90's first person shooters, pc vs consoles

[665b256f4318dJDoran]

To be honest, I've always thought that rag-doll physics were over-rated. Clever, maybe, and when done well then they were impressive, in a minor way (I mean, it was interesting to see for the first couple of times, but after that you just don't see it anymore), but even that is dependant on the engine not doing a Thief: Deadly Shadows style job, where the corpses can end up in some very strange and maybe even impossible positions/shapes (what is the word that means the way a corpse is lying?).

If the ragdoll physics was done well, then fair enough, but rather than bad ragdoll physics, I'd prefer a number of pre-defined, well done, death animations and corpse positions, even if the animations were few in number and variation.

'Permanent' environmental combat effects, though, can really make a game more atmospheric. It's great seeing the after-effects of combat, with the bullet holes in the walls and floor, and blood splatters, and even scorch-marks if explosives were used. It's even better if you come back to the area later on in the game and all of those visible effects are still present, as it really makes the game-world seem more real.

One of the many great things about Perfect Dark (N64) is how these effects were accurately created and remained for your time in the level. In single player and multiplayer modes it really added to the feel of the game, and it's a pity that most first person games don't do this.

[665b256f4334aicemann]

You don't get much better than how Red Faction 1 did it. Use of rockets and grenades to completely change the scenery was ahead of it's time. Hell most games still don't do that and RF came out in the early 2000s.

[665b256f434c4ZylonBane]

Unfortunately, "Geo-mod" tech dominated the engine design so much that it ended up sucking at everything else. Pretty much the only people who look back fondly on the original Red Faction are console gamers, because they didn't know any better.

[665b256f436fcJoin2]

Nonsense. Red Faction is absolutely not a top-tier shooter, but it leans into the better half of the FPS catalogue. It is also one of the better singleplayer FPS games of the 2000s, when things took a sharp decline thanks to the obsession on WW2 military shooters with realism-dominated gameplay design, developer enthusiasm for attempting to appeal to broader audiences, as well as the design shifts as a result of demanding realistic graphics (see: Doom 3. cramped simplistic to play levels, and the abandonment of abstract gamey level design of the originals. Can't blame the consoles for that one).
I look back on Red Faction with minor fondness as an adequate shooter. GeoTech. Some actually fun vehicle sections. A pretty enjoyable though standard array of weaponry. The novelty of getting your ass to Mars. Of course I'm not blind to its faults either: The shitty stealth sections, Geomod only being utilised across approximately 35% of the game, and not particularly well in that 35% at that. The combat devolving into railgun spam through walls late game. Some of the level design, plot and events of the game not being particularly engaging.
The general level of respect it receives is fair, from how much it is looked back on and how most people rate it. Nobody champions its name as one of the best FPS games but it's above average and better than most modern shooters.
I would recommend it to FPS nuts like myself that have exhausted all the best FPS and don't mind something that is merely decent.

[665b256f43a93JDoran]

Unfortunately, "Geo-mod" tech dominated the engine design so much that it ended up sucking at everything else. Pretty much the only people who look back fondly on the original Red Faction are console gamers, because they didn't know any better.

Hardly. Most of the best PC first person shooters were ported to console (and mostly the ports were very good), and some of the best FPS either started out on consoles, or were console exclusives. And whilst quality is largely subjective, I'd say that Perfect Dark, Goldeneye, Timesplitters 2, and Timesplitters: Future Perfect, are the four best FPS ever, and they are all console exclusives.

I didn't much care for Red Faction, though, I thought it was OK, but far surpassed by others, even at the time of it's release. The second was better, I think, but still only OK, and I get the impression that most fans prefer the first game. I did hear that some people produced mods for Red Faction (for the PC version, of course), but I've never tried them. Does anyone know if they were any good? And if they used the Geo-mod system well?

[665b256f43c35voodoo47]

heh, you clearly are a console guy - if we are talking about (3D accelerated) FPS from 2000 or earlier, then it's Quake, Quake2, Half-Life and Soldier of Fortune.

aiming with a controller is a concept I'll never be able to wrap my head around.

[665b256f441e1ZylonBane]

...some of the best FPS either started out on consoles, or were console exclusives.

