Legendary FPS. Review on Best Ten Computer Games

Actually, writing a review in this section is quite difficult. How do you define'best games'? You see, if we take a short period of time, like one year, we can compare games in terms of graphics, sound, gameplay, hardware requirements and other quantifiable ways. But how can you compare 2 games which are say 5 years apart.

Furthermore, how can you compare an FPS with a racing game or even a sports game. Each genre of games is different and there can be no cross genre comparison. One person make like a particular genre more than the others.

Hence, I feel that games belonging to a certain genre have to be compared and also you must keep in mind the time at which they came out. We must compare games in terms of how legendary they are. Eg: Doom 3 is better than Doom 1 in ANY QUANTIFIABLE way. But Doom 1 is a legend. Not Doom 3.(It may become one, but we'll have to wait for long). I have been gaming since my 6th standard, that is since 1993. I have played almost all the games there are to play. In fact, I've slowed down only since the last 2 years. In this review, I'll be talking about the best FPS Game series.

I'll start off with the highest ranked to the lowest ranked.

1.Doom Series

Any FPS gamer would have heard of Doom. In fact, ANY GAMER would have heard of doom. Why is this game a legend? There are a lot more better games now.What's there in this'Doom' series?The fact is that this game single-handedly smashed the 2D gaming industry made famous by Apogee Software with games like Duke Nukem 2, Commander Keen, Prince of Persia etc. This was not the first 3D game. Wolfenstein 3D was the first 3D game. But this was a game with square rooms, 3 types of guns, only 3 kinds of enemies who had no AI and rubbish sound. Nobody actually liked it.

It was DOOM by id software that sparked off the FPS game revolution which is still going strong even today. Doom was the first game to have levels which are open and not closed square rooms. The walls could have windows and even diagonal shapes. There were different floor heights in the game and the enemies could be above or below you. This was the first game to have rooms one above another. This was the first game with proper MIDI music. More than that, it was the first game to have multiplayer support over a LAN, internet or dial up modem.

One year after its release, many companies(including IBM) had to ban this game in their offices because multiplayer gaming was clogging up their network. This was the first game with so many weapons, different monsters and levels. It was a benchmark for long time to come. All the games coming after it had to be atleast as good as it is.

Doom 2 was released a year later to increase the playabilty and levels and the types of monsters. Not a big leap really. It was almost like an addon. But Doom 3 has once again set the benchmark for FPS games as far a game engine and graphics quality is concerned. There's no video card in this planet which can run Doom 3 in 1280x960, Ultra Quality, 16x Antialaising, 4x Aninsotropic Filtering and with all special effects on at a frame rate of more than 100 frames per second even on a P4 3.0 GHz with 512 MB DDR RAM. And so, other FPS games will have follow suit.

2. Half Life Series

Most of you may not agree with me, but I have my reasons and I'm not biased. Consider this - Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 Arena have been released and within a month, everyone playing both these games. They were different and radical. They were the first games based on'fragging' theme and floating platform levels. It was different and it was fun. But then, there came a game shortly and seized many'Game of the Year' awards from both these games. This was Half-Life. Surprisingly, this was not a fragging game.

It was a single player'story-based level crossing' game like Quake 2. And it still beat the 2 current heavyweights - Quake 3 Arena and Unreal Tournament. Soon, everyone was playing only Half-Life. This game also has a long list of firsts. It was the first game which had AI which actually worked. Enemies planned against you and they progressively got better. They coordianted in their attack.

They did not run towards you with all guns blazing as soon as they saw you. They hid and they waited. This was one of the first games where you had to reload your weapons. The arsenal of weapons was huge and there were many monsters. The story was good too. But more than all this, you had to actually use your brain while playing the game. You had to listen to scientists and coordinate with them to succeed. You actually had to solve'puzzles' to get through. Simply shooting everything in sight wasn't good enough. This was the first game to get a PERFECT blend of strategy and FPS action.

The Action did not get adulterated due to the Strategy. In fact, it got enhanced. As far as graphics was concerned, UT offered software and Direct3D rendering, Quake 3 Arena had only OpenGL rendering. But Half life had all 3 modes - software, Direct3D and OpenGL. This means that the game would run on any comp. And the graphics were beautiful even in software mode. Just when you thought that the game could not get better, the expansion packs - Opposing Force and Blue Shift were released. The best part was that in these expansion packs, you play the part of a different character, but the story and scenario is the same.

So you play as a Scientist, Corporal and a security guard. The weapons, challenges and levels are different.This was a fantastic brainwave. Just when things started getting dull, a mod for the game was released which was called Counter Strike. This went on to become the most popular online multiplayer game of all time and further on, it became a seperate game itself. Half-Life 2 will have to live upto a lot of expectations.

3. Unreal series

This game was called Unreal and was released many years ago. It was a single player game but it was a failure because Quake 2 beat the hell out of it. Then Unreal Tournament was released. This created a HAVOC in the FPS gaming world. But Quake 3 Arena was released soon and everyone expected Q3A to crush UT just like Q2 had crushed Unreal. But it did not happen. This was one of the first games based on the'fragging' concept where players in an arena killed opponents for points or'frags' and the player reaching a fraglimit wins.

This concept was radically different from the normal Single player level monster shooting and almost everyone liked this new concept. This game used Direct3D or Software modes for rendering and could be played on feeble PCs and on most unreliable networks. Thats what it was. A fantastic network game. Quake 3 Arena was better than UT as far as graphics and pure fragging was concerned. But Q3A did not have repeatability/playability. UT had game modes like Domination, Assault and Capture the Flag which was significant and thus made the game more playable.

So you would not get bored with UT, but you did get bored with Q3A. UT 2003 and UT 2004 are great games, but they are not legends like UT. Both UT2003 and UT2004 are almost the same concept at UT. But as time has passed, graphics, sound and levels have become better and a few more game modes have been added.Thats all. Once you finish these games completely, you will forget about them soon. But UT2004 has no competition till Quake 4 is released and then, we'll have a frag fest.

. continued in the'comments' section.