone gold, on the PC. Sure the N64 enjoyed it, but did it really?

 

So iD Software managed to inspire the most important developers thus far in the history of FPS: Valve. You got Half-Life and its expansions, Valve took the Quake engine and got Gold Src out of it. What did over 20 Mil copies sold do? It made sure that the FPS Genre was never going to fade out, held on to a series of Doom Clones and iD Software. Suddenly, everybody wanted the game and when Half-Life 2 sealed the deal and became game of the decade, you can consider this part the Activision Renaissance.

 

EA, THQ, Activision and Ubisoft? What do they have in common at the year 2004, attempts to usurp Valve, but did they really do so? Call of Duty came out in 2003, becoming the only true competitor. Then Modern Warfare came out in the year 2007, but did it usurp Valve. Not at all, not at all. MW2, Black Ops and MW3 may have broken all records at this point and made the FPS Genre the dominant genre, but Valve has remained mum in the genre, aside from the release of Portal 2 which seemed to be more of trying to create a sub-genre than vamp the current genre as EA and Activision fail to do.

 

So when will the Activision downfall come? Not at the release of Half-life 2: Episode 3, but perhaps rather at Half-life 3. Or maybe EA will topple Infinity Ward and D.I.C.E will rule?

 

What will happen? Think of it

Edited November 23, 2011 by Cutlock

[Gorth]

The first First-Person Shooter ever

...on the PC platform

[C2B]

The first First-Person Shooter ever

...on the PC platform

 

That's wrong too (no offense )

 

FPS date back to ~1974 (Could be debated of course on what you consider an FPS to be) even.

Edited November 23, 2011 by C2B

[Cutlock]

What I meant by that: its the first True FPS.

 

The first genre changing FPS was Maze War, but nobody cared about it back then. Nobody actually knew about it until Wolfenstein and nobody actually cared about it until Doom. That is what I meant by the first First-Person Shooter ever.

[C2B]

What I meant by that: its the first True FPS.

 

The first genre changing FPS was Maze War, but nobody cared about it back then. Nobody actually knew about it until Wolfenstein and nobody actually cared about it until Doom. That is what I meant by the first First-Person Shooter ever.

 

 

That statement is from a completly logical standpoint wrong. Just because "nobody" cared about it doesn't mean it didn't exist or isn't the actual "first". Of course Wolfenstein and later Doom made the gerne really popular but even they had precedessors.

 

Edit2: Did you edit? Ok, then. Makes more sense now.

Edited November 23, 2011 by C2B

[Cutlock]

What I meant by that: its the first True FPS.

 

The first genre changing FPS was Maze War, but nobody cared about it back then. Nobody actually knew about it until Wolfenstein and nobody actually cared about it until Doom. That is what I meant by the first First-Person Shooter ever.

 

 

That statement is from a completly logical standpoint wrong. Just because "nobody" cared about it doesn't mean it didn't exist or isn't the actual "first". Of course Wolfenstein and later Doom made the gerne really popular but even they had precedessors.

 

Edit2: Did you edit? Ok, then. Makes more sense now.

 

True, true, but the perspective I'm speaking from is coming from a majority and minority. yes people knew about it, played it and enjoyed it, but compared to platformers and rpgs, the number would be like 1/7 people in a room in the seventies. In the eighties the number would have been virtualy unchanged in some times. It was the nineties that the number jumped to about 3/7.

[Maria Caliban]

My first FPS was Duke Nukem 3D. You killed LAPD Pigs in that. Amazing what sort of cultural transparency games had at that time that no one really complained about this only a few years after the LA Riots.

 

There was also Dai Katana, which became a benchmark for failure for awhile.

[Malcador]

No FPS has ever been as fun as Tribes.

