If you're a product of the 90's, you might be into Doom. If you're into Doom, you might like Quake, Unreal, Wolfenstein, Blood, and Duke Nukem 3D! If you're down with that crowd, then you've come to the right planet. Planet Virtua prides itself on the First Person Shooters of old and now we're going to celebrate the titles that celebrate them. Quake cannot be outspoken as one of the headers of the 3D FPS genre. It leapt from Doom in gory, glorious sprays of bullets and now we're going to take a look at some of the titles that bring this era to light. If you like this genre, you may love some of these.
DUSK
DUSK is a love letter to many FPS of old. This game has the entire weapon roster, allows you to use two pistols and two shotguns, and employs its own Super Shotgun. It is a formidable weapon arsenal but there are also many dangerous monsters for you to fight. There are flying monsters that need more of the sniper rifle and the crossbow. Then there are the big bullet sponges that are either damaging or very fast or both. The entire game has the dark, sinister feel and the graphics just scream Quake Clone in the best way. The balance of difficulty, the brilliance of the level design and the creature design, it all boils down to 3 Episodes of some of the most engrossing shoot'em ups there is today. Do not even think about passing this title up.
HROT
When you want brown to be the new color scheme for everything, you go for Pascal. Someone used this ancient coding to make a game in order to give it a very authentic feel of being old and worn. This is a nuclear holocaust based in North Weastern Asia in the Czech Republic. Everyone has gas masks and you need to find your way across the border while also dealing with explosives, bears and strange, mutated animals. The arsenal is well employed here as well, though the Super Shotgun is not quite so accurate. This is one with a bit of a wide spread, requiring you get a little closer for full effectiveness. The creatures and enemies you run into are about as strange as you might think and there are quite a good number of strange happenings and interesting tidbits of the culture.
AMID EVIL
Something to give you the Hexen and Heretic vibe is cool Three Dimensional Bliss! You get a bunch of different wands and weapons to take down armored monstrosities, monsters and breakable glass things that are just fun to break. This is one of those fast paced games that has Hexen's qualities, but goes more toward Doom 4 with the mechanics and chaos! Sometimes, the level designs can be rather confusing, in keeping with Hexen, and there are times when the mobs can begin to crowd you rather harshly. The magic and the death are in great clarity and this has to be one of the more beautiful titles in glorious polygons!
WRATH: Aeon of Ruin
This game seems more like it's along the lines of Painkiller than anything else. The blade on the arm calls toward Doom Eternal, but otherwise, this is a very well thought up game. It even starts you off in a hub world where you choose portals for levels. This calls back to Quake and is a welcome addition. The levels are beautiful and gothic with graveyards and snow. The monsters are zombies and weird soldier things. The weapons are very strange, but it is also strangely not afraid to tell you that the blade is much more useful than usual. Not only does charging with the blade make you attack very quickly, it also gives you a boost for a good jump to get over platforms and get through a few sticky situations. This game is very challenging, but it is also very much akin to this grand genre!
Hedon Bloodrite
This is one of the lesser recommendations on the list, but it is very much keeping with the spirit. This is a mix between Hexen and Rise of the Triad than anything else. The blood is keeping with the spirit but the medieval qualities also bring out a great change from your normal fair. Where AMID EVIL was more for the magic, this game is more for the iron and the heavy melee weapons. The real glaring issue is that the levels span from long to ridiculously tiresome, like the Sahara with a tiny Oasis. Hedon is for a more niche audience of FPS fans. It has secrets to spare and you're welcome to venture forth and explore. There's plenty of it.
CULTIC
This game is in the vain of Blood and it is not afraid of it. There is a great deal of the occult, as the name suggests, and the weaponry is very much in keeping with the south with molotov cocktails and pump action shotguns. The levels are usually in the dark woods and this calls upon one of its flaws. The game is dark! Very, very dark and that is a problem when it takes place in a forest, as there are several enemies hiding in there and they can very easily kill you from afar. The wide open sections can be very frustrating with the level of damage opponents deal to you. You get some very clever weapons and you can employ explosives, but you need to take it upon yourself to save as often as possible. It is very hard to get through this without knowing what's ahead.
Ion Fury
The Build engine has not seen the light of day for quite some time until now! Ion Fury was made with Duke Nukem and Shadow Warrior in mind. It's set in the future and you get to use some very nice technology from the time. However, this also means you need to fight drones, cyborgs, robots and whatever else comes flying at you from the time. The weapons are highly explosively awesome, but that's nothing against the very feel of the cyberpunk era. The levels are filled with flashing lights, screens and flying technology on display here. It is also very difficult and the main badguy scientist guy gets annoying with his constant babbling over screens! Either way, this game is a ton of fun, but try to conserve your bullets. Sometimes, you get dripped the ammo in tiny drops. Either way, blow things up and make it look AWESOME!
Project Warlock
One of the FPS rarities of being 2D with the 3D qualities while having a very unique style about it. It's unique in that it takes a lot of qualities from some of the older games in the 2D periods. It also prides itself in its boss battles and has some very strange level progressions. Between levels, you get to upgrade your weapons and sometimes this is very much needed. Sometimes, your current level is not going to take down the giant squid monster or whatever the hell the level has in store for you. Snow Monsters ar not out of the question either! It can also be considered something of a dungeon crawler, because that's the essence it evokes as you plow monsters down with some very nicely futuristic guns. The laser guns, chaingun, nail guns, it's all very evocative of the FPS genre and various icons therein. This is a solid and solidly difficult title.
ULTRAKILL
An interesting addition, as well as a very unique one. The mechanic of killing and getting blood in order to gain health is a very interesting one. This game tests your your ability to kill or be killed by making it essential to kill more of them than you get damaged in each round so that you can move further and further through the levels. They are interesting little bite sized levels that test your speed and reflexes. While it is an interesting novelty, there are a few elements working against it. The element of taking on smaller levels with so much going on gets a little tiresome. Sometimes the graphics can be a little overly flashy and it can start to cause headaches. The worst part of this game was that it glitched and I often found myself replaying levels that I certainly wasn't supposed to be replaying when I came back to the game. This problem may be fixed by the time of reading this review, but this game had more than one. It's overall a fun time, but mostly in smaller doses.
Boltgun
Warhammer 40K is no stranger to the shooter genre, let alone the video game community. It is worth noting that they had a tiny title on the Sega Saturn. Well, now they seem to want to take inspiration from Brutal Doom, of all things. Not technically an original shooter title but who really cares at this juncture? It has blood, guts and a boltgun that goes bang bang. It's a fun time, but man, this is a rough title in terms of difficulty. Sometimes, the enemies can range into some very awkward positions and the crowd can become rather overwhelming, especially with your limited ammunition by comparison. It's fast-paced and it's worth a look but it is most definitely not the highest recommendation.
It's good to note that the "Boomer Shooter" genre is still going very strong and with a good diverse list of titles under its belt. Both the 2D and 3D polygon looks of old have turned out to be the more looked after qualities in FPS's and that bodes well for the genre. The lower we keep the graphics, the more creativity that they can concentrate on. New innovations and new blood (no pun intended) will be needed for this excursion into the well loved gaming community. Keep the blood flowing and keep drinking your water.
