A Good, Solid FPS

[JonLF]

With the semi-imminent advent of the updated iMacs nearly at hand.....


Anyhow, I am getting my new machine sometime soon (I hope) and I was curious about some solid FPS's. I have been out of the market for a while and haven't messed around with much since Q3A and MOHAA.

I don't need anything flashy or stunning, but I do want something:

a)cheap
b)that runs well
c)that is well done and doesn't sacrifice game-play for ridiculous complexity or graphics

Any suggestions?

[Tallest Skil]

The Halo Demo.

Free.
Runs well.
Done well and online play is still fun.

[AxisOfBeagles]

"cheap" is in the eye of the beholder. Call Of Duty 2 and Doom 3 are awesome FPS's.

[redsteven]

With the semi-imminent advent of the updated iMacs nearly at hand.....


Anyhow, I am getting my new machine sometime soon (I hope) and I was curious about some solid FPS's. I have been out of the market for a while and haven't messed around with much since Q3A and MOHAA.

I don't need anything flashy or stunning, but I do want something:

a)cheap
b)that runs well
c)that is well done and doesn't sacrifice game-play for ridiculous complexity or graphics

Any suggestions?

What are u looking for? Something with a solid single player campaign, or is multiplayer more important to you?

Also, would you want a class-based multiplayer game?

Quake 4 is a few years old but I think it's a nice game, and the mac version runs pretty well.

[HiRez]

It's a few years old, but I had a great time playing Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Should run extremely well on any modern Mac. Don't know how much they charge for it nowadays, but I'm sure it's in a bargain bin somewhere. No One Lives Forever 1 & 2 were pretty cool too and a lot of people like Far Cry, though I never played it.

[tominated]

Half life 2 (and the episodes) has got to be the best shooter I have ever played. Great mix between story line and overall fun-ness. HIGHLY recommend it

[Dagless]

Orange Box. It's £24 on Steam and you get;

Half Life 2 - Benchmark of modern FPS and story telling
Half Life 2 Episode 1 - More of the same but with scary dark moments
Half Life 2 Episode 2 - And some more but with big cinematic fights
Portal - 4 hour long FPS puzzle thingy, celebrated moment in gaming
Team Fortress 2 - Addictive team based multiplayer


Doom 3, Prey, Stalker are all quite good too. Original Farcry is also worth a mention - and it's free!

Might want to check out the id pack on Steam. I think it's about $60 or something but you get about 20-30 games from id games. Which are all very good.

[eXan]

Unreal Torunament (any version except 2003, but original doesnt have a good Mac OS X version)

People are saying Call of Duty 4 to be really good.

All I can think of atm...

[tominated]

Unreal Torunament (any version except 2003, but original doesnt have a good Mac OS X version)

People are saying Call of Duty 4 to be really good.

All I can think of atm...

Call of duty 4 is good. I prefer more sci-fi shooters though, so i don't play it too much. Half life is a real time killer...

[Carlog200]

Definitly look at the Orange Box. 5 amazing games for 50$. I keep coming back to it.

Bioshock(great fps game for thinkers) and Unreal Tournament 3 are only 30$ now.

You could pick up fear or stalker if you are into horror.

Crysis for 40$ if you want a solid fps game that looks amazing.

[molintorch]

call of duty 4 is awesome (cod4 for short) and its really close to launch. The single player story is about 9 hours of playtime and the multiple player aspects are amazingly addictive as well. I've played it on 360 and on pc, and plan to get it for mac as well. It was definately my favorite Fps last year with orange box a close second (hugs to the companion cube!!!). Orange box is great simply cause you get five good games for the price of one. Some people play orange box with crossover, but I couldn't get it to work so I play it in bootcamp.

Have fun and frag hard!!

[Totty]

I have to agree with Unreal Tournament. The 2004 version runs awesome on my x1600 MBP. Also, a Mac version isn't out yet, but UT3 for PC is really good too if you don't mind running in Boot Camp.

Also, Sauerbraten is a free fps which looks good and is multi-platform. Might look into it too.

[danny_w]

Will any of these run decently on a MB C2D (original, not X3100)? This thread got me to hankering for some good old fashioned FPS play. An older single player game would be fine (I don't care for multiplayer).

[design-is]

Another vote for CoD4. Playing on bootcamp on MacBook Pro and its first class. Out soon for Mac too! :)

[eXan]

Will any of these run decently on a MB C2D (original, not X3100)? This thread got me to hankering for some good old fashioned FPS play. An older single player game would be fine (I don't care for multiplayer).

