10 Best Old-School FPS Games You Can Only Play On PC

[leejacksonaudio]

From TheGamer.com: "10 Best Old-School FPS Games You Can Only Play On PC"

 

https://www.thegamer.com/best-pc-old-school-fps-games/

 

Of personal interest, and of interest (I hope) to a lot of people around here, would be entry number 10: "Rise of the Triad." A quote from the article:

 

Quote

Plenty of guns, secrets, puzzles, and enemies make up the core of the game, but arguably the biggest reason to check this game out is its soundtrack. Few soundtracks compare to the absolute banger that is Rise Of The Triad’s OST, and you will be bopping along for decades to come to the jazzy beats that reverberate through the game's pseudo-3D levels.

 

And here's a secret (not in the article) for those who didn't know: in beta, ROTT had a different theme song. Instead of Bobby Prince's "Rise," it used "Cccool," written by me. "Cccool" still exists within the game as level music, but only as level music. Here is a YouTube video of "Cccool" for your listening pleasure:

 

 

[gwain]

I have to say lee thats pretty Cccool

[omx32x]

the version by andrew hulshult is pretty good too

[xX_Lol6_Xx]

Good music as always. Really, REALLY good.

[Lunick]

Whoever wrote this article didn't necessarily fact check all their information...

 

Rise of the Triad is currently PC only but it's supposed to appear on consoles in a 'remastered' form at some point but I won't fault the article for that.

 

Return To Castle Wolfenstein was ported to Xbox and PS2 but I guess they're not readily purchasable.

 

Shadow Warrior Redux is actually also available on iOS and Android.

 

Prey can be purchased still on the Xbox 360 store and can be played on Xbox Series X via BC.

[Codename_Delta]

The non-HD versions of the classic Serious Sam games.

 

Yeah, I'm being serious. 

 

Well they should've included them if they didn't. 

[PsychEyeball]

10 hours ago, Lunick said:

Rise of the Triad is currently PC only but it's supposed to appear on consoles in a 'remastered' form at some point but I won't fault the article for that.

To be fair it was supposed to come out in 2021 and the project hasn't shown the inkling of pulse in the last few months/year. I'm starting to believe that asking the developers of Hatred to port ROTT was a bad idea...

[Nevander]

8 hours ago, Codename_Delta said:

The non-HD versions of the classic Serious Sam games.

 

Yeah, I'm being serious. 

 

Well they should've included them if they didn't. 

Serious Sam came out on Xbox original also, however it had slight changes from PC. Namely the HUD, cutscenes, enemy placements, secrets, and added treasure and lives. But it is TFE and TSE together.

[Codename_Delta]

2 minutes ago, Nevander said:

Serious Sam came out on Xbox original also, however it had slight changes from PC. Namely the HUD, cutscenes, enemy placements, secrets, and added treasure and lives. But it is TFE and TSE together.

Yeah, I forgot the xbox version exists. 

[Serum]

god damn i love ultrakill.

[Daytime Waitress]

The actual composer of one of the slickest FPS tracks in existence, linking to a post by someone with an avatar of Zhuge Liang wearing shades?  We're approaching levels of cool that shouldn't even be possible!

 

9 hours ago, Serum said:

god damn i love ultrakill.

For some reason, possibly because I was playing it on a potato, I totally bounced off of it first time around. I'm damn glad I gave it a second chance, though, because it's like a distilation of everything I enjoy about FPS's - ridiculous speed and clever combat setups - with a very unique authorial voice underpinning it all. I do find that I can only play it in short bursts, though, because it's such an adrenaline dump.

[leejacksonaudio]

12 hours ago, Daytime Waitress said:

We're approaching levels of cool that shouldn't even be possible!

 

What is the coolness level?

<Stephen Colbert>

Is potato.

</Stephen Colbert>

[LadyMistDragon]

On 6/1/2022 at 6:34 AM, PsychEyeball said:

I'm starting to believe that asking the developers of Hatred to port ROTT was a bad idea...

I just fucking hate this developer and the  employees inhabiting it's carcass.....