Oh bless your heart.

heh, you clearly are a console guy - if we are talking about (3D accelerated pc) FPS from 2000 or earlier, then it's Quake, Quake2, Half-Life and Soldier of Fortune.

If you expand that to late 90s - early 2000s, you get AvP, Unreal, NOLF, Deus Ex, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Undying, Call of Duty, Serious Sam, TRON 2.0, Kingpin, to name some top ones. Pre-accelerated there's Doom, Heretic, Hexen, Duke Nukem, Blood, Shadow Warrior, Dark Forces, and Terminator: Future Shock.

Console kiddies just have no idea when it comes to FPSs. And everything has to be slowed down and auto-aimed to compensate for the inferior gamepad control.

[665b256f44313voodoo47]

Unreal and AvP would be next on my list, but wanted to limit it to four entries to mirror JDoran's post. but one way or another, yeah, claiming that 1996-2000 was an era where pc FPS did not rule supreme is.. misguided at best. not saying consoles didn't have good games - they did, just not in the FPS department.

also, I'm thinking split from the SCP topic soon.

[665b256f4454aJoin2]

It goes both ways, sires. Don't speak of what you do not know. Myself I am qualified to speak, as I've played FPS for decades on both consoles and PCs, and have played everything in that list of yours barring two or three, though I could add some 90s PC classics you've missed myself, such as Dark Forces 2, Opposing Force (it counts as its own thing) and Doom 2.
Here's some worthwhile 90s console-first shooters:

Turok (8.5/10)
Turok 2 (8.5/10)
Doom 64 (9/10)
Powerslave (7/10)
Disruptor (7/10)
Alien Trilogy (7/10)

It's not much, but it was the 90s, come on dudes many developers were still trying back then. None of these best the PC kings like Quake or Nukem 3D, but I'd readily recommend them over something like Hexen or Serious Sam. Heretic's a solid doom clone though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt9YoXG9TVE

[665b256f44b95JDoran]

I really have to disagree about console FPSs with you. Yes, in the years beginning to with 199x, most of the best ones were PC games, but to me, Goldeneye (1997) was better than any PC FPS, though admittedly numerically the PC was better (one spectacular console FPS and some OK ones, versus some very good (but not Goldeneye-standard) FPSs. But in 2000, Perfect Dark* (console only) came along and blew away every other FPS ever made up to that point, and it's never been bettered yet, though Timesplitters 2 and Timesplitters: Future Perfect had a really good try.

That said, PC FPSs had the extra (and sometimes really, really good) bonus of third party mods. Doom, Half-Life, Unreal Tourrnament,

Just my opinion,


Of the games you mention:

[Quake, Quake2, Half-Life and Soldier of Fortune., AvP, Unreal, NOLF, Deus Ex, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Undying, Call of Duty, Serious Sam, TRON 2.0, Kingpin, to name some top ones. Pre-accelerated there's Doom, Heretic, Hexen, Duke Nukem, Blood, Shadow Warrior, Dark Forces, and Terminator: Future Shock.[/quote]

I've played them all aside from Soldier of Fortune, Return to Castle Wolfenstein (I do mean to though, it's the only official Wolfenstein game I've never played), Heretic, Hexen, and Terminator: Future Shock. And whilst I think that most of them are great (though Quake 1 and 2 never grabbed me, I always thought that they were a real step back from Doom, and Call of Duty and Kingpin likewise didn't interest me), none of them approached Goldeneye for enjoyment and replayability, in my opinion. And I still play Goldeneye every now and then.

BTW, the speed-runners and other long term players of console games often disable auto-aim, either out of conceit/talent, or because it's advisable (such as in Perfect Dark, where the auto-aim always aims for the torso, but in speed-running it's preferable to aim for the head in PD, since the head is a one-hit-kill location). But yes, console FPS do tend to have either or both a slower playing speed, or some sort of auto-aim or other form of aim assist, and annoying some games won't allow you to turn them off (and at least one game, Unreal Tournament on the PS2, has a too generous auto-aim that you CAN'T TURN OFF, annoyingly). And often console FPSs won't allow you to save when you like, offering either checkpoint only auto-saving (which can be really bad if the checkpoints are too far apart, or before a long unskippable cutscene, etc).





