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Celebrating FPS Games With Hurt Me Plenty

Celebrating FPS Games With Hurt Me Plenty

Bitmap Books’ latest book, Hurt Me Plenty: The Ultimate Guide To First-Person Shooters 2003-2010, is out now! Detailing the history of this popular genre and the notable games from each year, this is the second volume in Bitmap Books’ brilliant series that chronicles the origins and rise of the first-person shooter.

I’m Graeme Mason, and ever since I first gazed wide-eyed at the blocky realm of DOOM’s Mars, I’ve been addicted to first-person shooters. Join me as I take a look at my favourite from each of the years that Hurt Me Plenty covers, from 2003 until 2010.

To read further about these and dozens more FPS games, purchase Bitmap Books’ Hurt Me Plenty. And don’t forget you can delve further into the past with volume one, I’m Too Young To Die: The Ultimate Guide To First-Person Shooters 1992-2002.

Call Of Duty / 2003
Publisher: Activision
Developer: Infinity Ward

While the Medal Of Honor series may have appeared first, there’s little doubt today that Call Of Duty is the undisputed king of the military-based FPS. Appearing in the Autumn of 2003, the original Call Of Duty focuses on single-player, specifically three campaigns, American, British and Russian. Featuring then-advanced AI – enemy and friendly soldiers visibly react to the situation around them – Call Of Duty’s varied missions and exciting action made it into a bestseller, instigating the all-conquering franchise we know twenty-two years and over thirty games later.



Star Wars: Battlefront
/ 2004
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Pandemic Studios

Until Battlefront, most Star Wars FPS games had put you in the shoes of new characters such as Kyle Katarn or Jedi-wannabe Jaden Korr. Now, rather than engage in a fresh story, players had the chance to relive the movies themselves, jumping into a snowspeeder and charging across Hoth or sniping Imperial Stormtroopers in the jungles of Yavin IV. With a wealth of famous locations from the series and simple, intuitive gameplay, Star Wars: Battlefront makes you feel you’re really a part of the Rebellion or doing your bit to crush all resistance as the mighty Empire. Online multiplayer was where it was at for this 2004 game, but I enjoyed playing with and against bots and downloading the many custom maps available on the internet.

F.E.A.R. / 2005
Publisher: Vivendi Universal Games
Developer: Monolith Productions

By 2005, Washington’s Monolith Productions was already firmly established in the FPS genre. Its first game, Blood, was a macabre shoot/stab-‘em-up that used the already antiquated Build technology; by the time of its criminally underrated No One Lives Forever series, it was already using its proprietary engine, LithTech. F.E.A.R. (First Encounter Assault Recon), alongside the Condemned series, utilises the LithTech Jupiter EX engine combined with Havok physics software, enabling dramatic explosions, lighting, and fluid action. The result is an uncanny blend of Japanese horror, The Shining, and an action movie, creating an eerie atmosphere (enhanced by Nathan Grigg's discordant music) where the player never quite knows what – or who – is going to appear next.

Prey / 2006
Publisher: 2K Games
Developer: Human Head Studios

Stuck in development hell for over ten years, Prey features several novel concepts based around its spaceship location. Portals enable the abducted protagonist, Cherokee Tommy Tawodi, to explore the alien craft, battling its inhabitants and navigating the variable gravity. That craft is the Sphere, an organic vessel that plants life before returning to harvest it many years later. Prey’s commendable use of Native American characters and their spirituality helps create a standout FPS that seamlessly merges numerous physics-based puzzles with traditional shooting mechanics.

BioShock / 2007
Publisher: 2K
Developer: 2K

Some games transcend their origins and genre, taking place in an environment like no other. BioShock’s Rapture is a baroque underwater world populated by drug-addicted Splicers and Little Sisters, poor orphans tortured and implanted with slugs to help create a powerful genetic serum called ADAM. It’s impossible not to be taken by BioShock’s evocative location and storyline, as the game masterfully blends frantic blasting with story and character-defining choices. A true twisty and mind-bending legend of the genre.



Fallout 3 / 2008
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Developer: Bethesda Game Studios

Bethesda stunned gamers everywhere in 2008 with its action-packed and blood-soaked update of the turn-based RPG classic. Set in a desolate post-apocalyptic world – yes, it’s all rather brown, grey and yellow – Fallout 3 borrows many of Fallout’s most notable themes while creating its own environment full of danger, factions, radiation-poisoned beasties and more. Fallout 3 was the point at which Fallout started on the road to widespread appeal, culminating in the popular Amazon television series, and it’s one of the few games I’ve maxed out on Xbox achievements.

Halo 3: ODST / 2009
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Developer: Bungie

I’ll never forget the opening moments of Bungie’s Halo 3. Arriving on Earth, the Master Chief explores the gloriously-rendered jungles of East Africa, battling both the Covenant and the Flood. It looked magnificent, the near-invincible Chief stomping, crushing and shooting anything in his way. This game, released two years later, flips the narrative, putting the player in the role of a relatively vulnerable ODST (Orbital Drop Shock Trooper) known simply as ‘The Rookie’. The Rookie explores the city of New Mombasa as they try to discover what’s happened to the rest of their squad. With its film noir feel and urban backdrop, Halo 3: ODST is a very different experience to the regular Halo line, but all the better for it. I still listen to Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori’s haunting soundtrack today.

Singularity / 2010
Publisher: Activision
Developer: Raven

Like Prey, this time-warping game had a troubled gestation and was almost cancelled more than once during development. Luckily, gamers got to experience this derivative yet fine FPS, its influences ranging from the Cold War to Half-Life 2 and BioShock, each combining to present a sleek shooter requiring both brains and a sharp trigger finger. The key element is the TMD – Time Manipulation Device – that allows the player to warp objects (and people) backwards and forwards through time. Well-received yet largely forgotten, Singularity is a gem of a game.

Thanks for reading the latest Bitmap Books Blog post. Do you prefer different games to Graeme? Let us know your favourites!

In the meantime, don’t forget you can read about all these games and more in Bitmap Books’ Hurt Me Plenty and its companion tome, I’m Too Young To Die.