Voodoo

     

            The most important point of this blog for me is to give myself proper appreciation and knowledge of my favorite gaming genre through historical context that may have been lost to me at the time and/or without this exercise.I had difficulty articulating the massive, yet now almost expected jump Quake II gave over other 1997 releases in such a short time. It's not hyperbole yet the quality standard for games was the expectation of technological marvels one after the other by 1998 and that expectation was reinforced by the reality of the 1990's tech boom. id Tech 2 impressed as much as id Tech 2.5 while having what Rare or Iguana Entertainment did impress in different ways in between. Unreal embodies more than anything the era to which created it. Unreal is as we all know the name suggest is unbelievable. Coming right after Quake II on this blog and roughly 6 months from id Tech 2.5's debut in late '97, Unreal astonishes me. 1998 was here and with it Epic Games debut FPS Unreal to show us video games could truly have no limits. 

                     Unreal and Epic Game's Unreal Engine feel like the watershed moment for video games that every medium experiences where technology is serviceable enough for neigh any vision.  Playing this blog and hosting games of a wide range of quality has shown me limitations in both design and approach that the technological canvas imposes on the creators. Unreal Engine is the living life blood of what makes Unreal the game it is. There's a time old discussion of game play and graphics and how the lion share of creative effort and engineering should be split between the two. However it's very important to understand that the vision for Unreal the game is made possible with the Unreal Engine. 

        The game features massive levels unlike that of any FPS I've played before with vistas going off for what feels like forever with no fog to mask the lack of rendering like seen on N64 games. Loading screens in Unreal ,unlike Hexen or other idTech based games, don't have to hide behind doors but let the player clearly see where they are going as the game takes a moment to load.  The effects work though boggles the mind and really flexes the kind of things Video Add In Cards can accomplish. Glass and water distort in creative and translucent ways I've not seen an FPS game until now. Bullets and explosions are either rendered with polygons or have the best sprite effect use I've seen. Physics make chunks of meat float in the water, bounce the player like Quake does with explosions or to my great surprise have rope like elements bounce at times. Bloom lighting and colored lighting look much better than what was seen in id Tech 2.5 and still have a dramatic effect on me with the presentation simply not possible in even simple scenes without it. The dynamic lighting however in Unreal Engine is what gives the game atmosphere, tense game play areas that are free to play with light and darkness like I could only dream of when playing DOOM II. The lighting is incredible and completes and already incredible visual package. It seems the lighting effects more surfaces and smaller details in both color and dynamic ways than seen with id Tech 2.5.

           The tech impresses and ignites my love for realtime rendering. While the games that would do that for me in real life came much later if I was who I am now in 1998 it would likely be Unreal that would be my "Crysis" moment. It wasn't long ago I was blown away by the level of interactivity, lighting and texturing available in Build Engine games like Duke Nukem 3D. However some 1.5 years later Unreal is a jump so large I lack the worlds to describe. The thing about this era is clear to me is that there was no singular "Crysis" moment. DOOM II, Hexen, Duke Nukem,Quake, Golden Eye, Turok, Quake II and now Unreal all felt like the entire expectations and reality in which games are created and played fundamentally shifted in expectation and quality. 

            Unreal's beauty however is not just skin deep. Unreal has left me with awe in my impressions and memories with the game. Moments that are truly timeless and will always stick with a gamer.  Crawling out of a typical post Quake FPS level with awesome dynamic lighting to suddenly walk out and find yourself in a valley with a water fall that you jump down to. Its a monumental moment for the genre. Some of these moments are serene and beautiful existing to only breathe life into this living world the player is part of. Some offer to heighten the incredibly tense combat moments playing with light sources and darkness in a way that forces the player to adjust their senses. The introduction to Skarrj using dynamic lighting and a great sound track to near through the player into a panic attack as they fight for their lives.  Some other moments just make your jaw drop and heart race for other reasons such as a slith being smart enough to follow you after pushing you off into the water where it sims faster and attacks stronger. Easily one of my favorite and most surprising moments in the game. These kind of enemy surprises or environmental immersion haven't really came across in an FPS game before on this of quality, interactivity but also just immersion and drawing the palyer into a believable world which may be Unreal's only ironic part when it comes to naming. This isn't to say Unreal isn't short on charming gimmicks. A health plan that the longer it grows the more health it gives you shows off the engines geometry transformations well but also gives the world a little charm. Natives smart enough to guide you to hidden treausre should you keep them alive are neat ways of just seeing how Epic Games had the freedom to really toy with these actors and elements while structuring a level. Unreal is far less rigid feeling that past FPS games because of this and has an almost more simulated feel to it in place.

       While immersion and scope are clearly where Unreal stands apart, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and Epic Games largely borrows from the id design bible. Its very a "Quake Clone" as much as Dark Forces or Duke Nukem where "DOOM Clones".  The game is fast paced falling in the same speed bracket as Quake II though still not as extreme as Quake I or Blood. A large host of weapons fit the typical roster with attempts by Epic Games to make Unreal's Quake like arsenal more unique unto itself. Some of the attempts are fantastic and match the similar efforts of 3D Realms in differing the arsenal of the FPS while not straying too far from the golden design standard of id Software. Guns like the Flak Cannon are wholly unique and possibly my best take on "what can we put in the shotguns place" problem. The spread and range along with using physics to bounce the shrapnel around an area and blast enemies into chunks is one of the most satisfying weapons I've played in an FPS game. The rail gun is a straight Shadow Warrior rip off and I'm fine with as its extremely useful and rewarding on Unreal's fast and highly animated targets something neither Shadow Warrior or Quake II gave you. 

                        

       Aside from the stand outs though Unreal's weaponry is pretty lack luster especially coming onto the stage after Quake II or Blood. The Stinger is a poor and less satisfying machine gun that largely works on damage sponge enemies as crowd control is rarely a thing in Unreal's combat loop. Enemies tend to appear in few numbers and move around areas more than games before it. The dispersion rifle does cool things with its upgrades and changing form, again technically very impressive, however it simply stays useless much like the coolly named enforcer pistol. The Rocket launcher functions like Quake however another oddity exist the 6 barreled fire stick weapon. It shoots basically short range motors with its alt fire function showering the enemy with all 6 of them albeit much less accuracy. It's cool however largely useless as campaign maps rarely give you the room to attack highly mobile targets with blast rate weapons. All in all Unreal is not up to the standard id Software or 3D realms has set in gun play. It's fun and excited at its best times and rather mediocre the rest of the time. 

                          Much of the gun play shortcomings in Unreal are due in part to the less than stellar level design. While these areas are beautiful and fun to explore they are met with several short comings and less than stellar qualities about them. The most egregious problem with the level design its break the expected rule of having an fast paced FPS  giving the player plenty of movement options. I found myself all too often caught on geometry when fighting enemies or just lacking space to use various weapons on such a consistent level I wondering why they gave them to be to use in the first place aside from suicide. In fact because of the high mobility of enemies the rail gun became my go to weapon and was so much better suited for combat I had a hard time switching for reasons other than ammo. It's also worth noting that the single player pacing of this game is very slow with a slight Turok focus on getting around large levels, pressing buttons and soaking things. This approach helps Unreal exploit its best qualities however the choice to very slowly trickle out new additions to the arsenal of the player severely killed in interest in a way Quake II did not by albeit still too slowly feeding me more weapons and enemy types. 

