Video Game Flashback: Classic FPS's

Names like, Duke Nukem, Wolfenstein, Doom and Quake all bring fond memories of the early days of first-person shooters on the PC. Each of theses titles laid down the foundation to some of today's household FPS's like Halo, Half-Life, Far Cry and Call of Duty. And so here at the SS household, upon digging through my closet, I came across three not so well known game titles that laid down the foundation of my first-person shooter addiction.

Below are some pictures of the games I found, follow the jump to find out just which games they are ...

The first title was Raven Software and id Software's game called Heretic. The game was set in a medieval background and had a feature that not many FPS's had at that time - the ability to look up and down. The game took advantage of one of the most influential and amazing game engines at the time that was originally used in the popular title Doom. Heretic spawned several sequels titled, Hexen, Hexen II and Heretic II, but none that really left an impression on me like the original. Heretic was definitely a good game and was one of those three titles I'll always remember, but this next title I'll always consider a classic.

His name was Lo Wang and he was a ninja assassin, but most of all he was the most stereotypical protagonist I have ever seen. Shadow Warrior was a 3D Realms game that used the same engine used in Duke Nukem 3D and incorporated the same style of gameplay and unbelievable humor. With power-ups taking the form of fortune cookies, each cookie came with mock-philosophical sayings like, "Baseball is all wrong. Man with four balls cannot walk," and "Man trapped in pantry has ass in jam." Shadow Warrior tried to follow Duke Nukem's crudely entertaining gameplay and , in my opinion, copied it successfully. Shadow Warrior didn't really bring anything new to the FPS-genre, but it was definitely fun and, in the end, that's enough for me.

This last title I originally bought in a two-pack special so I'll try to keep it fair , but it was one of the coolest FPS's I have ever played. Star Wars: Dark Forces & Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II followed the story of Kyle Katarn, a mercenary that in the original lacked the Force powers only to inherit them in the sequel. In the game the player is able to battle iconic Star Wars villains such as Storm Troopers and Boba Fett and meet the infamous Jabba the Hutt. Most noticeably in Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II, the player must make ethical choices that determines what type of Force powers the character will later obtain. Be good and lead a righteous path and your character will learn Light powers, but should you decide that the universe should bow before you, you will succumb to the Dark Side and be bestowed with destructive powers. Sounds cools, right? It was.

The FPS-genre had gone a long way since it's first emergence into the gaming industry. We now have incredible graphics, sounds and in-depth story lines that push the latest technologies to the brink, yet we can't forget those games that paved the way here. I'm not sure if I can get these classics to work on my new computer, but if I can, you can be damn sure that I'll be the happiest gamer alive.

- R

images: http://fitsnews.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/back-to-the-future.jpg
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