Best PS1 FPS Games

Highlights

• 
  Sony
  
  ‘s PlayStation was a pioneer in three-dimensional console gaming, challenging Nintendo’s dominance in the home console
  
  market
  
  .
• The PlayStation brand struggled to find its identity initially but embraced diversity with successful games like Crash Bandicoot and Metal Gear Solid.
• The PS1 era played a crucial role in establishing first-person shooters on consoles, with games like Quake 2 and DOOM revolutionizing the genre.

Sony’s PlayStation was a pioneer of three-dimensional console gaming. The

PS1

‘s huge sales gave Nintendo serious competition in the home console market, a market that Nintendo had dominated in the years prior. Nintendo’s sales were pushed by its iconic collection of mascot characters like Mario

,

Link

,

and Donkey Kong

,

as well as its recognition among consumers as being the company with the best platformers and collections.

Despite the PlayStation’s excellent sales, it initially struggled to find an identity. It was originally marketed as a console for older gamers than its N64 counterpart. However, Sony soon decided that it wanted a slice of Nintendo’s pie and tried to brand

Crash Bandicoot

and

Spyro The Dragon

as their gaming mascots. Ultimately, the PlayStation brand decided to embrace its diversity, with vastly different games like

Crash Bandicoot, Metal Gear Solid,

and

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater

all proving to be very successful. One of the original PlayStation’s many successful genres was first-person shooters, which were rapidly growing in prominence when the console debuted in the mid-nineties.

Updated on October 24, 2023 by Mark Sammut:



Even if not every release has aged flawlessly, the PS1 era played a crucial role in establishing first-person shooters on consoles. Nowadays, most of these titles are primarily worth revisiting for their historical significance, but they can be fun in their own right. What are the

best PS1 shooters

?

15


Codename: Tenka

Also known as

Lifeforce Tenka

,

Codename: Tenka

was developed by former British development and publishing team Psygnosis, who are best known for their work on the

WipeOut

,

Lemmings

, and

Destruction Derby

franchises.

The game features a futuristic setting and predominantly pits players against robotic enemies. One of the most unique features of the game is how the player doesn’t collect new and improved weaponry like in most shooters but instead finds weapon modifications that change how their gun is fired.

14


Delta Force: Urban Warfare

Delta Force: Urban Warfare

went under the radar upon release, as it was a PlayStation 1 exclusive that was released over two years after the PlayStation 2’s

launch

. Unsurprisingly, this had a negative impact on the game’s commercial success, though it does make the game one of the best PS1 first-person shooters to play retrospectively.

Due to how late it was released,

Delta Force: Urban Warfare

was able to offer visuals and technical performances that far surpassed the majority of shooters on the PlayStation 1.

13


Descent

Descent

is one of the many games on this list that took heavy inspiration from id Software’s

DOOM

and was commonly referred to as one of the 90’s “

DOOM

clones,” despite the player being confined to a spaceship.

Although the game took heavy inspiration from

DOOM,

it also provided its own influences on the genre, with its

six degrees of freedom

movement and fact that it was the first FPS game to ever feature true-3D graphics.

12


PowerSlave

PowerSlave

(also known as

Exhumed

and

Seireki 1999: Pharaoh no Fukkatsu

) was developed by a now-defunct company known as Lobotomy Software, which also ported

Quake

and

Duke Nukem 3D

to the Sega Saturn.

PowerSlave

takes players to Egypt and tasks them with taking down a plethora of enemy types, including mummies, scorpions, and evil spirits. The console version of the game implements elements from the Metroidvania genre, as players must find new weapons and artifacts that let them explore previously inaccessible areas.

11


Final Doom

Final Doom

was released on the PlayStation 1 a few months after its initial release and offered a slightly different experience to the MS-DOS version. The PS1 version of the game was made significantly easier, with a wide selection of tough enemies and even a few difficult levels being removed. This may have been due to the increased difficulty of using a gamepad over a mouse, though the oft-forgotten PlayStation Mouse accessory was compatible with the game.

Interestingly, it wasn’t only difficulty changes that led to certain enemies being removed, as technical limitations meant that the Arch-vile and

Spider

Mastermind also had to be booted out of the game.

10


007: The World Is Not Enough

The World is Not Enough

was the second

James Bond

game to be released on the PlayStation and the first to be released on the Nintendo 64 since the genre-changing

GoldenEye 007.

Developer’s Black Ops Entertainment improved on their previous entry

Tomorrow Never Dies

with more gadgets, tighter gameplay, and smarter enemy A.I.

