The History of FPS Games Vol 2 1988-1992

[DavidMcMahon1]

I'll always remember Midwinter on the Atari ST I wish they do a remake broadly similar to GTA, but lonely and desolate and cold!

[TheAdam159]

I think the term 'first person shooter' didn't exist before Wolf3D. They were all just lumped in as 'shoot em ups', the games prior to that. But I think just because Wolf was the first to have a gun sprite in your hand, so what, that doesn't make it the first fps. Catacomb's gameplay looked very similar to Wolf, to me.

[PeterRoeder31]

This is awesome. ^_^

[fennex]

Freescape engine kick ass !!!

[gothic12fan]

The first background song is from Unreal Tournament 99 :)

[Evildood89]

why are you include RPG´s ?

[Evildood89]

why are you include RPG´s ?

[brolen2339104]

So ID didn't invent shit. Nice to know.

[Evildood89]

@brolen2339104 well, technically it does, Wolf3D is the first FPS to use the popular conventions of today.

[boomerxxx]

NO MORE MAZES! PLEASE! I can't take it! 

[12NiBer12]

This is where the change is visible. Great games emerged from this, let's call it era, good ol' stuff. :D

[corpusc]

so hovertank was nothing new by a longshot.

catacombs was the first with texture mapping on walls,

ultima underwold with textures on ceilings/floors and letting you look up and down with texture mapping

[HardWarUK]

Some maybe FPS', but many are just FP game, as in First person, as I wouldn't call Midwinter a shooter, for example.

[ehhhhhhhhhh]

FUCK YEAH WOLFENSTEIN 3D

[darkspawn316]

You're forgetting "Swords & Serpents" for NES, released in 1990

[Szederp]

Everybody credits Wolf3d with creating the "fps genre" and then...out of nowhere Ultima Underworld comes a month before wolf already with better grapfhics, the ability to jump, water and so on. Looking Glass...you are the true masters.

[MyNameIsBucket]

@Szederp Check out Corporation just a few minutes ahead. It's 90% of what Wolf3D was, before even Hovertank was made.

[Saxonation]

@Szederp Really the legacy of Wolf3D isn't being the first FPS, but being the first game that ran somewhat well enough to allow an action packed experience. Ultima Underworld is a great and stunning game, especially for the time, but it ran like ass.

[TheAdam159]

@Szederp Hell, Balgorg came out with a whole video detailing the huge amount of first person games that have come out since 1974! lol. Wolfenstein 3D was in no way the first first-person-shooter.

[wejw14]

I think you have confused dungeon crallers, vehicle simulaters, and space shooters with first person shooters, just because a game is in the first person view point doesn't make a shooter.

[TheAdam159]

@wejw14 They're in a first person perspective, you're often wandering around mazes shooting at things. How are these games not FPS's?

[metabog]

All hail Carmack and Romero! 

[likelylike]

Xenomorph is really cool

[PraiseTheCrust]

6:05 yay :I

[roxasfruit]

wolfenstein was the REAL first person SHOOTER where u tak eon a human role with actual guns

[zakopako82]

i loved castle master music and the game itself was pretty good

[DivineIQ]

I like how dungeon crawlers ended up being listed as FPS's. On that note, I didn't see dragon caves or might and magic. Get some consistency.

[makky123]

6:05 yay.

[natevines]

Midwinter looked pretty impressive for '89. It seems like at that time, full 3D was certainly feasible, but it gave the games extremely bland, undetailed polygonal feels. Sprites were simpler but you could add a whole lot of vibrance to them.

[TheJoeStudd]

what memories lol

[LMUli]

the catacomb series had the first creepy and weird monsters

[DasPooperTrooper]

2:56 Castle Master music is INTENSE

[spongebobsucks34]

I see that the "shoot stuff in a maze" aspect was very popular back then.

[EpicTrilogy]

HALF OF THESE ARE RPGS!!!!!!!!! YOU, ARE, DUMB.

hail to wolfenstein though.

[milinm]

@EpicTrilogy if you were in 1988, id like to see you try and distinguish between RPG's and FPS's.

[spockmcqueen]

There was a SNK (arcade) FPS in the early 90's. I don't remember the name, but it pre-dates Doom. The arcade game was unique in that it had cartridges, and one cabnit that held around 5 games.

Excellent work, very thorough. It took them long enough to think to combine Atari's classic "Battle Zone" with your standard maze game.

[Viteris]

hey! the song that stars in 2:56... is it from castle master or some other game¿?

O.o!

[death0by0zgs]

6:24

2.5D ftw

[Lakikez]

I miss also Catch 23, for my Amstrad

[ZombieToaster]

Those catacomb games right before Wolfenstein looked alot more fun than wolfenstein, Ill have to look em up.

[Zombie1990]

Wow, a lot of these games are nearly identical to Castle Wolfenstein. Why is it that ID Software is credited with creating first person shooters? 

[P5BDeluxeWiFi]

@Zombie1990

For the same reason Apple are credited with inventing the tablet PC (iPad), People don't know their computer history well enough or they have a soft spot for a certain product and in some cases they are just morons like EpicFailogy.

