Quake (1996)

This really felt like an improvement on everything about Doom, from the amazing-for-its-time graphics to the awesome and fun multiplayer and the high-quality gameplay that brought me back to the original feeling of playing Doom the other month. Great sound and atmosphere and awesome monsters too.

But what the heck, no map. I burned out on only the third area.

Look: 8.5/10

Sound: 8.5/10

Play: 7.5/10 Never a favorite genre but this is right up there with the first Doom in terms of Play... if it had a map

Feel: 7.5/10

Attachment: 8/10 Definitely woudl return for the multiplayer with friends/family

Overall: 8/10

A question I often found myself asking during the earlier levels was "would removing Ogres make the game more fun?" By the time I was dealing with nothing but Fiends, Vores and Spawns and trying to figure out whether I should bother hitting quicksave again or if the situation was literally unsalvageable, I yearned for past luxuries. Even looking for as many secrets as possible will only somewhat alleviate things, as only a few of them have those precious armor and health pickups.

The aesthetic is quite cool, but not as cool or believable as the kind of levels we'd see later in Hexen 2, Return to Castle Wolfenstein or Painkiller, which I'd say all fall within the same scope, but being that it's one of the first ever shooters to attempt a proper full 3D experience I'd say it's excusable. The music featuring Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails is often touted as a selling point, but honestly as a bag of tricks it doesn't really measure up to the versatility found in the soundtracks of its predecessors, including the original DOOM duology done by Bobby Prince, the original Heretic and Hexen lineup by Kevin Schilder, or even the soundtrack to Strife by Morey Goldstein, a game whose release was greatly overshadowed by this one even though it's got a lot more interesting things going for it in its design.

Sometimes, this game feels less, shall we say, reasonable than something you would deal with on the original idtech DOOM engine, but it's still an engaging challenge and experience.

A classic for a reason that feels like an evolution of the Doom formula. Overall it's pretty fantastic with mostly solid level design and great gameplay. Movement is kind of floaty, but fast and responsive. Most enemies, except for low health fodder and sorta the Shambler's lightning, have attacks you can dodge so prepare to circle strafe and back bipedal like you're on meth! The graphics have aged surprising well IMO. There's a charm to the pixelated 3-D that the Boomer shooters of modern times push to new limits in recent titles such as Amid Evil and Dusk.

Level design is overall more complex and straightforward compared to Doom. These levels will use 3-D more effectively than Doom, which was for the most part all on one x-y-z plane. Quake has verticality, though for the most part you will be moving horizontally. Most levels seem to have a gimmick that make them feel unique. Such as the air tubes level where you need to progress and go full super Mario to go to the next segment in the level. One issue people may have with the level design is the lack of a diverse color pallet. Most levels will have a medieval muddy look to them. While this doesn't create a lot of thematic variety, the levels do play differently. That with how short the game was kept it from feeling monotonous. It also helps that the game non-stop throws enemies at you who bum rush you like you killed their entire family (which to be fair you probably did). Never in a game have enemies hated you so much and tried so hard to kill you. It's relentless. Which honestly made me have to take breaks just to relax. This game is all gas and no brakes.

Another innovative feature to this game was the controls. Now you had mouse aiming which became the industry standard moving forward for good reason. Now shooters felt like shooters. Not to mention that it invented the rocket jump (well I think it did. Not sure if there was another shooter before Quake that did it but I believe not). In addition, the levels are often less confusing to navigate compared to Doom for the first 3 episodes. I did find the last 4 episodes to have a more confusing and less intuitive progression. They were probably the weakest levels in the game, but there are a few levels that were still a blast to get through. Particularly towards the end when levels start having multiple Quad Damages.

Scourge of Armagon I think was overall better and more enjoyable than the base game in every way but the music. The atmospheric music done by NIN was fantastic and set an otherworldly tone that was oppressive. The music in Armagon isn't bad, I'm down to slay thousands of demons to sick guitar rifs, but overall I think the base game is elevated more with the ambient music approach.

I don't really like the proximity gun (never used it) or Thor's Hammer (honestly it just felt weak) but the laser cannon was pretty damn sweet and you get it early which makes it useful. I actually preferred it to the lightning gun. The level design was certainly more confusing than the base game, but what makes it stand out is the variety in themes across episodes and levels. It just looks good and levels feel aesthetically more distinct from one another. They also have a final boss fight, though it's still kind lame. Unfortunately shooters have always struggled with making good boss fights. The typical solution is to make them damage sponges which never really feels good to play against. I think Doom 2016 and Eternal did bosses mostly right, but it's certainly not an easy thing to get right. I actually kind of glitched this boss out along a pillar in his arena. He just kept walking into it, firing at the wall, which let me just stand still and unload everything until he died.

Dissolution of Eternity introduces some awesome new weapons. Including the upgrade to the rocket launcher that fires multiple missiles. Making it absolutely awesome. It feels so good to one shot an Ogre or Dread Knight with one volley of the rocket. The thermal nails are okay and I didn't really like the cluster grenade launcher. Particularly because it meant some ogres had it too... FFS... I did run into a bug in Episode 1m5 where a Shambler just wouldn't spawn that was required to kill to end the level... I had to resort to console commands to "noclip" through the barrier that the Shambler lowers when killed. The early missions do feel a bit cheap in difficulty. They throw tough enemies at you when you only have a shotgun and the corridors are all tight making it feel more frustrating over a satisfying challenge. This changes a bit once you get the new and more powerful upgrades. Overall, besides the potential game ending bug in 1m5 I had a great time. The final boss is a bit of a damage sponge, but wasn't an issue with me. Only took a second try.

