The First Person Shooter has become one of the most popular genres in the video games industry. The FPS centers around gun or a weapon based combat through a first person perspective.

This genre is usually quite violent and like most other games does involve a goal, which in most FPS games the goals involve the killing of an enemy or a number of enemies. Over the years this genre has evolved.

With the advancement in technology, the games have become more player friendly. Even the graphics of the games have evolved from 2D and being pixelated to 3D with awesome visuals and advanced AI, thus giving the player a more realistic feel while playing and a great gaming experience.

This genre nowadays has been gathering a lot of negative attention lately because of the rampant use of violence, which people think might inculcate the violent nature in the kids playing them, hence the censorship ratings. As far as I am concerned I think it is just like playing any other game.

There are a lot of FPS games from the past which have helped make this genre so popular. Every FPS made had a positive effect and has paved the way for the modern day FPS that we love to play these days.

Although there are a lot of FPS which have made this genre so popular, I would like to mention here a few games which I think have been very important in some way or the other in making this genre what it is today. Some games are a blast from the past and some of them are quite new and each of the games mentioned here are a part of the FPS game history.

MAZE WAR

There is quite a debate to which game was the first FPS. Although it is debatable, the first FPS was in fact the MAZE WAR. It was first written and developed by Steve Colley in 1973 on the Imlac PDS-1 graphical display system at the NASA Ames Research Center in California. It was a program written for portraying and navigating mazes from a first person perspective. The above picture depicts the game made by Steve Colley.

Although it was very popular at first, it became quite boring pretty soon. In 1974, Greg Thomson had the idea to put people in the maze. To do this they connected two Imlacs system together using serial ports to transmit back and forth. This was probably the first FPS game ever to be played between two peer to peer computers as opposed previous multiplayer games which were based on a minicomputer or a mainframe using specialized controls.

                    

In the game the player avatars were represented to each other as eyeballs, hence became the first game to represent the players as organic beings. This game can be called as the pioneer of the modern day FPS games as it was the first FPS ever made and it had both single player and multiplayer modes. Since then it has been redeveloped quite a few times for different systems namely Mac, NeXT Computer, Palm OS, Xerox Star and so on. The picture below depicts the version developed by Greg Thomson.

The game play of the game is shown in the video below.

SPASIM

In the same year, 1^st March, 1974, another game was released called Spasim for the PLATO network which some people suggest as being the first FPS rather than Maze War. Spasim which was short for space simulation, was a multiplayer game developed by Jim Bowery. This game involved 4 planetary systems with up to 8 players per planetary system.

It was the first multiplayer 3D virtual reality game. In this game the players flew around in space and they appeared as wire frame space ships to each other. The game was a simple team based Star Trek type game, mixed with multiplayer first person shooter dynamics. It involved strategy, space stations and active resource management.

The game play of the game can be seen by clicking on the following link:

Although I haven’t personally had the opportunity of playing the game myself, I think the above two games do deserve a mention as they were indeed the building blocks of FPS genre and had a lot of influence in today’s FPS games.

WOLFENSTEIN 3D

This game was developed by id software in 1992. This game put the company on the map. This game took the world by storm with its 256 bit color VGA graphics, digital sound fx and vast content. It was the first 3D FPS game that could be played on a personal computer as no other platform at that time had the processing horsepower required to play the game.

In this game you play a prisoner of war in a German castle and must escape. There were a choice of weapons available for the player to choose from, a knife, pistol and a machine gun. This game had nine levels which was loved by people. In each of the levels the player had to find their way from the level’s entry to the exit, trying not to get killed along the way.

   

The levels were in fact quite short and if one knew the way it wouldn’t take more than a minute to finish each level. But if one wanted to kill all the enemies, find treasure and locate secret walls then one would end up spending more time and thus enjoying the game. What made the game even more liked by so many people is that the final enemy boss that needed to be killed had a resemblance with Hitler.

  

Although it was called 3D, technically it was just projecting a 2D map into fake 3D space rather than providing a fully 3D environment, but the end result was that it was much faster and much more efficient. This game set the bar for many of the FPS games that followed in the years immediately afterwards.

This was the first FPS game I ever played and loved it. I remember trying to beat the best time, competing with my friends, after killing all the enemies and finding treasures. Finding secret walls and treasures apart from reaching my goal by eliminating all enemies was quite fascinating during that time.

DOOM

Although we have discussed Doom before, this game does need to be mentioned here as this game along with Wolfenstein 3D are known as the building blocks of the modern day FPS games. Doom was also released by id software in 1993. This game was more advanced that Wolfenstein 3D, featured a large variety of weapons that included the famous chainsaw for the character to use as a weapon.

