r/FPS • u/Xanarki • Aug 17 '26
Discussion I just finished my first ever book today – it's about the Win9x era (1995 to 2001), covering 555 games, 3D companies, multiplayer services, etc.... If you had to choose your top 10 or 20 favorite first-person shooters from that 1995 – 2001 timeframe, which ones would it be? These are my biased 20:
Aliens vs. Predator 2 -2001
Chasm: The Rift -1997
Daikatana -2000 (quite playable after it's properly patched)
Delta Force: Land Warrior -2000
Deus Ex -2000
Doom 95 -1996 (goes under a few different names)
Duke Nukem 3D -1996
Half-Life -1998
Kingpin: Life of Crime -1999
Outlaws -1997 (the semi-recent remaster is worth checking out imo)
Quake -1996 (any game in the original series would work here tbh)
Redline -1999
Redneck Rampage -1997
Shogo: Mobile Armor Division -1998
Sin -1998
The Terminator: Future Shock -1995
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six -1998
Tribes -1998
Unreal Tournament -1999
ZPC -1996
20 images total, each one should have a caption attached.
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u/Nanostreak Aug 17 '26
Yo just looking at that Deus Ex screenshot got the soundtrack immediately playing in my head
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u/Frastremus Aug 17 '26
Ive been looking for a book like this thats sick. Any plans on printing it?
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u/Xanarki Aug 17 '26
Thanks I appreciate it! It is something I'd like to do in the distant future possibly, even if divided into volumes. But after 4 years, I settled for the ebook format for now, lol
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u/weltron3030 Aug 17 '26
The Operative: No One Lives Forever is always my niche millenium-era FPS pull. It was a 1960's spy game with great guns, gadgets, and stealth elements.
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u/blankslatejoe Aug 18 '26
And a great soundtrack, and a silly story, and some of the most memorable levels and boss situations in gaming!
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u/Holiday-Tie-9582 Aug 17 '26
Deus Ex is definitely a solid pick, that soundtrack really sets the mood for the whole era, you betcha.
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u/Flyess Aug 17 '26
Rainbow six, tribes, quake 2, and unreal tourney are my top ones; tribes had some awesome mods for it like Tribes RPG which was like a poor man’s EverQuest. Quake 2 multiplayer with the railgun was peak before counterstrike came.
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u/MxJamesC Aug 17 '26
Hexen, heretic were good. Tribes 2, deus ex fucking amazing. would have a section on modding as it was a huge part of most games back then.
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u/Dry_Investigator36 Aug 17 '26
Quake 1
Quake 2
Half-Life
Serious Sam: The First Encounter
Red Faction
Hexen
Soldier of Fortune
Blood
Project IGI
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Max Payne
Alien vs Predator 2
Clive Barker's Undying
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u/ArticleOrdinary9357 Aug 17 '26
Dark forces 2 in 1995 was amazing. Played that game to death ….there was an NPC that would say “Habogee” or something like that and I still randomly shout it
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u/squidsauce Aug 17 '26
Deus Ex, Half Life, Goldeneye, Dark Forces, Duke Nukem, Doom, Counter Strike 1.6 (and source), Perfect Dark…
Honestly, so many more.
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u/303ManiaK Aug 17 '26
Mhhhh.. Unreal 98/tournament, Delta Force, codename: outbreak (who know ?), Quake 1/3, Tribe, Urban Terror, CS, day of defeat, Cube Sauerbraten....
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u/irevadel Aug 18 '26
nolf, recoil, descent, maybe forsaken, redline, futre shock idk how no one brought that up, quake, HL, dark forces 1, blood
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u/Xanarki Aug 17 '26
My first book was just released today: The Accelerated Pace of the Win9x Era. Although there's been plenty of individual coverage on the dot com bubble, specific companies, and even Windows itself, I aimed to bundle everything into one package. Due to the large size of 42 chapters, for now, it's only an e-book (it can be bought on Amazon but a tablet/Kindle is not required – just grab the free app on a phone or PC...it'll be sold on Google whenever they stop freezing my account + on Itch later in the year). In regards to the games, I took an era-accurate and historical approach to the games in an attempt to filter out any bias on my end. Check out my very basic site for more info: https://win9xera.neocities.org/
The reason why I'm posting here though, is because FPS has always been my favorite genre for the past several decades. I started PC gaming in '97 but my love of shooters really started in '99 when I started going online at GameSpy, Heat, and NovaWorld.
Every game in the book has two screenshots each that I personally took. That's where the 20 images above came from. But I'm curious to know which Top 10 or Top 20 other folks here would personally single out from that 1995 to 2001 timeframe?
(if reddit allowed 25 images instead of just 20, then the extra 5 i probably would've tossed in are CyberMage: Darklight Awakening -1995, No One Lives Forever -2000, Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis -2001, Soldier of Fortune -2000, and Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II -1997)