This is why I love this board

[Royce]

Wow I didn't even know there was a new CoD.........I thought they just released one like 8 months ago. I guess I fail as an 18 year old. I used to play one of them at my friends house. I thought it was a boring and forgettable experience. I would liken it to football games in more than one way. I do enjoy Battlefield Games though, and Zero Tolerance is my favorite game on Genesis. And hey nothing is wrong with pimples!

[NeoZeedeater]

The only two that come to mind that raise the bar higher than GoldenEye are Perfect Dark and Halo. Perfect Dark introduced Alternate Fire and AI Bots if I remember correctly. Halo gave us Vehicles and polished the gameplay up a bit more. I think Halo was the first FPS I played that gave you a flashlight and Grenades as secondary items that you didn't have to switch weapons to use.

Dynamix's Tribes and Tribes 2 also created some great team-based multiplayer gameplay and pioneered the use of vehicles.

Not to mention Bethesda's Terminator games, the 1991 game being first-person GTA predecessor and the 1996 game being more of a modern-style FPS with vehicles.

AI bots and alternate fire were common in PC FPS long before Perfect Dark.

[Kamahl]

Halo 2: Matchmaking over LIVE - join up with your friends around the country and take on a unending host of skilled human opponents any time of the day or night.

Shame the weapons and vehicles suck and feel like cheap chinese toys instead of weapons. Graphical glitches, short and stupid storyline.

The Halo campaign experience with next-gen presentation and scope. An evolution of Halo 2 multiplayer with several years' worth of improvements, adjustments, and twists.

Definitely and improvement, but still not on par with the first halo. Stuff still feels wrong (and I don't mean just in comparison), the campaign is still crap (although longer), and the graphics are barely next gen.

Halo Reach: Completely overhauled multiplayer gameplay and an epic new campaign as a series of Spartans very different from Master Chief.

Second best halo. Campaign is a lot better than Halo 3, but no one could get attached to the characters. The script is forced and numerous events make little sense. Love the weapons, at least Reach made weapons feel like weapons again.

And the spin-offs:

Halo Wars: A solid RTS experience from the Age of Empires team, delivered with panache on console controllers and Xbox LIVE.

Overly simplistic strategy game. It's simplistic compared to Warcraft 2... That's just too much.

Halo ODST: A more intimate campaign as the weaker human ODST soldiers for fans of the universe who want a different perspective. A very challenging and unpredictable survival mode in the form of Horde.

Loved the idea but the execution left a lot to be desired. You're an ODST guy and yet you're almost as strong as master chief... Campaign still had a crappy story but better than 2.

[gamevet]

Not to mention Bethesda's Terminator games, the 1991 game being first-person GTA predecessor and the 1996 game being more of a modern-style FPS with vehicles.

AI bots and alternate fire were common in PC FPS long before Perfect Dark.

Didn't Quake have BOTs as well?

[TrekkiesUnite118]

Not to mention Bethesda's Terminator games, the 1991 game being first-person GTA predecessor and the 1996 game being more of a modern-style FPS with vehicles.

AI bots and alternate fire were common in PC FPS long before Perfect Dark.

Ah, didn't know about that. I didn't really have a good PC that could handle FPS's until about 2000. So my only experience with PC shooters before that was Doom, Wolfenstein 3D. I had some experience with Quake, but never on multiplayer.

[old man]

I don't have the patience or initiative to wait for new games to load, much less play through their tutorials. Also, Halo 1 was the best Halo.

[Breetai]

Goldeneye? Really? Do ANY of you realize that Zero Tolerance came way before Goldeneye?

Yup, and Doom, and Wolf3D.

Hmmm... I've never heard of Wolf3D. Was it in the Genesis or 32X? I know Doom is a 32X game, but I'm pretty sure it was released after Zero Tolerance.

[kool kitty89]

See, that's what I'm talking about. Retro gamers will play hundreds of marginally different platformers, shmups, and fighting games and argue over the minuscule differences and variations between them for hours, but when it comes to first person shooters suddenly every game is identical all the way back to Goldeneye 64.

Yes, this is a problem when people have a massive bias towards certain genres . . . not to mention nostalgia.

