Tanis:
TimeSplitters 2 > This whole damn gen of FPS

As they say, I fixed that for you ;)

The weapons felt better but I thought it was a little too samey yet goofier.

"Counterstrike remains the most balanced multiplayer game to date."

Uhhhh, have you played TF2?

Conner42:
Battlefield 3 and Far Cry 3?

Whatever, I suppose...

Counter Strike is a bit of an acquired taste.

Half Life 2 is a decent choice I suppose.

But Battlefield 3 and Far Cry 3?

...Where's Tribes? or Unreal? or Painkiller? or... *goes on for hours*
But really Battlefield THREE?! Why not 2? or 1943 or whatever one everyone played...

And I like half-life and all... but #1? The game was more repetitive than Mario. Shoot Baddies, Physics "Puzzle", repeat forever. The story was good, but the gameplay isn't as solid as the hype, but this has come to be norm for Valve games *COUGH* PORTAL *COUGH*.

"And of course my favorite Dota2"
...uhh... You mean that HD update of a WC3 mod right..? I mean you didn't mention TF2 and that was a mod update, so why'd you mention this mod update? oh well...

EDIT:

CaptainKoala:
"Counterstrike remains the most balanced multiplayer game to date."

Uhhhh, have you played TF2?

Have you played it recently?
It's no longer he who is most skilled, it's he who idols/plays/pays enough to get the new powerful weapon sets on update. Doesn't matter how skilled you are when everyone else has a Flying Guillotine, Huo Long Heater, and Machina. While you're running around with a backburner being your "newest".

Dense_Electric:
Half-Life 2 is a solid game, but it's also *easily* the second most over-rated game in history behind Call of Duty 4. It's narrative was well-told through the gameplay, and the gravity gun was fun the first time around. Apart from that, though? The gameplay itself was boring, 90's FPS-affair that had already started to go obsolete by the time Half-Life 2 rolled around (and I'm sorry, fellow PC-gamers, but I NEVER found that kind of gameplay fun in the least), the story was pretty weak (though well-suited to a game), and the atmosphere of the game just never resonated with me in the way a lot of other games have.

Even if you consider the story 'pretty weak' (I disagree with that but I won't try to convince you of that) you should also mention a few things that Half Life 2 brough to the table.

The source engine and 'physics'. Ragdolls react in a more or less realistic way, the momentum they build up does not disappear into nothing when they die (as an example). Of course they showed that off with the Gravity Gun but that thing was pretty fun (and still is).

The narrative structure is still above average. Few games achieve the subtelty in the same way as HL2 did to convey non-relevant information to you. It wasn't all just scripted sequences where you had to listen to people, the whole background and design showed off the problems in this world and added small informations about the situations.

And finally, my most loved thing about HL2: Facial animations. From all games that were released since then I can't think of 10 that surpass the detail that HL2 had in how the characters acted and reacted around you and how their faces conveyed their emotions (DmC and L.A. Noire would be two I can think of). Alone the fact that the characters are looking at YOU and not where the devs expect you to stand is something several modern games still fail at.

There is a reason why until now developer try to copy HL2. It was a great game in many aspects and it aged really well in those.

WOPR:

Have you played it recently?
It's no longer he who is most skilled, it's he who idols/plays/pays enough to get the new powerful weapon sets on update. Doesn't matter how skilled you are when everyone else has a Flying Guillotine, Huo Long Heater, and Machina. While you're running around with a backburner being your "newest".

Yes, I played it recently.

You know what. Pistol > Guillotine. Why? If you are 'skilled' enough with this weapon you do at best the same amount of damage that a meatshot with the scatter does and at the same time you are skilled enough to pull the same shit with the scattergun. The pistol gives you more reliable damage and better DPS.

Huo Long Heater is shit. Period. Heavies best weapon is still Stock. It eats up too much ammo and the Heavy can still be easily backstabbed without the Spy getting burnt. It basically limits the Heavies area where he is effective to 'next to a dispenser', 'next to a cart' or around a ammo spawn. And this is not much.