[Cantousent]

My first FPS was Wolfenstein 3D. What's funny is that folks probably think of it as a precursor to DOOM, but I played the earlier Escape from Castle Wolfenstein, which wasn't an FPS at all. I thought it would be a sequel, but it was a new game. You were still escaping from Wolfenstein, but instead of being an English soldier, you were American, and instead of using a variety of tools and even some stealthy moves, you were basically gunning everything down everything that moved. I think some new FPS lose some of the charm of the ol' run and gun style FPS games. I did enjoy some sort of zombies game that came packaged with Black Ops. That one really gets back to mindlessly slaughtering endless foes but the main game has a lot of new and creative ideas.

[Cutlock]

Part 2: The Halo Era

 

Halo was a big step for FPS' as it was the Father of Online, lets say, though like many other successful franchises, it is not overshadowed by Call of Duty and Battlefield, just as Crash became overshadowed by Ratchet and Daxter who in turn are being overshadowed by Skylanders: Sackboy's Prodigy. I'm not saying that Halo is not successful anymore, it still is, but is now overshadowed. Halo was a huge hit for the directXbox. then Halo 2 did nothing new but two things: Play as the Enemy and Online. Suddenly, everybody wanted online, Battlefield, Ghost Recon, you name it. The launch of the Playstation 3 set the deal for Call of Duty 3 to soar, but its numbers, could never match Halo 3's. Call of Duty 4 marked the end of the Halo Era, abruptly ending it as well as the first FPS to successfully Valve's regime, never mind Halo 3 for being console specific and previous CoD titles for lacking what Modern Warfare had [Lets say Valve is at war with Activision and not losing, just building up for a larger assault].

[Niten_Ryu]

So iD Software managed to inspire the most important developers thus far in the history of FPS: Valve.

 

That's some weird videogame historical revisionism. iD Software didn't inspire Valve and in those days Half-Life was seen as something other then pure FPS. Wolfenstein 3D, Dooms and Quake were all GAMES first... well, actually there were no real story elements, just game mechanics. In Half-Life there were heavy scripting (what, mobs don't attack us right away... I can talk to these scientists? ), real storyline, paced action, cutscenes... even the Quake engine was heavily modified.

 

iD did inspire many developers. Something like Serious Sam (inspired by both iD games and Duke) or Painkiller are some of the clearer examples. ID themself can't write their way out of paperbag and all the games since Quake have more or less been failures (not financial, but failed to reach the level of "modern" FPS ).

 

FPS genre is already rather old and it has splintered into many different directions and all have evolved (or sometimes devolved) since the early days. Halo is important point in FPS games history, not because the game is anything special, but because it helped to kill PC domination in this genre. Actually many younger games don't even know about pre-Halo FPS on PC (they have most likely only played console FPS). Some could argue that even Halo is ancent history already and latest Modern Warfare is where's it at. Can't blame 'em, since Halo is 10 years old. When I played Wolfenstain 3D in 1992, I sure as hell didn't think about Battlezone from 1983 (I had that too on c64, didn't like it).

[Cutlock]

So iD Software managed to inspire the most important developers thus far in the history of FPS: Valve.

 

That's some weird videogame historical revisionism. iD Software didn't inspire Valve and in those days Half-Life was seen as something other then pure FPS. Wolfenstein 3D, Dooms and Quake were all GAMES first... well, actually there were no real story elements, just game mechanics. In Half-Life there were heavy scripting (what, mobs don't attack us right away... I can talk to these scientists? ), real storyline, paced action, cutscenes... even the Quake engine was heavily modified.

 

iD did inspire many developers. Something like Serious Sam (inspired by both iD games and Duke) or Painkiller are some of the clearer examples. ID themself can't write their way out of paperbag and all the games since Quake have more or less been failures (not financial, but failed to reach the level of "modern" FPS ).

 

FPS genre is already rather old and it has splintered into many different directions and all have evolved (or sometimes devolved) since the early days. Halo is important point in FPS games history, not because the game is anything special, but because it helped to kill PC domination in this genre. Actually many younger games don't even know about pre-Halo FPS on PC (they have most likely only played console FPS). Some could argue that even Halo is ancent history already and latest Modern Warfare is where's it at. Can't blame 'em, since Halo is 10 years old. When I played Wolfenstain 3D in 1992, I sure as hell didn't think about Battlezone from 1983 (I had that too on c64, didn't like it).

