Video games of our childhood, no, of our infancy were incredibly simplistic what we would now call puzzle games. However, as the hardware and design and game mechanics evolved an evolutionary step was taken and the highest selling games such as Pong and Pac-Man were replaced with more complex 2D side scrollers, fighters and racing games.
The next evolutionary step came with 3D.
I'm not talking games because the very first one of those was on the Sinclair ZX81 in 1971 and was called 3D Monster Maze, rather I mean 3D in the game engine sense, the rise of first person shooters and such.
Wolfenstein and other first person shooters filled my teenage years and I would spend hours playing them.
Some were technically 2D engines layered cleverly to give the illusion of 3D, Doom is an example of this but it paved the way for 3D engines and led to Id Software creating their first actual 3D engine title, Quake.
Then began a long slow process in converting popular franchises, formats and genres into a 3D environment.
Despite how popular earlier games like Doom, Wolfenstein and Quake were (and other less known pioneering titles that came before them) media attention was awarded to the successful 3D-ising of Mario in Super Mario 64 and thus, games continued being adapted in this vein, with new titles incorporating better graphics and visuals due to their updated game engines.
Read more »I'm not talking games because the very first one of those was on the Sinclair ZX81 in 1971 and was called 3D Monster Maze, rather I mean 3D in the game engine sense, the rise of first person shooters and such.
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| Wolfenstein - where else could you fight Hitler in a mech-suit? |
Wolfenstein and other first person shooters filled my teenage years and I would spend hours playing them.
Some were technically 2D engines layered cleverly to give the illusion of 3D, Doom is an example of this but it paved the way for 3D engines and led to Id Software creating their first actual 3D engine title, Quake.
Then began a long slow process in converting popular franchises, formats and genres into a 3D environment.
Despite how popular earlier games like Doom, Wolfenstein and Quake were (and other less known pioneering titles that came before them) media attention was awarded to the successful 3D-ising of Mario in Super Mario 64 and thus, games continued being adapted in this vein, with new titles incorporating better graphics and visuals due to their updated game engines.