            While the gun play loop of Unreal is fairly mediocre It's enemy design shares the same mixed bag approach. It's here I feel Epic Games thought this was more clever than how it worked out in actuality. See there's little enemy variation and they appear in about the same frequency as Quake II. It creates for a quickly stagnant combat progression as the game goes on these elements age the fastest. Again I have to mention the slow roll out of fun weapons to the player as that would have mitigated the problem. Quake II's weapon set for instance seems in part response to a similar enemy variation problem Unreal faces. It makes me wonder playing all these games together if its a design trend or lack of 3D processing capabilities because nothing has reached DOOM II levels of throwing enemies on screen and I miss mowing down a hoard. While being blow to bits and blood flying and floating is very nice in Unreal I still give the carnage and brutality edge to id Software and this comes down to a personal blood lust preference if you will not that Unreal is a lesser game because of it. Much like how Virtual Fighter or Dead or Alive of the time didn't need to be Mortal Kombat. 

                           

        Immersion is a tricky and usually toxic word to use in game discord. Often immersion is used as a marketing gimmick or a hot take critique about some picky rendering or design choice. Unreal has humbled me and brought warmth back into my jaded opinion on the use of that word however. As I am about to use immersion to praise Unreal a great deal and while its highly subjective in its own right to assert immersion as being a quality of a game I can focus on the objective ways in which it accomplishes this for me. Unreal easily has the best use of music in a FPS game. The ambience and wonder it creates breathes so much life into this physically large and densely detailed digital world. It seems to contextually play tracks based on encounters and locations and really gives this alien world exploration impression that is haunted and beautiful while full of life and wonder. Luckily Epic Games seemed to be keen on their prowess here and built large parts of the level deigns and game play loop around simplistic puzzle solving that forces the player to for a brief moment soak it all in while still being challenged. Turok did this well mechanically and maybe even a littler better but seeing it all together in Unreal Engine is a step far above what was possible on N64 in mid '97.Breaking character here I will say this is an obvious major inspiration for Halo Combat Evolved and what would be the crashing onto Halo and the ambience of that game while on the ring, including a dynamic sound track that wouldn't be for 3 more years though. 

                              Unreal has this massive connected world and it's the closest I think a FPS game has came to a truly load free open world. Sure there are loading screens but where they are placed and how far apart the player must see them is truly wild to see especially coming off of Quake II which handled that much worse in id Tech 2.5 despite going for the now trendy Hexen II take on connecting shooter levels. We are seeing the industry at this point have a keen move away from the more arcade mentality that DOOM II set out and a more cohesive set and set of actions akin to Gold Eye or RavenSoft's games. Epic Games had a big challenge that Raven, Iguana and others had also encountered, that was how to make these massive labyrinths intuitive and navigable. Quake I did this likely the best one by having much smaller levels, an easy out, but adopting a more roller coaster mentality where the player literally just had to keep walking into trouble to find his way out. Quake II and Hexen II used a lot of text updating the player with a small focus on visual clues. Visual Clues to guide the player in the right way in a massive area with multiple ways by sometimes changing the environment from the way it looked on a previous pass through or having interesting lightnings and objects or more directly offering a carrot to the player in the form of ammo or health. These games all clumsy struggled with this problem and while I found Quake II the most intuitive its interesting to see how Unreal does what I feel a worse job overall while doing many of the individual elements better. Unreal easily grabs the players attention with visual ques much better, things are just more interesting to look at the the art direction of the game is a large step up over what id Software last put out, Epic is able to do this with much larger scenes with more complex environments to allow objects to exist purely to be interesting to look at. The design and combat carrot mechanic work really well. Much better than Blood and with far less pace breaking and disorienting platforming Turok gave us. However again it's Epic Games lacking level design that allows areas to easily get extremely confusing, switches and goals not always easy to track and some down right hard to do so. It's more a pain akin to Hexen II though the pace and style of that game fit a slower less intuitive design and in some ways would could argue RavenSoft wanted that challenge to exist. No such clever trade offs or intentions are found in Unreal.

        Going into Unreal has been such a pleasure. Its a very well made game that always steps out on its best foot first. Immersion, world building, a few wacky guns and some stellar enemy engagement. All these strong characteristics earn it, its spot among the greats. In 1998 this game was astounding and I'd say its still awe inspiring even to this day blog or not. I found the gunplay and game play while having great high moments largely unsatisfying compared to 3D Realms or Id Software as well as the all too frequent mediocre combat areas and level design. Epic Game's Unreal however still creates plenty of mind blowing magical gaming moments both for the industry and the genre. Gaming memories that last a life time because they impressed, sparked joy, or wow'ed you like DOOM did back in the day. Its the most immersive and beautiful FPS game to date ('98). The bright colorful alien world mixed with grimy temples and broken off world tech created a much needed fresh top notch experience for the genre. Unreal astounds and drops jaws but it also creates a magic world to be a part of and I'm filled with memories and love of it. Move over id Software, as of this day Epic Games had earned the right to sit beside you. 

Circa 1998

                       

              

      1997 itself justified the conextual nature of this blog entirely on it's own. 97' was a year so pivotal and important for the genre it's certainly not lost through a historically lens but the year's perception shattering effect has to truly be experienced first hand. The parallels of the technological and cultural revolution the 90's hosted expressed itself fully in video games and particularly the FPS genre as of late. Technology had been integrating itself into daily life for some time however now it was accessible, programmable, and affordable in ways just dreamed of years earlier. This era was the platform of creativity and why the past "year" of this blog hosted the most diverse, large and high quality spread of FPS titles by an almost unfathomable magnitude. In a few short years we've went from 3D Realm's explosive use of interactive environments married with the genre pioneering movement efforts of id Software only to have the perceptions of what is possible in a video game changed by both console releases like Turok and Rare's GoldenEye and later year PC releases, by Lucas Arts, Raven Software, even with contributions by id Software besting itself at its own game. 

                                  The visceral nature of the genre has always attracted both fans and skeptic DOOMs day preachers. By this time in the blog id Software had already become the major source of controversy and violence from video games was certainly on the lips of many politicians, pulling the genre into a cultural blood bath with lasting stigma far beyond to present day 21'. Graphics had become unbelievable in months. Just in a 12 months we went from Quake I to Quake II and the jump is stunning. The mix of pixel art powered Build Engine games like Blood and Shadow Warrior stood just as tall in their more traditional design choices as the new pioneers such as GoldenEye or Hexen II. The gulf visually and in interactivity however staggering in a way the present world of tech and rendering could never show. It's a phenomenon unto itself that all these drastically different approaches to the same video game genre, with just as varied choices of technological canvases to work with, existed in the same 12 months. While the take away in knowledge and appreciation of these individual titles is precious the context of what a stunning year unfolded and changed the FPS genre forever is the lesson that must be brought across in this blog. Because 1998 for gamers at the time started in a state of pure shock. 