Machina < Stock. The additional damage only applies on maximum charge, the gimmick penetration is not worth the tradeoff of having only SMG or Melee in close combat.

You seem to have no idea about TF2.

My selection:

1. Doom (1993)
If Wolfenstein was the prototype and Quake is a derivation, Doom is FPS gaming purified. It has so many elements that appeared first in their basic form and with greater depth than games decades later would attempt.
For one, it had such detailed environments and I don't mean cosmetic features, I mean it had meaningful detail in the layout,
And it had variety of enemies beyond the cosmetic, enemies that you knew you had to approach differently and were different threats.
Of particular note is an aspect unique to video games as an art form and that is the moddability. You can't mod a film and modifying books is strangely hardly ever done, but Doom was the first to really get this from its inception with WADS and further with source ports. It's a major factor in what it has kept it alive and relevant today and more than that, even superseded many games in many important aspects. Mods like Brutal Doom have made a visceral game that puts the likes of Gears of War to shame as compromised.

2. Half Life (1998)
This showed how narrative flow can be done in an FPS. Doom used title screens and scrolling text, clearly cutting away they would have used cutscenes either CGI or live acted had they the time, Half Life showed a subtly as significant as the concept of Montage storytelling did for motion pictures(rather than just having a narrator or text-frame give context and exposition).
Counterstrike would have to be included with this. It started as a mod for Half Life and likely would never have existed without being a mod first. Everything after that is iteration.

3. System Shock 2 (1999)
Another game changer, in how to expand on the essentials of FPS gameplay with meaningful choices and variety.

While certainly not without flaws (disintegrating firearms) these were minor incongruities that didn't detract from the tone befitting of a single-player game.

4. Team Fortress 2 (2007)
Not least for the competitive multiplayer but for the approach including completely game-changing modes like Mann vs Machine.
It owes much to it's predecessors, but still none can top it. Of particular note it was its achievement in tone, to resist the temptation of going for ever more "gritty grim dark realism" in what is an inherently ridiculous circumstance which defines online FPS games that was like a Road Runner cartoon in practice it should also be in concept. Though still be a very original overall design, hardly anyone could mistake even a single frame of Team Fortress 2 for being anything else.

The previous mentioned here I praised for their mods which are fundamentally limited with an online game everyone using the same mod, TF2 deserves credit for continual enhancement of an online multiplayer. Such

5. Left 4 Dead 2 (2009)
I see earns its place as trying something that really had never even been done before and not succesfully imitated.
It's a game which above all else depends on teamwork.
There is no other gameplay experience like this, fighting as a group against such incessent waves of attackers.

I am treating Left 4 Dead 2 as "Left 4 Dead 1 Redux" as it now includes all L4D1 maps and modes without compromise.

Honourable Mentions:
-Call of Duty 4
such promise but squandered, repeatedly. The idea of RPG elements into online FPS multiplayer were pioneering but the first iteration wasn't so balanced and each subsequent update has erred more towards the gimmicks, refusing to address the fundamental balance issues. The weapons were still either all too similar or overpowered. Pick your own Perks lead to either unbalance or mediocre changes, it couldn't have pair perks with nerfs.
The single player was a fresh experience till the developers showed they couldn't resist the temptation to cross over into the ridiculous... yet make the double mistake of continuing to play it straight. Zombies mode of Treyarch games is the only part that gets the tone to match yet is held back by grinding gameplay that makes killing zombies a chore. I mean every round making them more of bullet sponges?!?! What were they thinking?!?!?
They showed their death of a protagonist for the gimmick it was by its overuse and lost grip on its sense of relate-ability and humanity in amongst the extremeness of the situation. Call of Duty 4 was positively light hearted compared to latter games that piled on the melodrama ineffectually.

-Half life 2
Again, such promise but squandered
To spite being a decade old next year most of its ideas on pacing and variety are ignored and in its place the concept of set-peices and railroaded narrative instead.
Persistent-Perspective storytelling had so much potential, but increased it's been used and abused as a crutch.
This raised the bar, but others didn't follow. Even Valve, except for the Episodes that felt too much like refined retreads. All very good games but it's importance has yet to be fulfilled.

