Garry’s Mod, Lord of the Rings MMO, Reference Zombie Shooter, Esports Strategy and Other Living Classics
Today, “royal battles” and metaverses are in fashion, among which there are not so many original projects – most repeat the formula of the founders of the genre with minimal changes. And if we remember the popular online games of the past decades, we will see many unique diamonds that still sparkle. No one, including the developers themselves, has been able to surpass them for many years. And, apparently for the same reason, tens or even hundreds of thousands of people continue to play them.
In the first part of the material, we will talk about 9 games that were released from 2006 to 2013. And to make the immersion in the past more natural, we arranged them in reverse chronological order.
Battlefield 4 (2013) is the best entry point into the genre
Battlefield 2042 at the start was good except for the next generation picture . By the fall of 2022, the online shooter still led to a decent fortune, but in many ways the latest installment of the franchise still loses to the good old Four. It was then, in 2013, that the developers found the perfect balance when “easy to learn, but difficult to master.” At the same time, there were no frankly superfluous mechanics in Battlefield 4, like a lot of auxiliary gadgets, perks and other flirting with other genres.
Here everything was done exactly as it should. The setting is modern to make it easier to deal with the arsenal. Maps are large, spacious, but not gigantic, so that you do not have to run around for 10 minutes in search of an enemy. And in BF4 there were fixed classes: attack aircraft (universal, but weak against vehicles), engineer (destroys enemy vehicles), support (covers with heavy weapons) and scout (marks vehicles and shoots enemies from afar with a “sniper”). When you know exactly who is armed with what, you can effectively coordinate the actions of the team, and not ask each time why the attack aircraft took a rifle with optics, and the scout took a shotgun.
The best moments of BF4 still get hundreds of thousands of views
“Four” is still played cheerfully and cheerfully. For 2022, neither the picture is outdated (by the way, Battlefield 4 is one of the first games with PBR), nor the gameplay. The shooter is still able to generate funny and spectacular situations in almost every match – YouTube still uploads cuts of cool moments that gain hundreds of thousands of views.
In short, if right now you are looking for a massive online shooter that will work well on a relatively weak PC, then Battlefield 4 will be the best option.
Portal 2 (2011) – you can drown in a sea of custom maps
Portal 2 was released over 10 years ago. Many have already gone through its plot and co-op. However, in addition to the official maps for co-op, there are almost 140,000 user-created works already accumulated in the Steam Workshop (and their number continues to grow)! It’s all about a convenient toolkit for creating levels, which allows you not only to arrange elements, but also to edit the mechanics that affect the gameplay, and even replace some of the graphic assets with custom ones.
From custom start day maps, we can recommend the Excellent Partnership series from a fan called Wildgoosespeeder. Each level has a central theme that all puzzles are dedicated to. Here you do not need to think in four dimensions (i.e. travel in time) or overcome spatial anomalies – the maps simply prolong the pleasure of co-op in the spirit of the official campaign.
Walkthrough of the first map from the Excellent Partnership series
However, if you haven’t played official co-op yet, then you should definitely catch up. All levels of the campaign are connected by a storyline about two funny robots, and puzzles are designed so that they can only be overcome by helping each other. Moreover, the artificial intelligence GLaDOS (the manager of the tests and the main antagonist of the Portal dilogy) is trying to sabotage the passage, setting the robots against each other, first with eloquence, and then with more vile tricks. All this sometimes leads to the fact that the players really start to swear at each other (usually in jest).
Test Drive Unlimited 2 (2011) — the precursor to Forza Horizon
Racing fits perfectly with the open world, and the most famous series in this genre is Forza Horizon. However, the creators of Test Drive were the first to successfully implement such a concept. The issue with the subtitle Unlimited was published back in 2006 and many people remember the landscapes of Hawaii and the atmosphere of a vacation by car. However, today it is more likely to play the second part of 2011, where the graphics are better and there are more activities in the open world.
Gameplay on a fan server
TDU 2 has a full-fledged story campaign that smoothly leads to races in the open world. The main character lives in Ibiza, works as a simple parking attendant and dreams of owning an expensive sports car in order to race himself and lead a beautiful lifestyle. Soon he manages to get first an inexpensive car, and then, completing side tasks, accumulating money and cars, he takes part in the main cup of Ibiza – the “Crown of the Sun”.