                           1998 would be unreal. 1998 meant nothing was off the table. Nothing was impossible for both Video games as a medium and FPS as a genre. The bringing of advanced and portable technology would soon bring us into the sci-fi future dreamed about for so long. It's important to realize culturally much of this technology was new and not viewed as need or complementary to every life style. Something even the best game engines like id Tech 2 and Lucas Art's in house engine had to deal with. Home computers where often extremely limited in their rendering prowess and machines built more in line with the needs of gaming prohibitively expensive. However by this point in the blog (98') PC's had exploded in power and the rampant spread of the "video add on card" market played a key role in allowing experiences like idTech 2.5 powered Quake II or drastically better versions of games like Dark Forces II. Even a console like the Nintendo 64 proved it was a capable in home 3D FPS machine. The proliferation of capable realtime 3D hardware was going to allow content creators to do things unimaginable, I mean just look at Quake II. Hardware wouldn't be the only major thing to change gaming this year as Microsoft would release one of the most important OS releases as of yet with Windows 98.

                The major design shifts start appearing. Hexen II and Quake II showed off level design where each level felt physically connected to the other. Movement had evolved to take into account physics with rocket jumping and more. The genre had clearly not just evolved but expanded. Rare had introduced a more cinematic flare that we would see id Software bring to a more fast paced traditional formula. I think this point in the genre really does feel like limitless possibility. Tech was growing and being accepted at an unfathomable rate and with it flexibility of design. While the entries in this blog get scale upwards in work they also continue to yield much joy and appreciation for the times. I'm very much interested in reliving 1998. Through he lens of a now 29 year old gamer who was then just 7 playing Pokemon on his N64. Google would be founded in 1998. The Titanic would create movie history. MP3 players would start to take off as portable music devices along with the iMAC's debut. Brittany Spears and Nsync ruled the charts. 1998 is here.

Ozymandias

           With Quake and DOOM, id Software pioneered their own brand of game play and created a video game genre. First Person Shooters by the end of 1997 and the release of Quake II had become a somewhat wide genre filled with comic relief, pop culture references, fantasies, a variety of game play and visuals. This competition and variety of choice on the market however did nothing to temper id Software's thirst to push the genre and their own game play brand forward. Quake II certainly does this however it also has a delicacy id Software games lacked before when it comes to refinement. Quake II is a well oil, smooth running, great sounding machine of a video game. It is the id Software game play brand started in DOOM  in its most balanced and precise form yet. This blog's chronologically linear path give me an appreciation for these watershed moments like Quake II. It may seem almost cliche both in this blog and in 1997 to say id Software has done it yet again. It may sound repetitive to say Quake II looks unbelievable visually and the awe of its visceral feedback is just as much shock as any other id release so far. However all these things are true. Quake II embodies everything this genre has worked for up until the end of 1997 and it feels good. 

                   If there was ever a "blockbuster" video game until now it was Quake II. DOOM had its cult following termed phenomenon, and Quake felt like it achieved that as well but Quake II feels like a full on polished, massive budget, expected to be awe inspiring kind of product. The game stuns with a full motion video of sci fi marines in drop pods invading an alien planet setting the stage for your war of revenge after an previous unexpected attack on earth. It has nothing to do with Quake I and depending on the level of information access I had at the time in 1997 this may have been confusing to me though I quickly adjusted to the fantastic gritty sci fi story that reminds me very much of Star Ship Troopers in premise. The addition of this in an id game is welcome and really feels that blockbuster feel and expectation I had for a game of this caliber after the "year" this blog has had with 1997. My war with the Strogg quickly felt personal from the botched landing of the marines in the intro video. 

          Id Software's calling card is fast ground breaking rendering. Throughout the past year of 1997 in this blog I've seen some incredible examples of real time rendering for FPS games and video games as a whole, a welcome refreshment after so many sprite based games. Despite id Tech 2 being just a year old these new technological improvements in both software and hardware in the PC space where not lost on id. Quake II's version of id Tech 2 heavily focused on the user having a discrete 3D accelerator card to assist the CPU in rendering complex 3D games. This hardware was new yet quickly became extremely popular and common enough. With this id Tech 2 now has colored lighting! Walking past different colored lights now cast a light the correct color onto the player or enemy. The dynamic lights in general are significantly improved over Quake I. A tremendous increase in polygon count makes it by far the most detailed game I've seen ('97) including the best textures. Quake II and the improved hardware 3D accelerated id Tech 2 is a tremendous leap for video games in visuals and stuns as much as any of id Software's previous releases. If it's cliche its because John Carmack earned it by now. Because this jump is  so big I will refer to this version of the engine as the id Tech 2.5 Engine. Id Tech upped everything including the violent visceral feedback id is known for with enemies having chunks of meat and metal fly from them as you shoot away their health. The depth the colored lighting allowed and the freedom artist had with so many polygons creates environments unrivaled in Quake II.

                                

             Visuals aside the bedrock of Quake II to me and what really stuck with me is how smooth and well functioning all it's game play mechanics work with one another. It really is harmonious in a way I don't feel id Software had achieved with their trade mark game play formula. What I mean by previous statement is that the game play of Quake II, all the weapons, enemies, ammo, and movement feel like they work together and off one another in a practical and rewarding way that serves the game play. Everything has a purpose and feels like its there to compliment everything else mechanically. Blood is probably the only other game on this list I would hold is such regard when it comes to such a refined game play formula. Refinement in Quake II comes at the cost of some of my favorite things Quake I did. Qualities such as Quake I's breakneck speed and chaos that often could result in a less that satisfying death but fascination all the same. One fault I find Quake II with is it's power fantasy rarely allows for frustration from the player and its something that brings life to id encounters I severely missed from previous games. Not to say however that the "feeling"  of Quake and id Software games isn't alive and well but it lacks that always near death tension previous DOOM and Quake games gave us. 

