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'Quantum Leap' Awards For FPS Games Revealed 130

Posted by Zonk from the i-want-to-play-a-quantum-leap-game-now dept.
simoniker writes "As voted by game industry professionals, the results of the Quantum Leap Awards for the first-person shooter genre have been revealed, honoring the titles which 'brought the FPS genre forward' in the biggest ways. The winner is a truly classic title, but there's at least one seminal FPS that, surprisingly enough, didn't make the top 5." The top 5 are, from 1 to 5, Half-Life, Quake, GoldenEye, Wolfenstein, and System Shock 2.
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'Quantum Leap' Awards For FPS Games Revealed More

'Quantum Leap' Awards For FPS Games Revealed

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  • eh? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by legoburner ( 702695 ) on Friday September 01, 2006 @10:34AM (#16023880) Homepage Journal
    No Unreal Tournament? That was the game that brought forward the genre for me though it was out at a very similar time to Quake 3. Ah well, where's the next stop Ziggy?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by mgblst ( 80109 )
      No Duke-Nukem, which bought a bit of humour, better levels (layering of levels on top of each other), and great attention to detail (you could actually play pool).
    • There's also no mention of FPS on handhelds! I remember the first such game I played, the obscure Faceball2000. Kill the evil smilies!

    • Re:eh? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Shaper_pmp ( 825142 ) on Friday September 01, 2006 @11:07AM (#16024128)
      For games which "advanced the genre" this is a terrible list.

      How can you put System Shock 2 in the top five when SS1 was the game that first introduced role playing/immersive elements into FPSs? Even the review basically admits SS2 just continued the direction SS1 had set and added more polish to the idea!

      Now, SS2 might have been a better game, but it didn't "advance the genre" for shit compared to the original.

      Likewise Goldeneye - what the fuck? So it was the first FPS on consoles, big whoop - it wasn't exactly groundbreaking at the time compared to what the PC was doing.

      Sure it kick-started the market for FPSs on consoles, but "FPS market in consoles" != "FPS genre".

      "Games such as Halo could only have been done thanks to Goldeneye" is complete bullshit, too. Halo was originally being developed for the PC before Microsoft bought Bungie, so we clearly would still have seen Halo, just on a different platform.

      If, as they claim, we're rating "what pushed the genre forward", the list should have looked more like:

      Wolfenstein 3D (invented the genre - try pushing harder than that!)

      Doom (first made FPSs widely popular, kicked off the modding scene, invented "Deathmatch" multiplayer)

      System Shock One (introduced the idea of "plot", and first to make an effort to immerse the player in a story)

      Quake or Descent (first entirely true-3d games. Descent because it was the first, Quake because it was also massively popular and upped the bar for graphics/physics for all games to come)

      Half-Life (upped player-immersion to truly cinematic levels, and pioneered playing the story rather than "play a bit/read some story/rinse and repeat")

      Don't get me wrong - System Shock 2, Goldeneye and the rest were brilliant games (some better games than those above, but they didn't "push the genre forward" for shit.
      • Definitely a FPS with the RPG element very successfully overlaid.

        No gaming hall of fame is worth its salt without Deus Ex. Not RPG halls of fame or FPS. (Although The Elder Scrolls would utterly conquer any RPG hall of fame.)

      • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

        by anti-human 1 ( 911677 )

        "Halo was originally being developed for the PC before Microsoft bought Bungie, so we clearly would still have seen Halo, just on a different platform."

        Halo was being developed for the Macintosh. Of course, (assuming) thanks to Microsoft, it was the last platform to have the game released upon. Remember how Bungie used to make games for the Mac? Oh man, what was that one game.... Marathon? [bungie.org]

        Marathon got an honorable mention, but I'm sure would have rated higher if it didn't have such a limited user

      • Descent! (Score:4, Informative)

        by ReverendLoki ( 663861 ) on Friday September 01, 2006 @12:14PM (#16024624)

        I would personally put Descent in over Quake. I remember trying to explain to a friend in a multiplayer game how to navigate to a certain spot, and just causing confusion. When he finally got there, turns out our "ships" were upside down to one another. The fact that there really was no universal up or down, just in relation to your ship, was great, and something I really haven't seen since. It was a pain to play with just a keyboard though.

