How 7 Games Created the Modern Team Multiplayer FPS
The First Person Shooter (FPS) genre is weaved into the fabric of PC gaming's history and development. These games are what drive the development of the most cutting edge technology, form the backbone of tournament level eSports, and typify gameplay innovation at the highest level. My recent bout with Frontlines, the latest addition to the genre, left me wanting, to say the least, and prompted me to do a little thinking about where the genre came from.
First off, the FPS genre is pretty huge. It covers everything from RPG/FPS games like System Shock to tactical oriented games like America's Army to plain old deathmatchingin Unreal. All of these types of FPS's have their own charm, but I want to consider them all in their own niches to be able to focus the conversation down to a specific style of gameplay that I love. It's the big, multiplayer, team-based games that that I think provide the richest, most intense online experiences and I want to highlight the games that developed that genre specifically. Here are the key titles in the evolution of the Team Multiplayer FPS:
Doom, 1993
Gave us: First networked multiplayer gameplay
Any talk about FPS's is going to include Doom, and I'm going to start here because Doom was the first game I remember playing multiplayer on a local BBS. I literally remember in full detail the first time I got into a 4 way deathmatch and I consider it one of the defining moments of my gaming obsession. id Software and John Carmack vaulted themselves into legendom as a result of this title.
Quake, 1996, 1997, 1999
Gave us: Internet play, 3D engine, team play
They knew they were onto something with Doom, and id Software continued the legacy with the Quake series over the next couple of years. These games are largely considered the father of the FPS deathmatch and introduced capture the flag modes, bots, and community modding which developed into the first team-based gameplay, including the first Team Fortress.
Tribes, 1998 and 2001
Gave us: Player classes, vehicles/aircraft, 32 player servers
This game was truly ahead of its time and debuted some incredible features that had never been seen before. Jetpacks and a physics engine for realistic flight, support classes that emphasized teamwork to a whole new level, huge outdoor maps that leveraged height as well as distance, and base assault/defense scenarios built around repairable turrets, sensors, and power generators.
Battlezone, 1998
Gave us: Commander with distinct top-down view and abilities, and faction-unique weapons, vehicles, and buildings
One of the only FPS games to incorporate real RTS elements, each team's commander could command AI-controlled vehicles, some of which could be told to construct buildings which had any number of purposes. The commander could also assign those vehicles to the control of players on his team, who could then give them commands. Players could fight as infantry or enter any number of vehicles and even some buildings, all of which were unique to each faction.
Unreal Tournament, 1999
Gave us: New game types, including Assault
Although Unreal Tournament is an obvious classic with a huge following since the first game's release, it's hard to give the game any credit for any big "firsts". Much of the game's charm revolved around the graphics, voice acting, and cool guns, none of which I can cite as monumental to the development of the genre. However, the Assault mode was a very unique gameplay enhancement and certainly emphasized team play in a way which had never been done before. The best part about it was that each of the many Assault maps had completely different objectives, ranging from the attacking team having to blow something up, flip a switch, open a door or any number of other things while the defending team tried to stop them.
Counterstrike, 1999
Gave us: Tactical gameplay for the masses
While Rainbow Six would probably be considered CounterStrike's forerunner in the tactical sense, CounterStrike playability for the average gamer far surpassed it. It was able to combine fast-paced action with strategic and realistic gameplay in a very team-centered scenario for up to 32 players. Classic maps, game modes, and weapons make this one of the most successful and noted games of all time -- and it all started from a community-developed mod for Half Life!
Battlefield, 2002
Gave us: 64 players, vehicle gameplay innovations, cohesive in-game command structure, universal stats with unlockable weapons/abilities
This series provided vehicle gameplay that is so rich and varied that is has not yet been surpassed. From battleships to aircraft, with richly detailed and well thought out maps, the game holds such a huge range of different possibilities for strategy and gameplay that it easily holds the current title for the benchmark of the genre by far. The command structure that EA implemented into Battlefield makes the game perfect for creating teams around players who can specialize in any number of things, from commanding to specific battle skills to pilots. The universal stats and upgrade system I especially appreciate because of the rewards that squads can "earn" by playing well as a team in-game. This promotes teamwork which is essential in a game of this type.
Of course, this being an FPS list, I would have loved to include games like Halo and Call of Duty, but I don't feel like those games added anything new, in their time, to the team multiplayer FPS genre. Further, there are other games that might have had "firsts" but didn't make it onto the list because they didn't hit the mainstream in a way that really made their innovations available to the masses (which is important).
After all these good vibes from my blast from past, I have to hope the next great title is on the horizon somewhere. This genre is stale, to say the least -- while single player FPS's have consistently great titles coming out all the time, the MP arena has been the same old for quite a few years now. Every one of the games on this list I played until no one would play them with me anymore, and I know that the innovation that they brought to scene made them hugely popular and made their developers a lot of money. All I'm asking is for that to happen again. Like tomorrow.
Labels: Gaming
Subscribe
103 Comments:
This article is Garbage!!!!!!! I mean come on. TEAM MULTIPLAYER. What about Perfect Dark (N64), or Golden Eye?
I played the heck out of GoldenEye when it came out, and I love the game. But I can't think of an distinct innovation that sets it apart in its time. By the time it was released, we'd progressed beyond anything it had for multiplayer. In fact, GoldenEye's wikipedia page quotes the game's developer as saying Goldeneye's multiplayer was "a complete afterthought."