[ZeroTheEro]

On 6/1/2022 at 10:32 AM, leejacksonaudio said:

And here's a secret (not in the article) for those who didn't know: in beta, ROTT had a different theme song. Instead of Bobby Prince's "Rise," it used "Cccool," written by me. "Cccool" still exists within the game as level music, but only as level music. Here is a YouTube video of "Cccool" for your listening pleasure:

If I am being honest, putting Rise as the title music is a good move.

Cccool on the other hand is good as well, I like the vibes and combine that with Mercury Mode.

[roadworx]

???

 

i didn't even realize that cccool was made by you, or that it was even from rott. idk how i never made that connection

[Doomdude89]

On 6/1/2022 at 5:59 AM, Lunick said:

Whoever wrote this article didn't necessarily fact check all their information...

 

Return To Castle Wolfenstein was ported to Xbox and PS2 but I guess they're not readily purchasable.

 

 

Different Versions...

The console versions differ from the PC release. I remember they having actually more levels.

[hybridial]

I feel SWAT 4 and No One Lives Forever 2 could be on this list. Certainly they'd be on mine over Nightmare Reaper which I did not care for at all. 

[Redneckerz]

1 hour ago, hybridial said:

I feel SWAT 4 and No One Lives Forever 2 could be on this list. Certainly they'd be on mine over Nightmare Reaper which I did not care for at all. 

And i feel Mortal Coil and Rex Blade should be on there for innovative measure.

 

Its a good thing that a top 10 list isn't definitive.

 

Nightmare Reaper is generally a well recieved nu-gen retro shooter.

[MrFlibble]

It's nice to have ROTT featured, but otherwise that list is a complete mishmash, even if assuming that the notion of a PC-exclusive retro shooter in itself had any special merit to it.

[DeathWolf1982]

Blood is one hell of a good FPS game from 1997, the story is about a undead gunslinger named caleb betrayed by his master which makes him come back from the dead seeking revenge on him and his cult.

anyway it has tons and TONS of horror movie references such as, Freddy's hat and sweater. Jason's hockey mask and machete. Tons of evil dead references (although no chainsaw) and etc.

the game is fun as hell and you'll have a good time killing axe wielding zombies and cultists.

[irukanjji]

I´m surprised no one speaks about Farcry and is sequels, this franchise its a blast

[Jello]

2 hours ago, irukanjji said:

I´m surprised no one speaks about Farcry and is sequels, this franchise its a blast

Well, they probably haven't been mentioned in this thread, since it's specifically about FPS games you can only play on PC. And since every iteration of Far Cry has seen a console release, it doesn't really fit the topic. 

 

On topic, as have been mentioned NOLF 2, and Blood are some of the best shooters I've ever played. And Soldier of Fortune was worth a playthrough as well. I would've mentioned NOLF and SOF 2, but apparently they actually had a PS2 release and Xbox release respectively. Did not know that.

[MrFlibble]

Pretty certain neither Far Cry nor NOLF 2 count as "old-school", although the term is highly subjective anyway.

 

What caught my attention is the following passage:

Quote

Ok, this one is a total cheat. Technically Dark Forces was also released on PS1, but for this list, it's PC only. Why? Because most people don’t have a PS1. If you want to play Dark Forces nowadays, you are probably going to need a PC.

It appears as if the article's author is either not familiar with Powerslave or unaware of the fact that the PC version thereof is a completely different game from the console releases, else Powerslave would fill in a slot in this list without having to stretch the rules to the point where they completely lose their meaning (why include a non-PC exclusive game on a list that specifically says it's about PC exclusives?).

 

And Powerslave is an excellent "Doom clone" in the purest sense, and not an overall widely known one, at least until recently.

 

Also, Eradicator.

[hybridial]

1 hour ago, MrFlibble said:

Pretty certain neither Far Cry nor NOLF 2 count as "old-school", although the term is highly subjective anyway.

 

I do count NOLF 2 as that because it is a spy FPS in the style of Goldeneye and others and that whole approach also pretty much died out with that and Timesplitters 3 being the last ones worth mentioning. Not all "old school" FPSes did the same thing, to me it was a range of styles that fell out of use by the early 00s in favour of the styles that became common and constantly reiterated.