If you are a manchild of the '90s and a cutting classer for LAN gaming, you have probably played Counter-Strike.
Born out of Valve's Half-Life, CS annihilated tuition fees, messed up the grades of erstwhile top students, and caused rifts between child and parent because the kid comes home late and has all of a sudden discovered the art of rage-quitting on everything.
Anyway, I stumbled on a YouTube video chronicling the story behind de_dust2, the iconic CS map. When I saw the vlog, I remembered the time when I was in high school and I was hanging out in my friend's house. My friend has this bro who was developing the game. I don't know what software he was using, but he let us test the game and it had men hitting other men with fireballs. It felt like a fighting game in a CS environment.
I think this was in 1997 or 1998.
OFF-TOPIC: I don't want to say the names of the characters because it's not my story to tell.
If there was one thing I regretted during my computer class aside from not learning about ASDF and JKL; (I am a writer who "chopsticks" the keyboard,) it's the art of computer programming.
Anyway, check out the Noclip vlog here.
Especially if you are a kid of that generation.