First-Person Shooters that was not short on story/atmosphere

Originally Posted by txa1265
Spearhead wasn't very good, neither was Breakthrough … in fact they just got worse and worse …

It's actually a bit strange. I played Spearhead immediately after it was released and thought it was raping the MoHAA. So much had been changed and generally the worst expansion pack I've ever played.
But with Breakthrough it was a return to the integrity of MoHAA and it actually added some new exciting levels and environments.
But I've spoken with another person and he says the same as you txa/Mike.

vh. Asbjørn

Originally Posted by Jaz
If I remember things correctly German voices (in the original version) sounded just wrong. It irritated me so much that I stopped playing after a while.

Ah - that was what I thought. Makes sense, really.

Originally Posted by Asbjoern
It's actually a bit strange. I played Spearhead immediately after it was released and thought it was raping the MoHAA. So much had been changed and generally the worst expansion pack I've ever played.
But with Breakthrough it was a return to the integrity of MoHAA and it actually added some new exciting levels and environments.

I played all of them (MoHAA and the expansions) 'day of release' … and I had high hopes for Breakthrough, since it held so much promise and was supposed to be much longer than the puny Spearhead. But I found that it lacked much personality and retreated to the old 'you against the world' tack, especially being released at almost the same time as Call of Duty.

I'd like to add another old underdog to my list:

Strife (1996)
Main Character: 'Strifeguy', the nameless hero
Noteable Characters: Blackbird (your guide), Macil (the Front leader), the Oracle, the Programmer, the Loremaster (all Entity)
Story: A comet hit Earth, unleashed a virus and killed many. Soon after, the Entity made itself known, people started to worship it, and the rise of The Order began. The Order killed most of the women and children and enslaved most of the men. So much oppression created an underground resistance, The Front… and this is where you come in.

Strife had RPG elements and a nice story in a Science-Fantasy setting. It also had great comic-book-style character portraits, a plot with several twists and multiple endings.

Originally Posted by txa1265
I played all of them (MoHAA and the expansions) 'day of release' … and I had high hopes for Breakthrough, since it held so much promise and was supposed to be much longer than the puny Spearhead. But I found that it lacked much personality and retreated to the old 'you against the world' tack, especially being released at almost the same time as Call of Duty.

Yes, Spearhead was very short. I remember I got it for christmas and it took me 2 hours or so to complete that christmas night. Breakthrough I found was a longer game to complete and it added stealth gameplay and some intriguing desert missions.
The MoH series has always been about that simple "me against the world" so it has a lot of roots in the FPS genre. It was first with Call of Duty 2 that I experienced a shift in the FPS genre to more realism.
I never got to play Call of Duty until half a year ago (released on Steam), so I wasn't that impressed.

Generally I just found the mission/level design to be too ruined in Spearhead. And the red loading bar before a mission. A disgrace.

vh. Asbjørn

Originally Posted by Asbjoern
The MoH series has always been about that simple "me against the world" so it has a lot of roots in the FPS genre. It was first with Call of Duty 2 that I experienced a shift in the FPS genre to more realism.

The first CoD was better than #2 IMO, and really brought that feeling of being a small part of a massive war home … MoHAA was definitely a single player game, but in the first one I felt part of the war, whereas it seemed that by the Breakthrough expansion they had abandoned that feeling in order to make the game feel longer by just hurling waves of Nazis at you.

It's actually funny how you can see the transformation of a singleplayer MoHAA, to a more squad based CoD and at last with CoD2 as the "ultimate" squad based WW2 shooter. I never really got stimulated by CoD2 but I have a lot of respect for it because I feel that when playing it, this was how WW2 combat were really like. It was realistic because you was just one of hundreds of others in a push forward tactic and not a nearly rogue agent shooting around in a submarine bay with dozens of guards.

For those who do not know. The people behind MoHAA and the CoD series were roughly the same.

vh. Asbjørn

Originally Posted by Asbjoern
For those who do not know. The people behind MoHAA and the CoD series were roughly the same.

Which is something many attribute to the precipitous drop in quality of the expansions and sequel - the brain drain to the CoD team.

But to go back a bit. The two first games in the MoH series on PS are really something special. Perhaps not now but at that time they were really well crafted. The first Medal of Honor was actually made by Steven Spielberg and his (former) DreamWorks Interactive.
It is the only two games I've ever bought to the PS and I loved them inspite of the console controlling.

vh. Asbjørn

Enclave. Well, not necessarily 1st person, but you can switch between 1st and 3rd person. I kinda liked it.

enclave while a better/more fun game than my least favourite game rune had a worse story. the fact that their were a 'good' and 'evil' story added something but from what i remember of the story you'd get more depth from a saturday morning cartoon.