There's a huge percentage of retro enthusiasts that are drawn to the genres popular of those eras that are no longer popular . . . especially various 2D genres, but especially platformers (and related sicescrolling adventure/action games).
Which makes sense, since those genres are no longer popular and people with such bias/preference are largely stuck with the older systems. (or you have even more specifically biased fans of really old games -like people who specifically prefer the simple arcade games from the 70s and early 80s- and even show disdain for later era stuff -I've seen that from some people on Atariage )

Then you have other retro enthusiasts who like a variety of genres (perhaps even preferring some of the modern/3D-specific genres over older ones), but still take an interest in older games in spite of that . . . sometimes without having any nostalgia at all. (but rather curiosity or general interest in things you missed out on -either by being too young/not born yet, or simply not having access/interest when they were new)

I certainly fall into the latter category . . . there's a number of genres that I prefer that are still big, and some others that have fallen into obscurity. (though one of my favorites is still a 3D-centric genres, and one that peaked in the mid/late 90s at that, but fell into obscurity since -that's sci-fi/space themed sim style flight combat games -the air combat games still have a fair bit more support though)

I'm not actually a big fan of platformers, though there's a few I really like, but in general I certainly like to go though old systems and find neat stuff that's "new" to me, especially if a system is cheap to collect for. (systems with good/accurate emulation are also nice -especially older ones with small game sizes -ie almost anything non-CD . . . flash carts or mod chips are nice too )

For that same reason, I take an interest in many of the old 3D/pseudo 3D games and many early/primitive games in general from the 70s/early 80s. (some of which have much better looking/sounding/playing counterparts on later systems, but are still fun/neat to experience)

Part of it is definitely the historical novelty for me . . . and there's the fact that a lot of the stuff is plain fun regardless (and I have a broad enough preference of genres that I can have fun with a lot of stuff . . . but some things definitely more than others -especially if limited to singleplayer, since I might play something multiplayer that I'd never care to single player -like some fighting games . . . though multiplayer with games I really like is even better -so long as I can find someone else who wants to play them ).

Of course, for me, there's also the complementing interest in historical (and tech stuff) side of consoles . . . and computers, among other things.

I wouldn't say my own statement on the subject had "no provocation or reason" though. Sorry if I didn't elaborate enough, but the truth is, no matter how much mac wants its OS to be conveyed as "user-friendly", they're light-years away from the stupid-easy interphase that is (actally, WAS) the PC. Now, Windows Vista and 7, those are just as useless imo. I personally need customizability in my own belongings (I paid an arm and a leg for these computerthingies, might as well actually, you know, be able to own them). These new Operating Systems nowadays are all banking on their marketing value (more like, marketing on Mac's OS marketing value), and give less and less practicality/functionality/customizability/(take-your-pick/make-one-up) with every new one. I know that's not just me, but I know I must make it my own statement; so there you go.

I'm thrilled that you're ruling for your own Mac, though; as it's been years since I've heard someone honestly speaking of Mac with such conviction. It's refreshing. I wouldn't at all mind some elaboration on your part, or a desktop picture or two.

P.S.> Don't get me wrong, I want to like Mac and it's OS as much as they want to shove it down my throat, but I just can't digest their marketing strategies (which very much resonates in their own product as "the computer for the computer-illiterate".) So, once again, it's refreshing to hear this from someone with conviction rather than a fresh dude in his early 20s trying to pass-up as cool and hip, or whatever these children call it nowadays.

There's still hope with Linux, since that's not driving by mainstream interest or (especially) marketing/profits . . . though it's certainly a shame that the actual sonsumer market doesn't drive interest in companies to produce a genuinely good quality/efficient project above anything else. (but that's the way things are in almost every consumer market . . . quality/utility is important to a point, but there are many other priorities to consider for actual market success and profitability . . . it's partially due to human nature and the relative percentage of average and/or dumb consumers who can't discern the real honest value/utility of a product)

Mac laptops have the only usable trackpads, and have great battery life even with wifi on and doing intensive shit like 3D rendering (at least the 13'' models on OSX, the windows drivers are abysmal).
Macs aren't designed to be customizable because consistency used to be a core goal of the system. Apple has always had problems with it though, they were going in the right direction with leopard, but recently they've taken a dump all over that, which is a shame since I agree with the idea of having a consistent user experience.
Snow Leopard is on par with Windows 7.
Lion sucks, and so will Windows 8.

I've been perfectly happy with my HP Pavilion's trac-pad . . . and many other PC laptops for that matter (and, of course, ther's the knub alternative that some prefer -I know my dad much preferred that option with his Thinkpads).
I've used plenty of macs too, mostly in school (high school and college) and plenty of time with laptops included in that. And, honestly, I've never been that impressed . . .

Keeping with the input mechanism side of things: the iMac era notebook keyboards tend to suck (at least those from the last 7 years), and the shift to that for mainstay mac desktop models was laughable IMO (talk about form over function -though I don't really find them that attractive either . . . the previous gen with full-throw keyboards looked better and certainly worked much better). Though some of the older Macbook keyboards are nice, and the current Macbook pro keyboards are quite nice too. (much closer to better examples on PC notebooks, including my 9000 series Pavilion -albeit several manufacuterers have recently gone with macbook-like crap)
The first paty mice are annoying . . . and that's been true for decades in different areas.

And the actual OS/software/performance end of things is rather hit and miss too. Albeit I'm coming from the context of having people at home who know how to set things up themselves and tweak things to get it right (thanks to my Dad), and that's the same reason we've almost exclusively used homebuilt PC systems (aside from laptops). But in that context, I've never seen much advantage in what Mac OS offers overall . . . and the lack of customization/tweaks/3rd party patches is a major downside. (of course, Linux is even better in that respect . . . but much less mainstream software support -vs windows with mainstream support and better customization/tweak options than Mac OS . . . and the greater hardware flexibility of most PCs over macs)
Hell, it's that ability for tweaks and interest from 3rd parties (including some homebrew stuff) that's kept some windows OSs accessible/usable long after MS dropped official support (which is especially good since many older OSs are more efficient/less bloated than newer ones . . . in part due to resource efficiency being a lower priority for marketing/management than other aspects -which, is true from an actual market standpoint, unfortunately . . . if actual performance/efficiency/compatibility/usability were the primary driving forces in market success we'd probably see very different software than we do today )

There was a time when Mac Pro workstations and Macbook pros were good values relative to the hardware they offered (and in some cases, there weren't any PC alternatives -especially notebooks with high-end graphics chipsets), but that's also changed in the last few years. (albeit the Mac options are still fairly price-competitive with PC counterparts in some cases . . . certainly not like the difference in average Mac/Macbook vs PC dektop/tower/notebook machines)

[Mr Smith]

The reason I love Sega-16 is that is most threads are derailed on the first page and two forum member often take the subject so seriously they end up writing a post that takes a couple of hours to read - you can just feel the passion resonating from a subject nobody cares about.

All modern FPS are simply reworkings of the original Goldeneye - they take all the elements that made that game so utterly amazing, do their own graphics, name the weapons differently and it still never turns out as good.

Well, I may not have proven my second point, but I think the first one is on the brink of being shown to be correct! Only on Sega-16 could a discussion about Call of Duty have transformed into a discussion about the entire FPS genere - Do not change, Sega-16, this is what makes it so awesome.

PS. I have posted this on my blackberry - how uber cool am I?

[Cornholio857]

Not to mention Bethesda's Terminator games

Oh hell yes! One of my favorite DOS games!

[Barone]

The only two that come to mind that raise the bar higher than GoldenEye are Perfect Dark and Halo. Perfect Dark introduced Alternate Fire and AI Bots if I remember correctly.

Unreal didn't have it in 1998?

Ah, didn't know about that. I didn't really have a good PC that could handle FPS's until about 2000. So my only experience with PC shooters before that was Doom, Wolfenstein 3D. I had some experience with Quake, but never on multiplayer.

I'd say that maybe during the 8-bit and 16-bit eras we have many innovations coming from dedicated console exclusive games in several genres; consoles were much more popular than PCs for gaming purposes at that time. However, several of the innovative games that many people will list from those eras were already inspired on older Japanese computer games or European computer games...

Strongly since 1996 (thanks to the MMX technology and the first 3D hardware accelerators video cards, and its appealing to the gamers and developers) the vast majority of innovative elements in games moved to the PC games (as I can remember...); mainly in those CPU/GPU-eater genres that could also greatly benefit from using keyboard and mouse inputs, like 3D simulators and FPS games (but also Racing). Other genres like platformers already had their share since Amiga.
Some genres, like fighters, remained focused on arcades and consoles though...
N64 came out in this context and, as a PC gamer at the time, I hardly remember something really innovative in its library or that wowed me in terms of graphics and/or presentation quality. The cartridge limitation didn't help, since it couldn't give me something like this (1997):

[TrekkiesUnite118]

Unreal didn't have it in 1998?

Oh yeah, I forgot about Unreal Tournament.

Again though, I didn't have a PC capable of running these games at the time, so I kind of forget they were out that early.

But still the point still stands that more has been done with the Genre since Goldeneye.

[Pulstar]

FUCK Call of Booty and FUCK Bobby Kodick. Now rep me for I am a karma whore!

[kool kitty89]

Oh yeah, I forgot about Unreal Tournament.

Again though, I didn't have a PC capable of running these games at the time, so I kind of forget they were out that early.

