For those of you who don’t own a Bluetooth gaming headset, custom Alienware setup or know your rocket jump from your double jump, the acronym FPS stands for “first person shooter”. And unless you’ve had your head in the sand for the last couple of decades, you’ve probably seen these video games around – the viewpoint is from the player’s perspective, and the screen is usually taken up by hands (often holding a gun or another weapon) and a head-up display (HUD) which relays important information, such as how much ammo you’ve got left, if you’re on the brink of death, or what your score might be.
Despite having been around for donkey’s years (the godfather of the FPS, Maze, was coded by three high school kids in 1973), this style of game has surged in popularity over the last decade thanks to successful franchises like Halo, Gears Of War, Call Of Duty and Battlefield. Multi-player games that were once best played on private networks (usually at school or work) can now be enjoyed at home via broadband internet, and they’re not counter-culture any more, they’re mainstream.
We’ve just witnessed the release of DOOM, the fourth proper game in id Software’s long-running series which informed an entire genre. The latest installment takes the player through familiarly eerie settings, battling a seemingly never-ending onslaught of demons with an arsenal of weapons that should give veteran players a warm feeling inside. You can wander around Mars shotgunning Hell’s dark offspring until you’re red in the face, but it’s not all nostalgia by any means – the new finishing moves are deeply satisfying, and the multi-player mode should be enough to prompt a few misjudged late night sessions. Creative souls can also endlessly customize their game using SnapMap, a level editor that adds an element of Super Mario Maker to the DOOM experience.
It wouldn’t feel like a DOOM game without a chugging thrash metal soundtrack, and we can report that Aussie composer Mick Gordon (who was responsible for tooling up the excellent Wolfenstein: The New Order) brings the goods, adding a fitting backdrop to prolonged bout of Cyberdemon blasting.
In its honor, FACT has compiled some of the best FPS music of all time, from the anachronistic pop of Bioshock to the occidental, percussive weirdness of Turok: Dinosaur Hunter. Grab yourself a Mountain Dew and strap in.
10. DOOM
Score by Robert Prince
(iD Software, 1993)
If you’ve ever wondered why YouTube head-shot montages are often soundtracked by heavy metal, look no further than the soundtrack to the granddaddy of the genre: DOOM. Stacked with fast-paced themes made up of primitive MIDI riffs, Bobby Prince’s soundtrack was instrumental in setting the game’s ‘80s sci-fi horror mood, which was part Total Recall, part John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness.
Evidence suggests that Prince’s soundtrack was heavily inspired by the music of Alice In Chains, Slayer, Soundgarden and AC/DC, but his soundtrack set the musical standard for the other big first-person shooters of the ‘90s, including Duke Nukem 3D and Quake. It sounds dated now, but in 1993 there was no better accompaniment to blowing away Cyberdemons with a super shotgun.
9. BioShock Infinite
Score by Garry Schyman
(Irrational Games, 2013)
The Bioshock series was notable for its addition of something often missing from the majority of popular first person shooters: a storyline. The games exist in a world so rich that you could practically reach in and touch them, and the music – both the haunting scores and licensed songs – set the tone for everything. What could have been a lumpen mess of hackneyed steampunk tropes ends up being nuanced, engaging and highly influential.
Bioshock Infinite, the third game in the series, is often maligned for its gameplay, but fans will usually agree that its music is pitch perfect throughout. Garry Schyman’s orchestral score is tight and unsettling, and the selection of spine-chilling, anachronistic covers of classic pop songs is simply inspired. There are versions of ‘Tainted Love’, ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’, ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’ and others, but most successful is a barbershop quartet version of The Beach Boys’ ‘God Only Knows’, which ends up being the game’s unofficial theme.
8. Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Score by Michael McCann
(Eidos Montreal, 2011)
There’s no shortage of video games operating within the cyberpunk mode, but the Deus Ex series handles the genre with ingenuity, not least as you can rely on your quick wits to sneak instead of just emptying clips down corridors in the hope that you’ll live to see the next save point. 2011’s Deus Ex: Human Revolution was flawed certainly (those boss battles), but Michael McCann’s soundtrack stands tall, topping a reliable series with its blend of pulsing electronics and Hans Zimmer-esque grandeur. At times it sounds almost like the Inception OST crossed with Mass Effect, and that’s no bad thing.
7. System Shock 2
Score by: Eric Brosius, Ramin Djawadi, Josh Randall
(Irrational Games, Looking Glass Studios, 2006)
Before there was Bioshock, there was System Shock 2. Taking place on an abandoned starship filled with ghosts and audio logs that explain how the decks came to be filled with monstrous creatures, System Shock 2 was a masterclass in claustrophobia and terror with a soundtrack to match.
Oscillating between beatless atmospheres that bring to mind the horror of movies like Event Horizon and Alien, and cyberpunk drum and bass rhythms that sound like they belong in The Matrix, its only been matched by the music to Silent Hill in terms of creating sheer atmosphere. It’s hard to believe that one of its composers, Ramin Djawadi, would go on to write the theme to Game of Thrones.
6. Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon
Score by Power Glove
(Ubisoft Montreal, Ubisoft Shanghai, 2013)
While the regular Far Cry series has often been criticized for being a little too serious, nobody could level that against bonkers spin off Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, which (ab)used the games’ excellent engine and transformed it into a neon-colored homage to ‘80s trash cinema, replete with snarky catchphrases, in-jokes and rampant ultra-violence.
It’s more of an update to the Duke Nukem 3D formula than the pitiful Duke Nukem Forever, and it’s buoyed by Power Glove’s inspired soundtrack, which harks back to the glory days of Jan Hammer, Giorgio Moroder, Vangelis and, to a lesser extent, John Carpenter. It also manages to rise above its influences: you can listen to the Blood Dragon soundtrack without simply hearing it as an exercise in nostalgia. It’s actually quite brilliant.
5. Blood
Score by Daniel Bernstein, Guy Whitmore
(Monolith Productions, 1997)
When Blood was released back in 1997, it felt subversive somehow – dangerous. While FPS games such as Quake and of course Doom had utilized horror themes, fusing them with sci-fi, Blood was basically like playing a worn ‘80s VHS slasher movie where you played both the protagonist and antagonist. Armed with horror-friendly weapons like a pitchfork (really), a shotgun and a stick of dynamite, you wandered through horrific locales destroying hordes of ghouls, to the disgust of the thought police, who as usual felt like the game was an erosion of standards.
Of course, the game hardly looks like much by today’s (post-Grand Theft Auto) standards, but if there’s one thing that has stood the test of time, it’s Daniel Bernstein and Guy Whitmore’s terrifying score, that used a suite of horror tropes in surprisingly innovative ways. The chilling sacred music was present, but offset by Eastern scales, bizarre rhythms and smudgy, synthesized ambience. If there’s ever a long-forgotten soundtrack that is crying out for a deluxe vinyl reissue, this is it.
4. Metroid Prime
Score by Kenji Yamamoto, Kouichi Kyuma
(Retro Studios, Nintendo, 2000)
Metroid Prime brought a shift in perspective from third-person to first-person, but the central mechanic of the game remained the same: travel deep under the surface of an alien planet and stop the parasitic Metroid race from taking over the galaxy. It meant a notable change in pace from its 2D predecessors, but the tension of travelling ever further from the safety of your spacecraft became even more palpable.
This feeling of loneliness is felt all the way throughout Kenji Yamamoto and Kouichi Kyuma’s score. A rare Japanese soundtrack for a first-person shooter, it also conveys the moments of wonder you experience when traversing the game’s vast array of locations, from icy caverns to underground lava flows. Metroid and Super Metroid are often cited as having some of the best video game soundtracks of all time, but Metroid Prime is arguably more haunting.
3. Turok: Dinosaur Hunter
Score by Darren Mitchell
(Iguana Entertainment, 1997)
Most people would struggle to remember the music from the Nintendo 64’s most famous first-person shooter besides Goldeneye, but revisiting it now, it’s clear Darren Mitchell’s score is an overlooked classic. Built around tribal drums that reflected the game’s prehistoric jungle setting, Mitchell added pitched-down piano samples and synths to the mix and created one of the console’s most chilling soundtracks.
The lack of memory in the console’s cartridges mean that the music sounds incredibly muddy by the standards of the CD-enabled PlayStation, but it’s still a fascinating 35 minutes of music which has parallels with everything from mid-90s New York techno to the more recent music of William Bennett’s Cut Hands project. If ever there’s a video game soundtrack that needs to be reissued on vinyl for club DJs to get a hold of, it’s this one.
2. Half-Life 2
Score by Kelly Bailey
(Valve Corporation, 2004)
Even 15 years after its release, Half-Life 2 is still an incredible looking game, and when it arrived it was as close as you could get to seeing through the eyes of your character. The opening moments, during which you’re forced to put a can in the trash by a fascist alien cop, are still some of gaming’s most memorable, setting the tone for what was, in essence, a sci-fi version of The Fugitive.
Your character spends the entirety of Half-Life 2 on the run, and Kelly Bailey’s score gets across that feeling of panic like nothing else. It occasionally veers into techno melodrama, but it gives you the same adrenaline rush you usually only get with classic 8-bit soundtracks.
1. Quake
Score by Trent Reznor
(id Software, 1996)
With the popularity of Call Of Duty, Gears Of War and Halo over the last decade, it’s been easy to forget about Quake, but for a time it was the darling of critics and gamers alike, setting a new high bar for multiplayer FPS games not just in gameplay, but in the general mood. id Software was already riding on a wave of success following Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM, but Quake was the moment that everything came together, and its influence can still be felt today.
The game’s gothic mood was bleaker than that of its predecessors – there was a Lovecraftian menace to Quake that separated it from DOOM especially. The monsters were more gruesome, the blood stickier and the terror more palpable at every level. This was assisted in no small degree by Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor’s grinding, industrial soundtrack, which accompanied every nailgun blast with a haunting pad or muted acid loop.
The idea that an artists as big as Reznor would get involved with a video game soundtrack was still novel in 1996, and he showed that a game can easily be as rewarding – and indeed as artistic – as any other form of entertainment.
