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Cool thread. As someone with a very casual interest in FPS games I never know where to look for the "classics."

Ack wrote:CS became popular because of 9/11, and it gave a lot of folks a way to vent and shoot terrorists...or, alternatively, shoot authority figures.

While it's possible that helped increase its popularity, CS was already doing quite well. Like you pointed out, Valve had already acquired it and put it on retail shelves about a year before 9/11 even happened. Here's an interview from 2000 already claiming it to be the most played game.

I'd still say it's mostly about timing. By the time Half-Life came out, mods were very common, but it already supported some of the things that were needed to mod into the games before. Keep in mind that taken-for-granted stuff like seeing what gun someone was holding were not part of vanilla Quake. Valve made it a bit friendlier on users, and was supportive to their modders. Between that, and the game selling really well, it was a great target for mods. The general style was not all-new. I played Action Quake 2 a bit (which the developer interviewed in that link mentioned working on), and there were more realistic games on the market as well. That said, it's also very distinct from the arena shooters of the time, or the generic deathmatch modes that most games had.

To me, it remains popular because it got into the competitive scene early and just never left.

Regardless, discussion on that (and stuff like UT, QIII, Battlefield etc is limited because the topic says single-player

RCBH928 wrote:Well, this is not surprising since Halo was basically the sequel to Marathon. I believe it was at first meant for release on Mac. I didnt know Marathon was popular I believed it might be more on the obscure side.

It'd be a little subjective. For a PC or console gamer, it would be obscure. If you were into Mac gaming at the time, it was nigh ubiquitous. It was probably one of the biggest titles on the Pippin, even

The point in suggesting it here is that it was ahead of its time. It was incorporating story into the objectives and flow of the game while others were chasing keycards. Had variable physics, had the ability to look up and down, and so on. It came with an editor, and the ability to run custom rules for multiplayer and all that (for which it had voice chat, of all things)... it did end up having an influence on Halo, even if Halo was very originally going to be more of an RTS (spinning off of Myth, Bungie's IP at the time).

List updated!

......

Battlezone
MIDI Maze/Faceball 2000
Wolfenstein 3D
Marathon
Blake Stone
Doom/Doom II
Duke Nukem 3D
Quake
Turok: Dinosaur Hunter
GoldenEye/Perfect Dark
Medal of Honor
Rainbow Six
Half-Life/Half-Life 2
Halo/Halo 2
CoD: Modern Warfare
Borderlands
Far Cry 2
Bioshock

......

I added some games, took some games off, and updated the first post. This thread is about single-player FPS experiences; so, I removed games like Portal and Unreal Tournament since one isn’t a shooter and the other didn’t have much of a single player campaign. If you think I should add them back, let me know. Should I take off any more?

What about the Serious Sam games? Timesplitters? F.E.A.R? Chex Quest? Should I add any of them?

Thief, System Shock 2. Without System Shock 2, there would be no Bioshock.

prfsnl_gmr wrote:I removed games like Portal and Unreal Tournament since one isn’t a shooter and the other didn’t have much of a single player campaign.

I think the original Unreal (not UT) is definitely worth a nod.

This LGR vid does a great job of explaining how much of a jump Unreal was from Quake. I know my PC couldn't run it at the time.

https://youtu.be/ZjS6rLKnU0c

Then the impact Epic games had on the industry with the multiple Unreal engines, UT, Gears of War, & Fortnite.

None of this exist without the original Unreal single player FPS.

PresidentLeever wrote:Blake Stone and 90s console FPSs over Quake 2 and Unreal? And why not Tribes? tsk tsk.

What I remember of the shareware for Blake Stone was that it wasn't anything notable. I would be more inclined to look at the Hexen series at that point.

Agree to a point on Quake 2, and yeah, Unreal was at least worth nothing. Tribes would again fall under multiplayer-centric titles that aren't the focus.


IMO, Goldeneye is notable for consoles - it actually was doing similar shifts forward that Marathon and Half-Life ended up doing, and really kicked off demand as well, wether on the single player side in Medal of Honor or later pushes for Timesplitters or even like the direction Halo ended up taking.

prfsnl_gmr wrote:List updated!
What about the Serious Sam games? Timesplitters? F.E.A.R? Chex Quest? Should I add any of them?

Not sure on Serious Sam. They're fun for co-op at least, and were given a deliberate focus on massive arenas and enemy counts. Sort of deliberately retro even at the time for the direction FPS were mostly heading. So, maybe?

Not sure Timesplitters is particularly defining, but I haven't played it. I tend to remember it as a title that filled the Rare/Bungie void on some platforms, but that may be biased.

FEAR probably gets into the question of how concise your list is meant to be. If it's just titles that sort of brought something new to the genre, then eh, it did the "bullet time" sort of thing...not sure if many/any did that prior. Otherwise it's a "classic" by being a solid, popular title, but would join a healthy list of others not yet on the list if that's the case.

The list is super-duper subjective.

Sounds like Quake 2, System Shock/System Shock 2, and Unreal are on, and Blake Stone is off. What about Deus Ex? Should I add it back? If I do, are we starting to slip back in to Metroid Prime territory? Should that be added back?

What about Heretic/Hexen? Did they do much for the genre?

Looking at my stuff, it doesn’t look like PowerSlave / Exhumed has been mentioned. It’s pretty good in the 32-bit era.

There’s also Left 4 Dead and the sequel. Those ones definitely encourage co-op but are very much playable in solo mode.

prfsnl_gmr wrote:The list is super-duper subjective.

Sounds like Quake 2, System Shock/System Shock 2, and Unreal are on, and Blake Stone is off. What about Deus Ex? Should I add it back? If I do, are we starting to slip back in to Metroid Prime territory? Should that be added back?

What about Heretic/Hexen? Did they do much for the genre?

IMO, Deus Ex as a series leans a bit more into RPG or even stealth, same as things like System Shock. However, it's probably also not a bad shooter exactly, unlike some largely similar games like Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines - shooting in that game is miserable without dumping stats into it.

I would say Hexen stands out more for those. The series in genral "added" things like inventory items to use, and some enhancements to the DOOM engine (it has a form of looking up and down as well, for instance), and has a different level structure. Hexen added a choice of character class, enforcing different styles of play for each. Probably the standout for a first person melee title (at least for some classes) at least.

This year's Steam summer sale is live now. It is a great time to get some of these games if you are in the market for them. As usual, steampowered.com is buckling under the increased load. Try again later if it isn't working for you.

I'm probably in for Doom 64 if nothing else. Saw it was $1.49 before the site imploded.