"Graphics will never get better than this."
The 1990s was an awesome time for PC gaming thanks. 1992, id Software and Apogee released Wolfenstein 3d where we murdered dogs, nazis, zombies, and eventually a dual chain gun wielding Hitler with impunity. We were amazed at the ability to navigate what seemed like a "3d" world. It's actually 2.5D, any sprite based objects are always facing you and there's really no change on the Y axis, every stage is flat, there's no slopes. Kill everything and find the elevator. There was nothing on Nintendo like this.
John Romero and John Carmack, the guys who brought us Wolfenstein 3d bestowed the gift of DOOM upon us in 1993. Everything that was great about Wolf3d was improved, DOOM had the sense of verticality that Wolf3d lacked. Threats from all directions. An improvement on 2.5D. I loved DOOM. I spent many hours at my uncle's house ignoring my family playing DOOM. IDKFA IDDQD IDCLIP I'll never forget those codes. I'll never forget jibbing a demon with a rocket launcher for the first time. They followed it up with DOOM 2, which made some improvements like the ability to jump, new enemies, and a double barreled shotgun. The "id Tech 1" engine is the basis for a lot of my favorite games of the day besides Doom: Heretic, Hexen, and of course Chex Quest.
Elsewhere other people were creating game engines to did similar things. Ken Silverman created the BUILD engine, which was still 2.5D, and still blew our minds. In 1996 my old friend Duke Nukem went 3D, and it was awesome, even if it was still 2.5D. Voice actor Jon St. John brought wise cracking Duke Nukem to life. The one liners, the pop culture references, I loved it. I hate to say it but it's how I discovered Evil Dead.
The BUILD engine took everything that made DOOM awesome and improved upon it. I love that they included BUILD with the game, so that anyone can tinker and create their own levels. My friend Dan and I would create / download ".map" files from the web and monopolize both phone lines in my house to murder each other in dialup Dukematches. Los Angeles, a beach, the White House... the sky was the limit.
The BUILD engine took everything that made DOOM awesome and improved upon it. More verticality, trip wires, pipe bombs. I love that they included BUILD with the game, so that anyone can tinker and create their own levels. My friend Dan and I would create / download ".map" files from the web and monopolize both phone lines in my house to murder each other in dialup Dukematches. Eventually we learned about networking so we didn't have to monopolize the phone lines.
BUILD was used to make a slew of different games, the best of which are Blood, Shadow Warrior, Powerslave, and Redneck Rampage. The worst ones are a paintball game and TekWar, based on some William Shatner property. These games are all variations on the Duke 3d formula, explosions, absurdity, one liners, they're as funny as they are violent.
As quickly as the BUILD engine took over, it was usurped by John Carmack's id Tech 2 as the new shit. You know all that 2.5D shit I keep bitching about? That's fixed in id Tech 2. All of the sprite-y weirdness of first person shooters was gone. Quake came out and changed everything. Polygons. Gravity. True 3d.
Quake was recently re-released, my friends and I murdered each other over the internet. It brought me back to the old days despite not using the mouse and keyboard. It made me want to play old games again. There's been a renaissance, lots of remasters of classic FPS games, as well as brand spankin new FPS games using old school game engine aesthetics, and they're fucking awesome.
Recently I found the "Best of Boomer Shooters" bundle on Humble Bundle and I had to check it out. I bought it for Ion Fury, a "spiritual sequel" to Duke Nukem 3d and it hits all the spots. I love it in all of its 2.5D glory. The bundle also came with Dusk, which seems like a sick combination of Quake and Blood. I can't wait to dig into that.
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