Why no Team Fortress
Tell me why you think it SHOULD be there.
To me, TF is definitely awesome, but it doesn't have anything NEW. It's just a really, really GOOD team game. So, I cited it under Quake (since the original was a Quake mod).
Any console FPS aren't mentioned because they were FAR behind the times back then, PC games started the whole FPS scene. IMHO Quake makes the top of the list here, I believe it has the most innovations of any game here (true TCP/IP internet multiplayer, OpenGL acceleration, etc). It was also the first FPS to allow the use of the mouse with mouselook (an invaluable addition). Interesting you mentioned Tribes though, played it a bunch but didn't find too groundbreaking.
Battlefield 1942 only had 32-player games. Battlefield 2 had 64-player, and was released in 2005. Joint Operations was released in 2004 and had 150-player matches.
I think that Team Fortress is important because it brought about the class system in a very real way. Other games that came alone later used it and bettered it, like Battlefield or Return to Wolfenstein (which I also think pushed class based multiplayer to new highs), but team fortress was where the idea really got rolling, and we can see that idea in TF2 or COD4, to mention just a few.
forgot Marathon (Bungie's first)which introduced physics elements that no other game had.
also Wolfenstein 3D should at least be mentioned..
Battlezone was the first game I ever played online. It is, in my opinion, one of the best games ever made. I wish someone would do a remake.
How do you not mention Duke Nukem 3d !?!?! That is the foundation of FPS's!
Wolfenstein 3D anyone?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=C00n4rDUMNo
It came out before Doom.
And Tribes introduced a basic class structure of frames and customization, but TF added "locked" classes that do very specific things only. A refinment of the class structure I guess. But clearly notable.
How can you not include Halo 2's matchmaking/party system in this list? Granted it was a console game but it really has become the standard by which all other FPS matchmaking is judged by.
Yes, GOLDENEYE (N64) was the multiplayer that did it for myself and many of my friends. You could do 4 players, not internet required, and it provided hours of fun. There was nothing close to it at the time. I bought my first N64 after playing this game for the very first time, I was hooked!
Those were the days.......
I agree. To leave out Marathon, created by Bungie for the Mac, is a great disservice. It had great network play back in 1993 (sure is was ethernet, but it was great!).
The Lore of Marathon totally permeates the Halo series.
Michael
If I'm to guess at this correctly he listed the games that developed these ideas first (they came out earlier), while when you look at games like team fortress its easy to see that they had a way better version of the idea, but they weren't the originators of the idea. I'm just pointing this out because alot of people seem to be claiming "well what about team fortress?". And i'm not gonna research release dates and figure out whether tribes came out before team fortress or not, but I think he did a good job at pointing out the highlights, with an exception of having to TELL why halo shouldn't be on there... everyone who ever played team fortress knows that game should burn in hell for the morons it has spawned.
Marathon was the first to introduce 'King of the Hill' along with 'Deathmatch'..among other physics elements that were ahead of its time..
"How can you not include Halo 2's matchmaking/party system in this list? Granted it was a console game but it really has become the standard by which all other FPS matchmaking is judged by."
There was NOTHING new about this, team fortress had this feature way back when it was on WON, its called "quick play" just because microsoft dumbed down the process of finding a server so you can play with 7yrd olds does not make it revolutionary.
Wulfenstein shouldn't be on here because it didn't include any multiplayer. Daikatana was a fun, but poor-selling based on the Quake 2 engine.
Don't even get me started on Golden Eye. That stupid game was only tollerable if you'd never played a FPS game on a PC.
Marathon really didn't have the same level of exposure as the PC titles (sorry Mac guys it's not your fault).
I have to agree with some of these people, how this list doesn't have goldeneye. It was the first game where non-nerd gamers actually wanted to play multiplayer. I still play that game. They should reissue it!
While Halo offers game modes that were already available. These were actually developed during Bungie's Marathon series which pre-dates Quake.
I also agree with another commenter. Delta Force (Novaworld) added tons to FPS.
Halo 2 gave us online stats. Halo 3 gave us saved replays and forge.
People keep saying Wolf 3d, but it wasn't a team multiplayer fps as the title says duh.
You could have just mentioned Quake as the daddy of them all. Quake/Quakeworld TDM, CTF and Teamfortress. They laid it down for the rest.
*sigh* just reiterate what a few people have said. This article is about what came FIRST not what was BEST.
The only comment here I'd want to take as food for thought would be the one concerning Marathon and its additions of King of the Hill and Deathmatch? Looks like it came out 2 years before Quake. Good catch!
NOTE: Marathon did not have Internet play, it had LAN play. So it doesn't replace Quake.
But for what credit its worth this is a pretty comprehensive list. Thanks Ed!
"Halo 2 gave us online stats. Halo 3 gave us saved replays and forge."
Because if they would have just called it a map editor joe college wouldnt have thought it was cool, and online stats were around way before halo 2. Back as early as 00 you could track your counterstrike and other various online game stats with different websites like gametiger.net and so forth. (which gave individual server statistics , as well as player statistics) I hope no one mentions halo again.
Halo 2 ditched the health packs and then everyone started doing it. Halo's control scheme was so superb for a console shooter that everyone based their controls off it, and the way they implemented vehicles was also very well executed, to the point that I'm sure more than one developers has tried to mimic it even if Bungie wasn't the first to try it.
