Best classic FPS (early-mid 90s)? SPACE vs. HELL vs. SPACE vs. WIZARDS

[styl_oh]

I'm going for pre-Quake/3D as it were. I tried to pick the ones that helped create, develop and solidify the fps genre as it is, or was.

Not talking about impact, just which one you reckon is the most fun, has the best maps, monsters, character, vibe etc. Yer favourite!

ps. the Other option is so all you Catacombs 3-D fans can finally make your voices heard!! Or vote for something obvious I overlooked. Blood should probably be on there. I hope someone sincerely votes for Ken's Labyrinth.

bonus round: best engine, Build or Doom/id tech 1?

 

[Kadzork]

It has to be Doom.

 

[styl_oh]

It has to be Doom.

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I wholeheartedly agree, although I've played Marathon for maybe five seconds once a million years ago and I forget if I've even booted Heretic. (YET.)

 

[LazyLain]

Pathways Into Darkness

 

[Bengraven]

I mean. It's doom.

 

[DrFunk]

Rise of The Triad

 

[TEEPO]

ngl, it was tough choosing between doom and duke3d but i feel like the former just aged way better while the latter was def better during release.

 

[Silvergun-Blue]

Doom is still a great playing game today.

 

[Morrigan]

You should have kept Doom out of the poll because it's going to be (deservedly) lopsided

 

[Rygar 8Bit]

 

[NoctisLC]

It's doom but respect for including kens labyrinth.

 

[DesVoeux]

Marathon was the best, but as it (and the even better Marathon 2) was only available on Mac, it remains relatively unknown. I was so excited to hear Bungie was bringing it back and crushed when I saw it was a PvP extraction shooter.

 

[Dary]

Doom is the Super Mario Bris of the genre.

 

[Xaz]

Chex Quest

 

[Don Fluffles]

Blood.

Your initial arsenal consists of:
- a pitchfork
- flare gun
- double barreled shotgun
- tommy gun
- a bundle of dynamite
Each one has a powerful secondary fire to help you turn stuff into giblets.

And these still won't prepare you for Blood's tough-ass enemies and brilliant, open-ended levels.

 

[Akronis]

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Yup

 

[Why would you do that?]

Duke 3D is my favorite FPS. Doom is fun, but I played it afterward, and it felt far more limited than Duke3D and with much less variety in terms of its environments, too.

Heck, I played Chex Quest before Doom and I even like that more because it feels like it has more variety in its levels.


Of the options, I've not played Heretic or Marathon, though.

 

[Zodzilla]

I mean, it's Doom.

 

[TheWooniestWoona]

Doom is one of my favorite games of all time and I can go back to it over and over again without ever getting bored. I have to vote for it.

 

[Tagyhag]

To play now?

It's Duke 3D.

DOOM gets boring if you try to run through the whole game. There is definitely not enough variety now.

DOOM 2016 > DOOM

 

[data west]

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This one. BLOOD is basically the culmination of the Build engine style pre-Half Life FPS

 

[Kudgel]

It's Doom for single player and Unreal Tournament for MP. Also, the former probably has the best mod scene ever, still kickin' in 2024.

 

[El_Dabrah]

Blood.

I would also accept Doom or Duke 3D. But my heart says Blood.

 

[Bizkit Krueger]

impact and community wads hand it to doom/doom II easy

if we're doing pre-quake then blood is disqualified so I'd go with hexen as my runner up

 

[styl_oh]

You should have kept Doom out of the poll because it's going to be (deservedly) lopsided

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That's a good idea. Possibly now we can see that Duke3D woulda won but there's gonna be plenty who maybe haven't played the others or whose immediate instincts are just like 'Doom'

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I really gotta give this a good crack, hopefully shortly. Pretty sure I have it on pc somewhere/how (pc currently busted), but I'd def get nightdive's port

Marathon was the best, but as it (and the even better Marathon 2) was only available on Mac, it remains relatively unknown. I was so excited to hear Bungie was bringing it back and crushed when I saw it was a PvP extraction shooter.

Click to shrink...

Is there a good way to play the Marathon games these days?

To play now?

It's Duke 3D.

DOOM gets boring if you try to run through the whole game. There is definitely not enough variety now.

DOOM 2016 > DOOM

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It's been a long time since I played Duke3D, i may have finished the first episode, maybe a couple so i wanna go back soon but i ran thru doom/2/e4, started Final recently and i'm still not bored

does duke3d have a bunch of good fanmade stuff? like the equivalent of wads etc

last bit is kind of a spicy take lol i'd say i disagree, although they're such diff games & 2016 really was excellent too

 

[GDGF]

Doom is the Super Mario Bris of the genre.

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love this typo

 

[Tagyhag]

does duke3d have a bunch of good fanmade stuff? like the equivalent of wads etc

last bit is kind of a spicy take lol i'd say i disagree, although they're such diff games & 2016 really was excellent too

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TBH I never got into the wad equivalents of duke, but now I'm curious myself lol.

Yeah don't get me wrong, the fact that DOOM is still fun in this day and age is a testament to its quality. But if someone asks me which one I'm replaying? It's going to be 2016 before the classic.

 

[Duncan]

Brain says Doom.

Heart says Duke.

Never bet against Duke.

 

[gyrspike]

Doom easily. Doom was amazing back on release even though I had played wolf 3d. As for replayability it's sheer amount of mods, total conversions, and fan created content beats everything else. I remember back in the dial up days buying one of those CD-ROMs with 1000+ wads on it.

Duke 3d got old fast, the immature jokes and shit really get boring after a few plays.

