If there's one dominant genre in contemporary video games, it is without a doubt the first-person shooter. We would never have had the Battlefields, Destinys and Call Of Duties of today were I not for Id software - lead by the charismatic and lank-haired John Romero - hooking a generation of early PC adopters into a lifetime of violent video gaming with the original Doom, with many players logging all-night sessions as the brave marine fighting his way through a space station full of demons from hell. Don't worry, though, he did have a chainsaw. And the BFG. Never did find out what that stood for...
11. And Goldeneye Sets The Standard For Multiplayer
Of course, that's only half of the story. Doom may have been one of the very first successful first-person shooters, but it was a strictly solo pursuit. Nowadays a game isn't complete without a multiplayer mode that lets you chase down and put a bullet in the heads of your pals (hm, sounds a lot more psychotic when we put it like that), with some games - like the recent Titanfall - being all about the multiplayer. That all started with Goldeneye, the Nintendo 64 title principally made by a team who'd never coded a video game before, and yet somehow created one of the most enjoyable multiplayer experiences ever.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
