Hundreds of computer games are born every year. Twenty years ago, this was not at all the case. The games weren't released very often, but many of them are still remembered today. This is especially true for pioneers in the shooter genre.
How it all began
The first 3D shooter was Wolfenstein 3D. It is she who is considered the founder of the genre. Wolfenstein 3D was released in May 1992 by IdSoft. The game's plot is very simple. American soldier William Blazhkovich is trying to escape from a secret Nazi castle called Wolfenstein, he is trying to prevent the castle garrison, represented by ordinary soldiers, dogs, SS soldiers, SS officers and even mutants. The game consists of six episodes, each with nine levels. At the final level of each episode, you need to defeat the "boss", in the third episode, for example, Adolf Hitler in huge mechanical armor acts as such a boss. The game gained immense popularity and opened the way for new shooters.
The next breakthrough was a game called Doom. IdSoft released this game at the end of 1993. Her plot was also not particularly intricate. An unnamed special forces soldier who refused to shoot at civilians and attacked the officer who gave the order is under arrest on a Mars satellite. Suddenly, he loses touch with his partners, escapes from his guards and tries to figure out what exactly is going on. It turns out that one of the corporations conducted experiments with teleportation on Phobos, but something went wrong, a portal opened to another dimension (hell), and terrible creatures climbed from there. The player was asked to fight zombies and demons, go through intricate maze levels and look for members of his squad. There were about twice as many weapons in this game as in Wolfenstein 3D, and the levels weren't flat. Maps varied in height, there were stairs, elevators, lifts. Monsters could use differences in height, especially in this regard, flying hellish creatures are unpleasant. The game had a sequel, distinguished by the furious complexity of the levels and a huge number of monsters.
Revolution in the genre
The third of the whales that shooters rely on is Quake. This game was released three years after the first Doom by the same idSoft. The plot of this game is very similar to Doom. You have to play as an unnamed soldier, who at some point finds out that a certain enemy, codenamed Quake, began to send real legions of death through a special gate called the Slipgate. You are invited to lead a retaliatory operation, go through the gates to another dimension and destroy the enemy on its territory. The first Quake had twenty-eight levels that were grouped into four episodes. Each episode represented a separate dimension. This game had plenty of weapons, a dark atmosphere, a variety of rather frightening enemies and a completely three-dimensional engine. Whereas in previous idSoft games, various monsters and objects were just flat sprite drawings with animation, in Quake, the enemies and environment were mostly real polygonal models, which at that time became a real revolution in computer games.
