Old But Gold

The Tru7h...

First person shooters from the '90s are definitely not the same like it is today. While to a casual player it may look similar, you run and shoot things that are a threat to you, but there's way more to that if you are an enthusiastic first person shooter player like I am. Here are some reasons why I believe first person shooters from the '90s are still a blast to play.


1. The ability to hold all weapons: This is starting to become a resurgence for future shooters are starting to bring back from the early days of the first person shooter genre. For example, Wolfenstein: The New Order decided to adapt this mechanic and the new Doom is also doing it too. This feature was one of the defining features for '90s first person shooters. Instead of having the usual two weapons only where you always have to make a sacrifice when you pick up a new weapon, the older games allowed you to keep it. This means, it gives you more options to play around with the weapons you acquire in combat scenarios rather than making sacrifices in the usual two weapon system for modern shooters.

2. Creative Arsenal: There are definitely some awesome weapons I've used playing many first person shooter from the early 2000s to present day. However, I can't help but feel really attached to the creative arsenals that the '90s have introduced. The BFG9000 is the first one to come to mind. It is truly the best weapon in the Doom series due to how powerful it is for close quarters and the ultimate crowd control weapon. You also had the Shrinker from Duke Nukem 3D and that game itself had multiple unorthodox weapons as well. I also loved the Assault Rifle or Dual Wielding Shotguns from the Marathon series. The weapons may sound very standard fair because most modern shooters do feature the usual fully automatic weapon or some sort of shotgun, but Marathon came out in the early '90s when first person shooters were a brand new genre. Marathon allowed players to shoot bullets and grenades from the Assault Rifle's mounted grenade launcher at the same time! A rarity from today's shooters. Also the game itself was one of the first games that allowed you to dual wield at that time and Marathon nailed it with its Dual Wielding Shotguns.
Do you know what BFG stands for? Look it up kids.

3. Level Design. Level design in the '90s were mostly complex and sometimes maze like. First Person Shooters are heavily reliant on map design because it enriches the combat aspect which is something that makes these kinds of game shine. Having good level design allow you to engage a combat scenario in multiple ways, but not only that, it also promotes exploration which does add depth to the experience rather than just relying on the combat. It also allow the map designer to experiment with the pacing of the game which also adds variety to the experience. There's a lot to what good level design can do to first person shooters and most modern shooters have pretty much down toned the complexity of '90s level design.

Still is fairly relevant to this day.

4. Arena Shooters. In today's age, the most popular first person shooters that people like to play are generally military shooters. These games are kind of more "realistic." The guns are generally based on real life guns, you do have recoil, and you die quickly like in real life. Well, to be honest, I don't really know if you can die really quickly in real life even if you're wearing a bullet proof vest, but I'm sure nobody wants to test that out. However, arena shooters are very frantic and on a whole different kind of level when it comes to the overall experience when you compare it to games like Call of Duty or Battlefield. They tend to be faster paced, more over the top with combat like using weapons that are not realistic at all, and there's a lot of emphasis on map control. I love these kinds of shooters because I grew up playing these games as my first taste in first person shooter multiplayer. I love the excitement I get when playing them and it's just something that feels home to me when I play them. This video I'm posting here is one of my favorite Quake 3 montages and it's pretty much a good viewing clarification of what arena shooters are all about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQJzUsZb7co

5. Amazing Single Player Games. In my opinion, I believe the best single player driven first person shooters were really from the '90s. Most first person shooters from back then didn't really care about including a story or trying to teach you some sort of moral lesson. It was all about having fun and just trying to deliver the best game they can possibly make. I think what makes me enjoy games like Doom or Quake 2 so much was just how enjoyable these games were. They all had great combat, moments, level design was top notch, and they were just so much fun to play in the first playthrough that you just want to come back and play it even more. Doom's first episode had really good pacing and it just felt right when you play level after level. Quake 2 also shined really well by allowing you really get creative with how you play because you were able to carry valuable power ups like Quad Damage or Invulnerability which allowed you to a certain combat scenario drastically different. You also wanted to at the same time because a lot of the action driven parts in Quake 2 were very fun to be involved and also experiment. Here's one of my videos I made; showing off the crazy amount of ways you can play in Quake 2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huCAEL2AKEU


6. It Ages Well. There are some games that might not hold up its time as it gets older, but a lot of '90s first person shooters really holds up very well compared to today's shooters. There's a reason why the first person shooter genre is currently trying to look back at the older games and see what should return for the newer games in this genre. The new Doom is currently being faithful to the original by trying it make it fast paced or allowing you to have all weapons and so much more. There's also a possibility that other first person shooters will do the same. Many video game critics or reviewers usually rank a lot of these games in their Top 10 or Top 50 best first person shooters to further prove you how highly regarded they are. It is fairly self explanatory that first person shooters from the '90s are old, but they're still gold to this day.

Admit the existence of no level except Total Carnage.