                                                Quake II's symphony relies more on its weapons set than it does it's enemy encounters. DOOM II in this blog is praised for such a great set up of enemy and weapon dynamics. Quake II unlike Quake I and DOOM, offers a weapons heavy balance over enemy variance however the gain of this trade off is each weapon is very unique and has its specific purposes. Its more inline with the 3D Realms approach and I feel its the most enjoyable yet balanced weapons set id Software has presented in a game though Quake II does not satisfy in enemy variety like Quake I and not in enemy encounters like DOOM II. Quake features a pistol much like DOOM however it's dynamic light is a first for video games and cool to see its largely a useless weapon and I fault the game for using more for a graphics gimick than anything else. The shotgun in addition to the pistol is pretty much useless. Again once the incredibly satisfying super shotgun is found its never used again, the super shotgun however being incredibly satisfying in effect and sound across the variety of situations the game gives the player, its an id Software Specialty. The machine gun is fun with it's upward fire overtime but again largely useless after the chain gun is acquired though not completely. The chain gun is where Quake II's arsenal becomes more unique and satisfying to use, an expect in crowd control and going faster and faster until it runs out of bullets the chain gun is a pleasure. Hand grandees work as a slow and physically projected object of explosive quality and only exist for any real purpose because the grande launcher now sadly does not explode on impact a severe set back from Quake I and while the grenades often become satisfying with the tighter areas of level design Quake II offers they are not the most satisfactory. As I get to the toned down rocket launcher of Quake II  you may wonder why I even enjoy its weapon set and its because so far the balancing changes create for a more, if less chaotic, enemy encounter than the first game and I feel that flow is ultimately more satisfying in its accomplished pace and compromise. The rain gun however is a new and incredibly precise and powerful weapon. Used even more than my rocket launcher it feels like the rapid precise and powerful weapon a fast game like Quake II has been dying for. Its fits the game and encounters well and is a joy to use. The hyper blaster essentially is the plasma rifle from DOOM and is a poor replacement for the nail gun in Quake I. The BFG 10k. Now a id Software brand item the BFG is as insanely satisfying. The BFG 10k excels at its purpose which is last minute critical crowd control. 

       I go into such depth on Quake II's weapon set cause it really is the meat of the game play sandwich and where most of the joy of playing the game stems from. Quake II is a harmonious symphony of butchering your enemies in elegant yet enjoyable ways that tantalize the player in a manner the FPS genre was made to do. Id Software at the end of 1997 was not concerned with watering itself down with the times as much as embracing itself and its brand of violence as part of the times. The Strogg of Quake II present a satisfying, and by this point in history ('97), very id Software brand of horror and game design fun. The Strogg are human and cybernetic monstrosities controlled to destroy humans. Using the parts of your fallen comrades in machines and literal meat grinders, the Strogg are gruesome and fit the id Software tropes. The strogg also fall into the id Software design mold mostly set by Quake I and DOOM II before it.  Though the enemy set while enjoyable and cool is one of the less satisfying elements of Quake II over time.

                                     The enemies of Quake II really hone in on the strengths of the FPS encounter that has been established in the genre across multiple studios. Some enemies fly and suppress, some charge, some tank, some heal or shield yet all are made to be blow to bits by certain weapons belonging to a specific category or in Quake II's example a specific weapon itself. While DOOM II, DUKE,  or even Turok had enemies with particular weaknesses, Quake II centers itself around a rock, paper and scissors game play mentality between enemies and weapons in the game. Quake II's combat loop is not only rewarding but satisfying in the sense a rhyme game or timed thing would be. 2+2 always equals 4 in Quake II and you can always stitch together these different combat rhymes for an extended good time in the game. Moments of this kind of satisfactory height and fulfillment in power fantasy aren't rare while not being all too common. If anything Quake II's biggest fault is that the game is almost too well paced. The ramp up of combat and intensity is present but it lacks the ability to just adjust you quickly to chaos as Blood did or to learn a complicated yet rewarding system as DOOM II. Quake II takes it's time giving the player the full arsenal and presenting them with a full set of enemies, this was so egregious that found the pacing to be borderline boring at first especially in comparison with what I expect from id Software and Quake. When Quake II gets it's legs and speed about it, Quake II soon joins id Software's other efforts in terms of carnage though I miss the funneled rapid chaos of the first game the more tempered approach of the sequel was more satisfactory long term when realizing how cohesive the overall game felt instead of being divided into individual levels. Quake II takes a note from id Software's kin Raven Software. Like Hexen II, Quake II using id Tech 2.0+ has a conjoined over world. Each level and area is joined by the player physically traversing the area even if through gated load screens. Some areas of Quake II are only joined in more or less cinematic form yet much of the game is physically joined in a very impressive manner. Quake II's level design while never reaching the lows of the worst parts of DOOM II or Quake I, rarely hit the heights of Quake I. Quake II instead focuses on presenting a stage and grounding the player though the new geometry density can be hard to navigate and the speed run  race feeling of levels all but eliminated. I can't help but feel a little tired of the setting as well. While traversing across the planet Strogg the environments largely look the same and grow a bit samey despite the luster of id Tech 2. 5.

         Overall I found Quake II to be a huge departure in feeling from previous FPS games because of its more linear and constricted approach to what are still very much Quake levels. Because of Quake II's updated objectives, connected levels and item collection borrowed from the likes of Hertic and Hexen the shooter aspects feel more grounded in this set stage. Quake II feels like a proper adventure you'd find in a Hollywood war movie and I think that is what id Software was going for. The design choices and changes in Quake II are not just from the id Tech 2.5 engine. The new weapon placement on screen, conjoined level design, slower paced enemy encounters and player speed all are deliberate in taking the player on a top notch action adventure FPS video game. This set stage along with an near perfect weapons set makes for not just a super fun and visceral game like id Software is known for but also for immersion which I don't think we've seen on this level in the FPS genre ('97). Quake II pulls away from the arcade influence carried in from DOOM II. Its a pretty big change up and I welcome it. For the genre it's huge. I think id Tech 2.5 is the first engine that's had the ability to create and FPS like this with a cohesive story and world. In late 1997 this would have been enough to astound me all while setting a new pipe dream expectation of having a cohesive world to enjoy a start to finish grounded FPS campaign. Quake II isn't just remarkable in being a very polished and extraordinary product on its own right but because of the implications the game and id Tech 2. 5 have for what can be achieved by not just video games but the FPS genre specifically. Shooters may be able to tell more than just an 80's action movie premise after all? Maybe not as despite all this, this is what Quake II does. The implication of it's more safe narrative roots doesn't make it any less ground breaking especially from a company that brought us the demon killing simulator. 

                Quake II as a sequel is a mixed bag and as a FPS game innovative and incredible. While I miss the chaos and fastness of Quake I paired with it's speed run mentality the welcome trade off is having a coherent story, setting and game to play with Quake II. On this blog i criticized the fist game's mixed bag of confused settings and somehow even less coherent story than DOOM II. Quake II may play slower and be more "cinematic"  but Quake II is still a farcry from Golden Eye or being anything other than a product of the id Software DNA. Quake II provides the most satisfactory and engaging while immersive campaign of any shooter on this blog yet including id Software's own best of the bunch. Backed by the best weapon set and balance yet from the studio and Quake II is a FPS genre lover's dream. While there are clear things I'm interested in seeing from the genre presented in narrative with games like Dark Forces II or with platforming level design like Turok or with cinematic movie magic like Golden Eye, Quake II stands alone as the undisputed king of genre relying only on tropes from it's own medium to create an enriching and full FPS experience. 

