What is a first -person shooter? This is a game in which we see the surrounding world, as it were, through the eyes of our character. And this world is usually hostile, so the main method of communicating with it is violence. It is “View from the Eye” and shooting as the basis of gameplay that distinguish FPS from other game genres. In this mini-cycle of materials, we will try not to enter the field of all kinds of simulators and role-playing games, even if they often have a lot of shooters in common. We are only interested in purebred, seasoned “jester”, which influenced the genre, industry and mass culture. Let us recall them with a name – from pixel antiquity to the present day.
MIDI MAZE, one of the proto -shows, was quite peaceful
It all started not with Doom And not even with Wolfenstein 3D. Shooters were born long before the nineties. The origins of the genre can be found in the seventy -third year – and it is worth giving a thank for them NASA. It was in the laboratory of the American space agency that was born Maze War – The first proto -shower. Only a convinced Stoik could play it today. Monochrome tile graphics, turns strictly ninety degrees and giant eyeballs indicating the players who you want to scare. But there were shooting, a literal look from the eyes and even Deathmatch for two – a phenomenon unique for its time.
The palm of the championship at Maze War disputes Spasim – Three -dimensional space letaire with multiplayer as many as thirty -two people. But Spasim is more likely a simulator than FPS. Like Battlezone , that came out in 1980 and was dedicated to the battles on frame tanks. The landfills were not yet in use.
The next step on the way to Halo And Far Cry I became MIDI MAZE eighty -seventh year – she Faceball 2000. In appearance, the game reminded more likely PAC-Man, moving into three dimensions, but there was already a smooth change of angle of view, and even color schedules, albeit without textures. This graphic miracle reached gamers only four years later – in the game then not particularly great and not at all terrible ID Software. No, it's not about wolfenstein again. In 1991 it was released Catacomb 3D – The pale action, noteworthy, however, with two things: walls with the texture of the brick and the screen in the middle of the screen, from which the protagonist let fire balls into the improvised evil necromancer.
Left Catacomb 3D, right Wolfenstein 3D. As you can see, the difference is not particularly great
And what, if, without changing the engine, replace the magic labyrinths with the dungeons of the German castle, monsters – with the Nazis, and put the “Luher” in the spread of the hero of the hero? Now it turns out Wolfenstein 3D.
Wolf had almost nothing to do with a series of flat stealth explosives Castle Wolfenstein. But there was everything necessary for success: Willyam Blaskovitz, several types of weapons, Easter ghost with Pac-Man and Hitler with machine guns. Even Nazi symbols on every corner, fiercely at that time, cruelty and scandals with prohibitions did not prevent the brainchild of the young still karmak and Romero to become a worldwide hit and the first real FPS in the usual understanding. The engine gave out a good picture for its time and laid the basis not only Spear of Destiny, but also several third -party projects.
Wolfenstein engine used, for example, very popular Rise of the Triad. And the most peaceful shooter of all time came to Super Nintendo – Super 3D Noah’s Ark , where it was necessary in the role of Noah on the ark to shoot from a slingshot with food in animals so that they would fall asleep. And "First Russian School" "Kremlin's dungeons" was suspiciously similar to Wolf, albeit a little improved. In general, there were a lot of games, good or strange, FPS developed, and ID Software bathed in the rays of glory. Who would have thought that only a year after Wolfenstein will be killed by the creators themselves?
Super 3D Noah’s Ark is the first Christian shooter and one most striking examples of religious propaganda in video games. As they say, you cannot win – join
In the ninety -third, the Doom era came – it was this game that made the first -person action movie the king of all game genres. No wonder all the other shooters have been called "DOOM clones" for a long time. After the despicable and flat levels of Wolfenstein, the Martian hell looked like an amusement park – bright and diverse. Doom introduced millions of players with stairs, chainsaw and double -barreledlet. And also the word “Deathmatch” began to be used for the first time here: office locals crackled from the network battles so that the work simply rose in infected doom teams.
What the game was not accused of – from the propaganda of Satanism to the zombie of adolescents, which allegedly resulted in a massacre at the Columbine school, but no one could sink it. Maps and modifications to the original doom still come out, and on May 31 of this year, John Romero himself posted an unofficial fifth episode of the first part on the network – twenty -six years after the release!
DOOM Engine engine – it is also called ID Tech 1 – gave the life to the whole host of games and mods on a variety of platforms. The last official project was published on it in 2002 – it became Dark Arena For Gameboy Advance. The game is interesting, however, only by this. But there were really cool and original projects on Doom Engine. Say in fantasy Heretic It was already possible to look up and down and use magic artifacts, and in its continuation Hexen – choose one of the three heroes, solve almost quest tasks and return to the levels already passed along the way. So role -playing elements in shooters are a longtime invention.
DOOM brutality shocked impressionable mothers throughout America
All the militants who came out up to the ninety -sixth year united one characteristic moment – a silent hero who only knew how to hold a rifle and to press on the buttons. Changed everything Duke Nukem 3D. The appearance of Dolph Londgren, the hoarse voice of John St. John, as well as a gloomy sense of humor and his own opinion on each issue instantly made a dummy star of the first magnitude. And he not only shot, cut and poured quotes – in his game Apogee raised the interactivity of the world to an unprecedented level. Here it was possible to play billiards and sing in karaoke a line of Born to Be Wild, and reward the stripizer with a dollar for efforts, and, say, blow up part of the level to open a previously inaccessible passage. Duke was reflected in the mirrors, used the original weapon like a reducer and behaved like a male chauvinistic pig, which he gained fame for centuries.