 

Gold Source, they used the Quake Engine for Half-Life. Do I need another thesis?

[Humodour]

Do I need another thesis?

 

Yes.

[Walsingham]

What about side scrolling FPS? Like Operation Wolf.

 

 

[pmp10]

What about side scrolling FPS? Like Operation Wolf.

I don't think rail shooters count among FPS genre.

In early FPS games mouse could at best be used for movement and auto-aim was the norm.

[Cutlock]

Do I need another thesis?

 

Yes.

 

Then here it is: A nation, ignoring its youth and children, can build all the skyscrapers it wants, but in fact is only using its cloud-capped rise to decorate hell.

 

Operation Wolf was in First-Person Perspective, I cannot say it was a FPS, but rather akin to Commando but in a different perspective. Sure, revamped to this day it would be considered a FPS, but at its roots, its simply Metal Slug in First-Person Perspective.

[Hassat Hunter]

Let's see. No unreal? UT WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY before Halo. Not to mention all kinds of other MP-only games?

IIRC Battlefield 1942 was also released before Halo, so saying Halo inspired it is some pretty reversed history...

 

Halo did nothing on the online compartment, only make the PC domination fall, shifiting to consoles.

 

I have no idea what the Valve-Activision BS is all about.

 

Get your facts straight.

[Rostere]

Let's see. No unreal? UT WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY before Halo. Not to mention all kinds of other MP-only games?

IIRC Battlefield 1942 was also released before Halo, so saying Halo inspired it is some pretty reversed history...

 

Halo did nothing on the online compartment, only make the PC domination fall, shifiting to consoles.

 

I have no idea what the Valve-Activision BS is all about.

 

Get your facts straight.

 

Agree - this is the weirdest thread

[Cutlock]

Let's see. No unreal? UT WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY before Halo. Not to mention all kinds of other MP-only games?

IIRC Battlefield 1942 was also released before Halo, so saying Halo inspired it is some pretty reversed history...

 

Halo did nothing on the online compartment, only make the PC domination fall, shifiting to consoles.

 

I have no idea what the Valve-Activision BS is all about.

 

Get your facts straight.

 

By Battlefield I meant this: Battlefield 2: Modern Combat and as in online I meant online on the consoles which you highlighted in this: Halo did nothing on the online compartment, only make the PC domination fall, shifiting to consoles.

 

Valve: Half-Life 2 is Game of the Decade

Activision: MW3 is the Biggest Launch EVER!

 

And remember, I'm the best, you can barely survive me.

[Humodour]

Are you 12?

[Azdeus]

Are you 12?

 

Probably Volo's alt. Or a Volo fanboi.

[Walsingham]

Operation Wolf was in First-Person Perspective, I cannot say it was a FPS, but rather akin to Commando but in a different perspective. Sure, revamped to this day it would be considered a FPS, but at its roots, its simply Metal Slug in First-Person Perspective.

 

Agreed. But evoolution's rather like that. Before the chicken there was something quite like a chicken.

[Hassat Hunter]

Because Battlefield Modern Warfare 2 stole Halo's principle instead of using the exact same thing also in Battlefield 1942/Vietnam/2 etc. etc.

 

HL2 is only the game of the decade for people who lacked the ability to play better games like Deus Ex...

[Lorfean]

Up until Halo, nobody gave a rats or opossum's ass

Part 2: The Halo Era

Halo

Halo

Halo

Halo

Halo

And remember, I'm the best, you can barely survive me.

Seems a pretty clear pattern to me...

 

Console fanboy / closet Beyonc

[Cutlock]

Up until Halo, nobody gave a rats or opossum's ass

Part 2: The Halo Era

Halo

Halo

Halo

Halo

Halo

And remember, I'm the best, you can barely survive me.

Seems a pretty clear pattern to me...

 

Console fanboy / closet Beyonc