Zero Punctuation: Quake

[Neverhoodian]

Funny, I've been playing Quake off and on lately myself after coming off of a classic DOOM binge. I've been on a retro shooter kick this year, experiencing games my parents wouldn't let me play as a kid. I'm surprised how well these titles hold up after all these years.

Say what you will about Quake's obsession with brown, but there are moments when the oppressive atmosphere really sucks you in. One standout moment was a level in the second campaign that boasted a large wall decoration of a crucified figure with its face obscured by shadow. All the while the game's soundtrack was dripping malevolent whispers into my ears. It was a genuinely unnerving moment that got under my skin far more than DOOM's slasher film aesthetic.

Also, so many iconic titles and franchises have utilized game engines that can be traced back to Quake. Half-Life, Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Soldier of Fortune 2, Jedi Outcast/Academy...the list goes on and on. And then there were the mods; I will forever owe the Quake Team Fortress mod a debt of gratitude for starting the ball rolling that would culminate in my favorite multiplayer title, Team Fortress 2.

 

[John the Gamer]

I just read 'Jam' this week, so the thing about the fridge and the weird corporate type seemed strangely familiar.

 

[Transdude1996]

I personally don't get the hate for brown and gray color palettes', I think they look pretty damn good in their own right.

Because "grit" is an easy look to make. I'm not sure it this is a proper analogy but, it's like the

goto

command of game aesthetics.

 

[Smithnikov_v1legacy]

Ahh Quake. The hours spent in multiplayer, chasing and being shot up by my flatmates, with the constant threat of spinning through a doorway as my weapon ran out of ammunition so it decided to automatically change to the fucking rocket launcher and I ended up fragging myself because I shot the bloody wall next to me.

Sniff. Good times, good times!

Back in MY day, we rocket jumped everywhere! And we liked it!

:-D Heh, I never got the hang of rocket jumping! I just ended up smearing myself across the skybox...
But the nail gun taught me how to lead a target!

Yea, to be fair, when I was successful with rocket jumps, it was by accident.


Also, did you play the Border Patrol mod game for deathmatch? That was crazy fun and chaotic.

 

[Smithnikov_v1legacy]

Jesus. I remember waking up right past nine o' clock to connect the modem (insert SKREE-BWUUUUM-SKREEEE-BLUBBLUBBLUB noises here) in the hopes that a single night would be enough to nab the Shareware version off of a 56.6K line.

Quake was - and still is - incredible. The less said about Quake II, however, the better.

Strogg? Cyborg alien thingies? Sci-fi bullshit straight out of Starship Troopers? Where's my Lovecraft at, Carmack?!

I didn't mind Quake 2, actually. It played well enough for me to overlook the less desirable aesthetic.

But yes, I did prefer Lovecraftian dark fantasy world invasion to that.

 

[Grey_Area]

Jesus. I remember waking up right past nine o' clock to connect the modem (insert SKREE-BWUUUUM-SKREEEE-BLUBBLUBBLUB noises here) in the hopes that a single night would be enough to nab the Shareware version off of a 56.6K line.

Shareware and SKREEEEEE. Two of my fondest memories of the nineties!

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

'No new releases', missing the chance to tear into No Man's Sky. Oh well, maybe next week.

Hate to ruin the magic, but Yahtzee is always one, or two weeks ahead in his reviews, also the cycle goes like this: One week he plays a game, then the next week while he's playing a new game he writes the review for the last, then records it that weekend, uploads the night before the video goes up. The things you learn following Yahtzee's youtube channel.

Quake was - and still is - incredible. The less said about Quake II, however, the better.

Strogg? Cyborg alien thingies? Sci-fi bullshit straight out of Starship Troopers? Where's my Lovecraft at, Carmack?!

No offense, but that sounds like the whining of a spoiled kid... Not everyone likes the Lovecraftian elements, some of us happen to be more into sci-fi than fantasy... You know? If you look at Id's early stuff they really bounced around: Hovertank 3-D was pretty much the first FPS game ever, using the first protptype of the Wolfenstein 3D engine. It was about a mercenary with a hovertank saving citizens from mutants, armed guards, other hovertanks, and atomic bombs in a future nuclear war. Catacombs 3-D was next, used the second prototype of what would become the Wolfenstein 3D engine and added textures to the walls, it was a dungeon crawling fantasy affair that apparently dealt with an undead protagonist. Wolfenstein 3D and it's sequel Spear of Destiny which used the final release version of the Wolfenstein 3D engine. Of course those are about a gruff US soldier in WWII's Nazi Germany. Then came DooM, with it's idTech 1 engine. Which went to sci-fi future Phobos, one of Mars' moons, then to Deimos which at that point was floating over biblical hell, where you went next to continue the slaughter of hellspawn. Ended in an expansion level pack in The Ultimate DooM where you started the quest to take back Earth from the demons. DooM II which used an upgraded idTech 1. Continuing the fight against the hellspawn across a treacherous series of Demoniacally occupied military bases and cities. Then we hop to idTech 2 and Quake, where we go dimension hopping and fighting Lovecraftian horrors. When idTech 2 gets an upgrade, we get Quake II, a story about invading an alien home world, where the aliens are basically a realistic interpretation of the borg. Then idTech 3 and the end of the era, where it combines all the elements and makes it a tournament being held by some mysterious inter-dimensional society, plucking great warriors from various universes, making them fight in blood sport for eternity as entertainment. Then the Reboot/Remake/Retread bug bit id finally.

I mean really, id was a bastion of creativity for about a decade to the point where they finally became what we came to know as modern AAA game studios.

 

[Transdude1996]

'No new releases', missing the chance to tear into No Man's Sky. Oh well, maybe next week.

Hate to ruin the magic, but Yahtzee is always one, or two weeks ahead in his reviews, also the cycle goes like this: One week he plays a game, then the next week while he's playing a new game he writes the review for the last, then records it that weekend, uploads the night before the video goes up. The things you learn following Yahtzee's youtube channel.

You don't even need to follow his Youtube to figure that out. Outside of the singing box EA sent him for Dante's Inferno and some requests made by the magazine itself (Way back when), Yahtzee is treated like every other consumer when it comes to receiving games. And, the play one week and write about it the next was what I had to do in for my writing class on one occasion (The assignment was to write a review on something, I chose a game).

 

[deleted+75193]

DELETED

 

[Rastrelly]

Aaaactually, both SG and NG were useful till the end. SNG was chewing through ammo like there's no tomorrow, so with lighter targets NG was more effective, and SG was a surprisingly accurate gun, allowing to cheaply get some enemies without wasting more valuable types of ammunition - and, again, it worked quite fine against light targets. Plus grenade launcher - well, it's more complicated, but skilled players can do wonders with this thing. And also Quake 2 was quite a fun game with - yes, mostly visually boring, but still fine level design with tons of same high-octane gameplay with rocketjumps, circlestrafing and so on.