ViewtifulJC
Banned
For the past four years, kswiston has ran an annual thread where NeoGAF users vote for what they believe are the Essentials RPGs. Whether that be most influential, most played, favorite, or "best", is really up to the individual user. The purpose of this isn't just to see where your favorite games rank, but to help people find great games they might not have played, or obscure titles they may never even heard of!
I thought a thread about First Person Shooters could work similarly. The FPS genre exploded in popularity in the early 90s, with titles such as Doom leading the charge. Now, 20 years later, first person shooters have grown into one of the most popular forms of gaming around. With so many beloved titles and proclaimed classics, things can get lost in the shuffle. What are the Essential First Person Shooters? Well, that's where you came in, GAF!
Below are the top 25 games voted for NeoGAF's Essential FPSs, with some lovely banners by kswiston. Most of these can be found relatively cheap on Steam, although obviously your millage may vary in that regard.
GAME RANKING METHOD: Each voter was allowed to choose up to 10 FPSs, and 5 additional honorable mentions, that they felt were must play games. Votes were ranked using a semi-weighted scale, where regular votes were worth 2 points and honorable mentions worth 1 point. Each poster was also given the option to highlight a single game on their list for one extra bonus point (giving it 3 points in total). In instances where two or more games in the Top 50 had an equal number of points, the number of 3-point highlights a title received was used as a tie breaker. Failing this, the game with the fewest number of honorable mentions was listed first.
Summary: Half-Life 2 has players stepping into the boots of Gordon Freeman, six years after the Black Mesa Incident of Half-Life 1. The Earth has been enslaved by the Combine forces, and Gordon finds himself single-handly leading a revolt against their military might, along with all the other nasty creatures who roam the world. Like its predecessor, Half-Life 2 is a single-player first-person shooter broken into chapters, permanently casting the player as Gordon Freeman. The sequel has nearly the same mechanics as Half-Life, including health-and-weapon systems and periodic physics puzzles. Despite the game's mainly linear nature, much effort was put into making exploration rewarding and interesting; many optional areas can be missed or avoided. Half-Life 2 is one of the highly-regarded video games of the last decade, noted for its environmental storytelling, advances in physics and animations, and general all-around awesomeness.
Summary: Bioshock is set in 1960, in which the player guides Jack after his airplane crashes in the ocean near the bathysphere terminus that leads to the underwater city of Rapture. Jack is able to defeat foes in a number of ways by using weapons, utilizing plasmids that give unique powers and by turning Rapture's own defenses against them. BioShock includes elements of survival horror and role-playing games, giving the player different approaches in engaging enemies such as by stealth, as well as moral choices of saving or killing characters. The game was praised for the immersive environment that is the world of Rapture, along with the sandbox of combat options the game allows you to battle with.
Summary: Half-Life is an influential sci-fi shooter, and the first game from renowned developer, Valve. Like HL2, you are Gordon Freeman, as you desperately mount an escape out of the Black Mesa facility, which just so happen to open a portal to an alien invasion! It is the originator of ideas Half-Life 2 would build on, such as the game never cutting away from Gordons perspective(who never speaks), a heavy use of scripted sequences to advance major plot points, combat mixed with puzzle solving, and sophisticated environmental storytelling.
Summary: Taking the series out of its traditional WW2 roots, Call of Duty 4 focuses on present-day dangers of Middle-Eastern separtists and Russian ultranationalists. Like the other CoD titles, the campaign jumps between several perspectives, from US Navy SEALS to British SAS, with events overlapping and occasionally simultaneously playing out against each other. Mainly though, CoD4 is known for its multiplayer, which contain many features that seem to have taking over the world of action gaming this generation. Whatever your opinion on that influence is, theres no questioning CoD4s impact on video game history.
Summary: Halo: Combat Evolved launched in 2001 alongside the original Xbox, and quickly became a killer ap for the system. Its cinematic production, sandbox style of combat, and great co-op/multiplayer modes made it hugely popular on release, as well as the go-to standard for first person shooters made for dual-analog controls. It popularized a set of concepts that would make their way into many first and third person shooters in the wake of its success, such as the two-weapon carrying system and rechargeable shields/health. The games influence was so big, that for the longest time, after big console shooter was quickly labeled as the next Halo or Halo killer. Nevertheless, the game stands up today as an impressive package, thats fun to revisit its mysterious ring world time and time again.
Summary: Team Fortress 2 is a class-based multiplayer shooter/hat economy simulator released in 2007 by Valve. Red teams compete against Blu teams in a variety of objective-based game modes. There are nine classes, each with their own unique strengths, weaknesses, weapons, and hats. TF2 contains a unique cartoon aesthetic to its world, with a very animated and surprisingly developed cast of characters for a multiplayer-only shooter, that has endeared itself to gamers of all taste. But its not the balance of its gameplay, or great map design, or even the fact thats free-to-play, or even all the free, awesome updates Valve keeps putting out year after year that keeps people coming back. No, its the HATS. Oh, so many hats to trade/buy/craft/beg for. Can you believe people played this with only default hats back in the day!? Thank Gabe weve evolved since those dark times.