UT2004 deathmatch runs solid on my Core 2 Duo GMA950 MacBook at medium settings (30-50FPS, depends on map). Onslaught and Assault make it drop into single digit FPS quite often though.

[sunfast]

It's a few years old, but I had a great time playing Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Should run extremely well on any modern Mac. Don't know how much they charge for it nowadays, but I'm sure it's in a bargain bin somewhere.

I loved this game on PC and picked it up cheap of eBay. Half the time it refuses to run on my MacBook though which is really irritating because it's such a fun game

[danny_w]

UT2004 deathmatch runs solid on my Core 2 Duo GMA950 MacBook at medium settings (30-50FPS, depends on map). Onslaught and Assault make it drop into single digit FPS quite often though.
Thanks, but I would really prefer a single-player game. I have tried the UT games and don't care for them.

[DaveTaylor]

Quake :) Has to be said, haven't played it in ages :( last time I played it was in the airport some lady told her kid to stop watching me play it as it was "offensive"

[GreatDrok]

No-one else has mentioned it but I love Mafia (not really FPS but great fun). Of course, it isn't available for the Mac but if you are after cheap FPSs you most likely need to bootcamp Windows anyway. That also gives you access to the GTAIII/VC/SA set which again aren't FPSs as such but great fun.

For true FPSs, I really enjoyed Call of Duty 1 and 2. Doom 3 was pretty good but not as good as Far Cry which is simply gorgeous and has a very varied and fun story and is far far better than the Xbox version.

Others have mentioned Return to Castle Wolfenstein and I have to agree. Fabulous game that I keep going back to and for those MacBook owners out there, it should run well since it is based on the old Quake 3 engine as is Medal of Honor Allied Assault (far better than any of the later versions). Quake 4 was good although I only have that on the 360 but it was pretty good fun.

Halo? meh. Got all three. Played through once each, probably won't touch them again. The first one was best of the bunch and is available for Mac. Don't really like on-line stuff myself either so the fact the fanboys go on and on about how fabulous the on-line play is doesn't really swing it for me. Main story is far too repetitive. This room? Again? For the 10th time? Sheesh!

Half-life 2 is fantastic. Definitely grab a copy of that. I've played it through a couple of times which is always a great sign.

Sadly, these days I see so little for the PC to like, Crysis is simply impossible to run well and not much else has taken my fancy since PC gaming has moved more and more to MMORPG rather than good FPSs. Still a great time to go through the old back catalogue if you can still find the games. Got me thinking I should pull Far Cry out again.....

[hankolerd]

im thinking cod2 is probably your best unless you can run cod4, then it, because cod4 is amazing.:apple:

[danny_w]

Halo!
I never saw what was so great about Halo. It's just not my cup of tea I guess.

[eXan]

I never saw what was so great about Halo. It's just not my cup of tea I guess.

Yea... IMO Halo sucks, in both SP and MP. Yes, I played it all the way from start to finish.

[Dagless]

I kinda liked Halo. Played it on my Xbox and IMO one of the best console FPS games going. Didn't like the sequels though. I played through Halo 2 but couldn't even be bothered to finish the first level on Halo 3. Have played multiplayer and saddened to see Sidewinder still hasn't returned (my all time fave Halo 1 map).

Not sure why I like it. It just felt so atmospheric, the location was pure genius and that you can only hold 2 weapons at once brought a lot of strategy to the table. Worked great in co-op too, my friend would be a sniper and I'd be up front in the battles. If I died then I would respawn near him since he was away from the action :D

[eXan]

I kinda liked Halo. Played it on my Xbox and IMO one of the best console FPS games going. Didn't like the sequels though. I played through Halo 2 but couldn't even be bothered to finish the first level on Halo 3. Have played multiplayer and saddened to see Sidewinder still hasn't returned (my all time fave Halo 1 map).

Not sure why I like it. It just felt so atmospheric, the location was pure genius and that you can only hold 2 weapons at once brought a lot of strategy to the table. Worked great in co-op too, my friend would be a sniper and I'd be up front in the battles. If I died then I would respawn near him since he was away from the action :D

The most atmospheric games I've played were Knights of the Old Republic 2, Oni, certain maps in UT2004, most maps in UT3.

