My first foray into the world of FPS (first person shooter) video games was Wolfenstein. A friend of mine had this on his 286 back when I was stationed in Germany while serving in the US Army. The game was fun but it wasn't real 3-D.
Next I moved on to Doom and its sequels on my 486. I used a Gravis GamePad when playing that game because it made the game play feel like what I was used to on the Super Nintendo. Even though Doom was not 3-D it was close enough for us. We made sure to invest in a null modem cable at the time so we could do some co-op and death-match battles.
I took a break from FPS games for a while and moved on to RTS (real time strategy) video games such as Warcraft. The one problem I had with these early RTS games is that some had a bug in them where the player on the faster computer would always be faster than the players on slower computers. Yeah, not much fun there. This bug was fixed but I never enjoyed the ever growing administration duties you had to deal with as the game went on.
After Warcraft I moved on to the mother of all time killers; Sid Meir's Civilization. I started out with the DOS version of the game and moved up to the Windows version. Ah, the days of the Chariot Rush brings back memories...
I think my favorite in the series has to be Civilization II: Gold Edition. I did enjoy Civ-Net but by the time it came out Civ II was already in stores. I wanted to play Civ multi-player but not the old style. I still break out Civ II when I have time to kill.
A few years ago I tried to get back into FPS gaming but I just couldn't do it. I never had a good enough mouse to play them on the PC and I always felt that dual analog stick on consoles just left a lot to be desired. They were good, but I always felt that the button placements were wrong or limiting.
Then I found Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. I had played the first Metroid Prime on my Game Cube and I liked it. As for the second one, Metroid Prime 3 on the Wii, partly because I had developed a bit of the FPS-nausea sickness. I did not know if I would be able to play the game at all without getting sick. (I had to play Metroid Prime in short stints to avoid getting too sick.)
After playing for a few hours I built up my tolerance and had a blast!
Sadly, now that I have completed the game (22:34 with 100% of items found) I am feeling empty inside. I visited a friend and tried out his Halo 3 game but I found the dual-analog stick control scheme lacking. The Wii has spoiled me.
On a dual-analog stick controller you have to keep one thumb on the stick that controls your movement and the other on the stick that controls your facing/aiming. The fire buttons are in easy reach for your index fingers but what about jumping? You have to take your thumb off of the aiming stick to hit the jump button. With the Wii-mote all you have to do is point it to turn, you are free to hit all of the important buttons while turning.
Think about that, with the Wii the second analog stick is controlled by your wrist rather than your thumb. It is so close to keyboard and mouse controls that it is downright scary!
I was thinking about buying an Xbox360 or a PS3 for the FPS games but now, I can't. I've been spoiled and there is no going back.