                       Quake II is incredible and edges its way despite its trade offs as being my favorite game on the blog yet. As cliche as it may be to say id Software struck gold yet again and that is a joy I'm not ashamed of. Id Software is second to none when it comes to honing in the serotonin releasing elements of a genre they themselves crafted. Id Tech 2.5 Engine shows the incredible leaps hardware and software of the late 90's was offering. By the end of 1997 the genre, games and real time rendering had changed and Quake II embodied the best of all these traits. 

                                    

                               

The Force is mostly strong with this one.

 

                 Rare's freshman installment in the FPS genre brought Bond to life in video games, showing just how far modern real time rendering technology could go in realizing a beloved world from another medium. Star Wars has already seen not only its introduction to video games but the FPS genre in this blog. With Dark Forces 1 I found the game severely lacking  in presentation and that presentations' ability to give me a proper Star Wars experience. In the years since 1995 however the evolution of not just rendering technology but also FPS game design and 3D art had not been lost on Lucas Arts. With Dark Forces II my inner Star Wars Flame ignited along with my joy of a well designed FPS. 1997 has been by far the most expansive and exciting year for this genre by far and I'm happy to say Lucas Arts' pleasantly surprised and excited me with this FPS. 

                As a fan of Star Wars who can remember the before prequel times of the franchise getting into my 1997 character wasn't hard at all. The franchise had been for over a decade spreading itself across multi media in various forms and spin offs all naturally gravitating in some way around Episodes 4-6. They inherit the visual and audio tone of the original films and both Dark Forces games where no exception. A severe problem I had with the first Dark Forces was Lucas Art's artistic and engine limitations that just made parts of the game hard to navigate and distinguish. Lucas Arts to my pleasant surprise remedies this in the sequel. 1997 has seen video games torn between the new realistic 3D worlds ushered in by Super Mario 64 and Quake. Dark Forces II's new engine would choose the path of the future. The introductory level instantly pleases the type of fan I was at the time and would be for this blog. 

                       The cyber grunge look of Star Wars original films is well in tow with blacks, greys, neon's and all kinds of sparks and yellow lights on buildings stretching miles below or above. Artistically the game carefully recreates Star Wars environments with an impressive amount of real time rendered, textured and lit perspective correct polygons. While its not as impressive as what id Tech 2 has managed in the last year it does the job more than good enough when paired with its beautiful and exciting use of sprites with these polygons. While we've seen some sparks etc as sprites in these high end 3D games as far back as Quake, Dark Forces II uses them liberally as blaster shots and gun blast, explosions p[aired with great animated textures on water and along the walls. The engine takes ques from Build Engine allowing signs to be shot and start sparking or certain things to animate into a destroyed mode though the destruction is far behind Hexen II or even Build Engine games in the past entries of this blog. Lucas Art's new engine and great attention to art really bring Dark Forces II to life in a way the last game in the series just could not even begin to.

                        

  Dark Forces II starts in a very standard cold metal cyber grunge area typical of Star Wars circa '97. The first level introduces you to your high stakes returning character with a live action recorded video along with a very 90's low budget Sith Lord. Its heavy on the cheese but as a fan and gamer I find this awesome. I thoroughly enjoy the introduction FMV and the use of FMVs for cinematic presentation in this game. It's something I haven't seen much on this blog. Instantly Dark Forces II gives you Star Wars content in a familiar way. The rendered game matches up well with the FMV and quickly had me blasting in this well created world. The first level of the game largely sets the context for the pace of the gameplay. It uses the art and technology to show off and immerse you in a Star Wars environment. Largely doing this with art and things off the more linear and segmented path your on. Later the game does some great and innovative design choices of pushing you in the direction of progress on these linear paths, sometimes literally pushing you. Dark Forces II's game play pacing is more direct by being linear and slower than most shooters this past year. The FMVs create a very cool extend Star Wars universe story and reward for game progress. The combat is an order of magnitude above the first game in the series in my opinion. All the mentioned positive qualities and attention to detail create a fully established and thought out Star Wars shooter experience. Achieving what the first game didn't in my opinion and that is worth reason for Star Wars to exist as a FPS game and how video games and this particular genre would make for a great new Star Wars experience unique unto itself,Dark Forces II is that game and I found it very exciting for that reason. It's not as extreme in its hyper focus as say Golden Eye this year ('97) has been but it is more akin to Turok or Shadow Warrior in showing you things and presenting areas with plenty of dressing. 

        While Star Wars in its current ('97) state has a more limited known arsenal that requires some imagination for a full FPS game arsenal Lucas Arts did not disappoint again. The two base blasters you get early on had me worried at first. One with a more accurate slower fire and one with a fast rapid less accurate fire had simple variations on the same weapon, a long range equivalent of DOOM or Quake's shotgun vs Super/Double Barrel Shotgun in effective use difference. The cross bow allowed a more powerful albeit slower shot and the grenades make an effective comeback. Dark Forces II's slower pace means the fun 3D bunny hopping not just in id's games but also game like Turok makes the guns a bit of a drag still and only serviceable because out of minimal fun and franchise fan service.I do not wish to sound like I do not appreciate or in this case think franchise fan service in game design is not a good practice or a reason for something existing in game design. I think Dark Forces II and Golden Eye 007 prove that  these games have every right to exist if nothing else as a smart and functional way to experience the fantasy of one of these franchises.

The experience mentioned is hard and almost never pulled off without an established franchise and few counter examples exist in this blog. The nuance of all this comes back into game play as a great example of what I'm talking about with Dark Forces II's implementation of the light saber. Drenched in lore you obtain a light saber with expected combat qualities. Lucas Arts was smart to essentially treat it as a gun in the fact the user just has to fire it. It auto blocks and reflects shots with I'm guessing some kind of hit scan solution and then you slice and dice through enemies and environments alike with the fire button. Also in the 90's my favorite light saber color was green and depending on the day still is so bonus points for that Lucas Arts. All this immersion and Star Wars fantasy fun is sometimes brought to a haul by what I would consider less than what I've come to expect in quality level design ('97). The highs of Dark Forces II's level design such as many well placed secrets and secret areas, intelligent if forced ways of moving the player along an area only to have them be able to loop back around after making it out of a forced path like often used water currents will do. paths are not always intuitive however and the attempt at more id Software style "got ya" moments usually fell short for me. 

          The complete package of Dark Forces II is one that excited me and I'm extremely glad was part of this blog. I find it so important in a year ('97) already stacked with important games in the genre. After Rare set the standard for how a first person shooter could immerse and create a video game foreign franchise Star Wars in my opinion has a great redemption story for me. Playing Dark Forces II has also reminded me of the biggest take away so far of 1997 and that is of the variety of experiences the FPS genre can now provide ('97). Star Wars Jedi Knight Dark Forces II is a fantastic Star Wars experience and a good FPS experience, a game franchise now that really shows the growth marks of a genre.

