How Do Early 2000's FPS Stack Up to Today's Games?

Early Shooters in the Post 64 Bit Age

Ever since Goldeneye and Turok climbed out of the primordial ooze and looked brightly into the future of right analog sticks, shooters in the early 2000's were a mixed bag of old school and new school. A ton has changed in the last 18 years, but most changes can be anchored to the Call of Duty and Halo series. I want to take a look at the significant movements and habits of the Post Doom, Pre CoD era and see if we are better off. I will look at 4 different iconic games.

Medal of Honor: Allied Assault

Most Compared To: Call of Duty, Battlefield, Ghost Recon

Publisher: EA

System: PC

Year Released: 2002 

Before we were called to duty, we were trying to earn our Medal of Honor. Mission based FPS games were a product of the late nineties with Golden Eye and Half-Life, but Electronic Arts wanted to throw a World War 2 shooter in the mix. Complete with Stephen Spielberg's creative direction and a development team that would later form Call of Duty, MoH was a mix of slick shooting and exciting espionage. MoH would be the poster child for linear game play that involved walking up to an objective, hitting a button, and moving to the next objective. Today's games owe Medal of Honor a great deal of thanks for creating the exciting world of corridor walking, clearing a room, and moving on to the next problem. The only real difference is that modern FPS's added more cinematics and atmosphere.

Today's games owe Medal of Honor a great deal of thanks for creating the exciting world of corridor walking, clearing a room, and moving on to the next problem.  

Red Faction 2

Most Compared To: Halo, Bioshock Infinite, FEAR
Publisher: THQ
System: PS2, Xbx, GC, PC
Year Released: 2002

 Red Faction is one of those games that you either knew about because you had a hungry trigger finger and needed some aliens to shoot or you were waiting for Halo 2 to come out. It was one of the last FPS games to utilize the classic rules of shooters including: non regenerating health, holding 10 guns at once, no duck and cover system, and no iron sights. But it also gave gamers the ability to blow up their own tunnels or destroy bridges with rocket powered weapons. Plus, each gun had a secondary function, which gave players 2x the tactics for blowing stuff up. RF2 felt like Quake, but promised a lot of fun for those who wanted to just run and gun mindlessly. Modern shooters still have remnants of what made RF2 so much stupid fun. 

RF2 felt like Quake, but promised a lot of fun for those who wanted to just run and gun mindlessly. Modern shooters still have remnants of what made RF2 so much stupid fun. 

 Time Splitters 2

Most Compared To: Unreal Tournament and Tower of Guns
Publisher: Free Radical Design
System: PS2, Xbx, GC
Year Released: 2002

Without flinching I can say that every indie and AAA gaming company wishes they could come out with something as spectacular as TS 2. No game since its inception has been able to combine the creativity of time traveling, the massive modes, the multiplayer mayhem, and the wonderful fun that was TS 2. It amazes me that no one has locked down an HD remaster of this yet. Time Splitters came about when the consoles really had to prove that they were not wasting PC gamer's time. Free Radical Design threw every cool thing they could think of to make a game that was insanely charming, but loaded with tons of content (we call that DLC now).