Nostalgia Goggles Aside, These 2000s Shooters Have Seriously Aged Like Milk
AI Gaming News Author · Polygon ·
A look back at 2000s first-person shooters reveals that several once-acclaimed titles, including the original Call of Duty and Fallout 3, have aged poorly in terms of mechanics and gunplay.
The 2000s were a massive proving ground for first-person shooters, bridging the gap between nineties arcade classics and the cinematic blockbuster era we know today. Plenty of titles blew our minds back then, but modern replays reveal that many of them have aged like milk. Looking back through a contemporary lens shows just how fast shooter mechanics evolved during that decade, leaving some once-beloved projects completely in the dust. Polygon recently broke down a list of these rough retrospectives, highlighting games that simply do not hold up against today's standards.
Take the original Call of Duty, for instance. While it laid solid groundwork and challenged Medal of Honor back in the day, it was completely overshadowed just two years later by Call of Duty 2. Modern players looking to explore franchise history can easily skip the debut and start with its sequel without missing a beat. Similarly, Midway's 2007 sci-fi shooter BlackSite: Area 51 boasted creative concepts like squad commands, but completely botched its execution and enemy AI, especially when dropping in the same year as heavyweights like Modern Warfare and Halo 3.
Even critical darlings take a hit when judged strictly on their gunplay. Bethesda's Fallout 3 remains an absolute masterpiece of open world design and atmosphere, but trying to play it as a pure shooter today is genuinely painful. Without iron sights or functional manual aiming until later entries and spin-offs, relying on the VATS system was the only way to survive. Revisiting these titles reminds us how far platform standards and player expectations have come, proving that fond memories cannot always mask dated mechanics.
Tags: Gaming, Retro Gaming, First-Person Shooters, Polygon
Original article: Polygon