                     

Some late visitor at my chamber door

                              
                         1997 has had no short of exponential genre growth that we likely haven't seen since, as you'd expect RavenSoftware would not disappoint with their 1997 release Hexen II . I mentioned playing Redneck Rampage how the FPS genre had evolved to cater to more niche and even comedic taste, Blood and Shadow Warrior proved the true and tried legacy of DOOM and Duke had plenty of room to grow while releasing along aside more experimental and fresh takes on the genre like Golden Eye and Turok. The wide breadth of experiences available in the FPS genre has no disappointment neither in history or my reliving of it however Hexen II would extend the boundaries of the genre more than any other shooter to date. Ravensoftware started with Heretic's fantasy driven take on id Software's new genre and expanded the fantasy ideals with more heavy handed RPG design elements in Hexen and Hexen II. Sharing much with the first game those same design principals and mechanics are taken to extremes. At times it feels more what the modern age would liken to a Action RPG game. With lots of hack n' slash action, a gigantic maze of large winding levels covered in secrets and obscure objectives. Like of all of Ravensoftware's games to this point the game is drenched in arcane weaponry, enemies and task. RavenSoftware's unique identity comes through in Hexen II better than any game they have made before.

The elephant in the room with Hexen II is its use of id Tech 2 previously I've only got to enjoy in Quake which came out late 1996. RavenSoftware stands among the genre's best in art design. With Hexen looking incredible on the id Tech 1 engine. Naturally I , like my 1997 FPS self would have been , was very excited to see not just the return of the incredible tech but see it in the hands of a studio with incredible art direction. Hexen II does not disappoint in this regard. Its by far the most technologically impressive game I've played for this blog. Looking leaps and bounds better than Turok or Golden eye. Characters and environmental details pop with incredible geometry and textures. Levels are massive comparatively to its contemporaries and unlike GoldenEye or Turok suffers not distant fog masking the level. Colored moving textures, light beautiful torches along dark cold hallways or an arcane black Smith's forge. Beautiful statues and structures adorn the game along with trees and foliage. Its easily one of the best looking games of it's day FPS or not. Missing the jank and limitations of the FPS engines since the dawn of Polygonal rendering. The use of all this tech only executes as beautifully as it does thanks to RavenSoftware's art direction. The game brilliantly and cleverly works around its restrictions and to its strengths. It's hard to look back at the first game. Limited movement, animations, and sprites for spells. This is an astronomical jump similar to the jump we saw with Quake over DOOM II. As of this point in the blog Hexen II is the best looking FPS game on this blog. The atmosphere and style of RavenSoftware and what they achieve in Hexen II is iconic.

              Hexen II doubles down and refines the elements of Hexen. Many of the weapons and spells return. Though the team could have targeted Hexen II as Hexen 3D they went the extra mile in making sure the way you make use of the items is more engaging and needed. Melee combat is much better. Hit detection largely works the same but feels much more responsive and satisfying with a war hammer in true 3D. Bolts and spell projectiles now have actual 3D elements that fly around the level. The speed is much the same as the first game but like Quake the strafing and jumping in enemy engagements is transformative with a true 3D game. The splattering of enemies with blunt weapons, slicing with swords and beautiful wild spells is pretty spectacular to see. The real kicker.....many structures...most... are destructible. Hitting away with a hammer or spell may destroy an object. This blew me away. I couldn't believe it. A 1997 id Tech 2 game. Like I said with Duke Nukem 3D, physics, destructible areas and the like all create a strong sense of presence and feed back to the players existence in the game world.The visceral effect is tremendous over the first Hexen doubtlessly adding more to the cultural shock value around video games in 1997. While I've never been put off by most gore I can see how the visual feedback of these games is a big jump along with everything else in short amount of time. Being a fantasy violent FPS I would have loved the combat and visual feedback. RavenSoft keeps with the more generic host of enemies they have had before but later in the game there are some more memorable ones. These enemies never move much out of the established enemy encounters of Hexen.  Honestly while its mostly improvements and polishing the combat and mechanics of Hexen II grabbed me much more than Ravensoftware's previous attempts. 

 

           While more conservative in combat and enemy chan ges with Hexen II the team was much more liberal in its use of RPG game elements. The studio that pioneered it must have known Hexen had essentially started the creating of a sub genre. While this is an FPS focused blog to accomplish the context I want for these games its important to also remember other games coming out at similar times. 1997 would also see the release of the legendary Elder Scrolls II; Dagger Fall. While a completely different genre and type of game RPGs where booming and RavenSoftware had already dabbled in genre blending with the previous entries. Hexen being bold about it. While classes, stats, starting weapons and  ammo stay about the same in the sequel I applaud Hexen II 's use of its own tech to accomplish what the first game couldn't. RavenSoftware focused on creating a very dense 3D world the player would have to traverse multiple times and find many secrets and oddities including a fantastic catapult. While its not open world in the same degree as Daggerfall is the loading screens are few and far between and the implementation in what is essentially a hub area is something I haven't played anything on this blog. Quest are essentially your win conditions with equivalent key cards often being long convoluted processes to get a hold of specif items or processes. It is here that I think historical context makes a very important perspective shift. While its massive intricate maps are beautiful and fun to explore I found myself almost entirely lost the entire time. To complete on thing usually turns into a long list of prerequisites making you travel between loading screens and explore for random switches that may effect the map in another loaded level. The biggest growing pain I see this type of game going through is how to accurately inform and visually lead the player to objectives and create a clear picture in the players mind of what they must be looking for and finding. Hexen II does this mostly in occasional text reading off of signs or pop up text bubbles. One almost needs notepad open to help keep track of it all. I feel this is something the FPS genre hasn't really had to do much of and its not a surprise to see RavenSoftware struggle in coming up with solutions. 

             Duke and the like full of secrets and even destructible environments, however the linear nature of what the player had to do and the play space made these things very easy to find with minimal information needing to be conveyed or visually represented. Another reason RavenSoftware may not have tried all too hard to focus on these missing elements. See in 1997 when playing games the internet was in its infancy. My friends and I used to constantly get stuck in games and go talk at school where mythical rumors to actual helpful knowledge about these experiences would be shared. Guidebooks where also my best friend. If I had been playing a shooter like this back in 1997 I likely would have had several school conversations and a guide book at home. Yes I used a guide in 2020. Its not so much as poor design on Hexen II's part as much as it is a product of its time and the way gamers conversed and found secrets in games was very, very different. I will say though despite that excuse Hexen II can be a bit egregious if your not careful about keeping up with what your supposed to be doing in game. After a couple weeks off returning to this game I found my self completely lost. With very little hope of fiding my way again short of rereading the whole guide and wondering why I was in the wrong place and in what step of "Y" I was in trying to get "X". It is a very difficult game but not for the reasons I'm used to seeing on this blog.Letting my modern persona take over briefly to say that the real beginnings of incorporating RPG elements into shooters that we are used to now started with RavenSoft its a pleasure to see.