        I'm surprised that no mention was made of the Half Life mod community. Sure, Doom started the FPS modding in earnest, but it really flourished with HL.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Eideewt ( 603267 )
          While I love Descent, I'm not sure how much it advanced the genre. It spawned its two sequels, but dead ended there. There were how many other 6dof games? Two, with a third in the works. The same goes for Thief. While it's one of the best FPSes ever, first person sneakers never really caught on. Most FPSes are still of the "shoot everything" variety.

          • True... It certainly broke new ground, and did something no other game really did before. It's just, though it led to new vistas, noone else followed.

            Shame, really. Makes me want to try and make some UT2k4 maps to relive/revive the experience.

        • Funny thing - I remember everything you're reminiscing about, but for me it was a teeth-grinding irritation. ;-)

          I assume many other people did too, which is why Descent and its sequals seems to be the neanderthals of FPS evolution.
          • I think that most of the people who just found it irritating had problems with one of two things - either they couldn't master the controls (as the article states, it either requires a good joystick or for the player to be one of the few that could master the keyboard controls - I almost had the keyboard controls down :), or just hated the disorientation - the same path can look completely different rotated 90 degrees, leading you to keep backtracking over the same gorund. Yeah, it's not for everyone!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by D3 ( 31029 )
        Goldeneye != First console FPS game. Doom was released on the Atari Jaguar in 1994, 3 years before Goldeneye in 1997. And if the Jaguar isn't a popular enough console, then there was also the 1996 release on SNES. The people voting on this are smoking crack.

        How about Max Payne and bullet-time?

        Ditto to others who mentioned UT and Descent.
  • Very nice quote. In fact, I'd say it was hard, fast and intense.

    (no-one will get joke this but me and you.. ok, just me.)

  • From TFA... (Score:4, Informative)

    by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) * <akaimbatman AT gmail DOT com> on Friday September 01, 2006 @10:38AM (#16023913) Homepage Journal
    Wolfenstein 3D - because it was the first.

    Historical Correct: Wolf3D was the first popular First Person Shooter. It was preceeded by Id Software's [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catacomb_3D]Cata comb 3D[/url], which was itself preceeded by [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hovertank_3D]Hov ertank 3D[/url]. The main technological difference between Hovertank and Catacomb is that Catacomb introduced textured walls.

    Wolf3D's success over Catacomb probably had more to do with Apogee's marketing muscle than with it being truly the first FPS.
    • Hovertank 3D [wikipedia.org]
      Catacomb 3D [wikipedia.org]

      Sorry about that. I'm not awake yet. :P
      • You know what? It's just unreadable. Let's try this again:

        Wolfenstein 3D - because it was the first.

        Historical Correction: Wolf3D was the first popular First Person Shooter. It was preceeded by Id Software's Catacomb 3D [wikipedia.org], which was itself preceeded by Hov ertank3D [wikipedia.org]. The main technological difference between Hovertank and Catacomb is that Catacomb introduced textured walls.

        Wolf3D's success over Catacomb probably had more to do with Apogee's marketing muscle than with it being truly the first FPS.

    • Re:From TFA... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by QuantumG ( 50515 ) <qg@biodome.org> on Friday September 01, 2006 @10:40AM (#16023933) Homepage Journal
      Or, ya know, that fact that you got to kill nazis with a chaingun. That might have had something to do with it.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by maynard ( 3337 )
      Don't forget Asylum [wikipedia.org], which (regardless of what Wikipedia claims) was originally released on the TRS-80 [swobi.at] in 1980 by Med Systems Software [lysator.liu.se]. Prior to Asylum, they released similar 3D maze games, Deathmaze 5000 and Labyrinth. The TRS-80 had a pixel resolution of 128x48, black & white. So... uh... no textures. And, oh yeah, why has everyone forgotten Battlezone [wikipedia.org]?
    • I have to agree with the sibling who says it's all about the Nazis. Let's face it, killing creepy monsters with magic just doesn't compare to gunning down Hitler.
      • Could it be that Wolf3d was the first game (or fps) to feature relatively graphic depictions of gunning dowon humans for the time?
    • Midimaze. I played midimaze for hours at an atari convention long before these other games even came out. midimaze on the atari ST was an awesome FPS. It's simplicity and elegance is STILL missing in the FPS market on PC.

