The evolution of gaming: computers, consoles, and arcade


First-person shooters

Hovertank 3D(1991)

Hovertank was the first 3D game
written by the id software coders

Hardware: IBM PC (286 @ 16 MHz)

There were other games that presented the player with a three-dimensional view of the world before Hovertank, but this game was one of the first to update the display in real-time. The player raced a futuristic hovertank around colorful corridors, blasting enemies that were rendered as scaled sprites.

All walls were of equal height, and all wall angles were 90 degrees. Ceilings were not rendered, The walls and floor were rendered with plain colors, and enemies as flat sprites. Unlike later FPS games, the player raced against the clock to complete each mission.

Wolfenstein 3D

Wolfenstein set the basic game play for all FPS games to come

Hardware: IBM PC (286 @ 16 MHz)

After Hovertank, the id programmers looked to the past for inspiration. They found it from an old, 2-dimensional Apple ][ game called Escape from Castle Wolfenstein. The player was trapped inside a Nazi fortress in World War II, and had to fight guards, attack dogs, and tough end bosses to survive.

All walls were still of equal height and all angles still 90 degrees. However, walls now were painted with texture maps. Ceilings and floors were still flat shaded, although flat, sprite-based light fixtures dotted the ceiling. Enemies and other in-game objects were flat scaled sprites, which looked the same no matter what angle the player viewed them from. For the first time, the player's weapon was visible.

The game had no time limits. The idea of requiring certain colored keys to progress through like-colored doors was added, and was used in many FPS games to come. The player's face was rendered as a small graphic in the status bar, and would look worse and worse the more damage the player accumulated.

Doom (1993)

Doom brought gaming into the mainstream,
even earning a mention on Friends

Hardware: IBM PC: (386 @ 16 MHz)

DOOM was id software's first breakout hit, selling millions of copies and catapulting the company into the ranks of the elite game producers. The game was fast, scary and fun, and made a significant mark on pop culture. It was most likely responsible for turning the IBM PC into the premiere and dominant game computer, overshadowing the Amiga (the Amiga's planar graphics architecture, which made side-scrolling games run so smoothly, was a disadvantage when it came to 3D games).

For the first time, angles other than 90 degrees were possible to render in-game. While the engine still could not render full areas above other areas (ruling out bridges and tunnels) it could seamlessly connect areas of one elevation to another, making staircases possible.

The game engine did not allow a full 360 degree vertical view. You could look up and down, but not straight up or straight down. All architectural elements were texture mapped, but enemies and in-game objects were still flat scaled sprites, meaning they looked the same from every angle.

Game play was similar to Wolfenstein 3D, with color-coded keys still required to finish each level. However, the monsters could now damage each other by accident, and would sometimes even start fighting each other if this happened too often. This added another strategic option to the game play. In addition, sneaky monsters could turn off the lights at certain points in the level.

In addition to the single player game, multiplayer "Deathmatches" were available over modem connections or a local area network.

Quake (1996)

Quake added true 3D to the 3D FPS genre

Hardware: IBM PC (Pentium @ 60 MHz)

Quake represented two significant advances in the FPS genre: true 3D representation of the world, and the ability to host and play multiplayer games over the Internet. The 3D engine meant that all items in the world, including monsters and objects, were rendered as full texture-mapped 3D objects. Levels could exist on top of other levels, and the player could look 180 degrees up or down.

The game play at times seemed a bit confused, as the game had started out as a medieval role-playing game and slowly morphed into a standard sci-fi first person shooter over time. This left many levels that looked like cathedrals, and certain weapons (like the axe) that seemed a bit out of place. Nevertheless, the game was a smashing success and went on to do even better than Doom.

The game supported a wide variety of screen resolutions, making it still capable of looking good years after the graphics technology had been surpassed. Furthermore, a free update called GLQuake was released to support the new 3D graphics cards—including the massively popular 3DFX—that had taken the PC gaming world by storm. GLQuake make the textures look better and less pixelated, and made the game run smoother and at higher frame rates.

Quake 3 (1999)

The Quake 3 engine was used for dozens of games

Hardware: IBM PC (Pentium II @ 200 MHz)

Quake 3 was a departure for id software in that it eschewed the single player game entirely, focusing only on multiplayer deathmatch. While this disappointed some fans of the series, the improvements in the graphics engine more than made up for this deficiency. Better yet, the graphics engine wound up powering many great single-player games from other companies, such as Alice and Jedi Knight II.

The engine built on Quake II's use of colored lighting and added support for curved architecture, as seen in the screen shot. The walls were not actually curved, but the game engine figured out how many short straight segments it could use to maximize the curved look while still keeping frame rates high.

The basic deathmatch game was later enhanced with add-on packs offering new modes of play, including Capture the Flag.

Half-Life 2 (2004)

Half-Life 2 raised the bar for the genre.

Hardware: IBM PC (Pentium 4 @ 1.2 GHz)

The original Half-Life was built on an enhanced version of the Quake II engine, but for the sequel, Valve software built their own graphics engine from the ground up. Called Source, it featured many new advanced features—such as bump mapping—that made the world seem more realistic than ever. Thanks to bump mapping, the player could shoot a bullet into a steel barrel and see a realistic indentation.

The game play was enhanced as well. Valve licensed the Havoc physics engine, which made objects fall and move realistically. In addition, they added a new weapon, the gravity gun, which was like a license to play with objects. In some levels, found items like circular steel saws could be manipulated with the gun and used as weapons.

The game supported both single- and multiplayer modes. Recently, a new graphics technology called High Dynamic Range lighting was showcased on the Half Life 2 engine, for use in all future Valve Games.

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