If you are too lazy to go through a lengthy introduction with a mandatory boring driving school, then look for saves in which the campaign has been completed to the middle or even the whole. In the latter case, you can simply enjoy the tropical landscapes of Ibiza driving a Ferrari F40 or other real-life sports car.
Civilization 5 (2010) – Still Better Six
Civilization 5 was released in 2010 simply not ready – the creators did not even complete the encyclopedia, not to mention the lack of mechanics from the previous parts, not the best optimization and other technical problems.
However, just a couple of years later, even the most conservative fans of the series moved to the Five, denying all games after the second part. During this time, two major additions were released – Gods & Kings and Brave New World. The first brought back religion, espionage and a number of other important systems from the classic installments of the series, and the second greatly expanded foreign relations, adding tourism and a world congress (the prototype of the UN, important in the later stages).
So maybe in the sixth part everything got even better? Not really. In the sixth, everything was different:
They managed to complicate and cut down the sixth part at the same time
The developers tried to make the gameplay of Civ 6 deeper, but in the end only made it less convenient. In the “Six” you need to manually build up the space around the city center with commercial, military or scientific areas, constantly sacrificing something. Moreover, the wonders of the world began to occupy separate cells. And because of the rebalanced balance, civilizations with a small number of highly developed cities can no longer compete with large, moderately developed civilizations. All this makes it necessary to constantly capture more territories, which makes any victory, except for a military one, difficult to achieve.
Not surprisingly, the fifth Civilization still competes with the sixth in terms of the number of users online. Some may like the overcomplicated and somewhat deeper gameplay of Civ 6, but the veterans of the series are still faithful to the filigree design of the last game.
StarCraft 2 (2010) – the perfect rock-paper-scissors balance
The first Starcraft, released in 1998, became the popularizer of esports all over the world. The main reason for this was a revolution in the design of the RTS genre: instead of two opposing forces, which differed from each other only externally, three appeared. The game for each side was radically different. At the same time, the developers managed to perfectly balance the different mechanics of terrans (descendants of earthlings), protoss (“space elves”) and zergs (huge carnivorous insects) with each other.
The second part had to wait more than 10 years. In Starcraft 2, the graphics became three-dimensional, but stylized (and therefore not outdated until now), and the gameplay was the same at the core, but differed in details. At the exit, the sequel, of course, was criticized by both fans of the franchise and professionals. However, today all the main problems have been corrected. Moreover, many elements have been improved significantly, which is why the ratio of races in tournaments among professional gamers has evened out significantly.
The game still hosts world championships
In 2022, the game is still hosting world-class tournaments. Of course, today it is unlikely that a beginner should count on high places. But at the amateur level, StarCraft 2 can still be a lot of fun.
Left 4 Dead 2 (2009) – the reference co-op zombie shooter
The zombie theme had become boring to everyone by the mid-2010s, but now, in the early 2020s, it is experiencing a new wave of interest. Even the last season of The Walking Dead was received quite warmly. What can we say about games. Recent World War Z and Back 4 Blood have tried to ride on the theme’s resurgence, but have received a lot of criticism that “Left 4 Dead 2 was better.” Some might call it duckling syndrome, but L4D2 really plays great so far. So let’s remember its main advantages.
The first is, of course, the quantity and quality of living carrion. Different types of zombies are easily recognized not only by their appearance, but also by their sound. Thanks to the latter, it is possible to predict especially dangerous opponents (like a witch or a spitting woman) waiting in the darkness ahead, and adjust the team’s tactics. Secondly, the ability to play as zombies. Yesterday you learned how to survive in an endless stream of undead, and today you yourself become a thug or a smoker!
Gameplay in Versus 4×4 mode (survivors vs. zombies)
Well, the third can be called the incredible entertainment and unpredictability of what is happening due to artificial intelligence, which the developers call only the Director. He monitors the progress of the game, and can not only summon more infected from an unexpected side (they were waiting at the elevator, and the crowd rushed down the stairs), but also block some passages on the levels.
