Extra Punctuation: Shooters of Yore

[CrawlingPastaHellion]

Oh, so he has a brother? I bet that's where all that cynicism came from.

My first-person-shooter career actually started on something other than PC, it was Sega MegaDrive and the game was called "Zero Tolerance". Next one was Duke3D, but it was some years later (four to six years later and no, I wasn't in the can during that period).

I think that modern shooters suck big time, no doubt about it, but the old-school ones are way too outdated to be interesting. Maybe some new ideas, perhaps? I like hybrids, like DXHR and "Bioshock 2", but I was talking more of a traditional FPS game.

 

[themerrygambit]

lol great quotes from Blood
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7AsYxY6nz4&feature=related

 

[Dfskelleton]

I played Blood, and I freaking loved Caleb. The concept of a game character who is not only an undead cowboy, but also completely insane just strikes me as incredibly fun. The scary part is that it can be hard at times to not laugh with him.

 

[ShakenBake]

What, no love for Shadow Warrior? Remember Redneck Rampage? How about Witchaven? Those old FPSs have way more personality than the mostly bland fare we get served these days. And minus the $60 pricetag, too.

 

[Infernai]

Wasn't Sin made into an anime?

There was an anime movie made of it yes, but it didn't exactly stick that closely to the story. Still an alright movie in it's own right though.

Also:

Daikatana

Yes, Daikatana was great. Everyone seems to remember only three things about it - the hype, the demo and the bugs. Well I don't remember the hype as I wasn't playing games back than, but I've acquired Daikatana around 2002 or so from a bargain bin, installed the patch and I loved the thing. Yeah, the first part was pretty crap (especially the VERY beginning, which was the only thing shown in the demo), but only a few games have achieved such artistic level. It has the same good things about it as Doom II had - especially the level design, monsters and overall just fun. It could easily surpass Half-Life if it were polished better.

D-d-DAIKATANA!? THE Daikatana? Y-you thought that was a game that was good, a game that surpasses Half-Life....HALF-LIFE!?


Daikatana is the worst game Ion Storm and John Romaro made, ever, of all time. It is reviled amongst gamers and is easily seen by many as one of the worst First Person Shooters ever created, and for good reason.

 

[JesterRaiin]

What, no love for Shadow Warrior? Remember Redneck Rampage? How about Witchaven? Those old FPSs have way more personality than the mostly bland fare we get served these days. And minus the $60 pricetag, too.

...someone remembers Witchaven... Good Lord...

Also :

http://dosgamers.reijkman.nl/uploads/images/original/hexen2.jpg

 

[ShakenBake]

How can I not remember a game that lets me chuck a halberd into someone's face? And that is a screenshot of the sequel to one of the best shooters ever. Since I believe one good turn deserves another: http://www.hexenmod.com/about.php

 

[octafish]

It amuses me to imagine all the fourteen-year-olds reading this article, who, on reaching the comparison to a Francis bacon painting, google the result, leading them to issue a collective 'urrrrgh' that is heard throughout the world.

I hope the first image that comes up is Study after Velazquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X. That shit is the bomb.

What, no love for Shadow Warrior? Remember Redneck Rampage? How about Witchaven? Those old FPSs have way more personality than the mostly bland fare we get served these days. And minus the $60 pricetag, too.

Ahhh Shadow Warrior the most hilariously racist fun ever.
Whoooowantah some Wang? Hey you! Yes you! I am the Shadow Warrior! Lets fight. What you waiting for huh? I am everybody's worst nightmare. Now, let's fight!

I have to give a shout out to NOLF here I can't imagine why it wasn't mentioned in the article. Though to be fair it is better than Half Life and that makes some people uncomfortable.

 

[JediMB]

Nice to see some love for SiN. It was a really fun game, and I do remember getting it at the very same time as Half-Life.

While HL had a more serious story going on, I really have to say that SiN was the superior shooter. So many fun little things to do too, like randomly stealing account numbers and PIN codes to transfer money from the antagonist Elexis Sinclaire's bank accounts to your own.

A few of the levels had multiple routes or endings too, often based on how well the player performed. (At the very beginning of the game you're handling a minigun mounted on a chopper, and depending on how well you do you'll either land on the roof or come crashing down through the skylights.

Good times. Perhaps I should play the game again on Steam sometime... when my backlog is less immense.

 

[The Random One]

No Rise of the Triad? I am disappoint.

Also, the Telltale model is the way to go with episodic gaming: announce how many episodes your game will have, announce release dates for all of them, and release them on their actual release dates. If Valve tried that it'd be what people thought the LHC would do.

 

[Chezza]

Blood/Blood2 were indeed great games. To be honest I didn't mind the new direction Blood 2 headed as an entire installment of similar content (but with improved graphics in comparison to the original Blood) would get old to me at some point. Though the original Blood always had the more memorable levels such as the carnival, the inside of a clown body ride?? etc the next installment had its depressing, horror, hell sort of environments to play with.

 

[Varil]

Episodic gameplay?

*eyes Valve*

I dunno man. What if, hypothetically mind you, the company releasing these "episodes" took its sweet time about it? People are impatient, y'know?

 

[PunkRex]

No Timesplitters... I know it was a little after the period focused on here but it was my first shooter and still my all time fave game along with Pikmin and Pokemon.

 

[Stardude82]

The Sin Episodes got sunk because the developer, Ritual, got bought out and the programmers got sent to work on titles for PopCap... a fate worse than death.

Isn't a lot of DLC nowadays episodic? For the Fallout series, there has been pretty regular content for the last 4 years, and it wasn't (mostly) stupid weapons packs.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Man, Exhumed was great! Weird as hell, but great.

 

[MattyDienhoff]

I'm really curious now whether Yahtzee knows No One Lives Forever (2000). That tongue-in-cheek homage to/parody of 60s spy flicks is the funniest and most enjoyable FPS I've ever played. It got great reviews and everyone I know who's played it loved it, but it's strangely obscure nowadays and I feel it doesn't get the credit it deserves.

 

[Rodrigo Girao]

This is a first person shooter.

And this is a shooter.

LEARN THE GODDAMN DIFFERENCE!

If you say shooter, you must mean a shooter. If you mean a first person shooter, you must say first person shooter.

 

[deleted+75193]

DELETED

 

[Iori Branford]

If you say shooter, you must mean a shooter. If you mean a first person shooter, you must say first person shooter.

While Mars Matrix's genre existed well before Doom's, "shooter" is far too general a term to retain that meaning for so long.

"Scrolling shooter" is the closest to generally-accepted, but still not specific enough, as Contra and Metal Slug could also fit that.

"Flying shooter" is almost there, except today's mostly 3D-minded gamers will first think Descent, Magic Carpet, or HAWX.

Thus, I propose "2D flying shooter".

 

[Stardude82]

LOL, trying to prove a point? Try and find a review that gives out more then a 74/100.

No he's right. There are many much worse games than Daikatana and even Half-Life had its share of inane jumping puzzles in repetitive gray environs. That 74/100 rating is a couple standard deviations away from the norm, but it isn't "Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing" or "Cluster's Revenge."