I don't really know why I dislike Halo... I didn't like weapons, enemies, graphics never felt "right", too many repetitive (and boring) levels, etc. I also find the multiplayer of Unreal Tournament (any) to be waaaay better than Halo's. The game wasn't fun at all to me, except for the final level where you need to drive a truck to you ship for escape - that was actually a nice level :) the music during it was very fitting.

I played only Halo 1 though, probably sequels are better.

[Carlog200]

I never liked farcry. I don't understand what everyone liked about it so much.
Also, I played the cod4 demo and got very little enjoyment out of it. Is the real game signifcantly better?

[Dagless]

The most atmospheric games I've played were Knights of the Old Republic 2, Oni, certain maps in UT2004, most maps in UT3.

I don't really know why I dislike Halo... I didn't like weapons, enemies, graphics never felt "right", too many repetitive (and boring) levels, etc. I also find the multiplayer of Unreal Tournament (any) to be waaaay better than Halo's. The game wasn't fun at all to me, except for the final level where you need to drive a truck to you ship for escape - that was actually a nice level :) the music during it was very fitting.

I played only Halo 1 though, probably sequels are better.

I could never play Halo online. I tried with tunneling and Halo 2 and 3 online but it was always a LAN game for us. During college years we used to have 12 people Halo matches on a few Xbox's and it really worked. Great party game alongside Mario Kart, Smash Bros etc.

Some levels were boring. I can never play the Library level again. Terrible level design that, much too repetitive.

Unreals multiplayer is quite good but then again it's a dedicated online shooter (with paltry single player mode). UT3 I don't like though.

[JonLF]

What are u looking for? Something with a solid single player campaign, or is multiplayer more important to you?

Also, would you want a class-based multiplayer game?

Quake 4 is a few years old but I think it's a nice game, and the mac version runs pretty well.


I am really looking for something single-player. I don't play enough to get good at multi-player and typically end up getting destroyed.

[tominated]

Have played multiplayer and saddened to see Sidewinder still hasn't returned (my all time fave Halo 1 map).

Sidewinder is back in the legendary map pack.

[hankolerd]

I never liked farcry. I don't understand what everyone liked about it so much.
Also, I played the cod4 demo and got very little enjoyment out of it. Is the real game signifcantly better?

I have only played part of the SP on my roommates computer, and it was pretty good, not absolutely amazing, but not bad for a fps campaign. But I have watched my roommate play MP online, and it looks pretty fun. Last lan party I went to at school there were 5 people playing it, and that also looked pretty fun.:apple:

[Dagless]

Sidewinder is back in the legendary map pack.

My interest in Halo 3 increases at this. Once we cycled through all the maps we only ever played on Sidewinder. Even found a really awesome glitch where you could climb out of the level by placing a tank right up against one of them high passages.

Love I feel for Sidewinder.

[eXan]

Unreals multiplayer is quite good but then again it's a dedicated online shooter (with paltry single player mode). UT3 I don't like though.

I wouldnt call it dedicated to multiplayer... Though it was intended as one, there's a very good AI to play with when you cant/dont want to play vs people.

I almost never play it online due to my pathetic connection (only 64kbit/sec) and there's only 1-2 people I know willing to play it on LAN so I mainly play vs bots and its reaaly fun.

[Dagless]

Yea I went for years playing against them bots in UT99, we only had dial up back then and I just used it for downloading hundreds of maps and mods. Tried playing it online recently (bought it as part of the Steam/Epic deal, £30 for the whole UT series) and just got absolutely slaughtered! The bots didn't help me at all :D


I've also found the music to be very good in Epic games. Even the first Unreal had a brilliant opening theme.

[luffytubby]

UT3, COD2/COD4, Bioshock, Halo etc simply can't touch the value that you will get with the Orange Box.


Reasons Why Orange Box wins:

1)In Orange Box you get 5 fully fledged games for the price of one. HL2(around 10-15 hours), HL2:Episode 1(around 4-7 hours), HL2:Episode 2(around 4-7 hours), Portal(around 3-4 hours), Team Fortress 2(around ???).

2)These five games are very varried. The HL2 games will give you a great cinematic single player journey, with a good story and narrative. The pacing is great, it's quite fine tuned in it's difficulty. Portal is a humorous first person puzzle game. Very uniqe and fresh like nothing you have seen before. TF2 is a team oriented online multiplayer game with cartoon action. It's bright, colorful, charming and full of fun. Very full of fun.

3)All the games in the Orange Box runs on the Source engine. Arguable one of the best engines ever suited for games. It's incredible well optimized and it will run on any intel Imac.