Despite these improvements, the development team again made the baffling decision to not include a multiplayer mode, frustrating players who were hoping for a split-screen mode similar to the N64’s

GoldenEye.

This was especially disappointing as Eurocom’s N64


version of

The World Is Not Enough

was released a month earlier and had an excellent multiplayer mode.

9


Disruptor

Disruptor

was the first game released by Insomniac Games

,

the company that would go on to develop the original

Spyro The Dragon

trilogy.


Indicative of being the company’s first game, it struggled to find its own identity, playing similarly to previously released games like

DOOM

and

Duke Nukem 3D.

Disruptor

did have some innovations though, predominantly its Psionics. These Psionics gave players various abilities such as Heal, Shock, and Shield.

8


Alien Trilogy

Movie tie-in games are often looked down upon predominantly due to the rushed development that is needed to ensure that they are released in line with the movie release date.

Alien Trilogy

, however, was released over four years after the third

Alien

movie, giving developers Probe Entertainment plenty of time to make a game fitting of its corresponding films. This development time paid off, as

Alien Trilogy

provided an enjoyable

action

experience that sold very well.

7


Jumping Flash! 2

Jumping Flash! 2

had the difficult task of trying to emulate the success of the award-winning

Jumping Flash!

. Developer’s Exact didn’t try to reinvent the wheel and kept the gameplay very similar to its predecessor.

The game did add performance medals, though, adding replay value to the game by rewarding players for completing levels in different ways.

6


Duke Nukem: Total Meltdown

Duke Nukem: Total Meltdown

is the name given to the PlayStation port of the game better known as

Duke Nukem 3D.

The game is heavily inspired by

Doom

and subsequently plays very similarly. Fast-paced, action gameplay that must be tackled head-on is present throughout

Duke Nukem

‘s third entry.

The game does have a few differentials, though, predominantly through the variety of environments that players fight in, something that the early

Doom

games lacked. Unfortunately, the PlayStation port of

Duke Nukem 3D

was far from perfect. It struggled with constant frame rate issues and lacked a split-screen multiplayer mode despite the feature being in the other versions of the game.

5


Quake 2

Quake 2

was originally going to be a new IP. However, developers id Software ultimately decided to name the game

Quake 2

as they felt that the gameplay was too similar to the original

Quake

to justify creating a new series. Because of this,

Quake 2

plays slightly differently from the original. The player’s movement is noticeably slower, and the new ability to crouch offered more tactical cover-based gameplay.

Quake 2

also offers one of the best multiplayer game modes on the console, giving PlayStation gamers an enjoyable split-screen experience to rival the N64’s

GoldenEye

.

4


Jumping Flash!

Jumping Flash!

introduced PlayStation gamers to the robotic rabbit, suitably named Robbit. The game differentiated itself from other shooters on the console by combining FPS gameplay with platforming.

The game uniquely allowed players to jump multiple times, letting them reach extreme heights and navigate levels with ease. This ability to navigate stages quickly is a fundamental part of the gameplay, as players need to obtain 4 jet pods in a limited timescale of 10 minutes to complete each level.

Jumping Flash!

won

GameFan’s

Megaward PlayStation Game Of The Year award in 1995.

3


Medal of Honor: Underground

Medal of Honor: Underground

is the second installment in the long-running

Medal of Honor

series.

The World War Two shooter attempted to improve on its predecessor by adding tanks to fight against and allies to fight alongside. The objective-based gameplay that the

Medal of Honor

series is known for returned, and the pre-existing catalog of weaponry was improved upon.

2


DOOM

It’s no exaggeration to say that if it wasn’t for

DOOM

, most of the

best PS1 FPS games

likely wouldn’t exist. Id Software took the formula that they created in

Wolfenstein 3D

and fine-tuned it, creating a game that would revolutionize the industry and is still thoroughly enjoyable to play today.

The impressive enemy variety and range of weapons available tend to be the game’s most glorified features, though the level design also deserves plaudits for how meticulously designed each level is and for how rewarding it feels to find some of the game’s many secrets.

1


Medal of Honor

Topping the list is the original

Medal of Honor.



The smash-hit beginning of the long-running EA series engrossed gamers with its excellent objective-based gameplay that took place in a realistic and immersive WW2 setting.

As was tradition with EA’s old-school releases

, Underground

came with numerous characters and features to unlock. These characters weren’t just generic soldiers with different sets of gear, though

.

Players could unlock William Shakespeare, Winston Churchill, and even a velociraptor — yes, seriously.

Medal of Honor

also featured one of the best multiplayer modes on the console. The mode finally lets players answer the age-old question of who would win in a fight, Shakespeare or a velociraptor.

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