In 2022, Left 4 Dead 2 is still worth playing for the first time or coming back after a long time. You won’t have to search for a match for a long time – at the time of writing these lines, there are more than 20 thousand people in the game. And even the “age” graphics should not confuse – the Source engine produced an excellent picture back in Half-Life 2, which was released 5 years before L4D2.
Team Fortress 2 (2007) – the first popular hero shooter
Today, Team Fortress 2 may seem outdated against the backdrop of the same Overwatch – for many years, neither new classes nor new maps have appeared. However, TFT 2 is a real classic of the genre from the time when Valve regularly released new masterpieces. Moreover, the classics are alive – online stably keeps at the level of 100 thousand people.
The game has 9 classes that are as different as possible from each other. Each class is represented by a character with a well-developed personality: a scout is an arrogant American with a baseball bat, a machine gunner is a hefty Russian kingpin with a wide smile, a medic is a mad German scientist with a healing ubercannon, and a spy is a gallant Frenchman with a butterfly knife (and dirt on the scout’s mother).
TF2 cuts are still gaining hundreds of thousands of views
The strengths of the classes are intertwined with their weaknesses: for example, the Heavy deals a lot of damage, but barely moves, and the Scout runs the fastest, but dies from one good hit. However, not everything is perfect with the balance in Team Fortress 2: on small maps, many prefer to play as an arsonist or a spy, since the former is almost impenetrable in defense, and the latter can become invisible and even disguise themselves as enemy soldiers.
Nevertheless, everyone who is interested in how the genre of hero shooters with character classes began to get acquainted with TF2 is definitely worth it. In addition, the game has been distributed for free for a long time.
The Lord of the Rings Online (2007) – a living classic of the MMORPG genre
The opportunity to get into the virtual Middle-earth and wander around the world in the company of other fans of the fantasy universe created by John R. R. Tolkien appeared back in 2007. Since then, as many as 33 updates have been released. They moved all the significant locations of the book Middle-earth and increased the variety of gameplay. For example, a full-fledged PvP has appeared in the game, in which they give the opportunity to play for orcs.
The game is still getting major updates (but the graphics haven’t really changed since 2007)
In many ways, MMO gameplay can be called classic: the world is mastered gradually, so you will have to work hard to pump your character well and acquire high-quality equipment. And only after that the right to participate in large-scale battles and hunt for legendary sets will appear. All this grind can scare someone away.
However, today only in LOTRO you can go on story raids, in which many scenes from the Peter Jackson film trilogy are frame-by-frame recreated, and then, having saved up some money, get housing somewhere near Rivendell or Minas Tirith.
Garry’s Mod (2006) – Roblox of our childhood
Initially, Garry’s Mod was just a sandbox, which gives complete freedom of action with any items from popular Valve games: Half-Life 2, Portal and Team Fortress 2. Gamers could place furniture, interior items, various containers, and even hostile or peaceful characters and monsters. And then from all this you could create your own levels. But then, in Garry’s Mod, the toolkit expanded significantly and it became possible to create entire games.
Gradually, fan developments were classified into many modes: SandBox (standard creative mode), Jail Break (jailbreak), SpaceBuild (building in space), Zombie Survival (defense against zombies) and others. But the most popular was RolePlay. In it, you had to survive the day as a cook, an arms dealer, a mayor, a policeman, a terrorist, a singer, Darth Vader, your friend’s mother (yes, anyone!).
It was Garry’s Mod that popularized RP servers
And also thanks to its multifunctional and convenient toolkit, Garry’s Mod is very popular among the creators of machinima (movies based on video sequences from games). For example, the Russian G-Link Studio is engaged in the screening of various horror films like Resident Evil or Silent Hill, and also shoots works in their own universes (Land of the Dead, Last Memories, etc.).
In short, Garry’s Mod can be compared to some kind of Roblox in terms of capabilities, and in terms of scale it is even some kind of metaverse. But we will talk about a more explicit metaverse of our childhood in the next article.
In the second part of the material, we will talk about even older games: the first releases of Battlefield and Counter-Strike, various retro shooters, the best turn-based strategy in history, the first metaverse of its kind, which no one called that then, and much more.