Like for example, why is it 9 years after Alyx Vance effectively crossed the uncanny valley with relatable facial expressions are games still populated by Botox People? Alan Wake was surreal for all the wrong reasons for the supposedly relatable members of the cast looked like an android had ripped off someone's face and tried to use it as a mask.

-Team Fortress Original
While this deserves to be heaped with praise for it's ambition, and no less for so early in FPS history and no credit lost for basic graphics... it was far from refined.
It was brilliant for it's class structure but really it still feels like a brilliant first draft. Team Fortress 2 feels like the fruition of the concept in tone and breadth.
We appreciate thee, but the prize must go to the successor.

-Bioshock
Would be on the list but feels like a squandered opportunity after System Shock 2.

While an original environment, it was far too incidental. The Ayn Rand circumstance was little more than a neat backstory and had little to do with the depth of the environment and was such a tease, lacking any kind of fleshing out. In retrospect, it came off as an extended demo for a deeper concept. Lots of ideas not so fleshed out. I mean a society ruled by raw capitalism and self-fulfilment, money wouldn't be such a static and simple thing, bribery and conflicting financial interests should have been paramount.

And it's an underwater city with no swimming sections. The post-crash section showed they could do it. All adding to the environment being an incidental cosmetic part of a what is supposed to be more than a visual medium. The water was Chekhov's gun, and they didn't use it.

Oh and 2007, 3 years after Half Life 2, still has facial animation so deep in the uncanny valley it would have been better off having much more basic graphics.

-Portal, Thief, Elder Scrolls series, etc
For not really being First Person "shooters"

-Mass Effect, Max Payne, Spec Ops: The Line etc
Not really "First Person" shooters

-Serious Sam, etc
While good, they were hardly innovative nor pioneering. Throwbacks cannot push off originals.

-Far Cry 1, 2, 3, Crysis 1, 2, 3
Again, taking sprawling maps concepts but more HD retreads of lower fidelity predecessors.
These owe a lot more to predecessors.

-Halo
Same problem with Modern Military Shooters, Melodrama without humanity.
Credit to Halo ODST, by far my favourite in the series for it's narrative structure, relatable characters and shift in gameplay focus and a protagonist that isn't in the Master Chief middle ground of being unable to decide if they are a stoic character or a blank slate for the player to embody. It actually feels like you are in a real war playing a few grunts scrapping on the ground, rather than just a super soldier running around from objective to objective, ordered so by people who seem to have a much better overall picture.

Again, I liked Halo. I wanted to love it. But you see why I cannot.

Conspicuous absence

-Innovation in single-player games.
My list is topped with multiplayer games as single-player experience has gone through many graphical upgrades but still the likes of Doom far as well or better than almost all games today. Half Life 2's pioneering concepts are rarely followed up on, even by Valve. Hell, they wrote a book and filled the game with developer notes THEY TOLD EVERYONE HOW TO DO IT!
But the only thing they took was the worst aspect, the railroaded, setpeice constrained linear corridor with virtually no lateral freedom, no choices in which way to go next. Half Life 2 compensated for this, it was imperfect for the lack of any need to think about where to go next so the play had no appreciation for the breadth of the environment they were in.

-Modern Military shooters
I still think developers are caught up in the mythology of "authenticity" of warfare, not realising that real war sucks and trying to make it authentic won't make it something people want to play. They need to come to this realisation and recognise the appropriate tone for such games, and it's not depress-o-melodrama cynicism of Spec Ops The Line. They almost had it with Call of Duty 4. A sense of humanity. A sense of daring heroism. Not just running and clicking.

-Kills focused FPS games.
Like typical Call of Duty multiplayer (as opposed to objective focused TF2). Because these are recipe for disappointment.
The fact is every online game the average kill to death ratio (excluding self-kills) must be 1:1, half the people will have a sub-1 kill/death ratio, you are dragging your entire team down, the game would literally have been better off if you had not joined. But in an objective focused game everyone contributes something and it's not so obvious you didn't make a huge contribution and ultimately kills and deaths don't mean so much.

