Racketboy

One of the genre’s most associated with modern gaming (at least here in the US) is the First Person Shooter. The FPS is always the prime candidate to show up cutting edge graphics and gameplay.

And while the FPS genre didn’t really take off until the later part of the 1990’s, the First Person Shooter (and its immediate family) has been around since the 1970s.

Gnome (who happens to be a frequenter here) compiled an excellent look back the pioneers of the First Person 3D games. The article spans from the early titles like Spasm and Space war to the modern-retro classics like Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM.

This topic is quite timley here at racketboy.com as we just recently started an interesting conversation about the first FPS we had ever played. I mentioned that Wolfenstein 3D was my first experience and was just getting used to this thing called a mouse.

I also had another one of the games mentioned on Gnome’s article (although I forgot the name until I saw it in his writeup). On my old 286 I had 3-Demon — a surprisingly thrilling 3D version of Pac-Man. Back then I had a pile of old floppy disks that I had gotten from a neighbor and found the game on there by chance. Not only were the 3D graphics something I had rarely interacted with, but I remember feeling my pulse pounding while running from the ghosts down a long straightaway. I need to give the game another spin sometime… (I just found it on this torrent on Underground Gamer)

It is also worth noting that the original DOOM had recently arrived on XBox Live Arcade and features some interesting features such as surround sound, high-definition, and online co-op. As usual, I have heard that the lag can be a pain on XBLA, but its always great to see a classic get renewed attention and a touch of new paint.