      Not that I don't play Urban Terror, Enemy Territory, or Quake 2 on the regular still, I do. They are all great games. How did quake 2 not end up on the list? Stupid article. These guys are about as informed on FPS as I am in brain surgery.

      Note to self: DO NOT PERFORM BRAIN SURGERY!
  • Okay, so, if it was a top ten... I'd expect to see Doom, Marathon, and Deus Ex on the list... possibly Duke 3D... and I don't know what the last game I'd pick for the list would be. Maybe that's why they kept it to the top five?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by fruey ( 563914 )
      If you RTFA you'll see it's got a list of "honorable mentions" including those games you have chosen...
      • I did not see Duke Nukem in the list. Maybe I skipped over it but I think it should definitely be up there if it is not. The graphics and gameplay were probably nothing special at the time, but I do remember it being the first game to use speech during the game. Speech is probably a bad word to use since it was more short samples from Army of Darkness. Unfortunately not in Bruce's voice but it was still a nice little feature. Ooohhhh, that's got to hurt, Come get some, etc. Classic
  • No Daikatana?!

  • Meh? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by JMZero ( 449047 ) on Friday September 01, 2006 @10:41AM (#16023938) Homepage
    I'd put Doom on the list before System Shock 2. Or Goldeneye. Or HL. Or Quake. Or Wolf3d.

    Or System Shock 2. I mean, wtf?

    I realize they didn't want to weigh down the list with Id games, but if you were going to drop one it would have to be Quake. Or Wolf3d. The BBS's were pretty excited about Wolf - but it was Doom that defined the genre and made it what it is.
    • If we're talking about gameplay advancements, how about Thief, or Quakeworld/TF/CS? I haven't really seen anything that new under the sun since then, with the exception of Half-Life introducing storytelling into the mix.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by antime ( 739998 )
        Ultima Underworld - it didn't have guns, but otherwise featured everything its successor System Shock had.
    • Drop Quake? Are you kidding? Quake is the game that brought large-scale online network play to the masses. Previous games were mostly limited to LAN. QuakeWorld refined and improved online play significantly for slower connections and pioneered the client-side prediction model that is used in nearly every game today.

      • Don't get me wrong.... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by JMZero ( 449047 )
        I'd leave Quake on there too. All I'm saying is that Doom was more important.

        Quake: introduced solid multiplayer over unreliable networks
        Doom: introduced multiplayer

        Quake: introduced quality lit/textured graphics, pushed development of 3d accelerated graphic cards
        Doom: introduced graphics

        I realize that's overstating the case a bit. But not much. Doom was an absolute revelation from on high - and it made waves far outside the gaming community. When Wolf3d came out, I started work on my own raycasting 3d

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mytec ( 686565 ) *

      I agree with you that Doom needs to be there. I didn't get really hooked until Doom 2 but I spent a lot of free time absorbed in Doom II. The multiplayer aspect was the first time I experienced a LAN party, playing on Dwango (OMG ...the phone bills) and making endless levels. For me Doom II set the stage for Quake and other FPS to really refine the experience in tools, community, and sophistication.

    • System Shock 2 doesn't really bring anything new, it's just really well-done.

      But where's Bungie's Marathon? Robbed!