I think these is a latent market for competitive FPS games that squares this circle. Purely about people running into an arena and shooting each other in a way that doesn't simply exploit less skilled players being cannon fodder for the more skilled, you then have a ponzi scheme that depends on a constant stream of new players who have to depend on being slaughtered till they get good or give up.

This needs to be broken with innovation in gameplay and scoring.

Something where people can be continuously satisfied from beginner skill level to mastery and in all sorts of combinations.

We must have a return of deathmatch. It's quite clear why Team Deathmatch took over yet true teamwork did not, people

WOPR:

Have you played it recently?
It's no longer he who is most skilled, it's he who idols/plays/pays enough to get the new powerful weapon sets on update. Doesn't matter how skilled you are when everyone else has a Flying Guillotine, Huo Long Heater, and Machina. While you're running around with a backburner being your "newest".

Nope.

I work in an internet cafe that hosts weekly gaming events, I have personally tutored dozens of new TF2 players and I'll tell you that simply giving them new weapons will not make them able to beat experienced players equipped with stock weapons.

If you are losing to more experienced players it is simply because they are more experienced.

I've done it over and over. I've given green players my best weapons (I don't care, drop rate is so high I get them back), I've used stocks and I've wiped the floor with them. Even when I tell them what I'm about to do they can't do anything. I give them the market gardener and tell them to rocketjump and then hit me with it, they can't even rocketjump.

Why do they fail to spite awesome weapons? Because the overriding factor of player success is inherent in the player, not what items they have and ESPECIALLY not what items they have bought.

Any match... hear me ANY MATCH, I'd rather face a bunch of green players who broke the bank buying all the fancy weapons than experienced players with stock weapons. And Experienced players with new weapons, they didn't pay for them, the drop rate is the same for everyone. Everyone is free to trade to get the weapon they seek for their favoured class.

By the time a player gets experienced enough, they will have unlocked their weapons and won't give anywhere near as much advantage as from simply being experienced.

Dense_Electric:
Half-Life 2 is a solid game, but it's also *easily* the second most over-rated game in history behind Call of Duty 4. It's narrative was well-told through the gameplay, and the gravity gun was fun the first time around. Apart from that, though? The gameplay itself was boring, 90's FPS-affair that had already started to go obsolete by the time Half-Life 2 rolled around (and I'm sorry, fellow PC-gamers, but I NEVER found that kind of gameplay fun in the least), the story was pretty weak (though well-suited to a game), and the atmosphere of the game just never resonated with me in the way a lot of other games have.

I see where your coming from but Half Life 2 still did so many things right that 99% of FPS games today completely forget.

It knew how to do pacing and variety
The gameplay narrative of fleeing from the combine to eventually fighting back, punctuated with traversing areas overrun with zombies.

It had the antlions, initially having to play "the ground is lava" leaping from rock to rock and you had to fight if you stepped in the wrong place. Then they were your allies in an assault on Nova Prospect. And the surprise loss of weapons yet gravity gun being suped up.

Most games will get a round of applause if they have any brief break in the gameplay style. Half Life 2 showed how thinks could have been.

It knew how to do faces
Without them looking like they'd been hitting the botox. Why is it almost 10 years later FPS games where you are looking people so closely in the face are full of dead eyed androids wearing human skinsuits? It wasn't that there were particularly advanced graphics, they simply put the effort into the face looking human, and not like some monster from the pit of the Uncanny Valley.

And I think this is such an overlooked thing, as bad as it is for a game to have supposedly relatable NPCs who look like their faces are in the late stages of rigor-mortis is games that skip them out entirely. Games too often lack any sort of humanity, I don't mean being humane, I mean being populated by people rather than simply saying they are people.

Games can cut corners ANYWHERE else, but nothing breaks this as much as getting the human face wrong.

90's FPS games are actually really damn good
I don't know if you've played games from the 90's but they weren't afraid of having a bit of enemy variety, they weren't afraid of having a complex environment.

