15 Best PS1 FPS Games

Armorines is based on the Armorines comic book from Valiant Comics, which was bought by Acclaim. Like Turok, the Armorines were a Valiant Comics property, and you can feel the family resemblance. It is a first-person shooter with some on-rails segments, where you point a big gun at whatever crawls toward you.

Its fans have one thing to say about it, and they say it almost word for word: the reviews were awful, and they enjoyed it anyway. That is the whole case for Armorines. It is a cheerful dumb shooter that never asked to be graded.

Urban Warfare was designed to be a military simulation loosely based on the Delta Force special operations force. It came out in 2002, very late for a PS1 game, and it puts a greater emphasis on story than previous Delta Force games, with fully animated and voice-acted cutscenes in between missions.

It received "average" reviews, which is about right. It is a solid, sober shooter for people who liked the idea of a SWAT team more than a space marine. Players who grew up with it still put it in their PS1 favourites next to Silent Hill and Medal of Honor. It was also re-released in 2010 for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable via PlayStation Network, so it outlived its console by quite a bit.

Rainbow Six is the first installment in the Rainbow Six series, based on the Tom Clancy novel of the same name. It follows Rainbow, a top secret international counterterrorist organization, through a sudden spike in terrorism. The game was developed in parallel with the novel, with a design philosophy of realism and strategy. Though his name is in the game's title, Tom Clancy's involvement in its development was very minimal.

It is considered a milestone in the history of first-person shooters, and it made a lasting impact on the tactical shooter genre. On PC it won widespread critical acclaim, while the console ports received relatively lower ratings. Most console ports lack multiplayer, the PlayStation one included. You plan the raid first and then go in, where one bullet can end it. Nothing else here plays like that.

Forsaken is a sci-fi first-person shooter developed by Probe Entertainment and published by Acclaim. It was released for Windows and PlayStation, with a Nintendo 64 port called Forsaken 64 the same year. Like Descent, you fly a ship through tunnels in any direction you like, and up and down stop meaning very much.

Reviews of every version praised the lighting effects, and that is still what you notice first. Explosions and missile trails light up the tunnels in colour, which was a big deal in 1998. Players still put it on their lists of PS1 games worth tracking down. A high-definition remaster by Nightdive Studios came out in 2018, if the original makes you dizzy.

Descent popularized a subgenre of FPS games employing six degrees of freedom and was the first FPS with entirely true-3D graphics. You pilot a ship through mines full of hostile robots, and the mines go in every direction. Reviewers compared it to Doom and praised its unrestrained range of motion. The combination of first-person shooter mechanics with a space flight simulator also went down well.

Programmers Mike Kulas and Matt Toschlog left Looking Glass in June 1993 to form Parallax Software and make it. Together with its sequel, it sold over 1.1 million units as of 1998. Players still slip it into their PS1 lists next to Twisted Metal and Wipeout. Bring a strong stomach, because it will spin you around.

South Park was developed by Iguana Entertainment with a modified version of the engine used in Turok 2: Seeds of Evil. It is a first-person shooter for one reason: Acclaim had access to that engine. The PlayStation port was made by Appaloosa Interactive and timed to coincide with the film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.

The PC and PlayStation versions received generally negative reviews, mainly for poor graphics and audio, and the voice clips were criticized for repetition. Players are split on it, sometimes inside the same sentence. Some loved it. Others refuse to believe a game can get much worse. The PlayStation version only lets two people play, on six multiplayer levels. Pick your friend carefully.

Dark Forces came out in 1995 on PC and in 1996 for the PlayStation. You play Kyle Katarn, a mercenary working for the Rebel Alliance who discovers the Empire's secret Dark Trooper Project. It runs on the Jedi engine, which added things few shooters had back then, like level designs with multiple floors and the ability to look up and down. Missions follow a real storyline, through Star Destroyer interiors, Jabba's ship and Coruscant.

The PlayStation version was criticized for poor graphics and slow frame rates, and the critics were right. It is still Dark Forces, though. The level design holds up, and blasting stormtroopers in first person was a dream nobody had been allowed to live yet. Its success launched the Jedi Knight series.

PowerSlave sends you to the valley of Karnak, where the Kilmaat, a race of insect aliens, have dug up the mummy of King Ramses. You fight mummies, Anubis soldiers and scorpions on the way to stopping them. Lobotomy Software could not bring the PC version's engine over, so they had to remake the game completely. The console version is an entirely new game that takes the original ideas and goes in a very different direction.