This article seems biased, and though I agree with the majority of it, I can't help but wonder why you didn't consider more console FPSs in this list.
I would replace Quake with Team Fortress simply because Quake merely replicated Doom's existing team DM functions, which were obviously not innovative at the time since doom had come out years earlier. Team Fortress on the other hand, actually added something new to the team-play formula. Ultimately, there was more people playing TF on quakeworld than there were playing team deathmatch. This is why TF was and still is so popular and in fact, there are still quakeworld TF servers running. TF was not only more popular than Quake TDM but advanced the genre further as well.
I speak as someone who played online a lot during that period, theres really no way one would put Quake T-DM over TF especially after Doom had already given us the exact formula reused in Quake. Otherwise, id say your list is pretty spot on.
It sounds to me like a lot of you saw a big list of FPS, checked to see if your favorite game was on it, and complained when it wasn't.
This is a list for multiplayer pioneers for the genre, so Wolf3D (as epic as that game was when you first played it) shouldn't be on here. I'm also in the mindset that Goldeneye or Halo shouldn't be mentioned at all, because it's nothing new. Goldeneye WAS fun, but at the time, it really wasn't anything new at all, and Halo was just way overhyped. It's amazing at how the Halo legions keep proclaiming how revolutionary the game is when the ideas in the game have been used by PC players countless times already.
Even though Doom was a great game, it was not the first FPS with networked multiplayer gameplay. 6 years earlier, way back in 1987 there was a FPS game for Atari ST named Midi Maze. Up to 16 computers could connect to each other through a midi ring!
TCPIP? meh.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIDI_Maze
Networked multiplayer gameplay, as made famous by Doom.
Halo did more then any other fps game before it or since to bring fps to the masses. It has the same problem Unreal/Unreal Tournament have. Very recognizable and super popular, but hard to pin down if those qualify if contributions.
I would argue though that Halo was the first really generally successful shooter embraced by the and recognized by the public.
While Goldeneye and Marathon before it were good games and fairly popular within that crowd, lets be honest: they were hamstringed by limited visibility due to the platforms they were on.
I'd argue Halo did for the public visibility of the fps what the Wii is currently doing for console gaming now: bringing it to large audiences of non-hardcore gamers. The questions to ask are: is raising the public consciousness of the genre worthy enough for consideration and is the awareness extended to FPS or really just confined to the title in question?
Also, Halo/Halo 2 really were the first really good integrated matchmaking services, though that could be argued to be at least partly do to Xbox Live rather then Halo itself. We expect good integrated matchmaking now as the norm, but remember what matchmaking was like before then? And how the matchmaking got praised as much as anything in Halo?
Duke 3D brought reflective mirrors, in-game editing, babes, and a sense of humour.
It should easily be in the list.
The shield system used in Halo I thought was a pretty new thing. Instead of having health you would have a shield that could take a certain amount of abuse in a limited timeframe, if you took too much damage you'd die, but if you found cover to allow a recharge you could run back out there. IMO changed the way the games are played.
Rainbox Six? 1998? anyone? or what about Delta Force?
"NOTE: Marathon did not have Internet play, it had LAN play. So it doesn't replace Quake. "
Wrong. The first marathon didn't have internet play. Marathon 2, which came out in 1995 before Quake, had internet play. It's just plain wrong not to credit the series. Marathon 2 was also the first game to have mouselook, yes, before quake. And all those reasons people are giving to add Halo, like the the shield system, recorded replays of games, the various game modes that are now industry standards, etc, were first introduced in Marathon.
Inaccurate.
Team Fortress came along well before Tribes and featured player classes.av
If you're going to list FPS that increased player count, why skip on Joint Operations? 150 player servers and its an old game, no one else has even touched that yet.
Wolf 3D should replace Doom. Doom was great, but added nothing that Wolf didn't already have.
Golden Eye was great but it only gave us better console multiplayer. PCs were way ahead of consoles at that point.
You're missing one key, critical game that really kick-started the idea for FPS. No, the game isn't a "FPS" because it's a top-down but the only difference in play is perspective.
1986 - Nettrek
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nettrek
The game is still played today and offers all the energy and excitement of playing a team-based FPS. Different classes, different roles, objectives, etc. All the elements of a "team multiplayer fps" are there except it's not first-person.
If you've never played it, try downloading a client and giving it a try, it has a steep learning curve (lots of keyboard commands, mouse for aiming) but once you get into a full 8vs8 match you'll be hooked, especially for a 22 year old game.
Also, Marathon introduced team play in 1994...
Marathon/Marathon 2 (1994,1995)definitely need to be on this list, after Doom and before Quake.
Amen , to
Quote:"everyone who ever played team fortress knows that game should burn in hell for the morons it has spawned."
To me this was death to FPS.
But I honestly believe Rainbow Six , should definetly be in there. Ai was incredible, the suspense I still remember the first time i turned the corner to meet face to face with a terrorist, It scared the sh!t out of me, no other game has ever made me jump of my seat is rainbowsix.
Quake will be forever be GOD to the FPS , Physics , network play, Rocket launcher, My god i long to relive those days of saying "wood" , thats real wood .
Thank you Carmack, you really made my teenage life enjoyable.