I think he meant Unreal . . . you know, the epic story-based single-player game? (which was released in early '98 rather than late 1999 like Tournament)

It came out after Quake II, and was similar in some respects, but a much better/more epic feeling game IMO. (I didn't play either back then, but I used to watch my dad play it and "back seat" game to some extent . . . he was the one with the really nice gaming machine/workstation at the time too with the Voodoo, though the Rage Pro of the shared/family computer certainly wasn't bad at all for the time -and he actually hacked together some beta drivers to get DVD playback working on the technically non-supported PCI Rage Pro . . . but ATi only officially supported DVD on the AGP versions, not that it mattered for games -that's just the story of our first DVD player, with the Rage's composite out hooked to the near-by family room TV )

And I know Tiido probably wouldn't agree here (especially compared to Quake II's metal soundtrack), but the epic/orchestral/ambient/cinematic quality of Unreal's soundtrack is very fitting . . . and relatively new at the time. (of course, since then, a huge number of FPS games -among other genres- have taken that route . . . Halo of course being a big one)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utHahu-8NFQ


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HW7-y5y9FE


Also interesting to note that all of unreal's sound/music is done in MOD/music Module/tracker format . . . so not limited by what sound card used (as long as it has PCM/DMA output and compatible drivers) and also not limited by general midi or other fixed synth/sample formats . . . while also conserving space compared to uncompressed CD-DA or Wav files. (and at a time when MP3 decoding wasn't practical -not to mention fast/dynamic track/SFX changes and mixing of multiple tracks -without the overhead of decoding several MP3 streams)
Albeit obviously well beyond the common Amiga MOD formats, or at least well beyond what was used in any games. (you'd need an Amiga with a few MBs and enough CPU resource to do all the mixing in software -with PAULA just handling the playback)

Heh, for that matter, that would make the sound generation a bit closer to what the N64 did most of the time. (and some multiplat N64/PC titles like Rogue Squadron and BFN)


Edit:
Oh, and it seems Unreal (or the expansion Return to Na Pali, or Unreal 2) was never ported to any consoles . . . the timing and technical qualities were just about right for the dreamcast too. (prior to Halo, where there any truly epic style/quality FPSs on consoles?) Hmm, it actually might have been possible to push in time as a North American DC launch title (since the PC game was released some 16 months before the DC's US launch) . . . especially as an exclusive. (which it obviously would have been until the PS2 at the very least, since no other consoles could handle it)

Strongly since 1996 (thanks to the MMX technology and the first 3D hardware accelerators video cards, and its appealing to the gamers and developers) the vast majority of innovative elements in games moved to the PC games (as I can remember...); mainly in those CPU/GPU-eater genres that could also greatly benefit from using keyboard and mouse inputs, like 3D simulators and FPS games (but also Racing). Other genres like platformers already had their share since Amiga.
Some genres, like fighters, remained focused on arcades and consoles though...

PC games were innovating long before that, and (as always) limited mostly to specific genres . . . obviously 2D platformers and other console/arcade rich games weren't among those, and neither were JRPGs (though that, among several other genres were significantly built upon in JP computer platforms -especially the PC88/98 . . . roughly the IBM compatible counterpart of Japan).

Starting back in the 70s you had the early text adventures specific to various computer platforms, certain strategy/tactical games (including several sci-fi themed ones), followed by graphic adventures (especially Sierra's), RPGs (especially Origin's), more/expanded text based games (especially Infocom's), Infocom's Battletch series of strategy/sim games, various flight/space/etc simulators (mostly flying -be it realistic or fantasy -but a few things like Mech Warrior and Stellar 7), and you had Lucasfilm's increasing presence in the late 80s too (especially with the rise of their graphic adventures).

By the beginning of the 90s you saw a continuation from nearly all of those (and a few others popping into significance -like Apogee, Epic Megagames, and id) with graphic adventures (including the ride of high quality Lucas Arts titles), RPGs/dungeon crawlers, flight/space sims (especially with the WWII themed Lucas Arts games and Wing Commander), among other things. (more RTS type games and world simulators/god games appearing too -Sim City, Populous, etc) And at the same time, VGA and Adlib/Soundblaster support had become the defacto standard (aside from some really low-end targeted shareware games), and significant use of the SB's PCM capabilities was starting to occur. (of course, you also had many gamessupporting MT32 sound for really high-end users -or musicians who liked games )
In the early 90s there was the rise of multimedia features in games, starting with significant use of animated cutscenes and speech (Wing Commander II and several Lucas Arts titles did that -some of Sierra's began using it too, among others) . . . It also seemed like multimedia got big for edutainment stuff perhaps even faster than mainstream games.