* Perfect Dark did so much that modern games can't even dream of, console or PC. Granted, since modern FPSs are so formulaic, it's not that surprising, I suppose, but even so, PD's developers really did try to add everything you could ask for in a FPS (well, aside from mouse control, LAN or online multiplayer, and other things that the N64 hardware couldn't support).

PD has four player splitscreen multi-player (with support for up to eight bots at the same time), six modes of multiplayer play, almost every option you ask for in a multiplayer FPS, plus a fantastic single player, co-op mode, counter-op mode (two humans play, one as the main character, the other as one of the NPCs, and the first human has to play the game as normal whilst the second player plays as one of the guards and has to stop the first player), around forty different weapons (most with a varied secondary fire mode, such as a player-guided rocket, a computer guided rocket, see and shoot through walls, a Robo-Cop style gun that auto targets enemies wherever they move to, one gun can become a proximity mine, a different gun can become a mounted gun turret that can differentiate between friend and enemy, etc). And you can test any weapon in the games target range, where each set of targets is designed around the weapon you are currently testing .

The game also has a disarm function (if you get close enough to an enemy, then you can stun them and steal their weapon),  a 'stunned' blurry mode for when you get disorientated, a ton of great unlockables and cheats (which can be used to make the game harder, if you so wish), lots of easter eggs to search for, and is the most endlessly replayable FPS I've ever played on any system (and I've played most of them). The enemy AI allows them to crouch, to climb ladders and use moving platforms and lifts (elevators), to call for help, to activate alarms, to surrender, to limp if they get shot in the leg, to drop their gun and cradle their arm if you shoot them in their gun arm, to (semi) intelligently search for you if they hear a gunshot or suspect an intruder is around, etc. None of this is scripted, it all happens in real time.

Even today, how many first person shooters have more objectives depending on the skill level you play the game on? Or have each enemy randonly assigned a height, a skin colour, and a left or right-handedness with their weapons? Or have time unlockable cheats (including obvious things like All Weapons, Infinite Ammo, Invincibility, etc, but also things like Enemy Shields, Small Enemies, Enemy Rockets (all enemies use portable rocket launchhers, makes the game *much* harder!). Or when completed on the highest difficulty unlock a new difficulty mode where you can set the health, accuracy and reaction times of the enemy? How many games keep full record of your multiplayer statistics, such as how many kills/deaths/headshots/Distance Travelled/etc? How many games keep their bullet hole/blood/explosive scorch marks throughout the game, so that if you play multiplayer for a while on a map then there's tons of bullet holes, blood, etc on the walls and floor? How many games have a shooting gallery with targets tailored for every weapon?

Rare really tried to make the ultimate FPS in Perfect Dark, and to me (and a fair few other people) they got a lot of it right. They also got a lot wrong, such as some terrible voice acting, a forgettable story and characters, not letting you play multiplayer in any of the single player levels (as you could in Goldeneye), and some misjudged humour. But to me it's still the best game ever, and I still play it regularly (the N64 version, as I don't like some of the changes they made to the XBox 360 port).





Edit: Oh, I forgot about Doom 64 (thanks, Join), that was great. The Turoks were good too, but not great (though personally I'd put them above the two Quakes, though maybe that's just me).

And I preferred Duke Nukem 64 to the PC original (apart from the PC version's ability to run fan-made mods), as I preferred some of the changes/improvements and didn't mind most of the changes/ommisions - I didn't care about the censorship or the lack of music, and I preferred the new weapons and some of the changes to the levels, though I HATED the way there's no starry background in space - WHY???).

[665b256f45463Join2]

but to me, Goldeneye (1997) was better than any PC FPS

What? Come on dude. Even in comparison to other console FPS of the 90s it wasn't that great, let alone the PC dons. The framerate is garbage, the combat very slow and entirely hitscan, minimal z axis gameplay (a 3D shooter that doesn't make great use of the third dimension). Level design that is a mixed bag. There's annoying missions where you have to escort that dumbass lady. The aiming seriously isn't great even by console standards. It's not a bad game but quite possibly one of the most overrated of all time.