Quake 1 didn't introduce teamplay. While it introduced revolutionary multiplayer features - client/server architecture and in particular client side prediction, it was still just deathmatch.
It was really the MODS for Quake 1 that introduced teamplay. Initially 3-Wave CTF, and later Team Fortress were the gold standards.
Now I *could* bring up the fact that Kesmai had been doing client-server and team-based stuff five years before Quake... Airwarrior was a WWII airplane sim though, so I'll give you a pass in the context of First Person Shooters =)
Tribes 1 = best game ever. No contest really. Very steep learning curve, but unbelievable competition at its peak.
Well said, great list. And I agree that UT easily is on this list for personality based communication, as well as battle modes (I can't think of a "unbalanced" game where one team defends one team attacks before it).
Nicely done.
Agreed, Duke Nukem should be there.
It was the first FPS on T.E.N. multiplayer, right before Quake.
Perhaps Quake is a better FPS, particularly with the mods, but Counterstrike levels always reminded me of Duke Nukem levels. Inside/Outside stuff.
You can't leave Duke Nukem off that list. pls.
"Wulfenstein shouldn't be on here because it didn't include any multiplayer. "
Wolfenstein came out before Doom, and it was not mentioned. It should be mentioned because without Wolf there would be no Doom.
This is by far the most accurate account of MP gaming through the ages but the thing is MP gaming isn't getting too stale. For instance I can play halo 3 forever and not get bored , but yea it would still be great for a new idea in this genre.
These are the games I played, which I think are the direct ancestors of today's FPS games:
1. Wolfenstein
2. Duke Nukem
3. Doom
4. Quake 1 (with it's multitudes of addons)
After that, all FPS starts to look the same.
"Wolfenstein came out before Doom, and it was not mentioned. It should be mentioned because without Wolf there would be no Doom."
Following that logic, Pong should be on here because without it, there would be no Wolfenstein. The list is Multiplayer FPS games. If you have a better list, make it instead of complaining.
Great article... As an avid FPS player since the original Doom I agree with these picks.
The only thing I'd add is that "Quake" carves out a large swath, much bigger than this article lets on.
As the first major moddable multiplayer FPS, Quake (and particularly Quake2) became a hotbed for creative gameplay.
Of the various excellent mods, the standout by far was "Action Quake".
Most people aren't aware that many of the founding members of Bungie (of Halo fame) got their start as modders on Action Quake.
In fact, many of the basic game concepts in Halo (2 weapon slots, persistent weapons w/persistent ammo, variable cones of fire, etc) were first perfected in Action Quake.
Anyways, just thought I'd put in a plug for an oft-forgotten but very influential Quake 2 mod.
You obviously knew you were going to hear a lot of crying when you wrote this. Everyone else is always right and your always wrong. If people were only smart enough to understand these are your opinions than the comments may actually be worth reading. Considering their all sheep that isn't likely to happen. Wah.
I am a huge HALO fanboy and I'm glad to see that the author didn't include HALO in this list.
HALO simply came to the party a few years too late. HALO was designed amazingly. But in terms of changing the FPS genre, it had less of an impact as the other games that game before it and are mentioned in this article.
Yeah, HALO changed FPS on the XBOX. But, let's be honest here. FPS on the consoles always have more limitations than FPS on the PC.
Halo 3's map editor and theater have been done for years on the PC in other games.
Online multiplayer in Halo 2 was done a decade or more earlier.
The physics in Halo? That got it right. But, the physics had little impact on the whole genre.
The control scheme in Halo 1? Yeah, it's probably the default control scheme for console games. But game controllers also work on the PC and they've been customizable for many years that way.
Re: Battlefield
"This series provided vehicle gameplay that is so rich and varied that is has not yet been surpassed. From battleships to aircraft..."
Except it was supassed one year before its realease in 2001 with the release of Operation Flashpoint.
I would have to include 1991's Spectre from Velocity in this. Not technically a FPS, but almost certainly the first multiplayer game I played. It was LAN because, well, there wasn't much internet to be had at that point outside of usenet and email. If I remember correctly, it did have modem-to-modem play.
Ed:
Regarding Team Fortress being a mod...so was Counter-Strike (later Valve bought the rights), but you listed it.
Regardless of its "mod," status, Team Fortress brought us classes long before Tribes did.
Also, Rainbow Six was our first true tactical shooter - it predates Counter-Strike.
If this is about the games that truly inspired Mulriplayer Gaming over the internet. then 2 games could and maybe should be at the top of the list
Quake and Mech Warrior
Back int he day, there was no such thing as Multplayer over the internet. You can play single player or create a Lan Game.
But then something brilliant happemned. Kali
Kali was a free service that allowed you to connect to players hosting a Lan game, but over the internet.
So now, Quake and , yes.. Mech Warrior where very very popular on the kali service.
Almost immediately after Kali, came another brilliant design... Quakeworld.
Same concept, but for Quake only.
I played so much quake in those days.. so very much.
TF was the uber Mod. But there where other mods that rocked. Jailbreak was one of the best, not as good as TF of coarse
Consoles : I didn't intentionally leave out any console games, I just couldn't justify any based on the criteria I was trying to keep to. Like I said, and a few people echoed, while Halo and GoldenEye are pillar titles, I can't pick out a specific team/mp innovation.
