h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Wolfenstein kicked it all off - but only got as far as it did by being available as shareware. By the time Doom was released, again as shareware, the gaming community had been so shaken up by Wolfenstein, they were expecting a revelation from iD - and they got one. After the enormous success of Doom, many, many other companies tried to copy the format, resulting in a plethora of mediocre games that simply involved shooting everying in sight (sounds familiar...). Doom was more subtle than that. The whole reason for its success was its atmosphere and the sense of exhiliration it produced. Quake was one of the first truly 3D shooters. It was followed by Unreal, which has arguably the best graphics engine of any game yet. Quake II came along, and was popular enough on the internet to ensure that iD could produce Quake III arena, and that Unreal Tournament was produced, both with stunning graphics (a fast 3D card is recommended for either!) These games are opening up internet play in a big way, and will continue to do so for some time yet. However, these games are not necessarily the future. Games such as Half-life and System shock 2 have come along with their plot-driven, problem-solving basis, and have proved immensely popular with much of the gaming community. What's next? Only time will tell...

Two words - Doom GL!!!!!!

(prehaps im biased... )

I've just bought Half-life - I'm running it with 1024x768 res in OpenGL mode. The graphics are incredible, but the gameplay's even better. You should get it.

Half life is supposed to be brilliant, yes!

Have you seen unreal yet?

I haven't played Unreal, or Tournament, but they look good. The graphics on Tournament are amazing.

Oh yes....

My brothers just got a K6II 400 with a 3d Gl supporting card. Grr.....

It runs unreral goooooood....

How did he come by that? And what system are you running now?

Just a thought... You still got a LAN set up? Just thinking about that network Quake game we had... that's a lot of frags.

Yup, but as phone calls are free here me and a friend frequently make it to bout 60 kills in Doom, but thats just me....

NETWORK TA!!!!!

(did I just type that?)