Dimension of the Machine has an outstanding atmosphere that surpasses the original. This is done in terms of aesthetics. lighting effects and variety. Even the sound design is on another level, featuring buzzing and droning industrial and electronic sounds that are omnipresent and oppressive. The music does feel pretty monotonous. It does fit the tone and atmosphere, I just wish they had more variety to it. Overall these levels are challenging and well designed. Though I did feel Hell or Dark Water was more on the cheap side. Giving you very little ammo and throwing the toughest enemies in the game at you in numbers AND in narrow corridors... honestly this was more of a slog to get through than an enjoyable experience. It still had it's moments, but overall no me gusta. I also wished there were more power ups in this expansion and perhaps some of the new weapons introduced from previous missions packs, such as the multi-rocket. It definitely would have made the game easier, but the fun with that arsenal would have been worth that compromise.

Finally, Dimension of the Past was kind of lame and half assed. Levels felt distinct from one another, but there wasn't any kind of connecting theme across these levels. It just made them feel unfocused and unrefined. The levels are also fairly close to the base game, featuring muddy medieval aesthetics. There's a little shake up from time to time, but overall it's pretty short, feels a bit cheap in it's level design with tight corridors and tougher enemies thrown at you. Overall just lacks the impressive vision from Machine. I think as a bonus though, I don't think this expansion threw any slimes at you. So that's def a positive mark in my book. Still, it feels like these were left over levels they didn't want to throw away and didn't know what to do with them either. So they just slapped them together into a mission pack and called it a day.

Overall the Quake Remaster is worth playing and is a great value. You get Quake and four mission packs which led me to spending close to 19 hours playing. The only thing that wasn't great was the Dimension of the Past mission pack, but the other three were worth my time. It looks and plays great on modern machines. There's an endearing quality to the pixelated art style of this game and combat is quick and fluid with powerful feedback making it satisfying. It feels like a natural progression from Doom and created an engine that served as a base for another influential shooter, Half Life. I think it lives up to its reputation.

Quake julkaistiin alun perin vuonna 1996 Doomin jälkijäristyksissä, mutta sai taannoin remasterin nykylaitteille. Tässä samaisessa remasterissa pelasin pelin alkuperäisen kampanjan läpi ja kokeilin hieman sen muutakin tarjontaa.

Peli on graafisesti ja enginensä puolesta paljon Doomia kehittyneempi, mutta muuten liikkuu aika samoilla vesillä: nopeatempoista räiskintää demoneita ja scifiä yhdistävässä miljöössä. Teema ja tunnelmallinen Nine Inch Nails -soundtrack ovat edelleen kovaa valuuttaa, ja aikanaan vallankumouksellinen engine tuo nämä hyvin pelaajan aistimille. Remasterissa resoa on tietenkin nostettu, ja tämän lisäksi mukaan on tuotu muutamia muitakin nykykrumeluureja, jotka saavat pelin näyttämään sekä itseltään että mukavasti ehostetulta. Framerate oli minulla Switchillä suurimman osan ajasta mukavan sulava 60fps, mutta tietyillä asetuksilla ja ruuhkaisella toiminnalla sen sai kyllä putoilemaan. Pelin ohjaukseen on myös puhallettu hieman uutta tuulta (hieman kiikkerällä) weapon wheelillä. Lisäksi ainakin Switch-versiossa on mukana myös hyvin toimivat gyro-kontrollit, joilla pelin nopeatempoista räiskintää oli hauska tahkota.

Ja räiskintä on hauskaa ylipäätään, vaikkei yllä mielestäni Doomin hupikertoimeen. Asekattauskaan ei mielestäni ole yhtä tasavahva ja looginen kuin Doomissa, mutta hyviä pyssyjä tästäkin löytyy. Remasterissa näillä aseilla pääsee kurmottamaan vihuja peruspelissä, virallisissa lisäreissä sekä remasteria varta vasten tehdyssä uudessa episodissa, joka on harvinaisen näyttävää tavaraa Quake-enginelle. Tavaraa on siis paljon. Ja lisää tulossa.

Nettipeli oli lukematiedon mukaan iso osa alkuperäistä Quakea, ja tämä on tuotu remasterissa hienosti mukaan. Pelissä on nettipelinä sekä deathmatch että kampanjoiden co-op, ja lokaalistikin näitä voi nauttia neljän pelaajan voimin. Joku tilastosivu voitetuista matseissta, K/D-ratiosta ja matsien määrästä olisi ollut kiintoisa lisä, mutta ei sen puute maailmaa kaadakaan.

Kokonaisuutena Quaken uusi remaster on kova versio kovasta klassikkopelistä. Se ei ole mielestäni yhtä kaikkivoipa klassikko kuin Doom, mutta toisaalta, mikä olisi. Low-res-fiilistelystä, kuumottavasta tunnelmasta ja toimintaan keskittyvistä FPS-peleistä tykkääville peli on nannaa.

I am going to play the first two mission packs next, not sure if they have their own entry on Grouvee.

I thought the atmosphere, graphics, gameplay, and music were great!

The only downside to the game is the ending boss was pretty lame, but I still kind of liked it. Good game, just needed a better boss at the end. There was a boss for the first mission set that was awesome, and then the next 3 had no bosses, and then the final boss wasn't really a boss at all.