Battlefield / Player Counts : First, Battlefield 1942 was definitely the first game, IMO, that brought us to a 64 player match that was actually playable and mainstream. There were MMOFPS's before it, yes, but I feel like that's a different genre. Battlefield vs. WW2 Online / Planetside -- Those are completely different games, with different gameplay. And as far as other games having the capability of supporting high numbers of players earlier on, I felt like the games either weren't mainstream enough or the playability wasn't there. For example, the original Tribes actually supported up to 100 players, but it just didn't really work over 32.
Team Fortress : A lot of people love TF, so do I. And while it probably isn't the first game to have classes, maybe player classes belongs under Quake instead of Tribes. However, TF in itself, other than being an awesome game, really just falls into the "first team-based games" under Quake.
Random 1 Player Games that people like : What am I supposed to do here? This wasn't an article on FPS as a whole. Wolfenstein, Rise of the Triad, Duke Nukem, all the rest... C'mon.
Counterstrike : Someone asked Why Counterstrike if I didn't cite TF by itself. I didn't not cite TF because it was a mod, I did it because I think it falls within the evolution that was happening at that time within the Quake modding scene. Counterstrike, on the other hand, is definitely groundbreaking in its gameplay, in a way that A LOT of people could really get onboard. Sure, there was tactical gameplay before it, but Counterstrike really was the title that made it. Everything else was the like the BETA's for tactical gameplay.
Lastly, the comment that I have to agree the most with : THERE HAS BEEN NOTHING INNOVATIVE SINCE 2002. It's the sad truth.
Yeah I'm sorry your whole list losses a lot of credibility without the inclusion of the Marathon series. Physics, network/internet play, multiplayer game modes. And, yeah the first one was only on the Mac but 2 and Infinity were on the PC, and really it shouldn't be question of what platform or popularity based it should be based on actual innovation of the genre even if they were ahead of their time.
I'm going to go ahead and state that I never owned a Mac and never had the chance to play Marathon. That said, judging by the amount of people claiming that it should be included on this list would deem it worthy of at the very minimum, some research.
On the other hand, I'm going to agree with people stating Duke Nukem 3D and TF. Perhaps it's the people I've dealt with, but many of us grew up on playing Duke Nukem 3D in the early years and while some might argue that the game itself, as far as I know it's one of the earliest cooperative games I can remember (but I'm sure that someone else knows different, I'd like to hear considering to this day I've still played D3D coop =)
And a side note: To those claiming Halo "revolutionized" first person shooters are full of shit. Anyone who played PC shooters prior to the release of Halo would understand that it was same shit as anything else that came before it. The only advantage is that it was released to a console that was lacking FPS's and had a decent story and decent multiplayer. Halo 2 is considered the bastard child so I find it hilarious that someone considers it revolutionizing something: bad sequels maybe?
Not including Mechwarrior 2 completely negates any validity this list might have had. Go check your gaming history my friend. MW2 did more to bring together modern multiplayer team games than all the ones on the list put together.
Damn I completely forgot about MechWarrior that game was awesome. I always thought about it more as a sim of sorts but in some ways the game mechanics are very FPS like, but you do have the option to switching out to different views, so not sure if it'll count. It's a hair splitter i'd say.
loved descent, but it's just not a team multiplayer game at all. seriously that game used to scare the crap out of me sometimes.
I agree that Marathon deserves to be up there with the others. I've heard more than one story about college and grad students taking over a Mac cluster and playing the original Marathon.
And although I wouldn't have thought of it in this category, I agree that Rainbow Six was a great series that was defining for me as well. I have never found a replacement for it.
@ascagnel what are you talking about. Battlefield always has had 64 players. I should know considering I played in a 32v32 tournament for about 2 years.
If you don't believe me please go install BF42 and load up the server list.
I don't think half of you even understand what TFA is about... Its a list of games that made the games you play now what they are. Just look at the years the games came out! (especially the people saying halo gave anything to anything...I bet every feature in halo was done before and better on pc) damn I'm a fanboy...
I really think Halo and Call of Duty should be on this list. Every game since Halo has had some sort of recharging health system, and no game has been able to beat their excellent matchmaking system (Call of Duty 4's isn't even close). Call of Duty was also the game that brought the "aiming down the sight" system to FPS's, though its innovations are fewer, Call of Duty 4 is probably the most polished game ever.
Time to set the record straight:
1) Wolf3D. Excellent game. Did nothing for Team-based Multiplayer. Doesn't get a slot on the list. Done.
2) Goldeneye. That my roommates and I have an N64 sitting under our TV with a copy of GoldenEye in it is a testament to how much fun it is, but when playing multiplayer, I dare say there is nothing innovative about it, and (interestingly enough) Halo brought FPSes for consoles to a much greater crowd of people.
3) Halo. Is not revolutionary outside of one item: recharging shield system instead of the quantity-based health system. Even then, many games prefer to keep the health system (Half-Life 2, Bioshock, the Unreal games, Max Payne 2, etc.). Also, Halo really wasn't the first massively recognized multiplayer game. If you were to tell someone you played Counterstrike back in 1.6 and they were into computer gaming, they knew what game you were talking about. Quake had the same reputation. Even today, the Halo series is still looking UP at Quake/Doom from where it stands as important to the FPS genre.
I think it's awesome that so many people loved Tribes as much as I did. It really was such a great game, and it seems so weird that it's a title that got totally lost along the way. I guess that goes to show that quality isn't the only factor in a series' success.