Then you had the introduction of CD-ROM multimedia games, especially the FMV stuff and graphic adventures heavily relying on FMV and detailed still BGs (like Myst, 7th guest, Uninvited, Return to Zork, etc), Day of the Tentacle and Rebel Assault was a big one too among the many CD (and some multi-floppy) major multimedia releases of 1993/94. (along with a lot of edutainment stuff too)

Then you had the 3D/pseudo 3D stuff . . . from the various polygon and scaled bitmap games rising from the 80s and a few ray-casting based games as well, but 3D really exploded in the early 90s and started pushing into the mainstream with the likes of Wolf 3D in '92 and X-Wing and Doom in '93. (X-Wing also featuring considerable multimedia aspects -with the cutscenes and such, though the original floppy release had very limited speech/sampled SFX use -part of that almost certainly related to the 1 MB RAM requirement . . . actually interesting they catered to such low-end systems when Doom was pushing 4 MB minimum -as well as several other '93 releases- given X-Wing was undoubtedly a higher budget game than Doom or some of those others)

1994 was really significant in general, marking the release of many of the aforementioned CD/multimedia games, the CD re-release of X-Wing (with gouraud shading, an improved music engine, and much more speech/SFX, though the CD itself was mostly empty at 74 MB -also a 4 MB RAM requirement vs 1 MB of the original), plus the release of Tie Fighter (floppy version), and among others, perhaps one of the most significant is Wing Commander III.

WC III is notable in so many areas from the use of fully texture mapped polygonal 3D to the quality use of multimedia, but among those it marks one of the first really high production value games produced . . . and not just an FMV game (or graphic adventure loaded with FMV/multimedia), but a "conventional" game of the 3D space sin genre using cinema cutscenes and semi-interactive multimedia rich "overworld" (ie onboard the carrier ship -outside of in-game/mission play) with a rich and engaging story and high quality acting/directing/costumes/makeup/effects (including big name actors and tactful use of CGI where it was most fitting -ie with the limited CGI of the day, best fitting some BGs and space scenes, leaving the rest to conventional live action and special effects).

The 4 million dollar budget was surpassed rather quickly by even more massive high-end game projects of the mid 90s, but it's still quite notable. Though among those higher production value games was Wing Commander IV at some 12 million dollars with a massive amount of multimedia content and cutscenes. (also notable as including some actual interactive movie features -you had branching paths to choose within the cutscenes . . . I don't know if any other games did that -aside from pure interactive movies- let alone did it as well as WCIV)

That same year as WCIV (1995), Dark Forces, Full Throttle, and Rebel Assault II were released, among a few other notable titles. (and the CD version of Tie Fighter -fully expanded and nearly a full CD's worth of multimedia content at 515 MB vs the 74 MB X-Wing)


All of that predated use of hardware graphics acceleration . . . everything was done with software rendering in 256 colors (VGA or SVGA) . . . or CGA/EGA (or others for non-PC platforms) for some of the very early stuff (and text was text, of course).
The original Quake and Duke Nukem 3D releases of 1996 also lacked hardware acceleration, though accelerated versions of Quake soon followed.

The first major consumer level 3D acclerators appeared in 1995 (ATi's Rage, Nvidia's NV1, and S3's ViRGE -of which, only Rage had the greatest success by far with substantial evolution/expansion of the design), and all of those were combo 2D/3D accelerators (with conventional VGA/SVGA support, 2D acceleration, and 3D acceleration -though Rage also added MPEG-1 acceleration), while 3DFX's Voodoo didn't arrive until the next year and was an add-on card only (intended to be used in addition to a conventional 2D accelerator or simple VGA/SVGA card), though quite high-end and expensive at the time. (the RAGE II also arrived in 1996, with considerably improve performance and MPEG-2 support)
However, it really wasn't until 1996 that any games got significant 3D acceleration support. (Quake, Tomb Raider, and Mechwarrior 2 come to mind -and while the latter was out in '95, I'm not sure any of the accelerated versions were released before '96) I think Sonic CD in '95 may have had 2D acceleration support. (it was definitely an API/library programmed windows-specific game, though the original release didn't use Direct X -the slightly later re-release did)

There has been some other cases of accelerated games prior to that, but few and far between (and not really significant). Most 2D acceleration support was for GUIs and GUI/windos-specific applications . . . and that's also where most accelerated games came in: you had a handful of accelerated DOS games, but the vast majority supported acceleration in Windows, and did so in large part due to the API support in windows -from the "standard" Open GL and DirectX to the variety of hardware company specific APIs of the mid/late 90s (like 3DFX's Glide and Nvidia, ATi, Matrox, and S3's libraries -and a few custom APIs from game developers done for early accelerators that had low-level documentation available to facilitate such custom tool development -such documentation largely disappeared when DOS support died . . . Argonaut was notable for porting their own API to the PSX and some PC accelerators -I believe Rage was among them).