Summary: Doom is a 1993 sci-fi shooter, where players assume the role of a space marine fighting hordes of invading demons from Hell on Mars! It is widely regarded as one of the most important video games of all-time, popularizing the first person shooter genre, pioneering 3d visuals, and for being pretty damn violent(for 1993 video game standards). It also came with built in level editors, creating one of the first large-scale modding communities that is STILL going strong today, over 20 years since its original release. Taking away its huge influence, Doom is just a great shooter. Fast-paced action, finely tuned enemy speeds and patterns, strong weapon design, and complex, abstract level design keeps its status as a classic firmly planted for future generations.
Summary: Goldeneye 007 is a 1997 Nintendo 64 FPS, based on the 1995 movie of the same name. It had a lot of things going against, like being a licensed game, particularly one that came out two years after the movies original release, but it was also a first person shooter played with a controller. In 1997, you just didnt do first person shooters on consoles, outside some shoddy ports of Doom or Star Wars: Dark Forces. GE 007 importance in erasing that conception is hard to overstated, featuring detailed varied polygonal environments, objective-based gameplay, stealth operations, and a four-player split-screen multiplaer component Rare threw together at the last minute that became a gaming sensation for many players, including myself. Just dont pick Oddjob; hes cheating, and your friends will hate you.
Summary: Deus Ex is a cyberpunk-themed action role-playing game, which combines elements of first-person shooters with those of role playing games. Set in a dystopian world during the year 2052, the central plot follows rookie United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition agent JC Denton, as he sets out to combat increasingly prevalent terrorist forces in a world slipping ever further into chaos. Upon release the game was praised for its expansive environments, ambitious and layered storyline, and its high replayability. Missions in the game can be tackled a number of ways, depending on the preferred play style of the player.
Summary: Crysis is a sci-fi FPS/Predator simulator, where the player controls a Delta Force operative codenamed Nomad, and must utilize the various powers of his Nanosuit to survive on an island full of angry North Korean soldiers. The games most noted element right off the bat was the graphical design, which was so demanding with hardware requirements, it actually became a bit of a meme(But can it run Crysis!?). Moving past the pretty visuals, however, and you find a game that deserves attention based on its mechanics alone. The player can engage enemies in a variety of ways; using stealth or aggression, bullets or non-lethal tranquilizers, ranged rifles or short-range weaponry, vehicles, and so on. This creates a huge sandbox of combat opportunities and various ways to engage with the game, styles of play oftentimes changing on the fly to match the current situation. If you can find hardware to run it on, Crysis is essential gaming.
I thought a thread about First Person Shooters could work similarly. The FPS genre exploded in popularity in the early 90s, with titles such as Doom leading the charge. Now, 20 years later, first person shooters have grown into one of the most popular forms of gaming around. With so many beloved titles and proclaimed classics, things can get lost in the shuffle. What are the Essential First Person Shooters? Well, that's where you came in, GAF!
Below are the top 25 games voted for NeoGAF's Essential FPSs, with some lovely banners by kswiston. Most of these can be found relatively cheap on Steam, although obviously your millage may vary in that regard.
GAME RANKING METHOD: Each voter was allowed to choose up to 10 FPSs, and 5 additional honorable mentions, that they felt were must play games. Votes were ranked using a semi-weighted scale, where regular votes were worth 2 points and honorable mentions worth 1 point. Each poster was also given the option to highlight a single game on their list for one extra bonus point (giving it 3 points in total). In instances where two or more games in the Top 50 had an equal number of points, the number of 3-point highlights a title received was used as a tie breaker. Failing this, the game with the fewest number of honorable mentions was listed first.
Summary: Half-Life 2 has players stepping into the boots of Gordon Freeman, six years after the Black Mesa Incident of Half-Life 1. The Earth has been enslaved by the Combine forces, and Gordon finds himself single-handly leading a revolt against their military might, along with all the other nasty creatures who roam the world. Like its predecessor, Half-Life 2 is a single-player first-person shooter broken into chapters, permanently casting the player as Gordon Freeman. The sequel has nearly the same mechanics as Half-Life, including health-and-weapon systems and periodic physics puzzles. Despite the game's mainly linear nature, much effort was put into making exploration rewarding and interesting; many optional areas can be missed or avoided. Half-Life 2 is one of the highly-regarded video games of the last decade, noted for its environmental storytelling, advances in physics and animations, and general all-around awesomeness.
Summary: Bioshock is set in 1960, in which the player guides Jack after his airplane crashes in the ocean near the bathysphere terminus that leads to the underwater city of Rapture. Jack is able to defeat foes in a number of ways by using weapons, utilizing plasmids that give unique powers and by turning Rapture's own defenses against them. BioShock includes elements of survival horror and role-playing games, giving the player different approaches in engaging enemies such as by stealth, as well as moral choices of saving or killing characters. The game was praised for the immersive environment that is the world of Rapture, along with the sandbox of combat options the game allows you to battle with.