Also, I'm hearing so much about Marathon, and I've never even heard of it before this. Since I obviously missed out on something here, I'm going to have to go back and take a look at it. I'm not sure, but maybe I can even play through it if I can find it online somewhere. If anyone can facilitate that, chime in.
reading a bunch of these comments... I think people here don't really understand what the list is about... halo?... golden eye?... these games don't deserve to be on this list by any stretch of the imagination.
solid list, I give it 2 thumbs up :)
Just wanted to set some things straight here...
@ascagnel
Battlefield 1942 had 64 player matches. In fact the 64 player games were widely touted in advertisements and was one of the many reasons BF1942 was so popular. Its hilarious that you wanted to correct the guy that wrote this blog, but couldnt take 10 seconds to get your facts straight.
Btw, Ed you probably missed marathon because it was a mac game. It's really not that great, but for mac owners back then it was awesome because thats all they had.
It was also bungie's first successful game.
@The Cleric.
Goldeneye was hamstrung by the low visibility of the console it was on? Halo brought the fps
genre to the console masses?
Do you work for Microsoft?
You do realise the n64 sold over 30m, while the xbox only sold around 20m.
Likewise Goldeneye sold 8m copies, while Halo only sold 5m.
For anybody wondering about Marathon that didn't get to play it, its now freely available and playable on Linux, Mac, and Windows. Bungie released it for free a few years ago, so no piracy involved, don't need any disks, just hit this link, all the files and instructions are there:
Trilogy Release
If you're not willing to click strange links (not a bad policy), you can google "trilogy release" and it should be the first link ;)
If you want my thoughts you can go to the Kotaku article that brought me here, suffice it to say I feel it belongs on this list: http://kotaku.com/379208/the-evolution-of-the-team-multiplayer-fps
my handle is DaiMacculate there ;)
Some great discussion over at Kotaku about this post, definitely head over to check it out:
http://kotaku.com/379208/the-evolution-of-the-team-multiplayer-fps
However, I have to reiterate that a lot of people are still trying to push Halo and Marathon and some other games as well. All of the reasoning behind it really seems to be around general FPS gameplay. The problem is that I didn't intend to, nor do I feel I'd have the knowledge required, to write an article on the general FPS genre. I really wanted to hone into the multiplayer, online experience. Maybe some of the things I mentioned didn't stay precisely true to that, but that WAS my purpose to begin with.
Also, in response to Owen comments in the Kotaku writeup itself, I absolutely think multiplayer FPS's will continue to evolve. It's a continuous process and it will never end. Developers will continue to innovate - that's what they do. In fact, I'll have to come back to this in a future post, because I've got some ideas and I've seen quite a few in the comments here and on Kotaku and Digg.
I read mention to Net Mech, and I'll agree it was amazing for it's time, and I think it did a lot for the genre, but as the editor of the article wrote, there were many omissions based upon the level of following for the game.
Counter argument for that would be that Battlezone was marginally played compared to many of the other FPS' out there.
And as for the Halo. I think what they really brought to the masses were the shields and the melee weapon use as being a big part of the game.
Everything else has been done, if not better. Halo still has a lot of catching up to do with some of the core titles.
I would add one thing to the entry for Battlezone also: The first FPS to ship with WASD/full mouselook controls on by default. WASD revolutionized FPS control on the PC.
I have to say, I do agree with those who say Halo (1/2) deserves a spot. The combination of:
1. Good FPS controls on a console (I know it happened before, but it's still a struggle today at times).
2. Balancing the gameplay elements of guns/melee/grenades/vehicles. Specifically, the inclusion of the Energy Sword is also interesting; melee weapons in shooters, esp. FPS are frequently flawed at best. Also, the limit to two weapon slots and the trade-off between single- and dual-wielding seems important to me. (If any of these elements occurred earlier, I apologize-it's an honest mistake)
3. The recharging energy shield. This is the main reason to me. It's a huge change from health packs, and an innovation many games have since flattered by copying.
I also believe that whatever game first introduced Iron Sights may well deserve a mention just for that-I don't know what game that would be though.
Whatever game introduced a cover system-to my knowledge, Rainbow Six Vegas is the first. Possibly Perfect Dark Zero, although personally I consider it's cover system to be virtually unusable. But it did have one.
Hmm...I'd like to plug FEAR, for it's good implementation of Slow-Mo in a multiplayer context, but it's probably not played widely enough to count, since the influence of the game was one of your criteria I believe.
One more thing: Anyone know the first game to have Killing Sprees, or Double Kills? Because that's pretty prevalent now as well, whether it does anything (COD4) or just shows your skills (UT2K4, etc.).
That's all I've got at the moment. Despite my quibbles, I thought it was a good summing up of where we've come from, nice work. And some of us don't actually expect you to know everything about every game ever before you say something worthwhile, so please keep writing!
To add more fuel to the fire I have the following:
Team Fortress: The map scripting allowed for really complex unique maps. While it wasn't around at the beginning of TF; Spaz4 was a unique map which played a lot like a weird sports game, there was 'hunted' the beginning of the CS style hunt the president game-mode, Canalzon was a hold-the-point style map that was very popular in the early days of TF and in clan matches.