The most important factor on Doom being such a success was because of its ability to stage multiplayer games option that would take place over the local area network. The story line was simple. The player would be a space marine who has to fight hordes of demons and evil creatures in Mars.

This game was one of the reasons for the demand for FPS games during this era. This game pioneered 3D graphics and networked multiplayer gaming. This game led to the making of a lot of FPS games which resembled Doom in most ways. The gameplay for this game given below which will show why this game is so addictive.

QUAKE

After the huge success of the above two games there was no doubt id Software had already made their mark in the games industry. In 1996 they released another one of the best games I have played named Quake. This version of Quake was succeeded by many more in the Quake series.

Quake built upon the technology and gameplay of Doom in many ways but unlike the Doom engine the Quake engine offered full real time 3D rendering and early support for 3D acceleration through OpenGL. Doom had already established the popularity for multiplayer death matches. Quake also offered online multiplayer death match option which allowed players to play online with other gamers.

To make the game a game engine was developed purely for this game known as the Quake engine, which kick started several major advances in the 3D game industry. This engine started the use of polygonal models instead of pre-rendered sprites. The use of full 3D level design, pre-rendered light maps and later also giving the ability to gamers to make modification on the characters.

I loved playing Quake with my friends. I did love the single player mode but spending time with friends and playing death matches was great. The video below shows the single player gameplay which shows why this game is so great. All the games in the Quake series that followed were good as they had much better graphics and other advanced weapons included.

HALF LIFE

This was another science fiction FPS game which was developed by Valve Corporation and the first in the Half Life series was released in 1998 by Sierra Entertainment. The game engine used was called GoldSrc which was a heavily modified version of id Software’s Quake game engine.

The game was an instant hit when released because of the seamlessly flowing storyline and quite realistic gameplay. This game was a great influence in the design of future FPS games. This game was the point where game makers realised an interesting story is as important as making the game as realistic as possible.

By this time I was an avid gamer and used to play a lot of RPG and FPS games. Half Life had a storyline and it was really fascinating making the gamer stay interested in the game the whole time rather than making it quite obvious what is going to happen next or like any other common action game. The gameplay of the game is shown in the video below.

PROJECT IGI

This game is one of my most loved games of all times. I still play it sometimes when I get the chance. This game was a tactical FPS developed by Innerloop Studios and released by Eidos Interactive on 15^th December, 2000.

When this game was released it had quite a few glitches like poor AI, no mid game save option and most of all it wasn’t a multiplayer game. Well to me the game disappoint as I loved the storyline and the graphics were amazing and during the gameplay the sound fx was really nice.

The game had quite a few challenging levels which involved doing a number of tasks. It also had lots of options for weapons. I loved the level where I get to use a sniper to eliminate my targets.

  

Sometimes stealth was needed to finish a level and I found that very interesting. Apparently if the cameras detect you or the guards see you there is a hoard of enemies that come after you and completing the task become very hard. Just between us, sometimes I used to go stand in front of the camera just for fun and killing all the enemies when the siren went off. Felt awesome. The video below will show you why I love the game.

CRYSIS

 

This is another game which I think has changed the way we look at FPS games. This game was developed by Crytek and released by Electronic Arts in November 2007. This was the first part of the trilogy that followed. This game has marked its place in the history of FPS games because of the advanced graphical design, sound fx and good story line.

This game has both single player and multiplayer modes. The multiplayer mode can support up to 32 players in each multiplayer match. There are two different modes of playing and each mode has six maps. The first one is loved by all which is the instant action which is similar to the death match style mode. The second one is fun as well which is like a power struggle between two teams.

This game is very important as it uses all advanced techniques like using Microsoft’s API, Direct 3D for graphic rendering. It uses the latest developed game engine named Cry Engine to create the game. This game is so advanced graphically that it is often used as a benchmark for computer tests. The game was so heavily loaded that a computers system had to be top notch and only then a person could play this game.

This is why I had to mention this game as it took FPS gaming to a whole new level and also because I love playing this game. A video of the game play is given below.

References:

1. http://uk-microsites.ign.com/history-of-first-person-shooters/

2. http://www.freeinfosociety.com/article.php?id=128

3. http://www.usgamer.net/articles/blast-from-the-past-the-dawn-of-the-first-person-shooter

4. http://camoyoshi.floorchan.org/_bts189/fps_history-v3/

5. http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/09/19/a-peoples-history-of-the-fps-part-1-the-wad/

6. http://www.museumofplay.org/icheg-game-history/timeline/

7. http://www.infoplease.com/spot/gamestimeline1.html

8. http://www.gamesradar.com/bullets-bombs-history-first-person-shooters/

9. http://ca.complex.com/pop-culture/the-50-best-first-person-shooters-of-all-time_563321/mag

10. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-person_shooter