I am a keen online FPS player, and have been for a good 5 or 6 years now. Starting with the Medal of Honor games (which I've not listed above and I'll be surprised if many people on here play it now) and moving onto the Call of Duty series. At one point I was nigh on addicted to the game easily spending 25 (or more) hours a week online. It curtailled my social life for a couple of years, but the only way to stay sharp is to constantly play them.

In fact, not to blow my own trumpet (..but I will ) I have been in clans which have been amongst the best in Europe at these games. Although these days I don't dedicate as much time to them and only really drop in and out for the occassional game. That said I could still walk through Carentan (CoD) or The Bridge (MoH) blindfolded if they existed in real life!

Now you know my love of the genre, which FPS games do you play, do you play then online or single player, and why do you choose that one?

I used to play a lot of Quakeworld/Quake2/Quake3 online, since then ive not played much (apart from counterstrike).

I too started on MOHAA before mocing onto COD. and totally agree about going through maps blindfolded (at least until they updated them). I find CS:S becomes unbalanced too quickly. once one team starts getting ahead money and equipment wise, you end up not being able to compete, and it's all downhill from there.

Unreal Tournement is good for the Rocket Launchers

Where is Goldeneye on the N64? Definately a classic. I see you haven't included Transformers on the PS2!

COD but it plays better on my laptop than on my pc, you need a very impressive graphics card to get a decent fps really.

You mean other than the "Other (please specify)" option?

As for Goldeneye on the N64, I didn't like it. By the time it was out it was being beaten hands down by things like Quake. It was also unterminably slooooow. In fact it was so slow I refused to play it (the 4 split screen thingy) until my mate entered the cheat to make it run at a decent speed.




Strange as I know several people who run both CoD and several other FPS games at a decent enough FPS with a low level card. In fact I played CoD with a Ge-Force MX440 (which you can pick up for about £10!).

Hansa (I think I preferred the nick 'TJE' btw) , how much are you willing to pay for a card? You can pick up a card that will play the majority of games for as little as £40.

It might not be your card mind. If you didn't know, increasing your memory can have as much effect as buying a new chip/card. If you are running anything less than a 1Gb of memory, consider adding to that. It will also make your windows (or *nix/macOs, etc) run much smoother.

Goldeneye was amazing! Its the only FPS to rival Half Life. I wouldnt say Quake beat it hands down, they were totally different kind of games, and Goldeneye had the eye candy at the time (remember, it didnt use a 3d card when it first came out, had to wait for the open GL patch).

Im not a big FPS fan, but DOOM! The original Dooms were the best, so much simple fun, wander round, click mouse and blam...none of this aiming shite! Plus it had the BFG.

Post Doom, the only one that really caught my imagination was Unreal Tournament.

Doom was/is immense!

You cannot beat a wee shot at Doom!

Doom Free Download Clicky

That link was mince, was a shite download.

Just download it here: [attachmentid=11848]

But so slooooooooowwwww..... it was ridiculous.

I was playing Quake online with numerous mods (for anyone playing in the late 90's the Orange server) and it's gameplay was superb, imo far better than Goldeneye.

Also not sure where you get the idea that Goldeneye had eye candy. Go and play it again, it's nothing other than continual repetative corridors with poorly coloured repeated textures. N64's GL library was neither built for texture quality or speed.




Now if you played it 4 player you then had the joy of that sort of quality but 1/4 the size..



Even on the 32" TV my friend had you had to sit close to the telly to get a decent view of anyone further than 20 feet away from you.

Sorry, I know GE has loads of fans, but I am certainly not one of them and I failed to see what the whole hoo-ha was about. For me there were better games out there at the time. Maybe not for the N64, but then again I never owned one.

Quake, the original* and best

*OK, it's not really the original, but still the best.

The FPS I play most often these days is Enemy Territory but I'm on it like once a month, if that.

I used to be well into FPS games - Quake, Quake 2, Tribes, UT, all that stuff - but now play MMOGs more than FPS.

Edit: BTW, play Goldeneye now, Marrez - find 3 people and play it 4 player. You'll realise just how awfully rose-tinted your glasses are

Halo.

Purely because I'm a console player and there was never an FPS I took to until I played that. It was a freebie when I got my xbox and certainly not anything I would ever have bought. If it wasn't for that then there's probably plenty of other FPS's I'd never have been inclined to check out either.

Does "Timesplitters" count as an FPS.

Timesplitters 2 is an absolutely fantastic multiplayer game.

I never liked it in multiplayer, it was horrific playing in that quad screen, when it came out, it looked better than quake did.





obviously when it went to quakeworld, it looked great.

Ironically enough Halo was only as popular as it was due to the fact that it was on Xbox.

If it had been released on PC only it would have disappeared into nothingness as it was a very average FPS. By far the best on teh Xbox at the time, but simply nowhere near the top with regards to PC shooters at the time.

