Medal of Honor

1 player

Stand out version - PS1

PS1 owners finally got their competition for Goldeneye when this game arrived at the end of 99'. Set during WWII before the idea of WWII shooters became cliched, MoH incorporated a lot of the popular aspects of Goldeneye such as its mission based structure and emphasis on stealth, whilst adding some great presentation and very impressive, cinematic music. There's some minor issues with draw distance, and the multiplayer wasn't a patch on Goldeneye, but all in all Medal of Honor is definitely amongst the highest tier of the later first person shooter releases.

Medal of Honor: Underground

1 player

Stand out version - PS1

Underground was an absolutely huge improvement over the original game. Pretty much every aspect has been polished up, the graphics detail, draw distance, environments, controls, there's a far more interesting scenario (this time around you're playing as a female French resistance fighter), and all the great aspects of the original (such as the cinematic music) have been carried over. In my opinion this is easily the deepest single player fps experience available on the original PS1.

Perfect Dark

4 player

Stand out version - N64

The true sequel to Goldeneye, with Perfect Dark Rare went for a bigger equals better stance, they went to town with features and options, including both co-op and counter-op campaign modes, tons of new sci-fi inspired weapons, and loads of new stages and modes for multiplayer. Perfect Dark doesn't quite make Goldeneye obsolete though, to get in the improved graphics the game speed was decreased, and the frame rate tends to stutter more. All in all its best to just buy both games.

Powerslave/Exhumed

1 Player

Stand out versions - Saturn, PS1

Powerslave was the Saturn's early, heralded fps from Lobotomy. For its time it was pretty much the fastest, and smoothest FPS game available on consoles, with a great egyptian theme and some added exploration elements to increase the longevity. Its a shame the game wasn't hyped up much until after the later PS1 release because it really could've helped the Saturn hardware had it become more widely known about amongst the mainstream gaming public. Lobotomy used the respectable British sales of this game to fund the later Saturn ports of Duke Nukem, and Quake, re-using the Powerslave graphics engine.

Quake

1 Player (Saturn) 2 Player (N64)

Stand out console versions - Saturn, N64

This was the most hyped first person shooter to arrive during this generation, the biggest release from ID after making the genre defining Doom. The most notable improvements were centred around the graphics and atmosphere, with much more careful art design to increase tension in the player. As the console versions go the Saturn version has better textures, whilst the N64 version has cleaner graphics, better effects and multiplayer, in the end its a toss up between the two (maybe slight edge to Saturn though)

 

Quake II

4 Player

Stand out console version - PS1

After the PS1 had been left out of the equation for the original Quake, gamers were surprised to see the sequel being announced, and what an excellent version it turned out to be too!. The PS1 handles the game excellently, with everything moving quickly and smoothly, there's even some nice lighting effects and an excellent 4 player split screen mode too. This has to be the only realistic 4-player choice for playing deathmatch on PS1.

Turok

1 Player

Stand out version - N64

One of the most important early releases for the N64, Turok introduced much larger environments to explore, a more fully realised world, and more animated and lifelike enemies. The game is a little dated by today's standards, there's a lot of fogging, and some of those jumping sections can be pretty difficult, but the fearsome monsters, high energy climbing and swimming sections, and big levels still very much stand in the game's favour.

Turok II

4 Player

Play it on - N64

Turok II was a big change from the first game, the theme was now more sci-fi focused, and the gameplay structure more mission based. Overall Turok II was a big improvement though, with more interesting level designs, better graphics with more varied environments, and story sections played out using the in-game graphics. One other thing worth mentioning is the awesome weapons, Acclaim really thought about making the weapons of Turok as interesting and fun to use as possible, resulting in some excellent, overly elaborate, gory weapons such as the Cerebral Bore.

Turok: Rage Wars

4 player

Stand out version - N64

With the FPS genre starting to become more multiplayer focused on the PC with games like Quake III: Arena and Unreal Tournament, Acclaim decided to go the same way with their Turok series, and why not? Taking all the elements from their previous games like the characters and fantastic weapon designs and putting them into a polished, feature rich multiplayer free-for-all was an inspired choice, it worked fantastically well, even managing to rival Goldeneye.

World is Not Enough, The

4 player

Stand out version - N64

After the disappointment that was Tomorrow Never Dies, James Bond came back with another great game, which, whilst being made by a different development team to Goldeneye, managed to retain a lot of what made that game great. The two console versions of TWINE play very differently to each other, and to my mind the N64 version is the better of the two games, so that's the one I'm recommending here.