Remember when FPS games was a new thing? Wolfenstein had been out for a while, DOOM had just made a huge impact, and Duke Nukem was the latest thing... I never really got into DOOM, but I really liked playing multiplayer Duke Nukem 3D.
But there was another game, that came out at around the same time. It was called Blood, and it was sort of a horror-style 3D shooter. Now, it had some pretty generic things, like the double-barrelled shotgun and zombies, and was based on the same technique (raycasting) as DOOM and Duke Nukem 3D. But it also had some amazingly fun weapons, which worked great for multiplayer games.
One of them was the flare gun, pictured above. Now, most of the weapon had two different firing modes - the shotgun could be fired normally, one barrel at a time, or with the special fire, which would fire both barrel at once. The tommy gun would automatically sway from left to right and back again if you used the special firing mode. And so on.
The flare gun would fire a flare which flared up on impact, if you used the normal firing mode. But if you used the special mode, it would fire off a flare, and if you hit an opponent, it would stick to him, and ignite several seconds later. If your opponent wasn't alert, you could easily put 4-5 flares on him, before he realized what was going on, and by then it would most likely be too late for him to do anything about it...
Another great weapon was the voodoo doll, with which you could hurt a nearby opponent without even hitting them - you would just jab a needle into the doll, and their health would just drop. It was great for using when you were being chased, as you could hurt your opponent while running away from him...
And a favorite weapon was the magical staff with a human skull on the top. When you hit an opponent with it, all the health points he lost, would be added to your own health, making it a great way to recover. But not only that, it was also a weapon that you could continue to use after you've run out of ammo, and in that case, it would use your health points as ammo. That meant that you could easily kill yourself by firing too much, but it also meant that as long as you hit with your shots, you would get back the health it cost you to fire it! What a great way to build a tradeoff mechanic into a FPS weapon.
I sort of stopped playing FPS games after that. The later ones all seemed to be going in the wrong direction, striving for realism rather than fun - and that can spoil the best of genres.
It's quite interesting to see the impact that Portal had when it was released - and that was a small step in the same direction as the early FPS games, but not nearly enough for my liking.
I wish FPS games would focus on fun again, on interesting weapons and traps, focusing on fun rather than realism and technology. If they did, I might start playing them again.
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