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FPS games that have aged well?


KWKBOX

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I'll second (or third?) Doom and Quake III Arena. Duke Nukem 3D was another one.

I'll add a caveat with Doom, though: with source ports like GZDoom and Zandronum/Skulltag and tweaks like Doom Expanded, Smooth Doom, and Hi-Res texture and sprite packs, Doom is still great; however, plain old "the-way-we-played-it-in-the-Nineties" Doom is a little tough to go back to when those other modernizations and updates are available. And given that those things exist, I pretty much can't abide the old console ports anymore, which were already weak even compared to PC Vanilla Doom anyway. The PS1/Saturn versions are probably the best, IMO. Jaguar Doom is good if you've never played the PC version.

The best thing about Doom, I think, is that it's so customizable. It can really be almost any game you want it to be. There's such an incredible modding community around it, even 20+ years later. The map work I've seen in many custom WADs is truly stunning. There's an Aliens: Colonial Marines total conversion for Doom that IMO blew away the 2013 Gearbox title (not that that bar is very high, mind you, but the A:CM TC really is that good...harder than balls, though).

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Brutal Doom is the best way to play Doom.

 

It's an impressive piece of modding, to be sure. It's almost like a new game. The last couple of iterations have gotten a little too over the top for my taste, though. I find myself preferring that more classic Doom style of gameplay lately (with some modern-ish enhancements), or at least some of the earlier versions of BD. I love the Starter Pack Maps, though.

 

Half Life 2 has never seemed old to me. Doom is still the gold standard.

 

 

How did I forget Half-Life and Half-Life 2?! I don't believe there's really such a thing as a "perfect" game, but HL and HL2 come about as close as you can get. I have to include Black Mesa as well.

 

Speaking of Black Mesa, I love the little references and inside jokes you find throughout the game. Especially the Office Space references at the beginning. :-D

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As a genre FPS has probably had the biggest popularity run, even beating out platformers I'd say. PC gaming really helped push this genre onto consoles. I remember giving up console gaming almost completely in the late 90s because of all the great FPS games that kept coming out like Unreal Tournament.

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I think it's primarily the juggernaut games honestly, for better or worse. Some of it definitely has to do with modern patches and source ports and whatnot.

 

All the Quakes, Half Life, Doom...

 

Honestly, Unreal Tournament still plays great, but I think any of the games that focused on multiplayer suffer from the "wait, why" question. It's a shame because UT, Quake 3 Arena, etc. still play absolutely fine, but the 'world' has passed them by so they lose a lot of what made them special originally.

 

I think this means the FPS games that really still are worthy of a playthrough are the ones with solid single player campaigns... Half Life, Doom, maybe Duke 3d, Quake 1/2, etc.

 

I actually just meandered my way through the Quake 1 and Quake 2 single player campaigns a few months ago. Still great!

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I'll add a caveat with Doom, though: with source ports like GZDoom and Zandronum/Skulltag and tweaks like Doom Expanded, Smooth Doom, and Hi-Res texture and sprite packs, Doom is still great; however, plain old "the-way-we-played-it-in-the-Nineties" Doom is a little tough to go back to when those other modernizations and updates are available. And given that those things exist, I pretty much can't abide the old console ports anymore, which were already weak even compared to PC Vanilla Doom anyway. The PS1/Saturn versions are probably the best, IMO. Jaguar Doom is good if you've never played the PC version.

 

 

 

What I do is have both "modern" and "classic" versions of those old school FPS games. I use GZDOOM to play my Doom games and mods with updated graphics and WASD controls, all launched as shortcuts from Steam. But I also have the same games from GOG which run in DOSbox and use the original arrow-based control scheme and pixelated graphics. Yes it's way more challaging but after a while I get used to it. Plus it let's me experience what the game was like when it originally came out for 486 PC's.

 

 

Brutal Doom is the best way to play Doom.

 

Yes, I love Brutal Doom. Another awesome Doom mod that ranks up there is Doom 4 Doom which lets you play the original games with weapons from the new Doom. Even includes the upgrade system (through earned credits) and Glory Kills using the chainsaw. :twisted:

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Dark Forces' graphics look a bit dated now, but the smooth gameplay, good music and fun factor more than makes up for it. It's a game I like to play even after all this time. :)

Yeah Doom and Dark Forces were the first FPS that I every played and liked. Followed by Half Life and Quake 2.

The FPS really moved me away from console gaming and to the PC market. The 007 on the N64 was the only FPS I liked on console systems.