                     RavenSoftware continually blows me away in this blog. A studio I had only dabbled in has cemented themselves as one of the era's best studios. The combat and flow of Hexen II is not satisfying or the main draw like Quake or Blood. But having savage fantasy FPS combat in id Tech 2 is fun all the same. Raven has without a doubt created the vast majority of great looking games in this blog. The studio's relationship and ability to add their own high quality art bar is to be revered. Sadly during this play through I did ultimately get lost one to many times and largely lost interest. If I had been more mature in 1997 and playing this game however It would have been sublime and a huge hit with me. I love every note this game hits and with time, friends and a good guide its a timeless fantastic game that can still easily be enjoyed today. As I enter the later stages of 1997 and the dawning 3D era its incredibly refreshing and exciting to play a id Tech 2 powered game. The engine is on a whole other level than its contemporaries almost a year later. I've had a blast playing all these games up to this point though some more than others. However getting to experience the genre transform is so exciting and these polygon driven FPS games are really breathing new life into the genre and hobby just like 1997.

Personal Weapon

                           
Shadow Warrior would be the third jewel in a heavy crown for 3D Realms. After creating the incredible  Duke Nukem 3D and working heavily on Blood they had already cemented themselves as a top tier design studio in the mid 90's FPS genre. Going toe to toe with id Software , perhaps not in technology or speed but  with heir own more methodical flow and equally gross carnage yet slower and chunkier in feel. Duke Nukem 3D and Blood are easily two of my favorite games on this list and two of the best shooters I've ever played. It's actually pretty easy to put myself in the shoes of my 1997 blog persona. 3D Realms' content being a wonderful and overdue discovery I owe to this blog. A more mature 1997 me that was heavily invested in FPS games would have been incredibly excited for Shadow Warrior. Monolith and 3D Realm's collaborative Blood would have blown me away as I wrote about. Duke Nukem 3D still an all time favorite. Shadow Warrior doesn't quite deliver on the hype for me but it does stand as a testament to the 3D Realms formula in one of their most polished and satisfying games. 

                            
The looming shadow of Quake seems to get larger as the year goes on. With id's contemporaries quickly catching up in polygon rendering new games still not meeting that bar are not living up to a growing presentation standard. Blood easily stands toe and toe with Quake when it comes to quality game design. Build Engine is still plenty capable of delivering an excellent experience but with Turok and consoles pushing into 3D it almost feels like these titles fall behind. Make no mistake the engine delivers and 3D Realms' familiarity with it shows. Shadow Warrior is easily the best looking Build Engine game to date. I feel 3D Realms really pushed the engine to its limit while the artist knew some incredible tricks in creating environments. Despite not using polygons the game gives a great presentation of 3D space second only to polygon rendered games. A magic carpet ride over lava rivers and above rocks was one of the high lights. However the heights of Japanese mountains and the gloom of caves, eastern houses and even an industrial warehouse all look great. The games enemies look identifiable and blow into chunks though a bit less than Blood. The physics and interactivity of Build Engine is still highly enjoyable but there's nothing really new here that wasn't in Duke regarding interactivity or physics having the novelty fade. 

                                 In terms of game play the game follows Duke 3D very closely in pacing and engagement principals. Shadow Warrior however differs in the enemies and weapons used refining this formula to a polish I find wasn't in Duke while not ramping up the carnage to Blood levels. Shadow Warrior doesn't just rely on enemy type to weapon type matching but also in how you want to proceed through a room. This is all too often choke points like it was in Duke 3D. The grenade launcher and ability to blast around corners comes in particularly handy. These choke points can often encourage you to go back and find more health and ammo, well placed or rewarded through the other parts of the level. A brilliant design feature I loved from Duke though it is heavily relied on feels more organic in this title. While few enemy types really stood out to me other than serving various forms of damage some weapons really stand out. Chopping enemies with the sword is gory and fun.

Using the severed head of an enemy with your finger poking in the back of it to torch enemies or using a beating heart in your hand the game has some memorable and great weapons. While most weapons have an alt fire and the inventory system is stuffed with caltrops, gas grenades, flash bangs etc. I rarely found myself using these items. These systems almost feel needless. Over all the game play loop feels tighter or more refined than Duke along with the basic level layouts. Seeing your master's fortress self destruct with a nuke and his naked anime girls is a sight to behold along with various other cheeky 3D realms level design and events.The game even occasionally lets you use a vehicle to wreck shit. My favorite was the tank and after Golden Eye I'm really loving the innovation of armed moving vehicles your character switches to. It essentially changes the players body in space and speed while dealing damage that is rewarding in short burst. The game's east meets west carnage is unique and fun.

                                 
                   Shadow Warrior's Lo Wang is the Asian stereotype badass you play. He like Duke or Caleb set the tone for the games humor and attitude.  Armed with dual Uzi's , a Katana or a rocket launcher the next Lo Wang takes on the western Asian stereotypes and action movies. Naked anime girls populate the world at times and try to shoot you if you stare at them too long in the bath house. Comments from Wang may not make me laugh like Duke as much but 3D Realms humor is there. The constant chatter from Lo Wang after enemies turn into bits or nukes go off is again straight from some 90's comedy skit. 3D Realms both in design and tone had set their identity as a studio and games apart with its own flavor of 90's edge. Build Engine's DNA has proved to be a bright a colorful tree. 

                   Shadow Warrior does so much right but sadly most of it is dulled by the fact other games, particularly those 3D Realms themselves have been involved with have had all these same strong points. At this point I feel like I'm starting to write the same blog over and over despite playing a reasonably unique and fun game. Shadow Warrior is a blast, its a fun shooter and I'd loved playing in 1997 however it does largely feel like retread ground. Lo Wang largely does what Duke does but it just doesn't stick with me the same way. Blood had incredible gun play and a horror art direction that really made it stand out. Build Engine is showing its age after releases like Turok and Golden Eye being fresh in memory. At this point in 1997 the maturity of the FPS genre has inherit limitations set in. A well designed and well playing game like Shadow Warrior two years ago would have been a monumental standout. The growing pains of the genre are lessening and more and more good games are being made. Progressing onward through 1997 Shadow Warrior falls into the newly created good but not good enough category.

