what is your favorite first person shooter and why

I don't think I could chose a favorite FPS of all time... rather, I have a "current" favorite that changes with time. Favorites of the past include Doom, Duke Nukem, Goldeneye, Red Faction (deformable terrain FTW), Unreal Tournament, UT2k3, Deus Ex, Far Cry (eye candy), Doom 3, Half Life 2, Rainbow Six Vegas 2, and CoD MW2.

Currently though, I'm absolutely hooked on Borderlands. The expansive levels provide a vast, engaging world with an intriguing story (except for the end...) that provides an immersive gaming experience that I only get with other adventure or RPG games. I really like that you can improve your skills and strengths as you go through the game, as well as collect better weapons as you go (not limited to the usual 5-15). Furthermore, the nearly endless side-missions provides a sense of choice in the game path, and allows for a bit of a work around to the usual stay-in-one-place-and-level-up until you're strong enough to move on predicament. I hate that...

All this isn't even mentioning the outstanding co-op mode where you can get even better stuff and gain experience even more quickly while having a blast with your friends.

I'm a bit of a sucker when it comes to futuristic wasteland type fantasy worlds though... something about that atmosphere is appealing to me personally. I've yet to check out Fallout 3, but I'm guessing it would also be something I'd enjoy.
 
well i can tell you one thing, again, for the third time.......it's not any shooter on a console!!!! freaking Gears3 junk man i tell ya.....just what the hell is that garbage....???
 
I'd have to go with CS:S in terms of a strict FPS game. Yeah yeah, I played competitive too. CAL, CGS Pro-Am, and I still pug on ESEA. The draw for me is that it requires raw skill. No perks, no buffs, no camouflage - it's just the basics. Either you can aim, think on your feet, and pull off some crazy stuff or you can't. That kind of simplicity is what sets it apart.

In terms of a more dynamic FPS experience, I have to say the L4D series (though, particularly L4D2). While it's not a difficult game to get good at, there is a ton of room for creativity and just the right amount of luck (or surprise) involved as well. And who wouldn't love playing the Tank? Wiping an entire team with a dumpster is pretty epic.
 
For me here is my list:
Quak2 (as this was my first game I really played and played the MP)
Unreal (first time I saw this running in gluide was amazing, the colors, the shinny reflections in Na'lia castle...)
UT99/2004 (loved them both and was lead coder on the chaos mods for unreal)
SS:FE (amazing graphics for their time and the game play was fun)
HL1 (amazing story, lots of fun)
CS (I have way more hours logged into the CS and CS:S MP games)
SOF I/II (like some one else said loved the location based damaged, can not have enough fun shooting guys in the groin)
BF 1942 and the DC Mod (liked them both, but always was a sucker for the DC mod)
 
Counter-strike because of it's competitive community. Source was/is for noobs.
 
Tribes 1 -- wish someone would make a worthy successor to that game. It was the most fun FPS because it encouraged a lot of skillful one-on-one encounters in an environment that also could not be won without tactical teamwork. It was way ahead of its time in gameplay and netcode. There is nothing like it on the market.

+1 for dueling with jetpacks and disc launchers.
 
I can't just pick a single one.

HL 1&2
Rainbow Six
Halo
Quake
Unreal
F.E.A.R
Deus Ex
CSS

Ghost Recon: The one that I spent the most time playing hands down. I loved the multiplayer on GR.
 
I can pick one COD4, it was an amazingly liberating experience from all prior FPS games. The story mode was just awesome and didn't need excessive gore to keep people captivated (pock at W@W).
 
Delta Force, Delta Force 2, Land Warrior till they were pretty much taken over by cheaters, It would seem Novalogic was unable to release a simple update for these games when they were in their prime to put a stop to it...shame
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingpin:_Life_of_Crime

Pistol versus shotgun wielder ( 6 min 45 seconds in ). He is playing on medium difficulty:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--5lDw8v3xA


The kitchen-sink realism was highly immersive ( I really was smashing a person in the head, with a crowbar ). On the hardest difficulty level, taking any kind of damage could quickly lead to death or simply saying the wrong thing or hanging out in a certain area for too long, ( with or without vocal warnings ) could lead to you getting attacked. I'm always a huge fan of damage to specific body parts. You could tactically follow a wounded NPC's blood trail ( if you missed your critical shots ). I really liked the sountrack by Cypress Hill.

There was a lot of notable single player FPS games: The latter Doom games ( Doom 2 ), System Shock 1, Deus Ex 1, Thief 1, Max Payne 2, Half Life 2 ( I couldn't get past the beginning of Half Life 1 due to boredom ), Crysis 1.

I only relatively recently started playing online FPS with Half Life 1 multiplayer, Planetside, Team Fortress 2 so I don't know much about the online FPS games.
 
Still CSS for me. Just not into the cod and bf series. Then I love all the classics of course, doom series, quake series, UT, etc etc
 
STALKER soc for the best damn sp experience ever

BF2 for Multiplayer and the PR mod has a great community

honorable mention goes to, arma since it has such a great community.
 
HL2 for me, no question. Been a few others since that have been good, and even great, but they weren't HL2.
 
I'm going to have to mention COD:UO. Not that it was my favorite shooter ever but, it was sutable for competition. I remember checking guid's before matches and actually having faith in punkbuster. Certainly isn't like that these days.
 
For multiplayer: Battlefield series (mainly BC2) or CoD 4
For single player: Half-Life 2, Crysis or Halo
 
descent followed by hexen... descent was one of if not the first game to have 360 movement in any direction and hexen had hub play and rooms over one another
 
I can't tell you which one was my actual "favorite", but I will say that I enjoyed the following first person shooters a LOT:

Medal of Honor (PS1)
Half-Life 2
Halo 1 and Halo 3
MW1 and 2
Prey
 
Time Splitters Future Perfect. I can't even imagine how much time I spent playing this game in High School. My friends and I would have marathons of playing local 4 way multiplayer with bots. The game's sense of humor and style on top of the insane amount of match customization made for one perfect game. It breaks my heart that I may never see a next gen entry to my favorite series.
 
Return to Castle Wolfenstein....SP and MP
Quake 3 Arena
Enemy Territory
Painkiller
 
Rainbow Six because respawns are for noobs. I like smaller maps and CQB, but original Ghost Recon and Swat 4 were both great too!

The style of gameplay involves actual skill, promotes teamwork, and discourages the run and gun respawn madness of all the new shooters! Multiplayer is where its at, but who didnt love a little terrorist hunt now and then! Why has it been so long since a quality game has been released?
 
Solo campaign: System Shock 2
Multiplayer: Tribes 2 when it actually ran.
 
Team Fortress Classic - I will probably never put even half the time into another game. Hands down my all time favorite MP game. Still pickup every now and then.

Too many good SP games to pick a favorite, but probably the half lifes will always hold a special place in my heart.

Damn you all for making me download STALKER:SoC due to your repeated recommendations. Congratulations, you've broken me down and I'm sure I'll love it.
 
the original quake. both for multiplayer and single.

and when team fortress came out for it it was AWESOME
 
Quake 2 CTF, have so many great memories, loved the maps, loved the hook. Quake 2 looked so good on 3dfx Voodoo video cards. I think I'm gonna build a rig with one actually...
 
I'm very fond of Medal of Honor:Allied Assault and Return to Castle Wolfenstein, since those were fps titles that came out my freshman year in college. Our floor was pretty active for matches, and I used my recently replaced Pentium 2 machine to host a school server.
 
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