What are the essential FPS Campaigns?

I thought maybe as a group we could sort of brainstorm what are the must play FPS campaigns. So for this we are looking for first-person shooters. So not like Portal or something like that. Shooter first games. And for this we don't care about competitive multiplayer. Just campaigns. Maybe if this goes over well, we could try it for other genres. So maybe throw out some candidates and why they are a must. I don't know just trying to come up with a new topic.

Halo gets my vote above all else. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but it's the only FPS where I feel like I'm in a real battlefield. It's so open and there's so much going on in combat scenarios that replaying them never gets old. If I had to pick one though, it would be 3. 2's my favorite but I recognize what 3 does better in many ways and damn that double scarab fight is unbelievable.

I'll also throw in Perfect Dark. Goldeneye is the Rare favorite, but I thought it's campaign was a little more fun and think the way they set it up by just handing you objectives then let you figure out the rest is great.

These are obvious. Half-Life 1 up to Xen. Half-Life 2 in full. If they ever make 3 we can probably add the episodes but they feel incomplete for now.

Halo

Timesplitters 2. It's like Goldeneye but without getting lost all the time and with co-op. That's a winner

Never been a big FPS fan, but I really enjoyed the original Resistance. I've never played the sequels, but if I ever went back I'd look forward to replaying the first.

The third one is the best in my opinion. Second is by far the worst.

I feel like Resistance was one game away from something truly incredible. 1's weapons were not fun to shoot and 3 was  too short to take advantage of its weapon upgrade system without enough memorable levels. I'd love for Insomniac to make something like Painkiller with that upgrade system.

Also would anyone consider Metroid Prime an FPS? That one's always blurry in that category but if it counts, that belongs in top 3 no question.

Weirdly enough I really enjoyed the first FEAR on PC. It was well paced, the action was fun...probably wouldn't hold up as well now.

I'd say Half-Life 2 (which I figured I'd let ajapam explain but perhaps he felt it didn't need explanation). Wonderful pacing and the gravity gun are a couple reasons though.

Definitely a Halo. The open well-designed enemy encounters with great AI. The fun vehicles and co-op. I'm not sure which one. Certainly one of the first trilogy since they are more Halo than the others since they experimented in different ways.

Far Cry 4 would be my contribution for delivering an amazing fully open-world FPS. This is the best of these open-world FC games. Not sure if there is another series that scratches that itch better.

Resistance I don't know about. Just talking about campaigns, I think 3 is the best. Really well paced. Great weapons with the cool upgrade system. But so fucking short and kind of just says fuck it with all the lore for a more personal story. That might have been okay if it wasn't the last game. I liked 1, but it is a little bland at times, though the weapons are awesome. 2's is just a mistake. At the end of the day, I'm not sure any would make an essential FPS campaign list. All a bit too flawed.

I don't know if Metroid Prime counts either. Feels like more of an adventure game? Honestly I have only played part of the first one, so Greenman you'd know better than me.

What about a military shooter? Is there is a must-play in that group? If we were trying to deliver a wide array of FPS campaigns, perhaps we'd include one.

I felt like I had gushed about HL2's pacing enough that everyone already knew my stance haha. I just pick those games up and can't stop playing

Metroid Prime never even crossed my mind. I don't really think of those as FPS games.

Way back in the day when WW2 games existed I played a ton of Medal of Honor Frontline. I'm pretty sure the series only went downhill from there, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. I think Allied Assault on PC is sort of the same game but supposedly much better. Couldn't say how it holds up, though. Call of Duty 4 had a good rollercoaster campaign from what I remember but it never really blew me away

It's a tough call on Prime, exploration is the focus, but you still fight plenty of enemies and bosses. I'd say include it just because it's an example of bosses done right FPS style.

As for a military shooter, CoD 4 definitely. There's a reason it spawned so many clones

What about Bioshock? Or perhaps the earlier System Shock games? I have only played Infinite, so I'm just throwing shit out here for consideration.

I think FEAR is a good choice from what I've read, but again I never played it.

