1st fps

[dukenukem1990]

What do you think started fps, wolf3d,doom,battle zone?
I myself have a funky first person pacman game for my ibm pc from 1983, just wondering what anyone else thought.

[smork]

I'd say Wolf3D was the first FPS as we would call them today (I mean, I could see an argument of sorts for Battlezone, but it's more of a shoot-em-up in 3D, IMO). Definitely the first thing I remember playing that I would call an FPS, at least.

[Lothars]

yeah I have to lean on Wolf 3d being the first real fps

[keiblerfan69]

Wolfenstein was first but Doom made it popular.

[Ed Oscuro]

This will devolve into another useless debate between categorization fetishists unless we can stick to breaking it down between significant advancements, and respect that there are different types of FPS.

Is BattleZone an FPS? Why, surely. Using that sort of "the computer screen shows what you'd see with your eyes" definitino, two games were "first:" Spasim and Maze War. Richard Garriot's Akalabeth (predecessor to Ultima) had a similar maze perspective in dungons, though you don't shoot.

First texture-mapped FPS? Catacomb 3D (programmed by John Carmack, in some ridiculously short span of time in a bet where he beat out John Romero who was programming a 2D game. Hah!).

Wolfenstein actually doesn't really break any ground except in terms of popularity. I've played a bit of Wolf 3D and through all of Catacomb 3D, and they're essentially the same - though you can do stuff like freeze time in Catacomb 3D, which isn't possible in Wolf.

[MegaDrive20XX]

Wolf 3-D forever...this FPS empire was built by killin Nazi's at 4am on a Friday night back in 1992!

[Poofta!]

id say wolf3d, since its also more or less responsible for the genre's and name's birth. its what made FPS like we know them today.

[njiska]

Another shout out to Wolf 3D. Even if it wasn't the first, it is the game that's responsible for everything that's happened to the genre.

[Ed Oscuro]

Another shout out to Wolf 3D. Even if it wasn't the first, it is the game that's responsible for everything that's happened to the genre.
Wolf 3D's creation was inspired by a Ultima Underworld tech demo (i.e. Carmack saw that and decided to get in before somebody else did)...I think it's too easy to say "look at Wolf 3D, it did all these things for the industry because it was successful!" Bah, all it had that was really a first (for Carmack games, anyway) was add VGA support (which Ultima Underworld might've had first, anyway) to the genre.

[tom]

Star Raiders? (Atari 800, 1979)
Escape from the Mindmaster? (VCS 1983, no shooting)
Crypts of Chaos? (VCS, 1983)
Tunnel Escape (1977, PET)
3D Monster Maze (1982, ZX81)

Many Apple and Atari games were build with so-called 3D-mazes:
Capture the Flag (I think Sirius, 1983, even 2 player split screen, kill each other)
Eidolon (Lucasfilm 1984, Atari, first with 180 degree movement, even looking up and down)

Also, Ultima Underworld I and II (1992?)

[Ed Oscuro]

All good choices, what did they add to the genre that was significantly new? Rescue from Fractalus added nifty procedurally generated terrain, for example.

[Stark]

FPS= First Person Shooter

We are not talking about the first 3D perspective here.
If you are going to define it as First Person Ship Shooter or First Person Tank Perspective Shooter than thats another argument I guess. FPS is a well defined category that does not include tank games, ship games etc. only you with a "gun" (or knife or chainsaw etc.).

Wolfenstien did the FPS thing first. :snipersmile:

[Tan]

even though i should say Maze War because it predates Catacomb 3D by almost 20 years and was a networked game, Catacomb 3D was the first to have 3d graphics drawn in real-time.

[KJN]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1a/ST_Midi_Maze.png
Midi Maze (for Atari ST / 1987) is another one, you could connect up to 16 computers for multiplayer death match.

[googlefest1]

i have never known catacomb 3d - if it was sold in retail and if you used a gun to shoot enemies then i would say it could have been the first -- BUT so far i have not heared anything suporting that

so as far as i know wolf 3d was the first - but i think doom is what brought attention to FPS

i think doom brought the attention to wolf 3d as the first FPS

i heared of doom first - played doom first ( before it was sold in retail) before seeing or hearing about wolf 3d -

my half a cent

so far as i know wolf 3d was the first - if someone can say catacomb 3d was sold in some way to the masses and had a similar game to wolf 3d ie. gun shooting at enemies (not just walking around a 3d maze) then please post it ---- i ask about it being avaiable to the masses becasue i never heared of it and ive been computer gameing since the keyboard computer days (c64, vic20, trs80) - im surprised i would have missed it (even though for some reason the name sounds familiar)

EDIT:::: i hope i get to change this before anyone reads this -- i just looked up catacomb 3d - and holy crap how could i have forgotten that game -- i was hooked on it for a while - but i got it from a friend i never seen it in a store

yea i would call catacomb 3d an fps - sure it wasnt a gun but you did shoot magic - but was it sold in stores or through the mail in some way -- i had a copy that was made of a copy that came from a copy that probbaly came from a long line of copies

it had a similar look to wolf 3d

[KJN]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/84/2cat3d_3.png
Catacomb 3D. You cast spells at the enemies. Here is a site dedicated to the series (http://www.classicgaming.com/catacomb).

http://www.idsoftware.com/games/vintage/hovertank/images/full02.jpg http://www.idsoftware.com/games/vintage/hovertank/images/full03.jpg
id did another fps before that, Hovertank 3D. It didn't have textured walls though.

