The First Person Shooter (FPS) genre is weaved into the fabric of PC gaming's history and development. These games are what drive the development of the most cutting edge technology, form the backbone of tournament level eSports, and typify gameplay innovation at the highest level. My recent bout with Frontlines, the latest addition to the genre, left me wanting, to say the least, and prompted me to do a little thinking about where the genre came from.

First off, the FPS genre is pretty huge. It covers everything from RPG/FPS games like System Shock to tactical oriented games like America's Army to plain old deathmatchingin Unreal. All of these types of FPS's have their own charm, but I want to consider them all in their own niches to be able to focus the conversation down to a specific style of gameplay that I love. It's the big, multiplayer, team-based games that that I think provide the richest, most intense online experiences and I want to highlight the games that developed that genre specifically. Here are the key titles in the evolution of the Team Multiplayer FPS: