The History of First-Person Shooters: Part 5

Portal, meanwhile, was the wildcard entrant. Despite being a few hours long, it was so fresh, compelling and well executed that, for many, it represented the game of the year, and provided ample evidence that the first person gaming scene still had the capacity to surprise.

Middle Eastern terrorists are the new Nazis.

On more traditional ground, Modern Warfare was a satisfying departure from the World War 2 setting for Infinity Ward. It gave us not only the best in cinematic military shooters, but a multiplayer component that erased any stubborn doubts over the mainstream status of online console gaming.

With Halo 3 coming out at the same time, FPS gamers had never had it so good. Although controversy raged over its sub-HD visuals, few would deny that Bungie had now refined its trademark 30-seconds-of-fun formula to the nth degree, with some massive, unscripted battles. The success of the game’s online co-op and competitive multiplayer needs little rehearsing.

Two years post-release, Crysis is still the belle of the PC ball.

For technical purists, the PC was still the primary boundary-pusher. GSC’s S.T.A.L.K.E.R. made its hotly anticipated appearance in March, followed by Crytek’s Crysis in November. Both were designed to stress the wallets of even the most committed gamers, with the most outrageously ambitious game engines ever devised. Subsequent generations of graphics cards have continued to squeeze performance boosts out of these astonishingly scalable technical titans.

Fortunately, these games weren’t mere poster children for the increasingly marginalised graphics-obsessed end of the market; their expansive design values were difficult, if not impossible to translate to console, and so for the first time since 2004 there was a genuine reason to splash the cash on hardware upgrades.

Bad Company's destructible landscapes posed some interesting tactical possibilities.

The orchards of online-only PC gaming remained fruitful, with the excellent Unreal Tournament 3, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and Battlefield 2142 offering solid updates to their respective templates. PS3 and 360 owners would eventually get a taste of all three games, plus a console-specific Battlefield Bad Company, which delivered unprecedented dynamic destruction.