      If Half-Life is on the list for having a compelling story, then Marathon deserves to be on the list for having a more compelling story than Half-Life years before HL came out. It's not a PC-only list, since Goldeneye is on it, but did they even consider Macintosh-exclusive games?
      • In the Slashdot tradition of posting based on the summary and not reading the article, I see they DO do a write-up of Marathon. But it's not listed as an "honorable mention," and, in any case, it certainly belongs in the top 5 more than System Shock 2 does.

        I enjoyed the last paragraph... Marathon might not have been the most popular game, and might have come out on perhaps the least popular gaming platform in history, but it's damned good. For people who have played it, we know.

  • Doom (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm glad to see Marathon and Deus Ex mentioned, but I'm not sure how seriously I can take a list of games that "advanced the FPS genre" which only feels that Doom ranks an honorable mention.
  • I'm sure the number 1 franchise right now would definitely be part of the most influential games, now and for the future.

    Oh wait, Halo isn't listed....

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Wilson_6500 ( 896824 )
      Popular does not imply genre-advancing.
      • Halo-
        introduced a dual joystick control scheme that makes FPS very natural on console,
        utilized slight, almost unnoticable autoaim that makes up for lack of super precise controls,
        eliminated ridiculous portable arsenels with a two weapon swap system,
        kept the player always in the action by allowing him to pause under cover to recharge shields,
        made grenades useful and reflexive by treating them different than other weapons,
        and Halo 2 changed how we can play online by eliminating the often frustrating server ro
        • - Didn't Goldeneye have a system where the stick controlled movement, and the C-buttons looking around? Imagine what that game would've been like if the N64 controller had two sticks.
          - Old PC games also had autoaim because it was hard to aim with keyboards. A real step forward for consoles would be an aiming system that's as precise as the mouse.
          - This is a subjective opinion on a gameplay decision, and not a revolution in gameplay. System Shock 2, for one, also forced the player to make strategic inventory
  • Where's Doom?

    THAT is the game that revolutionized FPS!
  • oh come on. Doom deserves much more than an honorable mention. It may not have brought the FPS genre forward in a technical way, but it certainly drew much more attention to the genre than had ever been there before. how many of the FPS games around today would still be here had doom never existed?

  • Doom (Score:5, Insightful)

    by th1ckasabr1ck ( 752151 ) on Friday September 01, 2006 @10:54AM (#16024031)
    Of course Doom not being #1 is beyond ridiculous. For full disclosure I program games for a living and started with Doom mods, looking at the source, etc. - if it wasn't for Doom I would probably have a different job right now.

    Doom was the first game with graphics good enough for non-gamers to understand what I was so excited about. It basically had the first big mod community, started deathmatch, brought LAN parties and big gaming tournaments into reality, etc.

    Think of it this way: There were games before Doom and there were games after Doom. This division is more clear than probably any other game in history. 13 years later (or so) we're still running around in a 3D-ish world and pointing at what we want to die.

  • As voted by game industry professionals, the results of the Quantum Leap Awards for the first-person shooter genre have been revealed, honoring the titles which 'brought the FPS genre forward' in the biggest ways.
    That makes sense since quanta are so... small?
    • That makes sense since quanta are so... small?

      Well, quanta is actually just a precisely defined amount. Size actually doesn't come into it.

      Okay, back to work...
  • Considering that Doom not only defined the FPS genre in general, it also opened the PC gaming industry.
    It's historic value is so great that its non existence on this list makes as much sense as dividing by zero.