To make a protagonist not a faceless killer, but a more or less living character has become a tradition for developers of games on the Duke engine Build Engine. IN Blood there was a queen man Caleb, in Shadow Warrior – Luo Van, who at his leisure was bungal, in Redneck Rampage – Drinking village Leonard … These games were full of references to everything in a row, from "Alien" to "Empterian dead", And with all cruelty, they did not even try to be serious. They were loved then and still loved-because they were truly cool ..
The already forgotten Redneck Rampage, perhaps, went on the territory of a frank parody further than all the other shooters
Cool, but two -dimensional. The developers added the third dimension through tricky distortions of prospects, however, level cards were flat, like spiting enemies. But everything has changed when she came. Game-legend. Game-masterpiece. The first completely three -dimensional shooter in history .. GEOGRAPH Seal! In addition to jokes: to fly, shooting in full 3D, it was really possible in the ninety-fourth year. True, only in Japan and only on computers Sharp X68000. A year later, I saw the light Descent – A rather unusual game about flights on the fighter in caves and factories. Despite the strange concept, she already gave the player six degrees of freedom. But it's not about her.
Speech, of course, about Quake. It was she who remained in folk memory the first completely three -dimensional FPS. No wonder: the picture for the ninety-sixth year was damn realistic, and spiting cops of the Kabans from Duke against the backdrop of polygonal chambers looked like kindergarten crafts. Although, of course, the game owes not only a schedule. There were cool guns, and terrible monsters, and the soundtrack from Nine Inch Nails , Both the frantic drive, and the Shab-Niggurat in the role of the main boss. But initially, all this was supposed to be a two -dimensional RPG! Gamdev’s paths are truly inexcriminate.
What was easy to predict was the success of Quake Engine. Both Quake itself and its continuation are easy to take for technical demo – so many third -party developers made games on their engines. Anachronox, Sin, Sadly known Daikatana – You can https://space-win-casino.co.uk/ list for a long time. But we are interested in one specific game. We say, of course, about Half-Life.
The mount has become a real Half-Life symbol, which is proved by numerous Easter Easterks in other games. Read more about them here here
The great game is a brainchild Valve did not make technology, not graphics, or even gameplay. The most seemingly unnecessary militant thing – the plot played a role. Rather, its feed. The story was no longer a couple of lines of text in a separate file, as in Doom or Quake. Half-Life talked about the misadventures of the silent physicist of Gordon Freeman without separation from the gameplay and right from the first person. Trivial to date, the decision in the ninety -eighth has been arranged almost a revolution in the game design. Valve took the first step towards world dominance.
Half-Life was good in everything. Her multiplayer regime lay in the basis of probably the most famous multiplayer mods in history – Counter-STRIKE And Team Fortress (The latter was born back in Quake, but only Valve gained real popularity). The era of network shooters and computer clubs began.
The original Team Fortress, unlike the sequel, was not so cartoon
Mastodonts from ID Software and bronzaurus from Epic Games knew how not only to create trends, but also to keep your nose in the wind. 1999 was a landmark year for fans of online battles. They were born Quake III Arena And Unreal Tournament – multiplayer continuation of popular single games. The plot regime here, not an example of Half-Life, was not at all. But who needed him with such a drive? For e-sports, this duet of sworn competitors made no less than Counter-Strike and all FPS taken together.
The exact opposite of network meat grinders – leisurely tactical shooters. The topic of the fight against terrorism was on the rise, but CS for many turned out to be too dynamic and tied exclusively at shooting. It became a counterweight Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six. The game based on the novel by the famous militarist Tom Clansy was not the first representative of the tactical fps genre, but it was she who made it popular. Actually shooting here was given much less attention than preparing the operation. It was necessary to carefully listen to briefings, read a lot to read and equip a detachment, monitor the fatigue of the fighters, lay them the directions of the attack … and try not to die from the first bullet. Rainbow Six did not forgive errors, so the typical lifting “Quaker” felt very bad in it, although not for long.
Not only shooting
There were a lot of games in the nineties that were similar to shooters on formal signs, but in spirit gravitors to something else. One of the first such “not quite jet” in the ninety -fourth was System Shock. Unlike the cheerful underworld from Doom, in the dark corridors of the Citadel space station it was really scary. The hero is not a steroid space marineer, but a rather fragile hacker. There are not too many enemies, but they are strong and dangerous. In addition to shooting, sometimes you need to read, think and solve puzzles. But the main thing that the System Shock CD version was remembered is the fantastic voice acting of the main enemy, crazy artificial intelligence Shodan. Meanwhile, there were still 13 years before Glados ..
Subsequently, Warren Spector and Ken Levin, the key developers of the System Shock and its sequel, will make many outstanding games in which there will sometimes be even more from RPG and Stlace than from the shooter. But Thief – The thief simulator in the conditional technomagic Middle Ages – was rather an "anti -Shuther". If the player has to kill here, then he did something wrong. And at the end of the twentieth century, Mr. Spector gave us one of the best games of all time – Deus Ex.
It is so complicated and complex that it will not turn to call it just a joker. Shooting here, of course, is also decent. But besides it, in the setting of cyberpanic anti -utopia, a nonlinear story, stealth, branchy dialogs, a set of experience and character development were tamed. The shooter is only one of the faces of Deus Ex, and, perhaps, not the brightest. Nevertheless, the adventures of the special agent Jay Denton influenced the development of FPS and generally video games no less than doom, quake or Half-Life. Largely thanks to Deus Ex, almost no modern shooter is complete without pumping, dialogs and other role -playing elements.
System Shock 2 is still considered one of the best hybrids of the shooter, horror and role -playing game
On the eve of the two thousandth genre of the first -person militants was struck by an infectious disease. Her name is "Shooter about the Second World War". But about them, about the origin and development of console shooters, as well as about stormy zero, we will talk in the second part.