Summary: Half-Life is an influential sci-fi shooter, and the first game from renowned developer, Valve. Like HL2, you are Gordon Freeman, as you desperately mount an escape out of the Black Mesa facility, which just so happen to open a portal to an alien invasion! It is the originator of ideas Half-Life 2 would build on, such as the game never cutting away from Gordons perspective(who never speaks), a heavy use of scripted sequences to advance major plot points, combat mixed with puzzle solving, and sophisticated environmental storytelling.
Summary: Taking the series out of its traditional WW2 roots, Call of Duty 4 focuses on present-day dangers of Middle-Eastern separtists and Russian ultranationalists. Like the other CoD titles, the campaign jumps between several perspectives, from US Navy SEALS to British SAS, with events overlapping and occasionally simultaneously playing out against each other. Mainly though, CoD4 is known for its multiplayer, which contain many features that seem to have taking over the world of action gaming this generation. Whatever your opinion on that influence is, theres no questioning CoD4s impact on video game history.
Summary: Halo: Combat Evolved launched in 2001 alongside the original Xbox, and quickly became a killer ap for the system. Its cinematic production, sandbox style of combat, and great co-op/multiplayer modes made it hugely popular on release, as well as the go-to standard for first person shooters made for dual-analog controls. It popularized a set of concepts that would make their way into many first and third person shooters in the wake of its success, such as the two-weapon carrying system and rechargeable shields/health. The games influence was so big, that for the longest time, after big console shooter was quickly labeled as the next Halo or Halo killer. Nevertheless, the game stands up today as an impressive package, thats fun to revisit its mysterious ring world time and time again.
Summary: Team Fortress 2 is a class-based multiplayer shooter/hat economy simulator released in 2007 by Valve. Red teams compete against Blu teams in a variety of objective-based game modes. There are nine classes, each with their own unique strengths, weaknesses, weapons, and hats. TF2 contains a unique cartoon aesthetic to its world, with a very animated and surprisingly developed cast of characters for a multiplayer-only shooter, that has endeared itself to gamers of all taste. But its not the balance of its gameplay, or great map design, or even the fact thats free-to-play, or even all the free, awesome updates Valve keeps putting out year after year that keeps people coming back. No, its the HATS. Oh, so many hats to trade/buy/craft/beg for. Can you believe people played this with only default hats back in the day!? Thank Gabe weve evolved since those dark times.
Summary: Doom is a 1993 sci-fi shooter, where players assume the role of a space marine fighting hordes of invading demons from Hell on Mars! It is widely regarded as one of the most important video games of all-time, popularizing the first person shooter genre, pioneering 3d visuals, and for being pretty damn violent(for 1993 video game standards). It also came with built in level editors, creating one of the first large-scale modding communities that is STILL going strong today, over 20 years since its original release. Taking away its huge influence, Doom is just a great shooter. Fast-paced action, finely tuned enemy speeds and patterns, strong weapon design, and complex, abstract level design keeps its status as a classic firmly planted for future generations.
Summary: Goldeneye 007 is a 1997 Nintendo 64 FPS, based on the 1995 movie of the same name. It had a lot of things going against, like being a licensed game, particularly one that came out two years after the movies original release, but it was also a first person shooter played with a controller. In 1997, you just didnt do first person shooters on consoles, outside some shoddy ports of Doom or Star Wars: Dark Forces. GE 007 importance in erasing that conception is hard to overstated, featuring detailed varied polygonal environments, objective-based gameplay, stealth operations, and a four-player split-screen multiplaer component Rare threw together at the last minute that became a gaming sensation for many players, including myself. Just dont pick Oddjob; hes cheating, and your friends will hate you.
Summary: Deus Ex is a cyberpunk-themed action role-playing game, which combines elements of first-person shooters with those of role playing games. Set in a dystopian world during the year 2052, the central plot follows rookie United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition agent JC Denton, as he sets out to combat increasingly prevalent terrorist forces in a world slipping ever further into chaos. Upon release the game was praised for its expansive environments, ambitious and layered storyline, and its high replayability. Missions in the game can be tackled a number of ways, depending on the preferred play style of the player.
Summary: Crysis is a sci-fi FPS/Predator simulator, where the player controls a Delta Force operative codenamed Nomad, and must utilize the various powers of his Nanosuit to survive on an island full of angry North Korean soldiers. The games most noted element right off the bat was the graphical design, which was so demanding with hardware requirements, it actually became a bit of a meme(But can it run Crysis!?). Moving past the pretty visuals, however, and you find a game that deserves attention based on its mechanics alone. The player can engage enemies in a variety of ways; using stealth or aggression, bullets or non-lethal tranquilizers, ranged rifles or short-range weaponry, vehicles, and so on. This creates a huge sandbox of combat opportunities and various ways to engage with the game, styles of play oftentimes changing on the fly to match the current situation. If you can find hardware to run it on, Crysis is essential gaming.