[Enderu666]

@Zombie1990 Those games that look a lot like Wolfenstein (I suppose you were thinking of the Catacomb games) were also made by id software.

[TheAdam159]

@Zombie1990 Beats me. I love Wolfenstein 3D to death, but you'd have a hard task explaining how exactly it is the first FPS when Balgorg has put up two videos worth (and 18 years worth) of first person games that predate it.

[guashin]

awesome song at 2:56............is it from castle master?

[HardWarUK]

These are First Person GAMES, as some are Sims and some are RPG's.

[TheMisterCat]

ULTIMA UNDERWORLD IS THE BOMB

[Redgrant80]

What's spear of destiny? is that a sequel to Wolfenstein 3D?

[Balgorg]

@Redgrant80 Yep, its not so much a sequel, but its virtually identical, so more of a stand alone expansion with a different name.

[PeterBara95]

@Redgrant80

It is a prequel. It shows the things that happened before you assassinated Hitler.

[StTails]

The sound in Hovertank when saving a child is SO epic @ 6:06 : "yeah......."

And I never thought too B.J's head was actually first in Catacomb 3d

Anyway, great referencement :D

[MrSana1994]

неплохой видок

[sproketcampeon]

There was also another game called "Line of Fire". Those three games you've not heard about were available for the spectrum, so googling /"ZX spectrum" terrorpods.../ will show you them. I have uploaded a Catch 23 video on youtube with another account, search for: ZX Spectrum catch 23 =)

[sproketcampeon]

I can't find Terrorpods, Catch 23. Glass or Operation Wolf =(

[Balgorg]

Eh ? Never heard of em, apart from Operation Wolf. Thanx for making suggestions. Its good to know whats missing. Silent Debuggers for example, how did I mange to miss it ?

[ccjuju]

@Balgorg Never heard of Terrorpods? We're only talking the most nightmare-inducing Psygnosis box art ever drawn here

[Popsiclethehippie]

more unreal music lol

[magic666z]

its sick how much Wolfenstein is ahead of his time

[Balgorg]

Quite an advancement. ID have always been ahead of the game from the start. However Ultima was creating 3D environments way befor Quake. Pay special attention to the Colony (in Vol1) this game had ray casting befor ID did. In terms of looks and gameplay Wolf 3D was so good that still today many people refer to it as the first FPS.

[metabog]

@Balgorg Colony may have been a raycasting engine, but it didn't have texture mapping, which is basically what Wolfenstein really brought to the table. And then of course Doom just blew everything away with lights, different heights, etc.

[JonathonTheAsshole]

@metabog Height in Doom was an illusion. Like all of Carmacks engines 50% of it was smoke and mirrors or trade offs.

[metabog]

@JonathonTheAsshole It DID have different heights though, just not overlapping floors, yes it was technically 2D but the graphics made it look like it had height.

[natevines]

@magic666z I Love Wolf 3D as much as the next guy, but someone really needs to fill me in on what set it apart. From what my eyes can see, it was hardly revolutionary graphically (Catacombs looks just as good if not better) and the gameplay was no different...

[magic666z]

@natevines

I have seen this video again just to answer your question look at today FPS they all got full screen with health ammo... on the lower middle part of the screen Catacombs have this but almost half of the screen is in character image and other information the graphics on the catacombs are in good design but look at that fire bolt and gun fire in Wolf 3d you will see that cubes are much smaller in Wolf then Cata... you can see that is Wolf to. Wolf is one of the first games

[magic666z]

@natevines to have gun that will look and move like that as you can see all good FPS after it will try to copy and improve Wolf 3d

[hairmonster12]

@natevines it was the plot. seems like before Wolfenstein it was all spaceships, lasers and aliens. Wolf 3D gave you real guns, and you got to shoot other human beings. plus who doesn't love killing Hitler?

[TheAdam159]

@natevines Agreed. I do love Wolf3D (and I mean LOVE), but Catacomb 3D's engine actually looks a bit better, to me, and that came out first

[HardWarUK]

And they say Wolfenstien and Doom were the first FPS's, and yet here's Wolfenstein at the end of video 2!!!

[Balgorg]

There is a website somewhere, where some guy dedicates about a page, where he makes his case that Wolfenstein should be considered to be the first proper FPS. But such a view is only valid because the term FPS was invented later, and applied to games that fitted the 'Doom' format. The visible weapon, that sort of thing. So realy there is no such thing as the first FPS, they were all called 3D Shooters, and later Doom Clones.

[Loletam]

There's no way that Wolf could be the first fps, Catacomb 3-D might be considered as the very first modern fps since it was released earlier than Wolf and was basically the same as Wolf in terms of graphics/gameplay but let's not forget about the games such as 'The Colony' which, too, is called 'the first modern fps' ^^

[magic666z]

@Balgorg

FPS

First Person shooter

I think that have nothing to do with visible weapon You can shoot anything from anything from first person view and its first person shooter xD

[Loletam]

I'm glad we can hear a piece of Unreal Tournament Soundtrack ^^

[Balgorg]

;-)

[vasek94CZ]

I love wolffenstein 3D