    Well, end of reality, here we go!
    • Opened the PC gaming industry? uh.....no. The PC gaming industry was quite alive and well before DOOM came out. There are innumerable PC titles that came out before DOOM.
      • the PC gaming industry was a small niche market. Doom put the PC on the same level as consoles and brought the PC to the forefront of video gaming.
        • I still think that's incorrect. For a number a reasons, including that a large number of blockbuster titles debuted in 1993, among them "Myst" which sold far better than DOOM. Also, the events going on in the console realm quite likely overshadowed the initial release of DOOM (Mortal Kombat released on SNES and Genesis anybody?)
  • A FPS that I really enjoyed and thought was a pile of fun was ROTT(Rise of the Triad). who can forget the poor guy on his knees saying "No, please, please, don't shoot".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hal2814 ( 725639 )
      Fun aside (and it was a really fun game), ROTT was the first FPS that brought a decent LAN play element to the table. That's why computer labs at the time had ROTT loaded on them instead of Doom. Given the importance on LAN play in the modern FPS, I'm surprised this aspect is ignored as a quantum leap in the FPS genre by Gamasutra.
      • It was also the first fps to bring mushrooms into the game that cause the character to trip when taken. afaik
    • I loved ROTT. Just running around shooting people with those mega-handheld-nuke missile weapons. In fact, I believe ROTT was the first game to introduce gibs into the genre. I don't seem to remember any game before ROTT that caused enemies to explode in that lovely red-rain of goodness.
    • ROTT has some of the best weapons of any FPS I've ever played (Duke3d is the only one I can think of that can compete). Fire bombing, asbestos suits, drunken missles. Great fun. Never played it against more than one person though. Wonder if you can play it over the 'net like you can with doom (Since rott is open source now). Does anyone know? Also had really fun level designs for multiplayer. And hey, a bat that shoots baseballs that kill and a dog and god mode!
  • ... that doesn't like Goldeneye? Now let me start by saying I'm not one of those people that just hated it because it was popular and I sucked at it - once upon a time I DID like it. I hate that it gets mentioned here simply because it was the first successful FPS on a console. That doesn't make it a great game. Go back and play it now, and try to write an honest review of it taking out the nostalgia factor. Tell me how fun it is to play with a game that when you're playing with 4 people it runs at 2fp
    • Goldeneye was fun because I could play it with a couple of friends sitting right next to me. Internet multiplayer is all well and good, but it's way less satisfying to say "take that n00b!" over text than it is to get right in your friend's face and yell "I JUST SHOT YOU IN THE EYE I OWN YOU BITCH!" and have him punch you in the neck.

      Goldeneye was an awesome multiplayer experience if you were playing with a couple of friends. The fact that it's on a console really matters in that sense, because there's a so
    • Compare Goldeneye to CS:S. Aside from internet play, CSS's omproved graphics and the lack of AWP-campers in Goldeneye, I see little difference.
    • No, you aren't the only person. I also dislike GoldenEye. However, I agree with the ranking in the review. Just because I hate the game doesn't mean it is a bad game. Part of the reason I agree with the review is that I had to constantly fight my friends to play somethiner OTHER than GoldenEye. That's all I heard: "Let's play Bond! Let's play Bond!" I've played others with my friends such as timesplitters and perfect dark, but GoldenEye was the first and definately the most popular. It wasn't until Halo tha

    • Several years ago, a friend of mine was stuck in a hospital for an exploratory op. My GF and I brought in a N64 (yes, checked out and approved by staff) and we played a few games, including GoldenEye. We eventually played with it set to insta-kill and slappers only. Oh, and my friend was doped up on morphine.

      Damn, that was fun.

  • Maybe this should be followed up by a list of most under rated FPS games in other peoples lists.
    like...

    5. Postal 2 (Cat's as silencers, gas can and shovel make this trashy, ultra-violent post appocolytic game. To bad the multi-player end hummed.)

    4. Swat 3 (Some where between Shooter and Sneaker this squad based game is tatically entertaining, and in multiplayer can have complex and intresting goals.)

    3. America's Army (Sure it's propaganda, but man is the sniper rife a pain, ie ealistic. The ROE violations
    • I was thinking more about the Tom Clancy series that spawned the 'Tactile Shooter' Rainbow 6, Rogue Spear, Ghost Recon, Ravenshield etc.
      • Yea, I would have to go with Rainbow Six WAY over SWAT 3. It was what started the tactical FPS. That includes the rainbow series, the Ghost Recon series, and the SWAT series of games.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Sigma 7 ( 266129 )

          Yea, I would have to go with Rainbow Six WAY over SWAT 3.