Check out a typical level of Doom and compare it too a level of a typical FPS today. You cannot find maps of games today as they are so simplistic it's insulting to take the time to map them.

People may knock "find door, look for and find key, unlock door" but at least that isn't as brain-dead as "keep heading forwards no matter what". You had to actually think about your environment and EXPLORE. What people's problem was not the "find way forwards, discover obstacle, search for means to overcome obstacle, then apply means and method" but that it was always "locked door, find key(card)" rather than "weak wall, find explosives, find detonator" or something like that.

Removing all thought and exploration out of the equation was not a solution.

Games like Legend of Zelda are loved because of it's more original solutions to "locked door" challenges that usually involve getting a new weapon then the weapon has to be used in a novel way to progress.

It should not be rare for games to do this yet today it is.

And if a game was going to be on rails and heavily cover based they'd make it incredibly frenetic, put a timer on that shit so everyone dies if you didn't do it as fast as possible... and they'd call it Time Crisis. See, that's a fun 90's FPS game (Time Crisis is First Person... and you Shoot). All I can see with these cover based shooters is a watered down Time Crisis. They might as well be on rails.

You got a HINT of this with Call of Duty 4, the final few levels on timers. Not seen in the series again.

The 90's were full of gameplay innovations that have been discarded for compromises and dumbing down.

What Half Life 2 didn't have was aim-down-sights... which doesn't matter with mouse aim. Aim-down-sights is a mechanic that suits console gamers as the thumbstick alone isn't accurate enough, the aim-down-sights is a useful mechanic to selectively increase zoom, decrease sensitivity and dial up the aim-assist, not needed with mouse-aim. It wasn't a gameplay innovation, it's mostly cosmetic. At worst it encourages camping as with the reduced mobility and restricted vision it limits free movement.

Health Bars aren't obsolete, regenerating health only takes jeopardy out of taking hits since you have infinite health and removes any reason to explore the environment as you don't need health kits. It's as about as innovative as playing with god mode on while sapping momentum to hide every now and then.

I think there is a time and a place for regenerating health, like maybe it's a special item you activate so for a few minutes you're health will recharge. This will be good if you find yourself cornered in a frenetic gunfight, but pervasive throughout the game it becomes a crutch.

Plot matters for games as much as lyrics matter for music

Half Life 2 didn't need an intricate or Pulitzer prize winning plot because it's not like other visual mediums like film. Lyrics can matter a lot for songs, they can be profound and cutting but its not like the song needs them. And the lyrics work with the song, not the other way around.

Doesn't mean it's bad if it isn't for your taste.

But were're not getting lyrics to the songs of our games, were getting dubstep punctuated by audiobook excerpts of Tom Clancy airport-novels. If there is to be any plot in games, it must be weaved in with the gameplay and prospective film-students shouldn't use a game as a medium to foist their failed hollywood scripts.

Talvrae:
No Bioshock?

I was in love with bioshock, but going back I can't help but feel disappointment. I feel like there is a great game in there, and bioshock was just an extended proof of concept.

I mean it's an underwater city, that has hardly any actual water to interact with. They took the time to have a swimming mechanic for the opening scene, but not anywhere else in the game. Buoyancy physics!! It could have had environmental challenges like the Poseidon Adventure but the only water obstacles we encountered was ice... ICE??!

All this adds to Rapture being less of a "place". I really felt that Shadow Moses was a place from the many subtle things, like the unique sounds, the music motifs in the score, not overuse of public domain 1950's jingles. The crunch of boots on the snow and condensing breath in the air. The effective use of colour and warmth of lighting to delineate different types of areas.

The audio logs of Bioshock were some of the better in games, but too often felt like contrived exposition, radio messages as well didn't exactly gel with a silent protagonist. And here is the thing, unlike Metal Gear Solid's codec calls where they hired some of the best voice actors (you'll hear many familiar voices in MGS) and were snapily written even for a Japanese translation, these audio-logs were a slog to get through. I'd listen to them the first time just hoping to get something good, then I'd only listen to get passwords.