However, while game design and such may have been innovative and ahead of the bar on PC (for certain genres at least), the pre-hardware accelerated stuff still generally fell behind what the likes of the PSX and Saturn (or in some cases 3DO or Jaguar) were pushing. In particular, there was the issue that nearly all PC games were rendering in 256 colors (something that most software renderers continued well into the late 90s -Tomb Raider II doesn't support a highcolor software renderer, but supports highcolor and truecolor with acceleration), though several unaccelerated games still had considerable advantages in texture detail, polygon count, perspective correction, and/or screen resolution. (640x480 and higher res was particularly common to have from 1995 onward . . . Tomb Raider supported that without accleration as well as high-detail modes with partial perspective correction -with significantly less texture distortion than the PSX game, and similarly fewer Jaggies from the higher res- but the texture colors and -especially- shading/lighting/translucency effects were much worse than the PSX due to the 256 color limitations . . . hell, Tomb Raider II, Quake, and Duke Nukem 3D supported very high resolutions in software rendering -like 1280x1024 and 1440x900- in spite of no highcolor rendering modes in software -and Duke 3D was software only, like most/all ray-casting PC games)

Granted, you needed a fast PC (CPU, RAM, and PCI/VLB SVGA card) in 1996 to push Tomb Raider at max detail in software. (with hardware acceleration, more modest CPUs and slower RAM could be much more acceptable)
And several late 90s games did have highcolor software renderer options too. (I think Unreal actually did that . . . the minimum system requirements were simply a P166 16 MB RAM and a 1MB SVGA card, and I highly doubt it would have been limited to a 256 color renderer )

[Barone]

I think he meant Unreal . . . you know, the epic story-based single-player game?
It came out after Quake II, and was similar in some respects, but a much better/more epic feeling game IMO. (I didn't play either back then, but I used to watch my dad play it and "back seat" game to some extent . . . he was the one with the really nice gaming machine/workstation at the time too with the Voodoo, though the Rage Pro of the shared/family computer certainly wasn't bad at all for the time -and he actually hacked together some beta drivers to get DVD playback working on the technically non-supported PCI Rage Pro . . . but ATi only officially supported DVD on the AGP versions, not that it mattered for games -that's just the story of our first DVD player, with the Rage's composite out hooked to the near-by family room TV )

Yes, exactly. But it also featured a very good "botmatch" mode that was pure bloody awesomeness. The graphics were amazing, even in software mode!
I agree with all your comments and feelings about that!

I think my computer had a "ATI Rage II + DVD" card, it was PCI onboard but with dedicated memory. One of those freak NLX motherboards, you know?
Later I got a Voodoo... That was a great video card... Only 4MB but it would run NFS II, NFSIII, NFSIV and NFS Porsche (!!!) with beautiful accelerated 3D graphics. Then a Voodoo 3, and then a TNT2 Viper Ultra and....

And I know Tiido probably wouldn't agree here (especially compared to Quake II's metal soundtrack), but the epic/orchestral/ambient/cinematic quality of Unreal's soundtrack is very fitting . . . and relatively new at the time. (of course, since then, a huge number of FPS games -among other genres- have taken that route . . . Halo of course being a big one)

videos...

Also interesting to note that all of unreal's sound/music is done in MOD/music Module/tracker format . . . so not limited by what sound card used (as long as it has PCM/DMA output and compatible drivers) and also not limited by general midi or other fixed synth/sample formats . . . while also conserving space compared to uncompressed CD-DA or Wav files. (and at a time when MP3 decoding wasn't practical -not to mention fast/dynamic track/SFX changes and mixing of multiple tracks -without the overhead of decoding several MP3 streams)
Albeit obviously well beyond the common Amiga MOD formats, or at least well beyond what was used in any games. (you'd need an Amiga with a few MBs and enough CPU resource to do all the mixing in software -with PAULA just handling the playback)

Heh, for that matter, that would make the sound generation a bit closer to what the N64 did most of the time. (and some multiplat N64/PC titles like Rogue Squadron and BFN)

All good memories...

PC games were innovating long before that, and (as always) limited mostly to specific genres . . . obviously 2D platformers and other console/arcade rich games weren't among those, and neither were JRPGs (though that, among several other genres were significantly built upon in JP computer platforms -especially the PC88/98 . . . roughly the IBM compatible counterpart of Japan).