Half Life 2 for me single player (with Doom 3 coming close)
And Unreal Tournament (the original not 2k3 or anything) for online fun. I especially liked the assault mode which was left out in later incarantions, only to be eventually brought back.

Nice try MarreZ, but that it not a screenie from Goldeneye, but instead a screenshot of the Half Life Goldeneye mod.

8/10 for effort though...

To an extent. I also had co-op play which was pretty novel at the time.

Talking of halo has anyone seen 'Red v Blue'. Criminally funny in bits.

If you can find them, and probably bit torrent will help, you need to get the first series (I think it's about 15-20 episodes) to fully understand the characters.

Lol, i thought it was still looking quite good for its age.



Still looked a lot better than Quake at the time

I thought it didn't look quite right...

Goldeneye really starts showing it's age now. Was the best then, but it just can't compete now.

.. it's ok, I was looking for screenies to show how bad it was and I came across that one you posted and thought, "hmmm.. maybe it's not as bad as I initially thought". Then I did a quick check to find out where it was from.



If you wish to compare like for like with Quake and Goldeneye, surely you want to compare Quake running in OpenGL mode, as that was the native renderer for the N64 (and thus GE).





XP, I think we are all in agreement it can't compete now.. ..more which was the better of the time. I have to say I am firmly in the Quake camp. Heh, if you hadn't guessed.

Open GL mode didnt come out with quake though, that was an addon later on, it had no native 3d support when it came out, we used to have lan parties at my office where we would all play quake multiplayer, there was always a scramble to get the pentium 133 or 100 and not be left with the DX250 (which still played it pretty well).

Would you believe I first played Quake (the freeware 1st levels) on a 386DX/25, which rocked in at a stunning 5 FPS. I loved watching the grenade lauchers slowly arc up and finally hit their target some 20 seconds later!

I'm just being all nostalgic about it Not having played PC FPS's til MOHAA, I'm not in a position to compare.

Quake as a single player game was pretty average though, you have to admit that, Quakeworld was another matter, it was fantastic when i went online with it.

Duke Nukem should be added to the mix though, that was fantastic at the time, i spend hundreds of pounds playing it on wireplay

TJE, or thejailender to be more precise is a different County fan on here.



I don't think memory effects COD too much, obviously more is better as with everything but the graphics card is key. Maybe i'm used to a better card, (currently have the GeForce 7800 GT which retails at between £280-£300) however i understand that that the game will still run with lesser cards. I've found though that you have a very much 'watered-down' version of the game, especially with my older card, that i had to reduce settings to improve performance.

I have always enjoyed the Delta Force series of games...

I've played very few games til the end in SP. In fact I could probably count them on one hand (Quake 1&2, MoH:AA and Far Cry). I'll get round to finishing Half Life 2 sometime.

It's the multiplayer that I enjoy as I tend to find the SP a bit to obvious.

Two words - Deus Ex.

A FPS, Adventure and RPG rolled into one. Brilliant story, graphics for the time were amazing and actually made me really interested in stuff like Majestic 12 and the Illuminati.

Used to work with a guy who totally loved Deus Ex. The combination of puzzles and FPS action really floated his boat.

I've got Deus Ex 2 installed but haven't got far in it.

Nice to see the PC bias coming to the fore here, Ricster

I cant believe the slagging Goldeneye is getting It brought thought and some tactical considerations to FPS that the likes of Doom and Unreal never did. I got bored with Doom very quickly simply running around blasting anything that moved, never even really played Unreal much for the same reason.

As for it being slow? Sure you werent playing it on some dodgy PC emulator

Other than that, I've always liked the HL series and played many hours of CS online (although I was always pretty crap at it )

I still play GoldenEye regularly and yes, it is slow, if there's an explosion it can drop to slide-show framerates pretty sharply.

Its been a good while since I played it so I'll take your word for it.

Obviously couldnt have detracted from gameplay significantly if I dont remember it and if you're still playing it

Doom for me I'd have to say. Heretic was another one I can remember playing into the wee hours!

I loved deus ex2, doom 3 & half life 2 of the more recent releases on xbox and on 360 I love Call of Duty 2. The past few nights i've been playing condemned which is more your first person chibber than first person shooter. Scares the crap out of me to be honest but still less disturbing than walking home through Govan on a Saturday night!

I thought this thread was about multiplayer FPS, and Deus Ex was crap multiplayer.

As a single player game, it's not only one of the best ever FPSs, but in fact one of the best ever games.

I too love Deus Ex - speaking of which, if you've never been to this site, you should

http://www.it-he.org

I thought it was about FPSs in general, and not just multiplayer! If it was multiplayer only, I'd say Half-Life, strictly for Team Fortress Classic.

PS Thanks for the link, I'll check it when I get home.

Check the poll, it reads "What FPS game do you play? Either in single player mode or online."

