As i stated in a previous post, I was going to start doing these retrospects and who better to start with than the fathers of the FPS genre temselves; ID Software.
ID Software is just a name to the average gamer. They see ID and they immediately think Wolfenstein, Doom and Quake, which is a fair thing to think considering it is two big contributions they made, but to programmers ID Software is a testament of true talent and innovation. IDs initial team were all programmers for SoftDisk, a company in the early 80s who specialized in Disk based magazine or Disczettes as they called them. But it was around the late 80s when the four programmers ( John Carmak, John Reomero, Adrian Carmack, and Tom Hall) started tooling with games and since they had a contract to fulfill with SoftDisc thats who published their first efforts. They games they made were Hovertank 3D, Shadow Knights, Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Castle, and the revolutionary Catacomb 3D,
which is noted ( and debated by many) as the first true (though not really TRUE) 3D first person game ever created, showing not only things from a 3D view but also showing the players hand on screen to further give the illusion that its through the players eyes. Anyways after the contact was up the 4 split and created ID Software and developed their first game under the title Commander Keen which took the side scrolling of Super Mario and added guns to the mix. The title is noted for its pioneering use of Shareware (which would usually be 1/3 of a full game you could share with people via a floppy) and the use of then new tech EGA(Enhanced Graphics Accelerator) graphics
Well anyways after that we all know what happened, they made and released Wolfenstein which in turn led to the game that needs no introduction, DOOM and ever since ID has been the main developer for Video game engines on PC and Consoles. For the past 20 years they've been cranking out engines that damn near everyone bases the big titles on. From 1994 and on you couldnt walk into an electronics store without seeing a DOOM clone or a game based on its engine made by ID. The DOOM engine pretty much was the backbone of PC gaming up to 1996 when IDs next big release Quake came out. You name a 3rd party title on PC theres a really big chance its based on an ID engine or on the Build engine which was basically the same thing with higher texture support.
Hexen
Even to this day big name titles (Call of Duty 4, Medal of Honor games) use a modded version of one of IDs engines. So basically comes to this. What can ID possibly do next. The ID Tech 4 Engine has been the least commercialized of anything ID has released but you can hardly write it off without the shading tech and high textures it introduced i doubt Unreal Engine 3 would have looked the way it did, and ID Tech 5 gets showcased this year with Rage and Doom 4. Will it be the next ID Tech 3 engine that will be modded for years to come or will it slump to a small release like ID Tech 4. Who knows but one thing is for sure, its apparent that over the years these guys especially lead programmer John Cormack have proved time and time again that they were and still are the best of the best. Because though Unreal Engine 3 is being used alot on Consoles, it has nothing on the staying power of IDs tech. You can get on Qtracker or QIRC and still see hundreds of Quake 1 and Quake 2 servers. Hell look no further than QuakeCon held every year in Dallas to truly see their staying Power. One thing is for sure we owe a hell of a lot to ID because without them we may not be where we are today in terms of 3D visuals.
Doom
Doom II
Quake 1
Quake 2
I was prolly the first one to see this after it was posted....I didnt say nothin, just wanted to see if anyone else noticed