Originally Posted by curious
enclave while a better/more fun game than my least favourite game rune had a worse story. the fact that their were a 'good' and 'evil' story added something but from what i remember of the story you'd get more depth from a saturday morning cartoon.

I liked Enclave. I ripped the music from the credits. The music in Enclave is made by a famous swedish musician of the swedish demo community.

Originally Posted by curious
enclave while a better/more fun game than my least favourite game rune had a worse story. the fact that their were a 'good' and 'evil' story added something but from what i remember of the story you'd get more depth from a saturday morning cartoon.

Crap, it had a story? Must have missed that one… anyway, I like the atmosphere. There is this one mission where you have to enter a haunted house or something - loved it. But, you are right, there really wasn't much of a story. Still a good game, fairly solid, very few bugs, looked great, and gameplay was ok as well… not as good as a true RPG, but nice for some fast action. I liked the fact that you could choose between a light side and a dark side. And if I remember right, each side had like 5 or 6 characetrs that you could choose from as well.

Dark Forces (1995)
Main Character: Kyle Katarn, a mercenary in the service of the Rebel Alliance.
Noteable Characters: Jan Ors, Kyles mission commander

Story: (taken from Wikipedia) The story takes place both before and after the events of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. The first mission (which was also released independently for the game demo) was an infiltration of an Imperial base in order to steal the original plans of the Death Star, those that would be later given to Princess Leia and lead to the Death Star's destruction in A New Hope.
After the Battle of Yavin, Kyle is contacted again to investigate an Imperial assault on the Rebel base of Talay, with a never-seen-before kind of advanced stormtrooper. Kyle's investigation reveals the Imperial Dark Trooper project, led by General Rom Mohc. Each mission brings him closer to the Arc Hammer, the source of the project.

----------

The game might be too dated for today's stanards, but boy was it good. I'll never forget the tension I felt when I met my first "advanced storm trooper". I was terrified. Fantastic atmosphere.

I think it is still a great game … play it annually. I'm disappointed that the DFMod project has really stalled … they were bringing the game to the JKII engine.

Last year I decided to finish the rest of the Jedi Knight series (after only finishing Jedi Outcast/Academy). I finished Jedi Knight first, then I started with Mysteries of the Sith but ended up feeling it was too difficult for me to handle.

Then I started DF and I reached level 3 before I had to stall the game. My greatest nuisance was the lack of save function and I was annoyed by the now outdated mousecontrol. I will probably finish it eventually though unless the unfortunally stalled DF mod is finished.

Originally Posted by JemyM
My greatest nuisance was the lack of save function and I was annoyed by the now outdated mousecontrol. I will probably finish it eventually though.

Couple things:
- Mouse?!?! I have *never* played DF with a mouse!
- Save system - Dark Forces was designed and balanced around being doable without in-level saves. Not always easy, but it is actually one thing I love about the game.

Originally Posted by JemyM
I also never got through more than the first level of Mysteries of the Sith.

Despite how many times I've played it, there are some *really* hard parts … I still struggle each time on level 5 (I think … it is Kyle's last level where he has to escape)

Originally Posted by txa1265
I think it is still a great game … play it annually. I'm disappointed that the DFMod project has really stalled … they were bringing the game to the JKII engine.

I would really like to play that if they indeed manage to pull it off. I tried playing playing Dark Forces a few years ago, but the 320x240 was just too hard on my eyes.

Heck, I'd even be satisfied with a simple patch that would at least allow 640x480.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Heck, I'd even be satisfied with a simple patch that would at least allow 640x480.

Which is why it remains one of the few things I play exclusively on the Mac - 640 x 480 and better sound FTW

I love a good story-oriented FPS…it's the genre I turn to for a break from RPGs. However, this thread just shows how rare truly great story-oriented games are. I mean, the PC is famous for back-to-back FPS but frankly, the list of great story-centric ones is pretty thin.

Never heard of Call of Juarez…I'll have to check that out. I'd definitely include HL/HL2 and I can't help thinking of Max Payne as the same genre despite the different PoV.

And if you say Max Payne then Mafia should without doubt also be on the list.