I know it's not realistic for every conversation to be like Orson Welles' finest rambling, but this is my free time and I don't want this exciting environment get dragged down by stilted voice acting.

And there is just something so much more captivating about hearing a two sided conversation as opposed to a monologue.

It's all great stuff but could have just used some refining. Like far more revealing would be finding bugged phones and intercepted telephone calls, that's much more natural exposition than audio diaries. I'd even except written notes being read out aloud by some sort of psychic link. And keep em brief, keep em concise.

You had no one to root for in the whole story, it was just you and a thousands maniac gene-junkies. I mean other than the little sisters there should have been scavengers, who were just people running around avoiding getting clobbered by the roving gangs of splicers.

But I can see know how Bioshock was a victim of its own ambition, it had the very original concept of Splicers in an underwater city and wanted to do those elements justice, but what about the supporting cast?

For a society ripped apart by Ayn Rand style individualism and self-fulfilment, money and bartering made for surprisingly insignificant parts. The splicers all universally attacked you on sight, no prospect of bribery or reasoning. That would be interesting, and have made them less of one-dimensional foes.

I also think the great idea of Big Daddy, those wonderful designs, were ruined for how they were coded. I remember a developer was quoted said it was like big game hunting. Well they failed in that by how you can walk right up to a Big Daddy and and dance around him like an idiot. You can't do that when hunting and elephant! It's easy to set up traps for those guys, especially with later weapons that are especially OP in combination.

Again, just a few changes were needed. They needed to make you afraid of being seen by a Big Daddy, you need to be terrified that any door that opens a Big Daddy may come through. If you are going to hunt them, you need to be stealthy... REALLY stealthy. One simple element would be to make their vision based on movement, so when one comes in you just have to freeze and hope he doesn't get too close and suddenly knock you across the room.

The weapons were unsatisfying to use with a weak and slow shotgun, unstable SMG pea shooter. And I'm not talking about damage stats here, I'm talking about how they felt. That's how they look and how they sound.

Really I love what Bioshock promised to be and no one can doubt it's a good game.

But looking back, I can only see the missed opportunities.

This is Kotaku standard Escapist, they did this video to create add revenue pathetic. I hate top ten lists and top five lists most pointless things ever.

TheKasp:
[quote="WOPR" post="6.400571.16488343"]*snip*

You seem to have no idea about TF2.

Because after about 100 hours I was bored as heck with the psudo-pay2win system and dropped it to move onto other games and things in life?

WOPR:

TheKasp:
[quote="WOPR" post="6.400571.16488343"]*snip*

You seem to have no idea about TF2.

Because after about 100 hours I was bored as heck with the psudo-pay2win system and dropped it to move onto other games and things in life?

So you make shit up.

There is no pay 2 win in TF2 outside of skial (or similiar) servers.

WOPR:

Because after about 100 hours I was bored as heck with the psudo-pay2win system and dropped it to move onto other games and things in life?

Ok... show me one player who consistently beats free-2-play gamers simply because they paid. I'll show you HUNDREDS of idiots who sucked at the game because they refused to practice or persevere and stupidly bought a load of fancy weapons thinking that would save them. It didn't.

And how after 100 hours do you not have an inventory full from random drops? You cannot have any shortage of any weapon you could possibly need either by direct drops or trades?

I think you are making things up and I just caught you out with out "100 hours" claim.

If you keep getting headshot by snipers it's your own damn fault for loitering around like a predictable fool and all credit goes to the player's skill from practice and dedication.

I would have swapped out BF3 for one of the Halo games and I haven't played FC3 yet so I can't really comment on it.

Definitely would have replaced BF3 and Far Cry 3 with something else... probably either Halo CE or Halo 2 and Call of Duty 4. All 3 were much more influential and groundbreaking at the time. Goldeneye and Doom are also good candidates.

I can't really argue with HL2, Counter Strike, or Quake though. I do think HL2 is extraordinarily overrated, especially here among the PC elitists, but it was a very influential game.

