Half-Life 2 was first released by Valve Corporation in 2004. It was such a giant leap forward for games in general – not just first-person shooters – that its reverberations are still being felt today.
Half-Life (one) is a brilliant game, but Half-Life 2 completely blows it out of the water.
David Lubar‘s relatively obscure 1984 classic, Pastfinder, is a weird vertically-scrolling shooter in which you control a spider-like craft that can crawl, shoot and jump, and you must explore a radioactive landscape picking up artefacts from a mysterious planet.
LucasFilm Games‘ classic space shooter, Rescue On Fractalus, was first released on Atari 8-bit computers in March 1984, and this Commodore 64 version came a year later, in 1985.
Archer MacLean‘s seminal Commodore 64 shooter, Dropzone is like a cross between Defender and, erm, Defender, but with more realistic graphics. And slightly different gameplay. But the principles are pretty much the same: super-fast, super-smooth, side-scrolling shooting. Avoid touching anything – or it’s instant death.
Jeremy Smith and Peter Irvin‘s groundbreaking Exile first came out on the BBC Model B in 1988 and was later converted to other systems. Including for the Commodore 64.
Team 17’s exciting sequel to their overhead space shooter, Alien Breed II: The Horror Continues was first released in 1993.
Continue reading Alien Breed II: The Horror Continues, Amiga
Julian and Nick Gollop and Mythos Games came together to make this classic 16-bit tactical combat game in 1994.
Arguably the best instalment in the infamous Konami Contra franchise, Contra III (aka Super Probotector in Europe) is a balls-to-the-wall run-and-gun, side-scrolling shooter than can be played one or simultaneous two-player.
Cybermorph: one of the first reasonably impressive releases on the much maligned Atari Jaguar. That said: it’s a very simple ‘fetch’ game with light shoot ’em up elements, and – apart from some impressively coloured graphics – there really isn’t much to it.
Far Cry is one of the greatest first-person shooters ever made. Sure: it looks a little simplistic now, but at the time of release (2004) it was a revelation.
The King of Grabs 