FPS games

First person shooter (FPS) games made computer gaming what it is today. Before games like Doom, people thought that video games were only on the small box that you hooked up to your television. Doom was created by ID software back in 1993. Doom has been accredited with popularizing not only FPS games, but also promoting gaming on the personal computer. Doom made the way for multiplayer gaming because of its innovative networking. This game standardized the controls that gamers still use today to navigate the online world. Players use the term WASD to describe this control scheme. W moves the player forward, A left, S back, and D right.

 

Following their success with Doom, Id software released Quake. It was released in 1996. Quake like its predecessor became wildly popular which spawned a whole culture. Quake invented bunny hopping and rocket jumping which are terms still used in games today. Games like Valves Team Fortress 2 deliberately copy things like rocket jumping from Quake. Because of the games spastic movement and fast shooting, the game quickly became an e-sport. It is considered the first e-sport and in 1997 tournaments were already underway. Quake has spawned sequel which are still played in the e-sports community today.

Out of the Quake frenzy, came many other games that hoped to emulate it in order to be as successful. Unreal Tournament was created in 1999 by Epic Games. It like Quake became a major game in e-sports. Unreal Tournament has been played in the World Cyber Games starting in 2001.

Now that FPS games have been established as a staple in the e-sports community we can discuss the king of FPS games. Counter-Strike (CS) was originally a modification on a Valve game called Half-Life. The influence of the mod Counter-Strike on other (tactical) FPS games as well as its influence on entertainment industry’s decisions, are significant (Nieborg 2005). This mod became so popular that Valve hired the creators. CS is one of the most popular games still played today. CS was released in 2000 and its sequel Counter-Strike Source was released in 2004. Many gamers argue whether CS or CS:S is better. Both are played at a competitive e-sports level today.

References

Nieborg, David. (2005). Am I Mod or Not? Ultrecht University, Netherlands.