I know, but I emphasized that 'cause he was talking about Perfect Dark (2000) like an innovative game and we had already seen a big "boom" of PC and their games at that time... I just found it strange (even he saying that he didn't had a good computer 'cause I had some friends with computers too and, heck, I'm in Brazil! And I was not a rich boy nor my friends (pardon if I'm not using it correctly), not at all... But it's probably just a matter of age.).

Starting back in the 70s you had the early text adventures specific to various computer platforms, certain strategy/tactical games (including several sci-fi themed ones), followed by graphic adventures (especially Sierra's), RPGs (especially Origin's), more/expanded text based games (especially Infocom's), Infocom's Battletch series of strategy/sim games, various flight/space/etc simulators (mostly flying -be it realistic or fantasy -but a few things like Mech Warrior and Stellar 7), and you had Lucasfilm's increasing presence in the late 80s too (especially with the rise of their graphic adventures).

By the beginning of the 90s you saw a continuation from nearly all of those (and a few others popping into significance -like Apogee, Epic Megagames, and id) with graphic adventures (including the ride of high quality Lucas Arts titles), RPGs/dungeon crawlers, flight/space sims (especially with the WWII themed Lucas Arts games and Wing Commander), among other things. (more RTS type games and world simulators/god games appearing too -Sim City, Populous, etc) And at the same time, VGA and Adlib/Soundblaster support had become the defacto standard (aside from some really low-end targeted shareware games), and significant use of the SB's PCM capabilities was starting to occur. (of course, you also had many gamessupporting MT32 sound for really high-end users -or musicians who liked games )
In the early 90s there was the rise of multimedia features in games, starting with significant use of animated cutscenes and speech (Wing Commander II and several Lucas Arts titles did that -some of Sierra's began using it too, among others) . . . It also seemed like multimedia got big for edutainment stuff perhaps even faster than mainstream games.

Then you had the introduction of CD-ROM multimedia games, especially the FMV stuff and graphic adventures heavily relying on FMV and detailed still BGs (like Myst, 7th guest, Uninvited, Return to Zork, etc), Day of the Tentacle and Rebel Assault was a big one too among the many CD (and some multi-floppy) major multimedia releases of 1993/94. (along with a lot of edutainment stuff too)

Then you had the 3D/pseudo 3D stuff . . . from the various polygon and scaled bitmap games rising from the 80s and a few ray-casting based games as well, but 3D really exploded in the early 90s and started pushing into the mainstream with the likes of Wolf 3D in '92 and X-Wing and Doom in '93. (X-Wing also featuring considerable multimedia aspects -with the cutscenes and such, though the original floppy release had very limited speech/sampled SFX use -part of that almost certainly related to the 1 MB RAM requirement . . . actually interesting they catered to such low-end systems when Doom was pushing 4 MB minimum -as well as several other '93 releases- given X-Wing was undoubtedly a higher budget game than Doom or some of those others)

1994 was really significant in general, marking the release of many of the aforementioned CD/multimedia games, the CD re-release of X-Wing (with gouraud shading, an improved music engine, and much more speech/SFX, though the CD itself was mostly empty at 74 MB -also a 4 MB RAM requirement vs 1 MB of the original), plus the release of Tie Fighter (floppy version), and among others, perhaps one of the most significant is Wing Commander III.

WC III is notable in so many areas from the use of fully texture mapped polygonal 3D to the quality use of multimedia, but among those it marks one of the first really high production value games produced . . . and not just an FMV game (or graphic adventure loaded with FMV/multimedia), but a "conventional" game of the 3D space sin genre using cinema cutscenes and semi-interactive multimedia rich "overworld" (ie onboard the carrier ship -outside of in-game/mission play) with a rich and engaging story and high quality acting/directing/costumes/makeup/effects (including big name actors and tactful use of CGI where it was most fitting -ie with the limited CGI of the day, best fitting some BGs and space scenes, leaving the rest to conventional live action and special effects).

The 4 million dollar budget was surpassed rather quickly by even more massive high-end game projects of the mid 90s, but it's still quite notable. Though among those higher production value games was Wing Commander IV at some 12 million dollars with a massive amount of multimedia content and cutscenes. (also notable as including some actual interactive movie features -you had branching paths to choose within the cutscenes . . . I don't know if any other games did that -aside from pure interactive movies- let alone did it as well as WCIV)

That same year as WCIV (1995), Dark Forces, Full Throttle, and Rebel Assault II were released, among a few other notable titles. (and the CD version of Tie Fighter -fully expanded and nearly a full CD's worth of multimedia content at 515 MB vs the 74 MB X-Wing)


All of that predated use of hardware graphics acceleration . . . everything was done with software rendering in 256 colors (VGA or SVGA) . . . or CGA/EGA (or others for non-PC platforms) for some of the very early stuff (and text was text, of course).
The original Quake and Duke Nukem 3D releases of 1996 also lacked hardware acceleration, though accelerated versions of Quake soon followed.