The new engine has colored dynamic lighting, which only the console versions got. You move a lot faster and can turn while shooting, which improves combat greatly. Players who know their PS1 shooters put it near the top, right next to Quake II. It also runs on the engine that later powered the Saturn versions of Duke Nukem 3D and Quake.

Final Doom was the third entry in the Doom franchise and the first not developed by id. On PC it is two 32-level episodes, TNT: Evilution and The Plutonia Experiment. The PlayStation version, by Williams Entertainment, cuts that down a lot: Plutonia only had six maps make it over, with TNT Evilution getting eleven, and the rest comes from other Doom II levels.

The rock tracks were replaced by a darker ambient soundtrack by Aubrey Hodges, who later composed the music for Doom 64. It even has PlayStation mouse support. The frame rate is often lower than in the first PlayStation Doom, which is the price of the harder maps. Players still rate it as a solid port of the PC game, and some call it their favourite.

Disruptor was the first game developed by Insomniac Games, and it started life on the 3DO before a change of console from the failing 3DO to the successful PlayStation. You play Jack Curtis, a LightStormer in training, and the best advice his brother gives him is "think fast, shoot fast, and kick ass". That line is delivered in a live-action cutscene, and the cutscenes are as cheesy as it sounds.

The guns are standard, but the Psionics make it special. From the second stage on, you can hit enemies up close with Shock and restore health with Heal, and more powers follow. It got positive reviews and was a commercial failure, selling well below Insomniac's expectations. Players say it was slept on and still stands out. Insomniac's next game was Spyro, which went a lot better.

Alien Resurrection came out on October 10, 2000, and it was very nearly a different game. It originally started out in development as a third-person horror title in the image of Resident Evil. That version was scrapped, and Argonaut Games built a first-person shooter instead. You switch between four characters from the film at each level change, each with slightly different abilities. Call has a motion tracker, and Christie has his twin pistols.

It pioneered twin-analogue stick controls for console FPS, one stick to move and one to aim, the way every console shooter works now. In 2000 that felt strange. Ammo is limited and the rooms are dark, so every vent is a reason to back away. Players still recommend it, usually with the air of someone who was right all along.

Doom has been termed the "father" of first-person shooters, and in 2007 it was among the first ten video games selected for preservation by the Library of Congress. The PlayStation version, sold as The Custom PlayStation Edition, is a mix: over 50 levels from Ultimate Doom and Doom II, plus new levels made just for it.

It also swaps the original music for a quieter, scarier soundtrack by Aubrey Hodges, and that changes the whole mood. The demons sound further away and closer at the same time. Players still name it next to Chrono Cross and Symphony of the Night when they list their all-time PS1 games.

Quake II came out on PC in December 1997, and the PlayStation got it on September 30, 1999. Instead of porting Quake II, the development firm Hammerhead effectively re-created the game from scratch around the PlayStation's limits. You still get the mission-based objectives, like stealing a Tank Commander's head to open a door. The heavy metal soundtrack by Sascha Dikiciyan made it over too.

The result became the standard that every other shooter on the PlayStation, and even on the Saturn and N64, got judged by. Players who know the PS1's shooters use it as the measuring stick. When they rank their favourites, PowerSlave is about the only one that gets put beside it.

Alien Trilogy is based on the first three movies in the Alien film series. It has 30 levels and 3 Queen alien bosses, plus face huggers, chest bursters and dog aliens from the films. It was one of the first games developed by Probe after Acclaim bought the studio, and it debuted Acclaim's much-hyped motion capture technology. The story is told through text mission briefings and the odd CGI cutscene.

Critics praised its recreation of the films' atmosphere and its gameplay depth compared to other first-person shooters, and it was a commercial success. The sound is what people remember. As one player put it, "The sheer atmosphere from that games soundtrack is forever burned into my memory." Players still recommend it, and many say it does not get the love it deserves.

Medal of Honor started with Steven Spielberg watching his son play GoldenEye 007. In November 1997, while still working on the film Saving Private Ryan, Spielberg approached the staff of DreamWorks Interactive with an idea for a console FPS based on the second World War. You play Jimmy Patterson, a 24-year-old OSS operative sabotaging the Nazi war machine in the final days of the war.

It nearly got cancelled after the Columbine High School massacre, when the Congressional Medal of Honor Society criticized it. Producer Peter Hirschmann convinced the society's president, Paul Bucha, that the project was made with serious and honorable intentions, and won his endorsement. It was released to universal acclaim and is credited with popularizing World War II shooters. Players recommend it more than any other PS1 shooter, and they say it still holds up.