PolyBond

            

  Before I can talk about Rare's innovative entry into the FPS genre I have to first talk about the two trending themes I'm observing through 1997. The most obvious of these themes from a glance are real time polygon rendered visuals. Quake changed the gaming world and what people wanted particularly from first person shooters, a well established genre for years by this point. Its not hard to see why it was so exciting going through history. There can be beautiful sprite work from Monolith or Ravensoft but Quake and Turok looked the part of being the technical achievement they where. Stunning game play areas, space and mechanics just not possible before. It was indeed a new canvas. Goldeneye takes this trend and combines it with a strong take on the second theme, variation in the genre. Each blog entry I keep saying more and more how these games are trying new things and making cool new experiences. Redneck Rampage is just funny, Blood is mechanically amazing, Turok uses polygon powered environments for platforming, Quake has incredible movement. Each of these games does something drastically different and builds a game around it. by the mid part of 1997 the FPS genre was starting to see the formation of sub genres.
        With Goldeneye 64, Rare's innovative take is to create a stealth based, spy thriller, first person shooter. Like Star Wars: Dark Forces we see a popular movie franchise coming to the FPS genre. While Dark Forces heavily took the id pallet, Rare would not have that luxury as Bond couldn't Turok his way through as a stealthy spy on his way to sabotage the enemy. Goldeneye 64 drastically plays different than any other shooter on this list. I was blown away with how much different it felt and plays. Creating that spy experience in first person is so fun and exciting after countless games of a super charged action hero wading in blood. So many first that I just haven't seen in games in this blog until now. This incredible like sneaking up behind an enemy to chop them in the back of the neck with your hand and have them fall out. Or sniping an enemy a far with a silenced sniper rifle. Destroying alarms to stop enemy reinforcements or using a silenced pistol to not alert more enemy's is a completely new dynamic for the genre and would go on the inspire entire sub genres of the FPS perspective that we take for granted today. In 1997 and in the context of this blog I would have been floored at doing these things. I think experience would have startled me second only to Quake in terms of shock value and being something new.
                          

Equally stunning are the visuals. In many ways I think its a better looking game than Quake. I feel like in the early 90's despite staying 2D things like Heretic looked notably better than DOOM II, Duke better than that and so on. This happened fairly quickly. However its taken until mid 1997 for me to feel like I'm seeing a better game visually than Quake. There are concessions the game makes in its design to be able to push better looking elements but the game is stunning all the same. In one mission its a sunset in a snow covered area as Bond infiltrates a bunker. Its beautiful and as of 1997 one of the best looking moments I've seen in a FPS. Textures and light colors and lights all come together to make what is a very good looking game artistically. I feel like Rare's art team really new what they where doing in how to use what they had effective but also pleasing to the eye. The stunning aspect of realtime polygon rendering comes across in how life like these environments are. I feel like this is the first game where I'm playing in a real area. While Blood had somewhat normal looking buildings along with Duke, Goldeneye feels like real world areas in space and structure. Its a huge visual wow factor after the more video game look of environments in shooters so far. I would have been constantly replaying levels in this game to see the varied and beautiful 3D environments. Goldeneye takes Bond to plenty of places even a great looking jungle and boat level. The game is gorgeous, keeping the trend of how impressive the N64 as a home console was at this point. Aside from Quake nothing on PC using polygons in the genre has been on my blog. Gaming platforms for the FPS genre had significantly expanded as Goldeneye proves the console can handle its own with polygon driven FPS.
                             Having the Star Wars property in Dark Forces is what I feel like helped make that game special. Seeing Rare try to catch the magic of James Bond in Goldeneye 64 is impressive. The games' drastic and unique design choices all lend themselves to the Bond illusion. This blows me away as no game has really made me feel like an actual big screen character. Duke being a parody doesn't have the authentic and smooth feel of being Bond. The game plays more like an arcade on rails linear shooter than it does a typical FPS game I've grown accustomed to on this list. Bond can walk freely in 3D space. These environments as mentioned earlier are beautifully rendered and immersive but because of the realistic approach don't always lend themselves to pleasant environmental navigation. Boxes and objects meant to be cover to duck under similar to on rails shooters cover system can often be ran into or backed into without the player meaning to. Its a farcry from the excellent movement and flow allowed by the level design in Quake or Blood. The games shooting is the most fun when your standing or ducking and free moving the aim of your weapon. Enemies fly back in super realistic motion captured animations, computers and objects explode with fragments flying everywhere. Its a jaw dropping action movie like experience. However when moving faster to cover or strafing around several enemies the auto aim is only serviceable and much the experience is flattened. This is how most of the game feels with those better parts just mentioned being drip fed through certain choke points and enemy encounter areas. This would really bum me out as its the weakest playing part of the game but what winds up happening is the stealth moments and kills become entertaining and fun to pull off. Sneaking up with a silence pistol or a melee attack is new and awesome for a game on this list. Sniping over large areas has a bad ass feel in it no game has made yet. Goldeneye reminds me of DOOM II where all these ideas are new and awesome but very rough around the edges as environmental movement and encounters rough around the edges. Bond's villains all lend themselves to their arcade inspirations providing cheap cannon fodder and little variation. This also means there's little weapon variation. Often your start weapon is different depending on the level. A silenced pistol, smg or sniper and the enemy weapon pick up is always the same AK. These weapons all animate but after just finishing Blood which came out right before Goldeneye I miss a tactical and varied arsenal. Goldeneyes stealth focused limited weaponry and enemy types feels simplified and dumbed down in comparison.
                         
  Keeping inline with its immersive James Bond experience Goldeneye has a much slower pace than any other shooter on this list. The walk speed and level design along with a regenerating health system similar to again arcade shooters  lends itself to a slower more "cinematic" experience. This would have been really incredible in 1997 and the true accomplishment of what makes this game remarkable in my opinion. The slower pace ties in well to the linear gunplay sections that are meant for more spectacle than testing your battle dance skills. Using the super impressive graphics Bond encounters friendly non playable characters and even in some moments has them follow him in escape. Its these moments that show us just what else FPS games can be beyond the id Software DNA embedded in every game of the genre until now. As impressive as it is how much of a badass spy you feel shooting through Goldeneye that doesn't mean that these new ideas are better ideas. Its not in my top five playing games on this list despite its innovations and there range of successful implementation in gameplay. The shooting is very repetitive and outright boring compared to Quake or Blood. Even games like Redneck Rampage are better shooters because of the movement in levels and the shooting mechanics in my opinion are just way more interesting and rewarding. The hyper real levels look cool and are real immersive until you can't move in them like you'd want even if it would be less realistic. The game does a lot to lay the foundations of many elements in FPS games we enjoy today. The stealth focused shooter now exist in this point in the blog and its and interesting sub genre to see emerge despite being very immature in Goldeneye. The techno/band spy thriller soundtrack is a great way to make the game feel like a Bond game. One thing I do considering Goldeye better at than most games on this blog is the sound track. Easily one of my favorites.Rare's innovative immersive touches go onto the menu system Bond pulls up on his watch, the cool gadgets and tools to accomplish multiple objectives in a given level. Early on you get to take control of a tank and that linear design and mass destruction is a great way to change the pacing in level design.
                       I love being able to know where these fans are coming from by playing this blog. Rare has a cult following and after playing Goldeneye 64 I can understand why. They pulled off an innovative and fresh FPS experience.that did better than any game before it at bringing a movie over to the new medium. The game is visual stunner with great art direction. I'm real glad it was on my list for this blog as it's been great and is great to take a break from some of the more tested and popular shooting conventions. However Goldeneye 64 failed to ever really let me fall in love with it. In the context of this blog and 1997 I think I would have been wow'ed and think its a good game as I do now. But It doesn't hold a candle to Blood or Quake in my opinion and I'd personally rather play Turok if we are talking N64 games. I think Goldeneye 64 is an important proof of concept for many good ideas while falling short of the better FPS experiences 1997 and years prior have to offer.