HTH


I actually played some DeusEx2 the other night because of this thread. While still a good game I get bored of the 'go to A, do B, come back to A and I'll give you the code to C' stuff a little too easily.

But almost all the games listed are famous not for their singleplayer but their multiplayer.

Also, playing offline doesn't necessitate single-player. I used to play Doom, Blood, Quake etc. over LANs and serial connections. There was nothing like coming home at lunchtime with a mate for a few rounds of DM4 on Quake on two PCs

On DX:

Deus Ex 2 isn't as good, not nearly as good.

Deus Ex is linear in its plot and its basic objectives but what really sets it apart is the number of ways you can choose to accomplish it. It's technically possible to complete the entire game without killing a single entity, although it's very very difficult, so much so that I've never even tried it. You can specialise in big, exploding things, little exploding things, computers, lockpicking, stealth, long-range weapons, brute strength, whatever.

Even something as small as, say, getting over a shorted eletrical generator. You could use your electronics ability to shut down the circuits, you could try sprinting through it and sacrifice some health, or you could lift crates to make a small platform off which you can jump over the electricity safely. Think of that, then multiply it throughout the entire game. You can shape almost every level, every encounter to your playstyle.

Deus Ex 2 offers the same but it doesn't pull it off as impressively. I never even finished DX2, come to think of it, I'll need to try it out again

The plot, while a bit build-your-own-conspiracy-theory, is immensely entertaining, more so than any Dan Brown book , and as Gaz says, can awaken your interest in some topics, which you can then research properly. That's not to say that everything in it is pulp junk: you can read newspapers and excerpts from books in-game and there is much illuminating about them.

Co-op wasnt really that new an idea.
I used to play Co-op Doom on PS2 years and years before Halo.
There was also Goldeneye, Turok and a good few other games.

It was still an ok game, just nowhere near as good as Xbox fanboys were making out.



I forgot about that.
I loved the Co-op (another game Co-op pre-halo ) and how far you could zoom with the sniper.
Really gave you some wide open spaces to play in.

I think it was the first Delta Force game, before they souped up the gfx.
I might even go back and install that again, for old times sake.

If you are going to be pedantic then remember to remain in context with your initial question..

Swampy, thanks to your descriptions, I've hunted down Deus Ex, and bought it on E-Bay for 99p.

Bargain?

Best bargain you'll ever get!

Why don't you remain in context with my middle finger?



See below.



See above.

Fantastic game. Steal of the week mate. Youll love it.

Nowhere near as funny as the South Park 'World of Warcraft' episode though. I just watched it last night and absolutely pished myself.

Aye, it was pretty funny

Any WoW players here btw? I know Marrez played...

I dont have a gaming pc at the moment, so im not wowing anymore, im only about level 39.

Yeah, theres a link to it on my WoW Guilds site.
I was poorless with laughter.



Yeah me.

Server - Al Akir

Atraxious - Night Elf, Druid LvL 60 300Tribal Leather working (Feral Build)
Atraxium - Human, Paladin LvL 15 (No skills yet, havent decided what to give him )
Davehedgehog - Human, Warlock 10


Server - Twisted Nether

Zombiegeorge - Undead, Warlock lvl 15 (ish)

Quake 2 was out on its own in terms of online gaming. Quakeworld brought the first genuinely workable netcode into being and with it the beginnings of the online gaming culture, but it was with Q2 that it really matured. Without getting too teary-eyed, it really was an exciting time, when the likes of the UKCCL and Barrysworld leagues got up and running.

I remember in the UKCCL, you were only allowed two ISDNers (or lpbs - low ping b*****ds) per team, to make it fair on us dial-up mortals. The phonejack icon always seemed to appear when you picked up Quad.

I played in several leagues with my Q2 clan, POTZW, then we switched to Q3, mainly CTF. We did very well - reached the top division of the Savage CTF league - but it was never quite the same as Q2.

Best ever mod for Q2 was Freeze-Tag. A great instant drop-in / drop-out team deathmatch game, in which cooperation and teamwork were vital. When somebody took a big risk, sitting in the line of fire to thaw you out, you really felt you owed them one.

Q2 had a great single-player game for its time. Q1's single-player game was mince, really just a showcase for what was at the time a revolutionary engine. Those saying Goldeneye looked better Software version of Q1 looked a little bitmapped, but once you added your first 3dfx card:

Duke Nukem was, despite using the ageing Build Engine, one of the most enjoyable and imaginative SP games.

HL was pretty amazing, due to its AI, but in the ruch to praise it, one of my personal favourites got largely overlooked. Sin, developed by Ritual on the Q2 engine, was, despite a few early bugs, an utterly fantastic SP game. I was delighted to see it getting rehabilitated on the Source Engine. I've got it off Steam, but haven't got around to playing it. There was the small matter of a book to finish.

My mouse-hand is getting twitchy just typing this.