Obscure first person shooters

[Koko Ricky]

We've all played Wolfenstein, Doom and Quake, and quite a few of us have played the Build-era games like Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, Shadow Warrior, even Powerslave. But there are plenty of overlooked titles that I think are worth mentioning. That said, I found a YouTube channel that is dedicated to obscure and mostly older first person shooters.

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=2BBA1AB1CF53EEAC

Any in particular that stick out to you? That you've played, even?

[Vaporizer]

.

[Remilia Scarlet]

There's a few of those that I recognize, and some remember playing - namely Operation: Body Count, NAM, Battle Frenzy, and Mace Griffin: Bounty Hunter. I especially liked that last one, and have many fond memories of the temple level (which I think was the 2nd mission).

[pavera]

Haha I used to check this guy's channel occasionally to see if he had uploaded any more of these. I used to buy cheap obscure FPS games from toy stores while taking my nieces/nephews shopping. They're older now and don't like toys anymore so I don't get to do that as much, but some of my trappings included Eradicator, Devastation (surprisingly fun), Revolution (not fun), ZPC (weird), and NAM.

[Maes]

I have the full versions of the infamous Thundra and an obscure Greek-made indy 2005 Doom 3 clone called "Evil Doom".

Both are pretty much unfindable, Thundra because Spungulas Software only made the full download available for free only for a while, and Evil Doom because the author closed the site (evildoom.gr) down somewhere in 2006, and mirrors are extremely rare.

I guess I can reupload Evil Doom for everyone since it was freeware to begin with, but I'm not so sure about Thundra (having the full version is not so different than having the Demo version however: you ain't gonna play past the first room in both cases).

[Aliotroph?]

Every time I try one of the obscure FPS games people bring up on here I end up hating it. I think I would like more of them if they were RPGs. *goes back to playing Daggerfall*

[Ultraboy94]

Alien Trilogy (I have the PS1 version, I believe it is also on PC) is quite a fun game, very Doom-esque.

I also have this game on the Megadrive called "Battle Frenzy" (also known as "Bloodshot"), not bad graphics for the Megadrive, especially since it had no extra hardware in the cartridge like Virtua Racing did.

[Sharessa]

Is Blake Stone obscure enough?

Also, Nightmare 3d and Ken's Labyrinth.

Those are the only ones I really played a lot of.

[Belial]

Not exactly first person shooters, but:

Terra Nova
Realms of the Haunting

[lupinx-Kassman]

Chasm: The Rift.

While some may view it as poor man's quake, it is one of the kickassiest of kickass FPSs. A game with time travel, a limb severing mechanic, cool enemies, and cool guns.

[Technician]

Depth Dwellers
Corridor 7
Burnt Toast
Operation Body Count
Chasm
Bad Toys 3D
Blood
Redneck Rampage

[Vordakk]

Technician said:

Depth Dwellers
Corridor 7
Burnt Toast
Operation Body Count
Chasm
Bad Toys 3D
Blood
Redneck Rampage

Weren't those last two fairly popular in their day?

[Maes]

Well, here's Evil Doom for whoever wants to give it a spin. AFAIK, this is the first time it has been ever uploaded anywhere ever since the official evildoom.gr site went down. I guess the author wanted to turn a new page or something.

EvilDoom, Extreme Battle Edition - final and minorly bugfixed version of Evil Doom. It added a few more game modes, and had some changes in the documentation. Specifically, the somehow introspective (autobiographical?) backstory in the README.RTF of the older editions was severely cut down. I guess the author felt it was too sad/emo or too revealing about himself (seriously, it's worth a read)..

EvilDoom, Classic Edition (with full backstory, latest edition before the final "Extreme Battle Edition")

[Blastfrog]

Vordakk said:

Weren't those last two fairly popular in their day?

Pretty sure they were, actually.


EDIT: Played that EvilDoom game. It fucking sucked. The engine sucked, everything just sucked. I was walking around in the opening area, no enemies, and then the game just told me I died. Did a monster sneak up on me and silently instakill me? Was there an oxygen counter I didn't see? Was there a time limit?

After that bullshit, I couldn't find a way to restart or exit, so I had to CTRL+ALT+DELETE and end the process with only my keyboard, since it was latching on to the mouse position.

[Doom_Dude]

Hmmmm lets see what's on that guys page OP posted...

Devastation. Ya I played that and didn't get far. It's was fukken meh.

Juggernaut. This Quake 2 conversion weirdness I played all the way through. I guess I was hard up for Quake 2 stuffage years ago. Some of it was good, bad and fugly. A bit of fun back in the day but if I loaded that back on here id probably not get very far.

Firestarter. Kinda odd game that plays like a deathmatch against computer controlled enemies and if my memory is right you can only save between levels, which is something I don't go for. I played about half of it then got bored. I kinda liked the music tho. :p

[Maes]

First of all, you better read that README.RTF file for there is no intuitive menu system, and you really need to know some bindings and some hints.

I never got past the second level, either, and it's some time since I played it, but I think there's a time limit for that first area: you must figure out how to open the computer-locked door at the end of the corridor otherwise you die (you need to fiddle with some of the computers in that first cubicle, there's even an Amiga, an Amstrad CPC and a Speccy in there ;-). Not the most user-friendly way to start a game, granted. Make sure you didn't use one of the Nightmare or "Extreme Battle" modes though: those REALLY have a 1-minute limit to beat EVERY level, and you only gain time by killing monsters.

