SiN (1998), the Quake 2 engine shooter from some former Duke Nukem 3D level designers that was completely annihilated in sales by Half-Life. I always had a soft spot for it but in 2022 I believe that it holds up better than Half-Life 1.
Very ahead of its time. Had one of the first FPS sniper rifles with zoom, and it has some immersive sim elements that were iterated on and refined in Deus Ex: You can turn off automated turrets and unlock doors, among other actual gameplay mechanic things, by using in-world computer terminals.
One of the reasons I feel it holds up better than Half-Life is that Half-Life's idea of what an FPS campaign feels like is still for the most part in-use, so Half-Life in retrospect feels like this rough version of how single player shooters still are. SiN, to me, feels kind of charmingly quaint as this transitional bolt-on of voiced cutscenes and scripted objectives and such things to gun combat that feels like part of the DOS doom clone lineage.
