Re: Did EGA Save PC Gaming?

On Wed, 24 Jul 2024 11:33:30 -0700, Justisaur <justisaur@yahoo.com>
wrote:

On 7/23/2024 10:17 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Mon, 22 Jul 2024 14:27:56 -0400, Mike S. <Mike_S@nowhere.com>
wrote:
 

On Mon, 22 Jul 2024 10:09:42 -0500, Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com>
wrote:
>

Fair. Here's the argument that made me arrive at that conclusion. I was
giving it more of a long view...
>
Being an action group, I was thinking of stuff like Wolf3d or anything
side-scrolling. Commander Keen, where Carmack finally figured out how to
hack a PC into smooth sidescrolling is 1990 (EGA). SNES had 256 colors a
year later in the US (2 years later for you). Jazz Jackrabbit (1994),
OTOH, was finally comparable to the SNES at the time. In the 90's we
finally got _parity_, which I was narrowly considering the real standard
for PC gaming. It's the start of the hobby afaic. Compared to those
systems, an EGA PC with a Gameblaster is totally inadequate. It is less
than, and playing catchup with, an NES. Then the same with an SNES in the
early 90's, and literally can't do what those systems can do. A PC can do
Sierra games, which an NES could not. Did those "save" PC gaming? Nope.
The real saving grace for PC gaming was the death of IBM dominance.

>
Ok, thank you for the second post. I *think* I understand your point
of view now. Maybe.
>
If someone were to ask me what game saved pc gaming...I think I would
say it was Doom.

 
I don't know if "Doom" /saved/ PC gaming, but it definitely gave it a
huge boost. It almost certainly was the nail in the coffin for gaming
on any other non-IBM/PC compatible computer. After "Doom", Commodore
(Amiga) and Apple (Macintosh/Apple II) were pretty much dead in the
water, as far as games were concerned.
 
While it didn't quite compare to consoles, PC gaming was quite strong
in the early to mid 90s. There were a lot of excellent titles, many of
which were ported to consoles. But a lot of those games were also
fairly similar to games /already/ on console. And those that weren't
tended to be fairly niche (strategy, high-end flight sims) that lacked
mass appeal. I love me some "Falcon 3.0" but I totally understand why
it didn't have the same attraction as Sega's "Afterburner".
 
But "Doom" was different. Not only was it immediately accessible
(everyone gets the idea of a first-person shooter right away), it was
bombastic and exciting... and most of all, it was the sort of game you
really could only do on PC. It elevated the PC from what most people
thought of as a stodgy business machine with beeps and boops for sound
and ugly four-color graphics into a viable gaming platform. Until
"Doom" (or maybe "Wolfenstein 3D") I think a lot of people would have
just as likely bet on the Amiga as being the computer being the PC of
the future. Less because of either platform's actualy capabilities and
more because of the PERCEIVED capabilities of the platforms.
 
Until "Doom", as far as outsiders were concerned, there was nothing
exciting about the PC platform, even if it actually did have a vibrant
gaming scene. Did "Doom" save PC gaming? No; I think the platform
would have been going strong for years afterwards. But it gave it an
exclusive it never had before that made it less of a laughing stock
wannabe reputation amongst console gamers.
 
That said, it still took the PC almost two decades before it really
started to be seen as a primary gaming platform by gamers and
publishers. It took a long time before the PC platform was no longer
playing second fiddle to its console cousins. Arguably it still hasn't
shed that reputation.
 

>
Maybe the mouse saved PC gaming.  Doom was kb only.  FPS are far better
with a mouse, and that's a huge difference between PC and console.
Funny enough it was a Mac game a year after Doom that had the first
mouse support - Marathon, which has also been discussed here recently.

Doom supported mouse right from the start (so, apparently, did
Wolf3D). But almost nobody I knew used it. In fact, "Terminator:
Skynet" for the longest time was popularly acclaimed for introducing
mouse/keyboard use to the masses. But you could do it in Doom first.

(The default settings were awful though. You had to press the middle
mouse button to move forward... and even with mouse/keyboard, you were
still using the arrow keys. It wasn't until Quake that WASD+mouse
started taking off.)