Part of this was me wondering the other day what I might have missed in this genre, so I figured I'd ask and then it seemed like a fun thread idea.

I have a hard time giving either of the previous Shock games I played a thumbs up for this. Bioshock's shooting just feels awful and unfun while the game goes downhill after your first Big Daddy fight while SS2 does such a bad job of explaining it's mechanics that it's a chore to play until you get familiar enough to realize you're fucked and need to start over.

Yeah but if we're talking about the campaign as a whole then Bioshock would be up there for me. Plus, I played the first one on PC so I didn't quite have the same issues other people did.

I tried bioshock for an hour and hated it.

I'd still add Bioshock to this list, even though I have my complaints about it. That was one of the first "next-gen" feeling games I played at the time

I really have to give FEAR another run. I played that on the 360 and loved it but that was ages ago. I have it on PC now. It did action horror quite well from what I remember

I want to say Deus Ex but I've actually never played the full game... Just a demo I got for 25 cents that was so long, I started to think it was a full game

Ratchet and Clank Up Your Arsenal. Besides jumping I play the whole thing in first person and it is amazing.

Deus Ex, for historical reasons, should be in there but it's not a game that has technologically aged well at all.

I'm not sure what the endgame for this thread was, but the only two that seemed to be suggested multiple times with no disagreement were Half-Life 2 and a Halo game.

Then we have a bunch of stuff we are unsure about.

A Rare/Free Radical FPS. So Perfect Dark, GoldenEye, or a Timesplitters.
FEAR.
A military campaign maybe.
Bioshock people seemed 50/50 on.
Far Cry 4 (hey no one told me no!).
Deus Ex (is this a shooter first type game?).
Metroid Prime (I'd lean towards this not fitting this particular list myself).

I see no one suggested an old PC FPS like Doom 2 or something. I assume we all feel they have aged too poorly.

Still a pretty fun discussion. Any genre you guys would want to try this with again?

Essential RPGs or platformers would be a good one since there's different styles of each.

I've played Wolfenstein 3D and Doom 1. They're fun but the maze-like level design kind of gets in the way. Also played a bunch of Marathon but mostly multiplayer for the same reason. It was surprisingly active and fun.

Indie games in general could be good for this, but that's pretty broad. Puzzle games, too

EDIT: I forgot Alien: Isolation. It's not perfect but there's no game quite like it, so I'm throwing it out there

If someone wants to take the reigns on an RPG one, that may be a good place to start as Bret and San perhaps would get more involved in that thread. I don't know if that needs to be broken down any. I think if we do platformers, it should be separately as 2D and 3D. 3D will be tough because at some point a game stops being a platformer and is simply an action or adventure game with platforming in it. But I suppose we could try and cover the full gamut if we were to do that one eventually.

I'm playing Quake for the first time and it reminded me of how we never picked any old shooters for this (I'm calling everything before Half-Life and Goldeneye "old.") I'd say it fits the bill. Classic, story-light run & gun that never feels too dated at all, at least not on PC. The soundtrack is surprisingly atmospheric for such an old game, too. Composed by Trent Reznor of all people. I've been loving it recently. The only thing is it doesn't have regular mouse-look without unless you install a mod.

TripOpt55 wrote:If someone wants to take the reigns on an RPG one, that may be a good place to start as Bret and San perhaps would get more involved in that thread. I don't know if that needs to be broken down any. I think if we do platformers, it should be separately as 2D and 3D. 3D will be tough because at some point a game stops being a platformer and is simply an action or adventure game with platforming in it. But I suppose we could try and cover the full gamut if we were to do that one eventually.

I'm down for RPGs, man.

My first pick would be Metroid Prime. Does that count? It has plenty of shooting and combat, but it's meant to be more of an adventure than an all-guns-blazing firefight.

Other than that, Doom II, Goldeneye, and Perfect Dark.

Oh, and sorry for the repeated posts, but I thought of another potential topic: essential fighting games. Or is that one too limited because of the one series (possibly two) that almost everyone would put?

You are welcome to give it a shot. I'd say let the RPG thread play out for a bit before doing that one though maybe.