For FPS it brought to the table diverse objectives, a realistic modern day setting/story and whacky cheats. It counts for something but it isn't much.

[665b256f45644voodoo47]

yeah, there were some FPS games going around consoles in the late nineties (in some rare cases the console version being the ultimate release), but they just can't hold a candle to the quality, quantity, and the rendering speed, visuals and resolutions of games available on the contemporary pcs (equipped with a proper 3D graphics card, of course).

and yeah - I've actually watched a few youtube videos of Goldeneye very recently (related to hw mods and emulation), and while no doubt extraordinary in a sense of being able to run on the N64 hw in a playable way, the resolution was low, framerate dips were awful and the aiming/shooting parts just painful to watch. like, razorblades and iodine under your eyelids painful. on a pc, you had Quake2 running smoothly in 800*600 with all its mouselook adrenaline packed fast-paced action glory (again, voodoo2 assumed). there is just no comparison there.

would be interesting to know whether emulators solve this in some way - I mean I'm pretty sure that better ones would allow locking the framerate at 30/60 frames, but I doubt any mouselook emulation is available, and there is no way I'm touching those (console FPS) games without that, despite being very interested in all the retro stuff.

[665b256f45764fascinate4]

Oh god, here we go again. "PC vs Consoles". Again.

Both sides has their own good things, but people still "argue" about it.

[665b256f4584avoodoo47]

when happening around here, the posts are usually packed with interesting information no matter the camp, so why not.

[665b256f45d3bJoin2]

Don't be a graphics-whore. Gameplay is what matters. Especially when talking about 90s shooters which are now beyond technologically obsolete, beat down and pulverised in the graphics department.

Anyhow, you're in luck. You can play some good games you've not played before to your desired graphics whoring standard, as most of what I listed was ported to PC. Links:

Doom 64 Ex
Turok
Turok 2
Alien Trilogy
Powerslave Ex

Only disruptor wasn't. Pretty cool game with Psi Powers throw in the mix (though Cybermage beat it to the punch).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--GQT1ibZFk

Oh god, here we go again. "PC vs Consoles". Again.

Both sides has their own good things, but people still "argue" about it.

PC is straight better. There is no argument there. Yet these guys aren't being fair in their ignorance and need a good telling off.

[665b256f45ec2voodoo47]

played both Turoks on pc back in the day, and Alien trilogy and Powerslave are already on the list, the latter hopefully receiving a proper GOG release by then.

already tried Doom64, and while interesting, I just couldn't stomach the redone AI sprites. I'll probably check whether there's some mod that puts the classic pc sprites back in sometime later.

[665b256f460e3Join2]

I don't disagree regarding the sprites. Simply inferior stylistically to the original Doom. The weapon sprites are pretty cool though.
But...the gameplay. I easily accepted a minor artistic downgrade (it could be far worse anyways). Doom 64's gameplay is pretty solid, great level design. Fine example of the 90s shooter. And if you've played tons of Doom wads this does well to mix it up visually for once. Anyhow, this game was one of my most enjoyable dooming experiences that doesn't include  playing the original back in the day.

Again, I would recommend these well before some old school PC games like Hexen. Not that Hexen is bad it's just...well the four weapon limit gets repetitive, the sometimes overly vague level design can be a bummer (though level design is otherwise good), and it's simply not all that fun. Mostly it's that four weapon limit though. Odd how much that impacts the fun in comparison to other Doom clones. It really does.

[665b256f46308icemann]

Firstly, I'm definitely in the camp of people who will forever be of the opinion that the best FPS is a FPS on the PC as gamepad controls are inferior.