One sided attack/defend was not invented by unreal or CS. (infact I remember starting the creation of just such a map for TF - and I certainly didnt come up with the idea). TF really did innovate. it prompted *team* play, due to the classes, and invented or prompted other mappers to invent due to the great scripting - many other play modes beyond straight CTF that most people associate with TF.
Also, one that very few people have mentioned that perhaps shoudl have been in the list is tribes2. It had all the integrated friends / clan management stuff. Not to mention it had upto 64 player servers (beats bf1942 by 12 months - and the games net-code is way better than beef's). They had vehicles (good team-play inducing Air and Ground vehicles). and ofcourse the customisable classes from Tribes continued on.
Tribes 2 was released 2001, Bf1942 was released 2002.
re Console FPS's: they have never invented anything for the genre; they perhaps made others *aware* of the genre, but they did not invent anything. I have seen others mention the dedicated grenade or melee button, but Duke 3d had a dedicated melee button, and TF had dedicated primary/secondary grenade buttons.
obv. duke nukem should be in the list.
1: Weapons were innovative:
Shrinker
Freezer (Freeze and kick to get atomic health)
Lasertrips and pipebombs
Holoduke
Jetpack (first flight in FPS)
2: Humor
3: First secondary weapon, mighty foot engaged
4: Reflections
5: Parodies on pop culture like games / movies
Further proof that Duke was a genre defining game is the fact that its predecessor Duke Nukem Forever is in development for more than 10 years due to the high expectations of players and the inability to make DNF something as unique as DN3D
Halo never did anything new, so quite your damn crying!
Great list and you made very valid points that were well thought out. you can tell by the many blundering comments made in response. Fact is PC FPSs will always hold innovation for this genre in the for see-able future. Console will always hold second place and have games like CoD, Halo, and Battlefield that execute these innovations from PC FPS well.
Great article. Don't give in to narrowminded people that started their multiplayer career just a few years ago and wants their favorite game on the list. Regarding Marathon; it was a great game, I played it ALOT, but it didn't have anything Quake didn't already have.
Dugg for not having Halo and including Tribes. Tribes was a truly amazing gem of a game.
I know Halo is way late in the FPS genre and thus wouldn't and rationally shouldn't be included, but you know how some people worship it as if it were the Second Coming of Christ. Glad to see it's NOT here.
This article covers its bases admirably; at least, as many as it reasonably could citing only 7 games. I might consider giving Goldeneye the nod if only because it constitutes the most compelling mix of popularity vs. innovation in the split-screen (console) format. On the other hand, the development curve of the console FPS is in many ways separate from that of the PC, and in that era especially it was well behind the PC in terms of multiplayer especially.
tribes 2 had 64 players, and return to castle wolfenstein had class upgrades, xp system etc...
Battlefield is ultimately Tribes in a contempory military setting. Tribes gave so much and was miles ahead of it's time, only in recent years have some games really seen the worth on copying it (community tools in the game's shell!) most notably the leeches at Dice.
It's just a shame Sierra didn't have the kind of intellect needed to actually develop that frachise, if they'd have worked it right instead of cashing in they'd have been so much better off. Instead they shafted the game in the arse :(
DaiMacculate from Kotaku again ;)
@Michael Lidgren:Regarding Marathon; it was a great game, I played it ALOT, but it didn't have anything Quake didn't already have.
No and I fully agree how awesome Quake was. The thing is Marathon came out almost 2 full years before it.
@Ed Borden
As I said on the Kotaku post, Marathon had Mouselook, 24-bit color, and several modes such as KOTH were first seen there. Its not just that I was only a Mac user; I had a PC through most of the 90s as well, and played ALL the games on your list. I'm not sure I would even bump DOOM off, it deserves the recognition, but Marathon did a bunch in the long gap between DOOM and Quake that was quite significant, IMO, perhaps expand the list to 8? ;)
My question about Marathon would be, then, what did it do to further the Team MP FPS genre? Now, I know I listed some general FPS innovations, like specifically "3D Game Engine" under Quake, but did Marathon have Internet play, a 3D Engine, or Team Play before Quake (understood that the team play came from the development of mods in the Quake community)?
FYI - Rise of the Triad had a pretty deep multiplayer mode as well. Some of these modes may have been firsts...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rise_of_the_Triad#Multiplayer
Listen, the only reason you wouldn't have played both TF on the PC _and_ Marathon on the Mac OS is if you were poor and could not afford both a PC and a Mac OS machine.
Please stop discounting the reach of either Marathon (or for that matter TF) just because you were poor.
Can the author please swing the banhammer on all the poor people in the comments? Their opinions should NOT be allowed to count.
DaiMacculate once again (tried to post under my AIM ID and failed) ;)
Yeah I would say Marathon _had_ Internet play, but it lacked the netcode innovations that came with Quake to make it fully playable, and wasn't supported by Bungie, it was a hack developed by some West Coast players who had high-end connections. Those of us still on 56k in 1995 (read: 90% of us) couldn't really play it online until later when AlephOne was developed with more modern netcode.
It did however support 8 player Team DM, as I said in that Kotaku article that was far better than Doom.
That and the addition of Mouselook are the big things, its an intermediate step between DOOM and Quake in may ways. It didn't have a real 3D engine at the time though, the current AlephOne port does support some 3D effects but thats not the same thing.