Heretic was fun, but that series didn't really diverge from doom enough until Hexen.

Catacombs 3d was fun but simple compared to Heretic, I only ever played the shareware version though.

Never had a Mac to play marathon around when it released. But I watched videos about it, it reminds me of the next game I wanna mention.

My vote for second best to Doom is System Shock. It's full 3d world world, voice logs, setting, And everything else make it one of my top FPS games ever. Even if the controls take a while to get used to.

 

[Shard Shinjuku]

How are we seeing Ultima Underworld here?

 

[LordGorchnik]

Im the only old fart that still likes Wolf3D over every other one here.

 

[Awakened]

Replayed Doom 1 + 2 with Cheelo's Voxel pack a few months ago. IDK, I just don't find the basic shooting all that fun anymore and dislike the lack of jumping. Tried some neat megawads like Sunlust and Eviternity, but those tend to devolve into huge arenas with way too many enemies. Feels like I'm just strafing back and forth shooting damage sponges and I lose interest.

I've always liked Duke 3D more, with it's jumping, added verticality to levels, interactible objects and general level variety. Most of the levels have unique assets and feel differentiated from each other. I still find the grimy, "real world" atmosphere the graphics and music are going for compelling. The monster sounds effects are all great and memorable too. I can hear the Battle Lord cry and loud ass chaingun in my head right now.

 

[Host Samurai]

Doom if counting Wads, Duke if not.

 

[MysteryM]

We used to flood our university network with doom data packets and techs would be running around looking for who was playing. The game was genre defining and everything else on that list pales in comparison.

 

[Ryuhza]

I'm a little biased as I was too young to experience any of these in their proper heyday, and when I got to play them 5-7 years later, my woefully Christian father kept DOOM off the computer (Satanic imagery-- never mind that you're killing all the demons. Something something blasphemous). So, it was Wolfenstein 3D then Duke 3D. When I finally got back to DOOM, while it did have that edge of illicit excitement to it, I had already been spoiled by Duke 3D. The more detailed, highly interactive levels, the functionally unique arsenal, the jump button, the pistol that doesn't suck completely. Little touches I found myself missing.

So yeah, Duke Nukem 3D. I've played it more times than I can remember. Too bad about what happened with Duke afterward--DOOM and Wolfenstein have been graced with much, much better legacies--but at least we got some great Build Engine games.

 

[Pyro]

I've played all of the listed except for Heretic. DOOM is still my favorite and one of my top ten for sure. DOOM 2 though is kinda meh.

 

[MrPablington]

+1 for Rise of the triad

 

[Red UFO]

Cmon

 

[Rolodzeo]

Played through for the first time Doom a few years ago and Duke just recently.

It's Doom, hands down.

 

[DesVoeux]

Is there a good way to play the Marathon games these days?

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Bungie open-sourced everything, so you can find all three games here. They've since been ported to Windows and Linux in addition to Mac. There is also an XBLA arcade version of the second one that many people say is the best way to play it.

 

[styl_oh]

How are we seeing Ultima Underworld here?

Click to shrink...

I'd thought of that, as well as System Shock. I suppose I tend to lump those together as immersive sims, and think about them a little differently, though obviously there's a ton of shared DNA.

If I were to bring up the roleplaying elements of those games, that'd probably open up a can of worms regarding my choices here; while obviously those games can be/are combat heavy, I guess I tried to pick what I saw as early 'pure shooters', though that's both a wobbly term and one that outside of this context I probably wouldn't use much—I'd never try to exclude those games from their well-deserved positions in the fp lineage (nor as fun and important games generally). I suppose I was trying to boil things down to what we think of when we think of early FPS games, a simpler image, though of course the core gameplay of many of these isn't simple at all, once you dig into them, or rather the seemingly simple nature is deceptive.

That was a long way of saying 'I don't know'; I'd be curious what you or any others have to say on the matter.

Bungie open-sourced everything, so you can find all three games here. They've since been ported to Windows and Linux in addition to Mac. There is also an XBLA arcade version of the second one that many people say is the best way to play it.

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Oh, thanks so much!

 

[Rygar 8Bit]

I really gotta give this a good crack, hopefully shortly. Pretty sure I have it on pc somewhere/how (pc currently busted), but I'd def get nightdive's port

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If you don't have it yet Blood is 3.39 on Gog right now.

Blood: Fresh Supply

Battle an army of sycophantic cultists, zombies, gargoyles, hellhounds, and an insatiable

www.gog.com

And if you end up liking it you should check out Cultic, it's pretty much the real Blood 2.

View: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1684930/CULTIC/

 

[J_ToSaveTheDay]

I like all of these to varying degrees but Doom is the only one I still just boot up at random to this day. I have to be in the right mindset for the rest, but Doom has felt ever-present and ever-relevant to my life.

 

[brain_stew]

It's Doom and it's not even close. An absolute classic, and one of the best and most important games of all time.

 

[theMrCravens]

Did people who voted Doom actually played Duke3D in those days ?

It had way more variety, especially when playing over modem and Kali.

 

[SofNascimento]

Click to shrink...

You're correct.

 

[Shelbyville Milhouse]

Putting Doom against these others is basically cheating

 

[Nameless]

It's Doom, which I'd come to realize a few years later. But as a Genesis child...


View: https://youtu.be/rSsmGumw0zY?si=f05k2CkhVjt7-zCL

 

[CrichtonKicks]

Dark Forces should have been on the list over Heretic.

 

[Lotto]

wolf 3d for me. lemme kill nazis.