Conclusion

Rise of the Triad: Here's a true blast from the past. Originally released in 1994 by Apogee (now known as 3D Realms) this action-spy game is best known for its wild multiplayer games with some cool weapons, five playable characters and levels that allowed players to jump and even fly around. This game was certainly a test bed for gameplay features that 3D Realms would later use for Duke Nukem 3D over a year later.

Odds For Revival: Slim to None. This game had some unique elements that really haven't been done much since, but 3D Realms does have some other projects on their schedule (Prey, Duke Nukem Forever) that would seem to keep them busy for a while Still, Rise of the Triad has a lot of fans and maybe 3D Realms can give another developer a chance to revive it.

Outlaws: Perhaps the best Wild West themed game ever made, Lucasarts' 1997 shooter combined their Dark Forces game engine with their SCUMM adventure engine to create both a solid action game and a Spaghetti Western style storyline (complete with some memorable music). The game received solid reviews and really showed that the Western game could be done right. Only the recent title Gun has approached what Outlaws did nine years ago.

Odds For Revival: Slim To None. As good as Outlaws was, it wasn't a big success in sales and now Lucasarts seems to be concentrating on their Star Wars and Indiana Jones properties for their upcoming titles. It would be great to hear that music again and ride the plains but it just doesn't look like it will happen.

Requiem: Avenging Angel: This is admittedly a personal hope but we can't help it; this 3DO game released in 1999 (developed by Cyclone Studios) was very impressive for its time. You actually do play an angel who is doing some serious avenging in this game and in addition to the typical first person shooter weapons you get to use some angelic abilities. Our favorites? Killing enemies and then resurrecting them to have them fight on our side and even possessing character. The graphics were very well handled as well.

Odds for Revival: Slim to None. 3DO's bankruptcy a few years ago would seem to preclude any revival of this game. Still, we would love to bring our enemies back from the dead so maybe sometime we will see a game that will do some of the things Requiem did so well


William Shatner's TekWar: . . . . Ok, calm down..we are KIDDING about wanting to revive this game.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are a ton of first person shooter games that are ripe for revival and we sincerely hope that at least a couple of the games on this list will reappear in some new form in the near future. In the meantime if you have never played some of these games, you can download demos for nearly all of them at the various file download gaming web sites. We think you will find that they are worth it. We also hope that the full versions of these older games will be released via paid electronic download at some point. Most of the PC versions of these titles haven’t been in stores for some time so making them available on the Internet would be doing a huge service to all of these games.