[anagrama]

Corporation (PC/Amiga/MD, also known as Cyber Cop on the Genesis) also predates Wolf3D by a couple of years.

[cyberfluxor]

I'd say Battlezone is the first popular game with the Atari's and arcades. The FPS that brought the 80's generation into FPS and sold people was Wolf3D, while Doom & Heretic were the first massive popular FPS with Doom on top. Thank you ID software!

The games to follow in the evolution of gameplay and ideas were Duke Nukem, Quake, Unreal, and Half-life. Of course there's many others, but the most popular were these.

[googlefest1]

i pleyed corporation back in the day on the pc -- i liked the game but i wouldn't consider it an fps - i thought of it more like might and magic

[pacmanhat]

Wolfenstein was first but Doom made it popular.

I don't know about that...I'd say Wolfenstein made it popular and Doom made it huge.

Wolf3D gets my vote. A lot of things have been mentioned, but they all feel like ancestors to what we now know as FPS's to me.

[Ed Oscuro]

See what I mean about Catacomb 3D? It didn't have the VGA mode Wolf 3D had, but it does not look substantially worse. Though I can tell there's definitely fewer colors, it's just not that big a difference, especially when the art style's much the same (I will say that spine-neck is freaking me out...jesus dude, go get some potions!)

And people complain today that new consoles don't significantly improve graphics... LOL

[MrRoboto19XX]

Achtung!

My vote has to go to Wolfenstein 3D as well.

[Tan]

are we supposed to vote based on personal bias or actual fact? my personal bias would say wolf3d like many others but catacomb 3d predates wolf3d, in fact it was the first game john carmack and id software did in which he portrayed a players hands in front of the hud, later used for wolf3d a year later, it never got the commercial success wolf3d did, but i highly doubt without it wolf3d would exist in the form we now of today.

[dukenukem1990]

yeah i've played catacomb, the ega colors make you want to rip your eyes out after playing it for a while :eek 2: , if anyone wants to download it though, go here

http://www.dosgames.com/g_3d.php

I still think battlezone should hold some type founding in this catagory

[Ed Oscuro]

are we supposed to vote based on personal bias or actual fact? my personal bias would say wolf3d like many others but catacomb 3d predates wolf3d, in fact it was the first game john carmack and id software did in which he portrayed a players hands in front of the hud, later used for wolf3d a year later, it never got the commercial success wolf3d did, but i highly doubt without it wolf3d would exist in the form we now of today.
Catacomb 3D was a game Carmack did at the tail end of his time at Softdisk. It wasn't actually an iD game.

dukenukem1990: So battlezone can be a breakthrough game if you want it to be. Mostly it was pretty well known, and I think rather successful. As far as doing anything innovative, I don't know on that score.

[Tan]

are we supposed to vote based on personal bias or actual fact? my personal bias would say wolf3d like many others but catacomb 3d predates wolf3d, in fact it was the first game john carmack and id software did in which he portrayed a players hands in front of the hud, later used for wolf3d a year later, it never got the commercial success wolf3d did, but i highly doubt without it wolf3d would exist in the form we now of today.
Catacomb 3D was a game Carmack did at the tail end of his time at Softdisk. It wasn't actually an iD game.

dukenukem1990: So battlezone can be a breakthrough game if you want it to be. Mostly it was pretty well known, and I think rather successful. As far as doing anything innovative, I don't know on that score.

my bad, i always say id because john carmack and the others who formed id had already left, but made catacomb 3d under contract to softdisk.

[Joker T]

I have to go with Wolfenstein 3D.

[unbroken]

When I saw the thread title "1st Fps" Wolf3d immediatly came to mind, although there were games with a first person view before wolf 3d, when I hear the term FPS, I get a picture of looking through someone's eyes holding a gun.

[XianXi]

this has been discussed so many times already. Majority always says Wolfenstein 3D.

[evildead2099]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1a/ST_Midi_Maze.png
Midi Maze (for Atari ST / 1987) is another one, you could connect up to 16 computers for multiplayer death match.

That looks a lot like Faceball 2000 (which came out for the GB and SNES, and perhaps some other systems)...

[Ed Oscuro]

That looks a lot like Faceball 2000 (which came out for the GB and SNES, and perhaps some other systems)...
There's a good reason for it: same developers.

[johno590]

The first FPS I ever saw was Doom, just because I wasn't really into PC gaming back then, but that got me into it. I later played Wolfenstein 3D.

If someone just asked me randomly I would say Wolfenstein 3d. Simply because I've never heard or seen of those other games.