Firstly let me point out that a truly great FPS has to be on a PC and not a console game
As you dont really aim on a console, you need a mouse for that. For all those who said |Halo you are the type of person stook in the matrix whilst Neo and niobi fight to save your ass! You will never know Halo was over hyped, poorly made copy of much better games, (like all ms stuff) it wasnt the first, it wasnt the best, it was just the most advertised to fat yank brats who had shiney new consoles to wank over whilst mom made them more burgers. It has such a following purly as it was most people's first FPS game to which it does deserve credit for the rise of FPS games but its actual graphics, weapons, netcode, balance and playability were many evolutions behind the PC gamers and consoles always will be. When you think that the PS3 has a 10 year life cycle imagine how pants the graphics will be in 8 years time! whilst the PC will have evolved for 8 more years and be lifelike, the cutting edge console graphics of today are dated in 18 months, yet your forced to wait 10 years for an upgrade. Whilst graphics cards on PCs come out newer and faster every 4 months or so.
The one guy who said PORTAL needs a labotomy, great game but not an FPS in anyone else book but yours. Its a puzzle game.
Now to the real list of best FPS's
As a FPS gamer for 20 years ive been there from the start and ive played them all. I also have had a hand in making half the games mentioned here although i wont go into detail. Goldeneye was the first true multiplayer and deserves a mention in any of these lists. ID say overall best ever would be
COD 4the first 3 were pants but they hit the sweet spot with that game. Wether its single or multiplayer, on console or PC, this game is superb all the other games are great at one thing but not great at them all, although without quake, counter-strike series, Unreal series, and the battlefield series it would never of gotten to that status, all of these games were once the greatest but nothing currently compares to cod 4 although COD 5 is looking good in testing.
FEAR was excellent as an actually scarey riviting story, it should of come with a free nappy.
Far cry and crysis for graphically beauty (free tissues)and
BIOSHOCK is the best immersion fantasy world ive ever been in (free LSD).
the cartoon styling of Team fortress games is great as is the olde style of DoD Valve make such top quality stuff.