Here Im mostly asking about PC games, as the full 3d era in console gaming was pretty much started with the PS1 launch (December 1994) and the N64 launch (September 1996).
Case in point is two of my favourite games, Star Wars Dark Forces (February 1995), and Dark Forces 2 (October 1997), pretty much the same formula, but totally different technical capabilities.
Dark Forces was solidly lumped in with the Doom era of games, being 2.5D. Basically the environment was 3D, enemies were rendered by a 2d billboard sprite, and for Dooms case, all levels were essentially on a 2D grid, with the appearance of raised ceilings and uneven floors essentially kludged into the engine. Dark Forces slightly expanded on this by somehow adding in the ability to have multiple levels (is it only 2 different vertical levels or more?) and the ability to pan looking up and down ([although this again seems to have been a hotfix to an inherent issue in raycasting engines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Camera_Rotation_vs_Shearing.gif)).
So then a little under 3 years later Dark Forces 2 is released by the same publisher, you can do pretty much everything you can in a normal game engine, look in any direction, completely 3d environments, and the graphics still look passable even now.
I get that there are some technical hurdles to cover between 2D games and full 3D, particularly without a graphics card (first hitting the market in 1999) to reduce the performance issues with rendering only what is in view (occlusion I think?). What I dont get is how the technical issues were solved so quickly between 1995 and 1997, and in particular why the 2d grid necessity went away so quickly.
In: Technology
Marathon (Bungie Software) for Mac in 1995 was fully 3D, as were Marathon 2: Durandal and Marathon Infinity (96/97?)
Better graphics, better gameplay, better storyline than pretty much all of the other 3D games of the era. Better than Quake.
Mac only though, other than Durandal, and the PC port of it wasn’t as polished and didn’t run nearly as well as on a Mac of the same era in my opinion.
Most people weren’t introduced to Bungie until Microsoft bought them out to make Halo into the Xbox exclusive killer game everyone HAD to have.
That said, if you ever get an old Mac emulator running and want to play some of the best gameplay of the 90’s, Pathways into Darkness and the Marathon series are both really great gaming experiences.
Pathways shows it’s age, but the story and puzzles and figuring it all out is incredible.
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