Speaking of which....once you figure out how to exit that first cryptic-trap area, you will be "treated" to what looks like somebody's mother's basement, and be attacked by featureless monsters that look like Mokujin from Tekken. They are actually kinda creepy, as they materialize from nowhere, tower above you, and are mostly silent other than a muffled groan when you stab them. Surely not a gem of good game design, but a thousand times more sane and marginally more playable than Thundra: I'd like to see ANYONE producing a full playthrough of even the first level of that.

[Mattfrie1]

I have this gem on the 3DO, but it also came out for the PSX during it's first year on the market. It's a shame how the Playstation and Saturn ended up robbing so many titles that were originally 3DO exclusives.

[Xeros612]

Doom Dude said:

Firestarter.

Definitely not GSC's best work, that.

[Blastfrog]

Mattfrie1 said:It's a shame how the Playstation and Saturn ended up robbing so many titles that were originally 3DO exclusives. [/B]

How? The 3DO went under pretty fast, and was expensive as fuck without that much added capability over the PSX, and the mass porting of those games to more sustainable and popular platforms led to more people getting a chance to play them, since they would've otherwise been forgotten. I don't view that as a bad thing.

[Fletcher`]

Does Radix: Beyond the Void count?


Also do the Descent games count as well?

[Lizardcommando]

I wish I could replay Bad Toys 3D. It was a fun little Wolfenstein 3D/Doom clone with some colorful graphics. The game runs pretty laggy on Windows Vista and 7 the last time I tried playing the demo.

[Grain of Salt]

[TwinBeast]

I've played Radix. I also played something called Quiver. Then I also played some Cyclones.. first levels were pretty cool, but then later the levels seemed to just be long tunnels going around, occasionally going into some room.. no height or light variations.. pff.

I think Descent 1 or 2 are not very obscure. It even has some modern ports, which I take as a sign of a well known game.

Blake Stone doesn't feel very obscure either.

I played Codename Outbreak a bit. It was easier when the missions were played at nighttime.. because the nightvision goggles made the enemies appear red, but everything else was the traditional green nightvision stuff.. and I think the enemies saw me worse at night.

I guess I've tried a bunch of different old fps games, but Doom has always been the better one...

[Clonehunter]

Can't think of any that haven't been stated already. Of course, I'm sure you don't just mean obscure 90's shooters like Body Count or PO'ed. I'm going to throw 2003's 'Chaser' out there into the pool.

lupinx-Kassman said:

Chasm: The Rift.

While some may view it as poor man's quake, it is one of the kickassiest of kickass FPSs. A game with time travel, a limb severing mechanic, cool enemies, and cool guns.

Seconded to the degree of infinity.

[wildweasel]

Pretty much my favorite "uber-obscure" FPS game is the Russian-made Z.A.R. by Auric Vision. The English release is absurdly rare (to the point where not even the major warez sites seem to have it, heh) and the game plays a bit like a cross between Doom and MechWarrior 2.

[Scripten]

WildWeasel said:

Pretty much my favorite "uber-obscure" FPS game is the Russian-made Z.A.R. by Auric Vision. The English release is absurdly rare (to the point where not even the major warez sites seem to have it, heh) and the game plays a bit like a cross between Doom and MechWarrior 2.

I LOVED the demo for this as a kid. It came on a CD called "The Great Encyclopedia of Games" and was gorgeous for its day. Had fully destructable terrain, and solid gunplay.

[Csonicgo]

What's up with all the wolf3d clones? Why did everyone think that actually was a good idea? more 3-d mazes, whoopee!

[Shaikoten]

Codename Eagle is a fairly obscure yet influential game that offered combined arms combat in 1999 -- biplanes, tanks, and other vehicles. It was very primitively done of course, but other than Tribes it was the first FPS I can recall to pull this off. Later on some of the team members went on to create a very minor game those of you who were paying attention may have heard of, called Battlefield 1942.

Also, I don't think it was very unpopular at the time, but the memory has faded oh so quickly, but remember Shogo M.A.D.? The game has not aged well in the least, yet I recently saw it somehow lingering with a very high score on Metacritic.

[hex11]

I never played any of the stuff in that list (or even heard about most of them). But I did try this:
http://cytadela.sourceforge.net/index.php
It's a modern port of an old Amiga Wolf3D-like FPS. It also has some Doom elements like teleporters. Only thing is, the game seems a bit slow (capped framerate or something) and the keyboard can't be reconfigured (the default bindings just don't cut it for me). They also have links to the original ADF (disk images) for playing in UAE, but I didn't try it to see if it's any different.

Hired Guns was a lot of fun in 1993, but it's more like a cross between Dungeon Master and Doom. It's first-person, realtime, and it's a shooter, but you only move in "steps" rather than continuously. Also, the screen is split in four quadrants, since you (by yourself or with your friends) control a party of characters (you get to pick which ones at the start). The gameplay and atmosphere were very good, much better than Wolf3D IMO, but not as good as Doom of course.

[Belial]

hex11 said:

I never played any of the stuff in that list (or even heard about most of them). But I did try this:
http://cytadela.sourceforge.net/index.php
It's a modern port of an old Amiga Wolf3D-like FPS.

Heh, I wish someone ported Gloom like that.

Also, Defcon 5. I always got raped by the bots sooner or later, but damn this game was awesome.