Quake
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Quake is a first-person shooter game developed by id Software and published by GT Interactive and released in 1996 for MS-DOS, and was later ported to Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac OS, Nintendo 64, and Sega Saturn. A PlayStation version was planned but canceled.
Why It Rocks
- Amazing abstract-level design, which shows the capabilities of the engine.
- The game looks amazing, especially for 1996. Despite the limited texture resolution, it can be argued that the gritty textures help get around this limitation by helping create the illusion of extra details and distract the eyes from the washing-out effect due to hardware constraints of the time. It helps that the game supported much higher resolutions than Doom to further boost visual appeal.
- This game is responsible for coining the term First-Person Shooter as many that came before were considered "Doom and Wolfenstein clones".
- It is one of the first ever FPS games to feature online multiplayer, and it has been very popular among players for a long time.
- Unlike Doom and Wolfenstein 3D which used 2D sprites in a rotating 3D field (Although the hitboxes around the enemies themselves are 3D shapes), Quake offered full real-time 3D rendering and had 3D models made out of actual polygons. It's often considered to be the first true 3D first-person shooter because of that, though Terminator: Future Shock was made in 1995 (1 year earier) and also was using full-3D engine.
- The maps are inspired by several dark fantasy influences, notably that of the late H. P. Lovecraft. Some levels have Lovecraftian names as well, such as the Vaults of Zin or the Ebon Fortress. Originally, this game was supposed to include more Lovecraftian bosses, but this concept was scrapped due to time constraints.
- It supports the amazing 3dfx Voodoo cards, which means that anyone who has them can play them.
- There are 8 weapons.
- Axe: It does moderate damage and should not be used unless you find yourself in sudden close combat. It's also useful to open secret doors.
- Shotgun: A decent default weapon that can be used to spam or to acquire a more powerful weapon.
- Double-barrel Shotgun: It has a large spread, but can do some good damage at short range.
- Nailgun: It fires nails in a Machinegun-like fashion from two barrels, alternating between the two with each shot. It has perfect accuracy, no damage falloff, and no recoil, making it very useful against faraway targets.
- Super Nailgun: It consumes two nails with each shot, meaning that you can fire it 100 times (with max ammo) before you run out of ammo. While this may seem like a downfall, the silver nail from a Super Nailgun does the same damage as two nails fired from the Nailgun.
- Grenade Launcher: The grenades will explode if they hit a target or after a few seconds on the ground.
- Rocket Launcher: Getting hit by one is a one-hit kill if you don't have any armor, and its splash damage can do the same if you're close to the point of impact.
- Thunderbolt: It is similar to a beam fired by a Shambler, though thinner. It can do incredible damage if it stays on a target. However, ammo for it is scarce.
- There are four power-ups.
- Quad Damage: It amplifies a weapon's damage by a factor of 4 (quadruples) for 30 seconds. With it, even the most basic of weapons (such as the Axe) can do incredible damage, usually able to take out a target with one or two shots.
- Pentagram of Protection: Makes the player invulnerable for 30 seconds.
- Ring of Shadows: Makes the player invisible for 30 seconds.
- Biosuit: Allows you to jump into slime without taking damage.
- It even invented a lot of nowadays well-used elements, such as the keyboard+mouse controls, and rocket jumping.
- Each episode represents individual dimensions that the player can access through magical portals discovered throughout the game.
- Two expansion packs were released for the game, such as the Scourge of Armagon and Dissolution of Eternity.
- It has been a good target for many fanmade mods, which were mostly pretty good due to being created by talented gamers.
- The PC and Saturn versions of the game have an awesome and creepy soundtrack, courtesy of the industrial rock band, Nine Inch Nails, while the N64 version has a different soundtrack by Aubrey Hodges that is considered to be just as good.
- It was one of the last games to be released in a shareware form and was also a good way to end it on a high note.
- The Saturn port is somewhat one of those “impossible ports,” yet it’s a very good port by Lobotomy Software due to Sega publishing it.
- The game is primarily responsible for the emergence of the machinima artform of films made in game engines, thanks to edited Quake demos such as Ranger Gone Bad and Blahbalicious, the in-game film The Devil's Covenant, and the in-game-rendered, four-hour epic film The Seal of Nehahra.
- A 2021 remaster uses Nightdive Studios's Kex Engine, has a new episode called Dimension of the Machine, achievements, tons of graphic and audio options, updated game code, includes the three previous expansions as an integral part of the game, a DOOM (2016)/Eternal-styled weapon wheel, and mod curation (with Quake 64, a conversion of the Nintendo 64 port, being the first supported mod). Also, the Nightmare difficulty was completely reworked (you now are limited to 50 health, but enemy behavior is not as drastically changed).
Bad Qualities
- It had a lot of things that were cut, and was originally meant to be an RPG game, rather than another First Person Shooter. The development cycle is considered the most controversial of id's history as it led many to quit including John Romero.
- There are only two bosses (there were meant to be more but this didn't happen due to time constraints) and they're both terrible, mainly because you don't fight them.
- Chthon: He has only one attack and can only be killed via a trap on the ceiling. The player must ride to the second floor and activate the two buttons on either side of the level which lowers two electric terminals on either side of the Chthon that zaps him. Repeat this three times and he's dead.
- Shub Niggurath: The creature that is responsible for unleashing all the monsters on the Ranger doesn't attack you at all. She sits in the center of the level and lets her demons attack the player instead. To defeat her, all you do is just run to the end of the level and go through a teleporter, which will telefrag her. Then the game ends.
- It required an Intel Pentium to play it very smoothly in software mode, but it was a really expensive CPU at the time.
- The N64 version suffers from texture downgrades, due to hardware limitations.
- There is no music in the Nightdive remaster nor the GOG version of Quake, the only way to get music in those is to put the music inside the Id1, Rouge, and Hypnotic folders. And you can only do it if you have a source port like Quakespasm, and to add insult to injury, if you want to just play vanilla Quake without a source port with music, there is no way the music will work on GLQUAKE, and WinQuake at all (Unless you have the Vanilla Quake Patch installer.).
Videos
Reception
Quake was critically acclaimed on the PC. Aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic gave the original PC version 93% and 94/100, and the Nintendo 64 port 76% and 74/100.
The source code of the Quake and QuakeWorld engines was licensed under the GNU GPL-2.0-or-later on December 21, 1999. The id Software maps, objects, textures, sounds, and other creative works remain under their original proprietary license. The shareware distribution of Quake is still freely redistributable and usable with the GPLed engine code. One must purchase a copy of Quake to receive the registered version of the game which includes more single-player episodes and the deathmatch maps. Based on the success of the first Quake game, and later published Quake II and Quake III Arena; Quake 4 was released in October 2005, and developed by Raven Software using the Doom 3 engine.
Quake was the game primarily responsible for the emergence of the machinima artform of films made in game engines, thanks to edited Quake demos such as Ranger Gone Bad and Blahbalicious, the in-game film The Devil's Covenant, and the in-game-rendered, four-hour epic film The Seal of Nehahra.
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