With that said, here are a few FPS games I LOVED on consoles:

* Red Faction (played the PC version many years later).
* The Resistance series. The story is what hooked me into these games. And OH MY GOD Resistance 2 multiplayer 20 vs 20 was a blast. Great multiplayer.
* The Darkness - We only got the sequel on PC sadly. The first game is more of a RPG / FPS hybrid with open-world bits. Sequel had none of that.
* Medal of Honor - Frontline. Yes the first level is a complete rip-off of Saving Private Ryan but god damn is it great. Hook up a surround sound system and it sounds FANTASTIC. Love this game. If you only ever play 1 Medal if Honor game, be sure that its this one.
* Doom 64 - This game made me want a n64. Great looking game. We at least got this for PC many years later (thank you modding community)

[665b256f478fbJDoran]

What? Come on dude. Even in comparison to other console FPS of the 90s it wasn't that great, let alone the PC dons. The framerate is garbage, the combat very slow and entirely hitscan, minimal z axis gameplay (a 3D shooter that doesn't make great use of the third dimension). Level design that is a mixed bag. There's annoying missions where you have to escort that dumbass lady. The aiming seriously isn't great even by console standards. It's not a bad game but quite possibly one of the most overrated of all time.

Goldeneye is, to me, still utterly superb playability-wise. I don't have any problems with the controls/graphics/frame-rate/aiming/etc (though it is ugly, remember it's running on a 22 year old cartridge based console). Goldeneye did a *lot* to sell the N64 (I bought mine because of the game), and regularly places highly in best FPS lists. The game is very well thought out, and even allows minor stealth in some areas.

You do have to escort an unarmed Natalia in two levels, true,  but in the first level you can make it much easier by leaving her in her cell at first and going and clearing the level of enemies, before coming back, releasing her, and making your escape, and the same is pretty similar (she stays in the life (elevator) at the start of the level) except of course that one of the level objectives is to later protect here whilst she hacks the computer. In the third level with Natalia she's armed and quite a good shot. Overall, it's nothing like the tedious and/or luck-based irritating escort missions you get in other games where the person (or rather lemming) you're escorting won't stay put and instead happily runs into the enemy's (and even your) bullets.

For FPS it brought to the table diverse objectives, a realistic modern day setting/story and whacky cheats. It counts for something but it isn't much.

It did also have body-location damage, enemies that can climb/descend ladders, a sniper rifle, bullets produce holes in the environment, destructible furniture and other objects, you could drive a vehicle, friendly and neutral NPCs, enemies that would retreat if they felt too threatened or wanted to activate an alarm, and maybe other things that weren't exactly common in first person shooters. It also proved that James Bond games could be really good, as opposed to being at best lukewarm, as was the case for the previous fifteen years.

Oh god, here we go again. "PC vs Consoles". Again.

Both sides has their own good things, but people still "argue" about it.

It passes the time at work! But the PC is much better in most ways than a console, not least because a console has at most a gaming library made over a few years, wheras the PC has 35-years worth, and even the early decade doesn't appeal to you, you still have excellent PC games from the 1990s to the present day to play. Plus using a decent PC you can emulate most of the best console only games anyway. If I could only have one gaming machine, it would be a PC, no question.

I'm just saying that, in my opinion, consoles beat the PC in the FPS genre, since to me by far the best four FPS ever made are (in order) Perfect Dark, Goldeneye, Timesplitters: Future Perfect, and Timesplitters 2.

[665b256f47a33voodoo47]

well, that is no doubt a very rare opinion. and yes, "when at work, every moment wasted is not a time lost, but a time gained".

[665b256f48196JDoran]

yeah, there were some FPS games going around consoles in the late nineties (in some rare cases the console version being the ultimate release), but they just can't hold a candle to the quality, quantity, and the rendering speed, visuals and resolutions of games available on the contemporary pcs (equipped with a proper 3D graphics card, of course).

and yeah - I've actually watched a few youtube videos of Goldeneye very recently (related to hw mods and emulation), and while no doubt extraordinary in a sense of being able to run on the N64 hw in a playable way, the resolution was low, framerate dips were awful and the aiming/shooting parts just painful to watch. like, razorblades and iodine under your eyelids painful. on a pc, you had Quake2 running smoothly in 800*600 with all its mouselook adrenaline packed fast-paced action glory (again, voodoo2 assumed). there is just no comparison there.

Goldeneye is slower to play than the Quake games, yes, and it's uglier than lots of PC FPSs, but the gameplay was and is excellent. And isn't criticising Goldeneye's speed and looks rather like criticising System Shock's speed and looks? Neither GE nor SS were meant to be fast paced Doom/Quake style get-from-A-to-B-and-kill-everything-in-between style games, instead they both built upon the original formulae (with SS deviating much more and becoming a semi-different genre).