[eXan]

Yea I went for years playing against them bots in UT99, we only had dial up back then and I just used it for downloading hundreds of maps and mods. Tried playing it online recently (bought it as part of the Steam/Epic deal, £30 for the whole UT series) and just got absolutely slaughtered! The bots didn't help me at all :D


I've also found the music to be very good in Epic games. Even the first Unreal had a brilliant opening theme.

Haha when I first played UT3 at my friend's house we played a bit vs bots just to test stuff out and then went online... He also has the same slow connection, but I was destroyed in deathmatch (3 people total) with like 1-15 score :D

Bots arent very smart in previous titles but their accuracy and dodging was insane. I usually play UT2004 (I'm best at it out of all series) at inhuman-godlike and win most of the time. We once went to computer club with a friend and found UT2004 was available to play there... we arranged a 2v2 vs some guys and I owned them really hard (thx to Godlike bots I used to train with lol ). So bots aren't completely useless :)

As for music, I REALLY like it. My favorite by far is in UT3, but I only listened to 15 tracks of 30 (going to order a CD with soundtrack from USA soon). UT99 comes second and UT2003/4 third (as they have different feel from the rest of the series and I dont think it suits it well).

[Dagless]

The UT2003 theme was my fave, really surprised to see they included it on the UT2004 Steam edition! Just renamed the files around and have the 2003 theme as the menu music. Used to have it on my first MP3 player too :D Really good stuff.

All this talk of UT makes me want to sit down for the rest of the day and play the whole series. I never made it out of the first area in Unreal 1, never even touched Unreal 2.
Ah it's a great series. I don't like 3 much because it doesn't improve much from 2004, save some new gravity features and graphics. Also bobs wayyyy too much for me but I'm surprised that it could even run on my 2 year old iMac with the settings quite high! It's very optimised, just not as much as the Source engine.
For comparison Bioshock runs terribly on my machine.

[JonLF]

3)All the games in the Orange Box runs on the Source engine. Arguable one of the best engines ever suited for games. It's incredible well optimized and it will run on any intel Imac.

Didn't they steal that engine from John Carmack? :)

[Fogtripper]

Marathon perhaps?

[Ant1-Hero]

Guitar Hero 3

[Dagless]

Guitar Hero 3

Guitar Hero 3 is an FPS?

[Vorian]

Half-Life 2.

This is by far the best FPS game ever made. The story is compelling and driving. The gameplay destroys all other single player shooters out there (yes even Halo, which I despise :) ).

But yes, for one HL2 is very cheap. you can buy it right off of steam by itself for $20, or buy a bigger bundle with many more games included (I would recommend this)
Get it here! (http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=game&AppId=220&cc=US)

As for graphics, I run it on medium graphics with a RADEON 9200 and 512GB RAM. looks very pretty too. I'd say this game looks almost as good as the top market games, and considering when it was released (2004) this is amazing. But the good thing about the graphics is that your system resources are not being pushed to the max, it all runs smooth.

yess...

get Half Life


EDIT: I agree with LuffyTubby about orange box. It comes with a whole lot of amazing games, SP and MP, and the price is awesome. Its one of the bundles that I mentioned earlier

[danny_w]

Half-Life 2.

This is by far the best FPS game ever made. The story is compelling and driving. The gameplay destroys all other single player shooters out there (yes even Halo, which I despise :) ).
That's a matter of opinion. I didn't like either Half-Life or Half-Life 2.

[MinorBidoh]

for something to hold you over for a bit of time, particularly online, id firmly sugggest COD4 or battlefield2142. I still play alot of Battlefied 2 online and it still proves to be a popular title. check it out for some realistic gun-ho action. (just remember to train as a medic, and be accurate)

[Dagless]

That's a matter of opinion. I didn't like either Half-Life or Half-Life 2.

It is :) but the general opinion put Orange Box on the top spot for FPS games.

If you want a free taster of HL2 and you have an ATi graphics card you can get HL2: Deathmatch for free. Along with a large demo level (Lost Coast). Here (http://www.steampowered.com/ati_offer1a/).

[Vorian]

That's a matter of opinion. I didn't like either Half-Life or Half-Life 2.

Yes it is my opinion and I realize he(or she :O) might not care that much, but I just felt like sharing my thoughts.

[Dont Hurt Me]

HL2 is a great game but without native Mac support makes it less then stellar. Enemy Territory Quake Wars is a good game in my view worth looking at and is made for Mac. No windows on my Mac. Solid FPS.