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Maybe not an FPS in the strictest sense, but once in a while I still have to pop in Descent or D2. All of the user mods over the years, particularly the D2X-XL mods, have certainly helped keep it fresh.

 

Second this. These two games are brilliant. Their soundtracks are my favorite for a FPS. Listening to them with a good GM wavetable is a joy.

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It may not be considered "old", but AvP for PC still holds up I think. I still play the Steam version with the great Redux mod at least once a month. The sequel by Monolith added so much more stuff and lore. A lot of their stuff still holds up in my opinion, including Blood. Hopefully GOG releases a version of AvP2 that will run on 64 bit modern operating systems.

 

The first two Quake games are still amazing and are a blast to play. I played through both the main campaigns earlier this year. I still need to try out the expansions.

 

System Shock 2 is another that comes to mind, though it's obviously not strictly a FPS.

Edited by xenomorpher
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Definitely DOOM as the top one. It plays like butter, and like the OP said, it has aged like a fine wine. It almost seems to become more enjoyable as time goes on.

 

Heretic kind of falls into the same category, but due to its heavy focus on projectile weapons and deceptive/devious level design, I don't think it stays as enjoyable. Or at least, it doesn't give you that urge to keep playing it (on the contrary, it might scare you away on the harder skill levels).

 

Descent is another that still looks great and plays super slick. Shame it has so many controls though, very tough to dial in on the game because of that. I need to try a flight stick of some kind with it, I wonder if that will help.

 

I've been playing a ton of FPS games from the '90s recently, and a lot of the other first person shooters of the era haven't aged nearly as well. I think a lot of the Build Engine games fall into this category in particular. A little jerky in the way the engine handles movement and the camera angles, and the sprites don't mix as well with the 3D backgrounds and that can pull the player out of the experience. But, they are still awesome games, don't get me wrong. Need to go back and play more Blood for October, come to think of it..

 

Love me some '90s first person shooters. The genre vastly changed after 2001/2002 and there's still nothing quite like them.

 

I agree with everyone on Quake 3 by the way. They didn't really change it that much when they turned it into Quake Live, and the fact that Quake Live is still around and semi-active on Steam is a testament to Quake 3 Arena's solid gameplay.

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Descent is another that still looks great and plays super slick. Shame it has so many controls though, very tough to dial in on the game because of that. I need to try a flight stick of some kind with it, I wonder if that will help.

 

Get one of these. It's basically a gamepad that plugs into your PS/2 keyboard port, so it's a mini keyboard. You just set a game to use keyboard only, then program the keys mapped to the gamepad's buttons. Works great for Descent and other multiple-button games.

post-30018-0-13465800-1474732501_thumb.jpg

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Get one of these. It's basically a gamepad that plugs into your PS/2 keyboard port, so it's a mini keyboard. You just set a game to use keyboard only, then program the keys mapped to the gamepad's buttons. Works great for Descent and other multiple-button games.

 

Does it by chance have shoulder keys (and two sets of them?). I have Descent on the PS1 and it controls so damn well with that controller setup. But god, that framerate.. I'd love to have that same kind of setup but on the PC, that would be awesome.

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Does it by chance have shoulder keys (and two sets of them?). I have Descent on the PS1 and it controls so damn well with that controller setup. But god, that framerate.. I'd love to have that same kind of setup but on the PC, that would be awesome.

 

Yes, it has four shoulder buttons, each of which can be programmed, although I haven't done so (I've just used the default settings on the six buttons on the face).

 

As you can see, one PS/2 connector goes into the motherboard, and the other is connected to your keyboard.

post-30018-0-70851600-1474753171_thumb.jpg

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What I do is have both "modern" and "classic" versions of those old school FPS games. I use GZDOOM to play my Doom games and mods with updated graphics and WASD controls, all launched as shortcuts from Steam. But I also have the same games from GOG which run in DOSbox and use the original arrow-based control scheme and pixelated graphics. Yes it's way more challaging but after a while I get used to it. Plus it let's me experience what the game was like when it originally came out for 486 PC's.

I do, too. I used to be more of a Zandronum/Skulltag guy (Brutal Doom required it, though IIRC there's a GZDoom version now) but lately I've been mostly using GZDoom since some mods don't seem to like Zandronum. I think Zandronum's the better engine, personally, but I mainly use it for Brutal Doom and use GZDoom for "classic" Doom. And of course folders of WADs like Hell Revealed, Alien Vendetta, Dark 7, Doom The Way Id Did, Stardate 20X6, Holy Hell... :-D

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