Plus Goldeneye was THE FPS that popularised split-screen multiplayer FPS gaming, and that was very big in the late 90s/early 00s.

would be interesting to know whether emulators solve this in some way - I mean I'm pretty sure that better ones would allow locking the framerate at 30/60 frames, but I doubt any mouselook emulation is available, and there is no way I'm touching those (console FPS) games without that, despite being very interested in all the retro stuff.

There's a special version of the N64 emulator 1964, that's been modded to improve the frame-rate of Goldeneye and Perfect Dark, plus is set up to use WASD and mouse look, and since it's an N64 emulator, you can use much higher resolutions (and unlike 2D games emulation, when you up the resolution of a 3D N64 game, the graphics do look much better, you get much less jagged diagonal lines and you see detail that was blurred on a real N64 + television). There's no guarantee that  this emulator will run other N64 games well, though, since these changes are made specifically for PD and GE, so you'll probably have to use an un-modded version of 1964 (or a different N64 emulator) to run other N64 games, though at present N64 emulation is far from perfect for some games.

Download: https://archive.org/details/1964GEPD

You can read about it at: http://www.shootersforever.com/forums_message_boards/viewtopic.php?t=7045

But you might not like Goldeneye or Perfect Dark coming to them now, as they are different from the best PC FPSs in some ways, such as being slower, the game can only be saved between levels (there are no in-game checkpoints, ether, though the levels aren't very long anyway), the games don't hold your hand or make it easy for you (though I know that won't bother you, since I know you well enough to know that you don't need an in-game map or an onscreen pointer to the next objective, etc), there's no jumping, no health packs (you start each level with full health, and though you can find body armour, you can't renew your health in-game), and sad but true, the games are a lot easier on the PC than on the N64 because mouse accuracy does decrease the game's difficulty dramatically.

Plus Goldeneye does have a few flaws that were fixed in Perfect Dark that will seem strange to anyone not used to it, such as the guards can't shoot over railings or over gaps in the floor, and when a guard kneels to take better aim at you, then if you move out of his line of fire, then he still has to complete the kneeling animation and then fire at where you were, instead of shooting at where you are now, and if you get close to a guard then often he can't harm you so he has to step away before he can target you. Plus occasionally you'll get clipping errors when a gun or a guards arm appears through a closed door (though it can't hurt you), and wow the guard's faces are really ugly. Some of these things can be used to your advantage, especially when speed-running, so it's not too bad.

[665b256f4856cJDoran]

played both Turoks on pc back in the day, and Alien trilogy and Powerslave are already on the list, the latter hopefully receiving a proper GOG release by then.

already tried Doom64, and while interesting, I just couldn't stomach the redone AI sprites. I'll probably check whether there's some mod that puts the classic pc sprites back in sometime later.

I never played any of the Powerslaves, though I do mean to play the excellent fan-made PC remake Powerslave EX (download it from: https://forums.duke4.net/topic/10005-wish-powerslavegdx-only-pc-version/page__p__299384__hl__powerslave__fromsearch__1#entry299384), Turok 1 and 2 were very enjoyable, but the first had some terrible miss-and-you-die jumping sections, and the sequel had save-checkpoints that could seem far too infequent (I assume this was fixed on the PC version?).

I Played Alien Trilogy, and it was OK for the time but not too memorable, and then Rebellion's Alien versus Predator was released (PC only) in 2000, and blew away both Trilogy and every AvP game ever since.  AvP 2 marine storyline was good, but AvP 2010 was mediocre, and Colonial Marines was, well, just google it to see all the (mostly very justified) disappointment with that game. But Rebellion got so much right with AvP, they really did a great job of defining the three species (human, alien, and predator) and making you feel like you were inside the game world. All it was missing was a real storyline for the three campaigns, but everything ese was excellent, and no AvP game since then has duplicated the feeling of that game even half as well.

