I think this is your nostalgia talking. There are plenty of 3D games which have been and will be remembered. (You even list Doom as a 2D game! I are astonished.)

The original DooM engine it's a "false 3d" or 2.5d game. Really it's a 2d game displayed on 3d. All game mechanics, and the monsters IA works based on 2d data. Even the maps are based on 2d BSP and data. Z data are only used to rendering.

Source ports add more 3d stuff to the game engine, like collision by cylinders with height (ie, a flying Cacodemon not would colide with you if it is flying above you), opnegl rendering, 3d camera, modern controls, slopes, etc. But at the core, keeps being a 2d game.

Ultimately the environments are 3D images being generated from a 2D dataset. How is it not 3D? A cube is a 2D square that's been extruded into another dimension. It's not 2D.

>How is it not 3D?

It's the difference between looking 3D and being 3D (well, being represented 3D in the game engine before rendering to your monitor).

Doom isn't 3D because the level maps can be squashed flat to a 2D grid. For every x,y position there was only one z for you and the mobs. There weren't any situations where a bridge or ramp took you/mobs over a lower spot you/mobs could also be at, rooms weren't stacked, etc.

That was fine, Doom pulled off its sleight-of-hand extremely well and the gameplay it offered was captivating!

Lots of 3D shapes can be squashed flat to a 2D grid. If you printed out a Doom level on a 3D printer and put it on your desk, you wouldn't claim it wasn't 3D just because you couldn't find any stacked rooms. The final product is 3D regardless of the constraints on which 3D geometries are possible.

You could argue there are no 3D graphics. Everything is transformed into a 2D screen representation.

I'm not taking about shapes, I'm talking about the LEVELS themselves. There are no DOOM levels where part of the level exists "above" or "below" another part of the level - they are all 2D maps that through various (ingenious) engine tricks, such as elevators that teleport you to fake entering one spot and exiting another spot "above" it, to visually appear 3D.

Hence my squashing analogy, DOOM levels don't overlap and can be drawn ("squashed flat") on a 2D surface.

But you can't actually occupy a different height for a given location. This is NOT real 3D. That's why DOOM is sometimes described as a 2.5D game. Quake was the ID Software game that was 3D.

If you think DOOM is a 3D game, try creating a level that contains a player accessible location above/below another player accessible location, and see how the game renders it. Or, read the DOOM rendering engine links that are posted and pay close attention to the "not a true 3D engine" paragraph.

That is a pretty arbitrary qualifier for 3D. Doom is filled with spatial obstacles that make use of the 3D geometry. For example, a missile can pass over the player. Facing a wall on top of which a monster stands, I can't necessarily pass it or see or fire at the monster. Flattening the levels would change the game and remove many of its challenges.

The format of the levels or the fact that there are no rooms over other rooms don't really factor into it.

I think we're just arguing at different levels of abstraction here. I'm arguing that a 3D environment is being generated from 2D map data, and I consider it to be meaningfully 3D.

I suppose at the extreme end, I'd have to explain why Wizardry on the Apple II is or isn't a 3D game, which would be more of a strained philosophical argument.

I refer more to the game logic on the original game engine. For example, there can't be bridges or rooms over other rooms. Or a flying monster can't be over other monster or a player.

On other side, the original game engine, use 2d math with fixed point to rendering on a 386 CPU. Don't uses mvp matrix to render, like a real 3d game.

Take a look to : http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Doom_rendering_engine

I guess yes there is some nostalgia involved, btw i removed it, its just that i feel disrespectful whenever a list like that doesn't include doom

I think there's fewer no-doubt classics among fully 3D games (Doom is 3D graphics build with 2D sprites, so I am actually walking back my amazement on that -- it's a tweener, not like Quake which was rendered polygons), but that's just because they've had less time to establish themselves as classics. Final Fantasy VII, Bioshock, Resident Evil 4... I think all of those are going to be talked about as long after their release as those games you mentioned.

> Look these games at best can be __good__..

As usual, tastes are subjective. Many people consider Moby Dick to be a classic - but when compared to more modern allegorical works, it's rather dry and boring. This doesn't mean Moby Dick is not a classic, but it also doesn't mean that Moby Dick is the be-all-end-all example of an allegorical tale.

Those games are classics, but being a classic does not prevent a game from being surpassed, nor does it prevent newer games from becoming classics as well.

> neverwinter nights

Was in 3d. The Starcraft and Diablo games had 3d models which were rendered down to 2d sprites (and considered by many to be dramatically inferior to hand-drawn 2d sprites).

Many of these series continue to exist today, in 3 dimensions.

And despite having arguably the worst 3d graphics in the lot, Final Fantasy VII is still a favorite for many folks.

FFVII has really crappy 3D, and sometimes awkward transitions between presentation modes. Still, some of what Square pioneered in that game remain: fixed cameras, character oriented controls, etc... (where the control "left" does different things depending on where the character is facing)

They have gone back and forth on open world vs rails or corridors, and I find the open world, like FFXII, the most enjoyable and replayable of the titles.

When FFVII was released, it was one of the first my wife really wanted to play with me. We played lots of games, but the vivid nature of the story, lots of activities, puzzles, mini-games (Oh, how we spent time on Chocobo breeding...), really made for an awesome experience!

But, an attempt to play it today is tough. The really poor visuals often get in the way, and it just reeks of old.

This is true of many 2D titles too.

One difference is how abstract the game is. An old 2D game, such as TEMPEST, or DEFENDER, actually looks and plays well today. It is what it is, and that isn't much, but the challenge is there, presentation sufficient, and it's sort of timeless.

Those games that went for some realism, or that made more identifiable characters seem to age a lot more quickly, though somebody up thread mentioned SONIC. Yeah, that one is still relevant, and is a stellar example of a timeless presentation involving simple, easily understood mechanics.

I'm surprised there's been no mention of Crysis. This was a game whose entire popularity was largely based around "unnaturally pretty, will burn a hole in your computer"; to the extent that it became a rather mainstream GPU benchmarking metric.

I'm honestly surprised there's as much of a debate over this, the breakdown always seemed rather clear to me: That while there are "great games" that "serious gamers"(tm) love (I'm personally a massive SS2 fan, play it to this day) we are in the vast minority and the Next Gen race has been almost entirely about throwing increasingly flashy presentation-oriented features at core game mechanics that are known to be successful.

In defense of Crysis, it offered in its first half an interesting open-world approach to completing objective. Contrast with the latter installment of the game that became increasingly corridor-like in its level design.

Legendary games with 3d graphics? Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time.

For me it was GL-Quake. I was a huge fan of Quake and it ran (barely) on my 486. My cousin had a pentium 166 with an expensive graphics card (S3 - I think). Quake rendered using Open GL was a thing of beauty. That was my "I must upgrade my computer now" moment. I rarely play first person perspective games nowadays but back in the 90's Quake was my benchmark. I never really got into Half Life I loved Unreal but Quake was the real classic.

people will remember whatever they connected with the most at the right time in their life.

It's just a matter of generation : I haven't played any of the games you listed, while I know every 3D AAA games mentionned before.