          I might agree, but the Rainbow Six (for at least a few games) series has a major problem - AI players have a level of accurracy that would cause multiplayers to be kicked from servers. Your AI teammates aren't able to compensate - and thus four guys can get wiped out all at once.

          As an example, try one of the two "lone-wolf" maps in Eagle Watch -- you have to take out 20-30 enemies singlehandedly to complete the map. (As a side note, a graphics accell

          • I understand what you are saying, but I am talking about this interview. I AGREE that the series has had a problem with insane abilities of the tangos. That being said, my group can normally clear a level in any of the R6 levels pretty consistantly.

            As for acceleration, I have had acceleration since the earlier days of Quake. From the Redline enhanced Doom to the voodoo, and then into Nvidia. As a gamer, I have had accelerated graphics since about the time they first started showing up. That DOES bring
  • Mod me redundant, call me a fanboi, point out that I'm mistaking awesomeness with advancement of the genre - see if I care. Unreal Tournament owned my life for some time, and still periodically pops up to hire it for a few weeks. I'm not really into storylines, plots, or even spatially-oriented goals. I used to get sick to frigging death wandering around an empty level looking for the red card. UT was the first game (that I found) where I could tell it to put x number of bloodthirsty maniacs with y skill le
  • ...is that the game WAS a huge leap forward for console FPS gaming. Much like one gamer said in the article, it introduced the FPS genre to a whole new generation of gamers who might otherwise have been playing Mario Party and platformers. I still pull it out for multiplayer goodness with my friends, just like we did for hours on end years ago. I've put more time into that one game than I have with any other console game - nay, any other game, period, except for my MMOs. To think that it *doesn't belong
  • (1) Doom (2) Half Life (3) Hexen 2

    All the rest are belong to these three :)
  • Not saying that either Counter-Strike or FEAR changed the genre, but here's my take:

    CS: Squad-based, limited time per match. Damage is realistic (relatively speaking) so teamwork, strategy (where to go, what your weapon's shot pattern is, etc), and good control are all vital to success. I suck at it, so I should know.

    FEAR: With all effects on, it's like being in a firefight. Dust kicking up, sparks, explosions, enemies hopping over railings, flanking you, ragdoll physics. It's crazy good fun just for th
    • "CS: Squad-based, limited time per match. Damage is realistic (relatively speaking) so teamwork, strategy (where to go, what your weapon's shot pattern is, etc), and good control are all vital to success. I suck at it, so I should know."

      Action Quake 2 did this all before CS.

  • Disappointed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Friday September 01, 2006 @12:08PM (#16024579) Journal
    I'm actually rather disappointed in Gamasutra. It's a site I've come to respect for deep, narrow insights into the 'guts' of game programming and development. Their "what went right/what went wrong" serious is still outstanding.

    But this? It's more like "quantum leap" the TV show, you know, where it starts with the premise that the main character doesn't know shit about what he's supposed to be doing?

    It's nothing more than a collection of submissions with apparently very little editor review and no explanation of how they came to their conclusions, such as they are. I have no idea how they picked things, but frankly this list has no more (and possibly less) credibility than a list of what Gabe & Tycho played last year.

    I mean, they simply posted the (sometime anonymous) comments from people like:
    "Tribes was one of the first titles that saw the popularization of teamplay and the 'capture the flag' scenario as a critical game element."
    Um, you mean ASIDE from the plethora of Quake mods that focussed PRECISELY on this like, oh, Teamfortress (which predated Tribes by 3 years)? Fact check, anyone?

    I won't diss Half-Life - it really WAS a quantum leap forward in the ARTISTIC presentation of an FPS storyline (eat that, Roger Ebert), but to suggest that it somehow edges out Doom as the genesis of the genre? What universe did they live in?

    And FWIW, I'd argue that 'honorable mention' should go to Gamespy. Anyone remember the horrible days of early quake connections? Gamespy (the launcher, as opposed to the megalomaniacal portal-site-empire) was a quantum leap forward in multiplaying, IMO.