[665b256f48698voodoo47]

yeah, EX is pretty much what probably will find its way to GOG.

never had a problem with "bad" graphics - as mentioned, my major gripe with any console FPS is the lack of full mouse controls (was the case with SS1 before the mouselook mod as well, btw. basically, FPS without mouselook = no deal as far as I'm concerned). might have a look at that special version of the emulator later.

[665b256f48edbJDoran]

I don't disagree regarding the sprites. Simply inferior stylistically to the original Doom. The weapon sprites are pretty cool though.
But...the gameplay. I easily accepted a minor artistic downgrade (it could be far worse anyways). Doom 64's gameplay is pretty solid, great level design. Fine example of the 90s shooter. And if you've played tons of Doom wads this does well to mix it up visually for once. Anyhow, this game was one of my most enjoyable dooming experiences that doesn't include  playing the original back in the day.

Again, I would recommend these well before some old school PC games like Hexen. Not that Hexen is bad it's just...well the four weapon limit gets repetitive, the sometimes overly vague level design can be a bummer (though level design is otherwise good), and it's simply not all that fun. Mostly it's that four weapon limit though. Odd how much that impacts the fun in comparison to other Doom clones. It really does.

I can't remember how I felt when I first saw Doom 64's sprites, and now I don't much notice them since I'm used to them and I'm not really a visual person. My pet peeves about Doom 64 were the lack of the Archvile in single player, no multiplayer (Doom 64 splitscreen multiplayer would have been great back then), and the fact that this was the only N64 FPS I can remember where I always had to alter the controls when I played it, as it didn't save the control setup I preferred.

Voodoo47, I've had a quick look, but I can't find any mod to put the original Doom sprites into any of the Doom 64 PC fan ports, if I find one then I'll post about it here.

I only found out recently that Duke Nukem Forever, which amongst it's many flaws was cursed with a two weapon carrying limit, was actually patched in the PC version to allow four weapons. I might get the PC version and try it now, as it will be cheap enough now, and though it will still be bad, it might not be as terrible as I remember it. It probably will be, but I'm a Duke Nukem fan (Duke Nukem 3D, Duke Nukem 64, and Duke Nukem: Zero Hour) so I *really* want to not hate Duke Nukem Forever, especially since it might well be the last commercial DN game ever.

Firstly, I'm definitely in the camp of people who will forever be of the opinion that the best FPS is a FPS on the PC as gamepad controls are inferior.

With that said, here are a few FPS games I LOVED on consoles:

* Red Faction (played the PC version many years later).
* The Resistance series. The story is what hooked me into these games. And OH MY GOD Resistance 2 multiplayer 20 vs 20 was a blast. Great multiplayer.
* The Darkness - We only got the sequel on PC sadly. The first game is more of a RPG / FPS hybrid with open-world bits. Sequel had none of that.
* Medal of Honor - Frontline. Yes the first level is a complete rip-off of Saving Private Ryan but god damn is it great. Hook up a surround sound system and it sounds FANTASTIC. Love this game. If you only ever play 1 Medal if Honor game, be sure that its this one.
* Doom 64 - This game made me want a n64. Great looking game. We at least got this for PC many years later (thank you modding community)

Other console exclusive FPS that I can think of offhand include:

Armorines (not much good, and rather generic),
Agent Under Fire (a fairly basic James Bond game, it's OK but doesn't stand out in any way),
Black,
Cold Winter
Goldeneye,
Metroid Prime 1 and 2 (not exactly first person shooters, but close enough and very good. I've not played the third game as it's motion control only, sadly),
Perfect Dark,
Quake 2 on the N64 (it has different levels from the PC version, I don't like the PC version or this one, I've just never taken to Quake 1, 2, or 4),
The Killzone games,
The World is Not Enough (good on the N64, so-so on the PSX),
The Timesplitters trilogy (TS1 is very basic, TS2 is superb, and TS3 (known as Timesplitters: Future Perfect) is also absolutely first class),
Turok Rage Wars (lots of people seem to like it, but I never get why)
The Turok Trilogy,
Unreal Championship (this was ported and improved to the PC and renamed Unreal Tournament 2003),
Unreal Championship 2 (really good, and nothing like UC1)

and a few Playstation ones that I can mentally picture but can't remember the names of (I'm getting old  ).