I can't seem to find what the first IBM PC game was that used FPS
though.  I'm sure you'll either know or find it though :)

Who, me? ;-)

It depends on how you define "FPS".

Firebird's "Tracker" (1987*) had you moving through the
untextured/wireframe hallways of a sci-fi labyrinth shooting at
things. The movement was much more floaty -more akin to "Descent" than
"Doom", with almost no sense of gravity- and you also at times jumped
out to a 2D map for a lot activities... but its core feels very
similar to an FPS.

Incentive Software's "Freescape" engine (used in "Space Station
Oblivion", "Dark Side" and "Total Eclipse" released in 1988 and 1989)
featured a 3D-rendered (non-textured) world with multiple rooms that
you moved through with a smooth scrolling first-person viewpoint,
shooting at things).

Bethesda's "The Terminator" (1991) even offered a fully open,
3D-rendered world that very much resembles the modern take on the
genre; walk around, shoot NPCs, enter stores, buy things, hijack cars,
etc.

And even further back, you have stuff like "Battlezone" (arriving on
PC in 1983), which arguably fits the definition of an FPS. Or, really,
any tank- or combat flight simulator for that matter.

But the first game that /really/ feels like an FPS as we recognize it
today is probably "Corporation" (a.k.a. "Cyber-Cop" in some regions).
Released in 1990 on the Amiga (1991 on PC), it predated both Id's
"Catacomb 3D" and "Hovetank ONE". Like all those games, it featured a
360 degree smooth-scrolling first-person viewpoint; it had a visible
ceiling and floor, you were a (mostly human) soldier running through a
labyrinth collecting keys to unlock doors, and dealt with your
opponents mostly by shooting them.

That said, Id's creations were seminal; they didn't INVENT the idea of
the first-person shooter, but -even from the start- they perfected it.
All the games I mentioned above feel VERY rough when played by a
modern game; in movement, in control, in gameplay. But you can pick up
"Catacomb 3D" ("Hovertank ONE", not so much) today and get right into
it without much difficulty. It /feels/ like an FPS as we define it
today. It set the model for all future games in the genre.

(And no, we aren't forgetting about "Ultima Underworld". But while it
predated "Wolfenstein 3D" by 45 days, it came out long after "Catacomb
3D" and all the other games I've mentioned. (Also, it's generally not
considered an FPS anyway but I had to pre-empt the people who
inevitably would bring it up ;-)

And that's just on PC. I'm sure there are other games that deserve
recognition in the creation of the FPS genre on other platforms.
However, I've less familiarity with games on other platforms, so I'll
leave it to others to bring them to our attention.


Other potential "first FPS" games on PC
---------------------------------------
   - Alien Fires 2199 (Paragon Software, 1988)
   - The Colony (Mindscape, 1988)
   - Mayday Squad (Tynesoft, 1989)
   - The Sentinel (Firebird, 1989)
   - Tunnels of Armageddon (California Dreams, 1989)**
   - Castle Master / The Crypt (Domark, 1990)
   - Infestation (Psygnosis, 1990)
   - Stellar 7 (Dynamix, 1990)
   - ThunderStrike (Millenium, 1990)
   - Hoverforce (Accolade, 1991)
   - Sleeping Gods Lie (Empire, 1991)
   - Vaxine (US Gold, 1991)

   ... and probably dozens more. But these -and the ones I
   mentioned above- are a good place to start with, if
   you're interested in seeing the 'prehistory' of FPS games
   on the PC platform.







* all these dates are somewhat ambiguous. Figuring out exactly when
games released on PC -especially for less known titles like the ones
I've mentioned- is weirdly difficult. At best, you can figure out the
YEAR (and sometimes even that's not entirely certain). "Tracker", for
instance, has a copyright of 1987 but that's just when the copyright
was granted. It's quite possible that the game itself wasn't sold
until early 1988. Or just as likely it was in stores on Jan 1 1987.
I've almost no way to figure it out. Other games are similar.
** although this one is more of a rail-shooter