To my own shame, I recently came to the realization that I have never actually sat down and played through the original Quake despite owning both the PC and Saturn versions of the game for just under fifteen years of my life. I first encountered Quake on the N64 of all things, not owning a PC growing up, I was left to PC hand-me-down console ports of PC games. I rented Quake 64 for a weekend, and I'm pretty sure I cheated to beat the game. Three dollars, for three days of rental, I didn't have time to waste with pesky things like playing through the entire game.
I know I have played through the different episodes of this game over the years as Quake, along with Quake II, and the original Unreal were always the first three games I would install on any new computer I owned, but it wasn't until this week that I finally sat down, and played all the way through the remastered version of Quake, episode to episode, and level to level, and I was really blown away at the deepening level of complexity the design takes as you delve deeper into Quake.
Twisting winding levels with an eclectic mixture of enemies and themes that have no continuation from one level to the next, yet still all come together to make a game that that expanded the horizons of what we thought was possible in games, and, looking back, shows a level of complexity and attention to design that most modern games would be exorbitantly better if they would siphon even a minute fraction of in their bland, too-careful-to-take-risks, design formulas.
While most modern games are focus-grouped to design mediocrity, Quake was born in a time where developers would grab innovation by the nethers, and run with it. I'm just going to make a quick mention of Quake's bigger effects like the advent of 3D Accelerators (the coveted Voodoo cards for GL Quake); the advent of online gameplay; and containing the source code on the disk for easy access, pushing mod making into the mainstream, going beyond what PC gamers were already experimenting with by making custom Doom Wads.
If you could sum up the coolest time to be a gamer (that exciting jump from the 2D era to the 3D era) since the advent of gaming with just one game, sorry Nintendo fanboys, it's not super Mario 64, it's Quake. Not that Doom, Mario, and all the other early 3D titles didn't play their part, but, without exaggeration, I could credit Quake for being THAT GAME that shaped gaming into what it is today more than any other early 3D game.
For my first official playthrough, I used the recently released Quake Remastered, which brings the game to the Kex Engine, and updates the graphics, allowing for up to 4K, and also includes the expansion packs to the game, which I have never played, and a new expansion by Machinehead games called Dimension of the Machine.
Quake is a deep mixture of well designed levels, fast paced movement and gameplay, and beefy weapons that hit hard to take down the hodge podge of enemies the game throws your way. As you delve deeper into each episode, you are presented with more, stronger weapons to take on the more, stronger enemies.
The best part of the Quake experience, for me, if the feeling you get while playing it. Your character, retroactively named Ranger due to a character in Quake III, is a walking tank, taking down hordes of bullet sponge enemies; the weapons hit hard, and Quake offers the usual doom-assortment arsenal with the Nail-gun replacing chain gun, in order to promote the Trent Reznor connection with the game; and the fast, fluid movement gives the player a feeling of complete freedom of movement that is a feature in oldschool shooters that is virtually unmatched by modern shooters.
Combine the freedom of moment and beefy arsenal with intricately designed levels, filled with tons of hidden areas, and surprise enemies waiting to pop out at you at any moment, adding an air of uneasiness, maybe horror, if you will, making you pee yourself a little when coming face to face with a chainsaw welding ogre from a room you already cleared, and you have a shooter combination that is the showcase for why we love so-called boomer shooters.
A plethora of enemies to dispatch, complete freedom of movement, and extensively designed levels, this is why we love old shooters. Story, no story, the fast, frenetic gameplay in these shooters compels you forward better than any story line ever could.
Retro shooters showcase substance over style, gameplay over fluff, and level design over the same tired story designs. These games were born in a time where developers took chances, and gameplay and design took precedent, and in the brave new world of fully 3D gaming, having only their previous work on Doom to go off of when id made this game, Quake, is rightfully the seen as the king of all boomer shooters.
I'm not really going in depth with this review as even younger gamers know about Quake, but I will say this, as far as remasters go, I fully recommend this Quake Remaster to PC, Switch, PS4, Xbox One, and soon to be Series X, and PS5 owners. It's cheap, updates the visuals, comes with the expansions, and even has cross-platform online play so PC gamers can smash console gamers who only have controllers.
As for the online play with the remaster, it doesn't appear to be actual Quake Online, but a new online which features the cross platform play. This is a good thing for newbies, like me, actually. You see, my one quake online experience came via a source port, and the game ended up being a 1 v 1 game, and not only did I get unmercifully murdered, I got murdered by a guy who knew exactly where I was going to spawn next. Die, re-spawn just to die, then re-spawn just to die, he was always there with the lightning gun.
I've put may hours into Quake II online, and am a painfully mediocre player at best, but Quake 1's online deathmatch has always been an intimidating prospect for me. I am more likely to jump onto Quake II's online, terrifying Rail gun and all. I'm not sure why the original's death-matches seem more intimidating to me than Quake II, or even Quake III's are, but they just always have been.
Perhaps I should just get over it, grab a source port, and take my licking like a man, but having a separated online experience for the remaster is a good idea to me, and not just because I am so bad at this game that I still lose using keyboard and mouse verses controllers, but because it separates newcomers from players who have been playing this game online for 25 years....unless they grab a copy of the remaster that is. Which they should, honestly.
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