The first major consumer level 3D acclerators appeared in 1995 (ATi's Rage, Nvidia's NV1, and S3's ViRGE -of which, only Rage had the greatest success by far with substantial evolution/expansion of the design), and all of those were combo 2D/3D accelerators (with conventional VGA/SVGA support, 2D acceleration, and 3D acceleration -though Rage also added MPEG-1 acceleration), while 3DFX's Voodoo didn't arrive until the next year and was an add-on card only (intended to be used in addition to a conventional 2D accelerator or simple VGA/SVGA card), though quite high-end and expensive at the time. (the RAGE II also arrived in 1996, with considerably improve performance and MPEG-2 support)
However, it really wasn't until 1996 that any games got significant 3D acceleration support. (Quake, Tomb Raider, and Mechwarrior 2 come to mind -and while the latter was out in '95, I'm not sure any of the accelerated versions were released before '96) I think Sonic CD in '95 may have had 2D acceleration support. (it was definitely an API/library programmed windows-specific game, though the original release didn't use Direct X -the slightly later re-release did)

There has been some other cases of accelerated games prior to that, but few and far between (and not really significant). Most 2D acceleration support was for GUIs and GUI/windos-specific applications . . . and that's also where most accelerated games came in: you had a handful of accelerated DOS games, but the vast majority supported acceleration in Windows, and did so in large part due to the API support in windows -from the "standard" Open GL and DirectX to the variety of hardware company specific APIs of the mid/late 90s (like 3DFX's Glide and Nvidia, ATi, Matrox, and S3's libraries -and a few custom APIs from game developers done for early accelerators that had low-level documentation available to facilitate such custom tool development -such documentation largely disappeared when DOS support died . . . Argonaut was notable for porting their own API to the PSX and some PC accelerators -I believe Rage was among them).


However, while game design and such may have been innovative and ahead of the bar on PC (for certain genres at least), the pre-hardware accelerated stuff still generally fell behind what the likes of the PSX and Saturn (or in some cases 3DO or Jaguar) were pushing. In particular, there was the issue that nearly all PC games were rendering in 256 colors (something that most software renderers continued well into the late 90s -Tomb Raider II doesn't support a highcolor software renderer, but supports highcolor and truecolor with acceleration), though several unaccelerated games still had considerable advantages in texture detail, polygon count, perspective correction, and/or screen resolution. (640x480 and higher res was particularly common to have from 1995 onward . . . Tomb Raider supported that without accleration as well as high-detail modes with partial perspective correction -with significantly less texture distortion than the PSX game, and similarly fewer Jaggies from the higher res- but the texture colors and -especially- shading/lighting/translucency effects were much worse than the PSX due to the 256 color limitations . . . hell, Tomb Raider II, Quake, and Duke Nukem 3D supported very high resolutions in software rendering -like 1280x1024 and 1440x900- in spite of no highcolor rendering modes in software -and Duke 3D was software only, like most/all ray-casting PC games)
Granted, you needed a fast PC (CPU, RAM, and PCI/VLB SVGA card) in 1996 to push Tomb Raider at max detail in software. (with hardware acceleration, more modest CPUs and slower RAM could be much more acceptable)

I agree with you. But I think you missed the significance of Windows 95 ("In the marketplace, Windows 95 was a major success, and within a year or two of its release had become the most successful operating system ever produced." by Wiki) for people that never had a computer until then or for kids or whatever "newbie" end-users you can think of... It was so much easier to use than MS-DOS or Windows 3.11... And it was around 1996/1997 that it really exploded and many new users came into the "PC World", for the Internet, for games, MS Office...

About the PS1 vs PC comparison: The thing that really annoys me about 3D games (it doesn't apply for ray-casting games, of course) on PS1 is its messed perspective... Things like walls, mountains, buildings are moving/shaking almost all the time and it does look bad IMO. It's less annoying in games like Speedster (a.k.a. Rush Hour) but very compromising in games like NFS or Tomb Raider II.
NFS looked a lot better on my PC, even with only 256 colors.
The resolution does not affect it that much IMO, low-res games didn't look so ugly in old CRT TVs.