Quake

Classic boomer shooter from 30 years ago, and it still gets official updates!! There's a lot of addons too, and I hope they add even more community maps, like Arcane Dimensions.

The original Quake from 1996 is an incredibly influential FPS. Sure, it might’ve not canonized all of the main genre pillars, like Doom did several years prior. But it elevated everything and brought new dimensions to the gameplay. And while its engine didn’t become as popular of a choice for other developers as the Quake III engine (later known as id tech 3) would be, it still has the honour of being the basis for the engine Half-Life would be built on. I didn’t fully play the game until its 20th anniversary back in 2016. I didn’t have much of a reason to not do that until then, really, it just sort of happened. But my opinion on the game was very positive, even though back at the time I had to jump through a few hoops to get it properly working and have used a popular, at the time, Quakespasm, engine port and the GOG version of the game to get the soundtrack. But then in 2021 a new version of the game was created by NightDive that, as usual for their remasters, solved all of the main issues with the old release and became the new default version of the title. That had a few additional new elements, but otherwise looked just like the original game did. Five additional years later, that version got a new update, with yet another additional expansion from MachineGames who have been doing these every 5 years for the past decade, and I’ve decided to replay the game once again. Now with less hassle and with two expansions I’ve never played before. Let me quickly remind you on what exactly was so new for Quake, in comparison to Doom. Quake was essentially the first “true 3D” FPS title, where you could (and had to) look up and down, had jumping and levels themselves could be vertically stacked, leading to a completely new approach to level design. It also introduced some interesting new basic elements and ideas, like grenades that bounced around, instead of being a simple projectile that explodes on any impact. It was the first game to really introduce advanced “movement tech” to the genre, where you could build and keep momentum, do “rocket jumps”, using explosions to enhance your jumping height and distance, and do other crazy stuff. Quake made movement in FPS a lot more fun and involved, compared to prior titles. It’s also worth mentioning, that unlike Doom, Quake had a very troubled and somewhat unfocused development, which lead to its unique atmosphere and design. It was originally supposed to be a lot closer to dark fantasy with eldritch horror elements, possibly closer in concept to what Hexen was. But due to disagreements in the team and the fact that the engine development took a lot longer than originally anticipated, most of the ideas had to be scaled back to being a lot closer to Doom. The game still has more emphasis on something resembling a story than Doom does, but it’s all still delivered in text after finishing Episodes and feels like a remnant of mostly discarded ideas, because it basically is. Nonetheless, revisiting Quake was very pleasant. The game still plays really well and its overall balancing is very well done. Enemies tend to be a lot more “bullet spongey” than what Doom felt like, but this is usually balanced out by fun arsenal of explosive weapons. It’s cool that every episode begins with more futuristic architecture, closer to Doom, and appropriate space marine type enemies, but the farther you go, the more medieval and weird it gets. Also fun to remember how the game tries to add a lot of explanation and flavour using the text messages, some of which feel like proto-modern day tutorials. Oh and the soundtrack by Nine Inch Nails is just perfect – it’s mostly weird dark ambient noise, with occasional clear heavy riffs and it fits the levels and their generally quick pace really well. But there are some frustrations as well. I found the last main episode of the game considerably less fun than the others. Some of the enemy types that typically appear closer to the end of each episode are just unfun. And while I knew from prior experience the “trick” to the bosses (there are just two and both are puzzles), I still feel like the final boss solution is very unintuitive. Nevertheless, I think that Quake still holds up well and in this new version playing it is very fun. Which is not true to some of the expansions, some of which are from the 90s, but most are new. As for the expansions - they have a lot of variety to them and show just how far you can push this game. In my opinion, the latest entries from MachineGames (Dimension of the Machine and Dawn of the Machine) while really impressive, are just too... not Quake to feel good. I'd rather see those as completely new games, with new weapons and enemies. While the other 3, the 2 original ones and the 1st MachineGames expansion for the 20th anniversary, are just hit or miss in general. I didn't like Scourge of Armagon all that much, but it was a curious step towards more scripted FPS titles. Dissolution of Eternity was quite alright. And Dimension of the Past has weird balancing, where you never really have enough ammo for some reason. You could also play mods, of course, and some are readily available from the start. Quake 64 is a notable example, where it's an adaptation of the N64 version of the game, including the cool soundtrack it had. But there are countless others you could play too. But really, Quake is worth playing for Quake alone, the rest is just a nice bonus to check. And this remastered version is probably the best one to play, though I'm sure some people would still prefer engine ports. I was happy to play the game yet again and will probably revisit it in the future.

yeah buddy

I love the game for what it was and I love current updates. I already played it via split screen with friends, and now we have a new chapter for free. That you

its a good classic. best for inbetween things and you dont want to loose too much time.

Excellent game, play it since the Pentium Era. It became marvelous playing the campaign co-op! XD

Archaischer Neo-Boomer-Shooter mit tiefem Retro-Charme. Steht in starkem Kontrast zu anderen Shootern. Es geht um Muster und Mechaniken.