5. Metroid Prime
4. BioShock
3. Half-life 2
2. TimeSplitters: Future Perfect
1. Fallout 3

So, supposedly this video is about the 5 games that define the FPS genre... why is BF3 and Far Cry 3 on that list? Sorry, you can't give 2 of 5 spots to games released in the last few months when talking about games that define the genre, that's plain stupid.
If you wanted, you could have put Battlefield 1942 on that list, at least that did do something new and interesting at its time, and you could have put Far Cry 1 on there, too, because it's big open levels really were fairly impressive back then... I'd still argue that Far Cry 1 wasn't that influential, but at least you would have nominated something noteworthy. BF3 and Far Cry 3 just make no sense.

I can live with Quake 1 pretty much representing id's biggest hitter in the genre (first real 3D engine in gaming and introducing almost all that stuff current FPS are pretty much all about), so leaving Doom and Wolfenstein out of that list because they were pretty much stepping stones on the way to Quake is kinda okay to me. After all, you only have 5 spots. Anyhow, being the grandfather of the current form of the genre really should make it #1 in your Top 5 of games that defined the genre, shouldn't it?

On top of that, IMO, Half-Life 1 was more influential than HL2, simply because it was the game that showed the industry how to tell a story in an FPS in an interesting fashion. Also, it spawned Counter-Strike and Natural Selection, among other pretty cool mods. Having Counter-Strike on the list is kinda okay, but your reasoning makes me wonder if you ever heard of Team Fortress or other team-based multiplayer mods for Quake... calling CS the first game that organized the multiplayer madness into two teams is simply wrong.

The fact that everyone keeps mentioning Lisa Foiles makes this old member feel young again.
As for the list, I felt it was a bit generic, though the episode itself was much better than last weeks.

Battlefield of Duty 13, blah blah blah.

Deus Ex wasn't mentioned, nor was System Shock 2. Pretty disappointed in that. Yeah, they're not traditional FPS fare, but they are still technically First Person games where shooting happens.

jdogtwodolla:

Tanis:
TimeSplitters 3 > This whole damn gen of FPS

As they say, I fixed that for you ;)

The weapons felt better but I thought it was a little too samey yet goofier.

Fixed AGAIN.
TL2 was a great game, but I ENJOYED TL3 more.
From the level editor to the story to the graphics.

Just a LOT more fun.

Those definitely aren't the 5 FPS's that defined the genre.

And I don't really agree with any of the points... except Far Cry 3, that's a great game (albeit just not one that's going to be genre-defining).

My thinking is this (FPSs only):
Best pacing: Crysis 2 (the weapons customisation and firemode selection are also worth a mention)
Best Atmosphere: Metro 2033 (it's very immersive IMO; I also haven't played SShock2 yet)
Best Sandbox: Far Cry 3 (very organic, nice story too)
Best Shooting/Weapons: Painkiller (even if it looks dated, the weapons are nicely differentiated and there's a variety of nice enemies - what more could you want?)
Best Online Experience: Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (more streamlined than BF2 and also: destruction physics!) | Blacklight: Retribution (best CQC combat) | Planetside 2 (best large scale battles)

if it weren't FPSs only, Just Cause 2 would be there together with Far Cry 3.

This show is kinda useless, since "Top 5" doesn't mean anything, especially if it isn't categorized and just put in front of our faces like this. Also: QUAKE?!? QUAKE?!?

Let's also reap on Half-Life for a bit, since it's such a nice, convenient, big, fat target. It's got a nice pacing going on, but it's still... really overrated. It's a bit monotone at times. It's ugly. Really ugly. And also a bit too hard (but then again my aim has always been bad when it came to quickly aligning my sights on something). The Source engine has a CRUDE destruction system (if you examine it closely, you'll see it only supports big things falling apart into specifically modeled smaller things, and everything will always fall apart as a whole). Comparing both physics and destruction to the CryEngine, the CryEngine wins. But in terms of performance, SOURCE can't be beat. It runs on everything, even the worst of machines, and it runs smoothly.