    Gamasutra, that was lame.
    • 2 things. You are thinking Quakespy, not Gamespy. It did not change names until much later. It and Planetquake pretty much launched the entire gamespy network.

      Second, Tribes was the first game that banked EVERYTHING on multiplayer. It predated Unreal Tournament. It introduced a multitude of different game types. No longer did you have Team Death Match and CTF only. It put in jetpacks. And Jetpacks rule. It put vehcles in a game that worked well. It introduced the commander screen. One of its bigg

  • It seems like the editors mostly agree with us (Score:3, Informative)

    by mbessey ( 304651 ) on Friday September 01, 2006 @12:41PM (#16024816) Homepage Journal
    It seems like the editors mostly agree with the Slashdot crowd, regarding games which should have been on the list but weren't.
    On the following pages, we'll first present eight "honorable mentions" - games that, while certainly innovative and important, did not receive enough votes to make it into the top echelon.

    Following this, we'll present the top five first-person shooters voted for by our readers, in reverse order, ending with the overall receipient of Gamasutra's first Quantum Leap Award, which received the largest amount of votes from game professionals.

    So, they tallied up the votes, then decided that the results were totally stupid, and put some "honorable mentions" at the front of the list, including:
    Doom
    System Shock (the first one)
    Marathon
    Deus Ex
    Alien vs Predator
    Descent
    Tribes

    I think I like the "honorable mentions" list better than the actual top-5 list. I wonder if part of the problem was people not voting for Doom because it was "too obvious", and the wanted to pick something different.
  • Ziggy predicts a 98.9% probability that these awards suck ass!

    Also predicting a 89% probability that this thread will contain, in its entirety, posts talking about how their favourite game wasn't listed.
    AL get me out of this thread!
    *leaps into linux vs osx flamewar*
    Oh boy...

  • This game was excellent.

    The very best thing was it's freeform nature. All the ports I've tried to date, were more of a guided tour.

    The discovery element to this game, done with the secuirty card device, made the whole experience for me. Playing the game, reading the hints from the computer consoles and finding the cards hooked the player solid, right out of the gate.

    Nice ending too. Through hints, discovered and learned throughout the game, the player realizes they need to set the self-destruct and leave
  • No Marathon? (I'm not counting that "honorable mentions" BS). Did they have a poll or did someone actually think about this for ten seconds in a row?

    It was released on December 21, 1994. That's 18 months before Quake. It's barely a year after Doom came out and three months fater Doom 2. What's it got? Deathmatches. Easy deathmatches. No hacks, tweaks, or anything. If the Macs were on an Appletalk network you could deathmatch. It was awesome. It had specials maps for deathmatches, even. What else? Rocket-jum

  • When you have a single GAME that defines a genere, it is hard to not put it in the #1 or #2 slot. For MANY years, a FPS game was called a Doom clone. Or, another "doom" game. There are not a lot of games like that, out there, in the FPS arena.

    Doom clones - Pretty much any FPS game
    Rainbow Six clones - pretty much any tactical shooter
    Descent clone - 6-degrees of freedom games. (very tiny, niche market)
    System Shock clone - FPS with an RPG element.

    Not a lot there. Kind of surprised that SS2 was on the list
  • Unreal Tournament ought to be in that list though too.
  • According to Wikipedia, Marathon invented this. It's taken as a given now, and I can understand people forgetting, but... Doom didn't have this. In Doom, you had to have keys set to look up, look down, and center your view.

    Yet, even Marathon didn't quite do it.

    I can understand that, say, a flight sim kind of game (Descent?) might be more fully 3D, but I don't really start feeling cramped playing an FPS until it becomes 2.5D, either with the control scheme or the mapping. That would make Quake a big one
    • In Doom, you had to have keys set to look up, look down, and center your view.

      No, actually DOOM (including DOOM 2 and Final DOOM) did not have any vertical view control at all. It is Heretic and Hexen (both based on the DOOM engine) that added look up/down/center keys (and possibly also Strife, but I never played it).

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