I haven't gotten to taking a look at it, but it certainly sounds like it was ahead of its time in many ways. It seems like it was borderline on the internet play, which I think is really the key. This game seems more like a step up from Doom, though, rather than a predecessor to Quake, as you said. Being so borderline, I have to think I was justified in not including it :), but I'm glad I at least know of its existence now!
While BF1942 was a great game that improved with patches and mods, the only thing that it provided was a multitude of vehicles. Other multiplayers had the capability of large number of players, classes of players, etc.
I do feel that BF2 did more to revolutionize multiplayer by introducing a "commander" role that could resupply units on the battle field, give squads orders visually and audibly.
I agree that Battlefield is sort of borderline if you consider pieces of the game individually, but I think that when you look at the game as a whole, it gave the genre a big push. Yes, vehicles had been done before, but not like this. Yes, other games had the ability for even more players than Battlefield, but it hadn't been implemented into a mainstream game like this and in this format, which has become the format that we associate with Team MP FPS gameplay now.
Yes the commander/squad additions were probably the biggest contribution, but I did want to blend the series together, because it really belongs that way. EA built the sequels on what they'd learned from BF1942, and even though I think they didn't continue with the vehicles like I would have wanted, everything else pretty much moved forward (except 2142 is laggy as heck).
I fully realize this isn't really an FPS game, but since someone threw Mechwarrior out there, and Tribes is on the list, I figured I'd at least mention it...
Starsiege was a Mecha-type game that was intended to be the flagship of the Tribes universe. It had the best developed and most immersive backstory of any game I've played to date, and refined many of the online gametypes we see today. Unfortunately, as with the Tribes series, Sierra/Vivendi went completely retarded with the series and offered little to no support. There are still ~150-200 or so people that play regularly and a there was a community-lead sequel that just got the axe not too long ago. I just wish other franchises took note of the effort put into writing the backstory. Check out the Starsiege/Tribes timeline (you can find it in several places on Google, I'm sure).
I'd also like to throw Savage out there. While it was a bit behind Battlezone, I think it refined the RTSS series and brought it to a wider audience than most others I've heard of. Unfortunately, poor support on S2's end and a rushed/incomplete project restricted the fanbase of the game. It was made freeware last year, so Google it and you can join the several hundred that still play
I can't tell you how excited I was when I saw Savage for the first time. I saw that game as the next Battlezone (incorporating RTS and FPS elements). I was actually in the Beta for it, but you are right - the game went nowhere.
Thanks for stopping in - it's great to hear from people who have been involved in some of these real niche titles. There's certainly a lot of innovation hidden away in titles that didn't get off the ground, didn't get a big following or a big publisher, or even in the modding scene. One of the problems that I tried to stress here is that if the innovations don't make it out into the market, it's hard to give too much credit.
Same guy from before :)
Savage did get better. Community-lead Mods did loads for the graphics/netcode/overall gameplay. However, between the already unbelievably messy code (from what I've heard) and the humungous time investment to keep re-correcting your enhancements.
If you had high hopes for it, you might want to download it and give it a try. You could be pleasantly surprised, it's still a fun game (with a distinct learning curve) in spite of a few minor flaws.
Again, nothing revolutionary, but I thoroughly enjoyed Jedi Knight II, even though I missed the hayday of the game. I also thought the whole "lightsaber combat" was something that hadn't really been tried aside from its original incarnation (general deviance away from guns as the important FPS element).
Don't forget the more-or-less predecessor of battlefield!
It's true innovations come from Codename Eagle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codename_Eagle
All this talk of quake and Doom and hardly any chatter on Duke3d? It was only the best of all the FPS games. Jetpack, Shinker, Freezegun, Steroids, Ten, Kali, Zone, Heat, Modem games, Lan play, ladder matches.. How did Duke3d not make the list? Quake sucked, so did Doom. I didnt partake in another FPS until UT came out as Quake was totally lame. LONG LIVE DUKE!
-KoolKat
Since a lot of people missed the original point of the post, a discussion of Team Multiplayer in FPS, you should do a follow up on innovation in FPS?
Great read, btw!
The only FPS i can think of that is missing is planetside. The first MMOFPS, the FPS games of the future imo.
People commenting don't realize that Ed is talking about games that CREATED the modern team multiplayer not POPULARIZED it.
I know people have already said this but you have to re mention it since most people only reread the last 3-5 posts.
There are a few games on the list (Tribes, Battlezone) that were actually quite boring and never really THAT popular but they had unique aspects.
Goldeneye, Halo, and Duke Nukem were all popular games but they didn't do anything new or exciting. A big argument for Halo was always 'VEHICLES!' but Halo didn't do this first.
Honestly Halo's not even that good a game, the sole reason for it's success being a stellar lack of decent games for the X-Box over it's entire life. Halo 2 was awful and I regret the whole midnight release hype I bought into. I had the fortune of purchasing my own copy and testing out my friends first so the store took mine back (And the looks on the clerks faces were priceless).
.....Tribes...BORING?!
well its obvious someone couldnt learn how to ski and join a ladder team and compete!
-Sp
Without Wolfenstein Enemy Territory, your list is meaningless.
Wolfenstein Enemy Territory! Its completely free multiplayer FPS. Why is this not on the list??
Why don't you tell me why you think it SHOULD be on the list? Was it the first ever free FPS? And why would that have contributed to the evolution of the genre?
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home