Just to preface this before my review, I did play this on Windows, and no, I did not play the standard "WinQuake." I ran Quake through the DarkPlaces source port, with no additional file tweaking besides injecting the original soundtrack back into the game.

So, I've played a good chunk of the Id catalog up to this point, yet I never played Quake. I finally buckled down and played it since I've been zooming through my collection of "boomer shooters" at the moment.

Quake is pretty freakin' rad; a fun, fast-paced FPS experience that pioneered a lot of the movement mechanics we see in FPS games today. Quake's influence is phenomenal for a reason, because outside of the great, fluid movement mechanics, the level design and arsenal also rock.

If you know anything about shareware FPS games of the past, you know what you're getting yourself into with Quake: a standard set of four "episodes" consisting of many levels, largely maze-like in design, with a steady stream of increasingly more powerful weapons being bestowed to the player (then removed from their inventory upon completion of said episode), while the enemies introduced get increasingly harder; not original in the slightest, however, it works.

Although a bit "standard" in overall design, Quake shines best with its gameplay, which I already said was fluid and complex. Playing on "normal" offers a fun and fulfilling challenge, yet can (on occasion) feel a little cheap for no good reason. This complaint is solely within the enemies of Quake, which are mostly good, yet have a few outliers that are more annoying than anything else.

I won't spend too much time lamenting the enemies of Quake, yet four specific types are a pain in my side.

The first are the ogres, which wouldn't be so much of an issue if it wasn't for the fact that they're absolutely everywhere. Think of 50% of all the enemies you faced off against in DOOM were imps; sounds boring and a bit frustrating, right? Ogres aren't necessarily hard, but the combination of a hard-hitting melee and an AOE grenade launcher makes them a tad frustrating when they appear so much (especially in groups, which they are often in). Honestly, the "ogre issue" would've been resolved if there just wasn't so many of them.

The second enemy type that cheeses my onions is the fiend; which is your standard jumpy/melee enemy type. On paper - just like the ogres - there's nothing wrong with the fiend, the issue is that (again) they're paired up in groups of enemies that make them a real pain to handle. Facing off against fiends in groups wouldn't even be so much of an issue if either one of two modifiers were tweaked: either a) they deal less damage, or b) they get a decrease in health. The combinations of high health-pools and damage makes them unnecessarily "spongey" when dealing with, making them needlessly harder than they should; pair that up with the fact they move super fast and are often in groups of other fiends and/or other enemy types, and you have a recipe for unwanted stress. Fiends were the most frequent cause of deaths during my playthrough of Quake, and it's annoying.

Third on my enemy complaints are the vores. Vore enemies are high-health projectile launchers, which is cool. My issue with vores is that the projectile they launch is far too overpowered. Like fiends, the projectile could've used one of a few simple tweaks to not make them such a hassle, because not only can't you shoot the projectile to void it, or effectively run away from it, because it hones in on you; add on top of that is the insanely high damage the projectile causes. If either of those overpowered aspects to the projectile were tweaked, then I'd feel the vore would be a perfect enemy; at this stage, they're great, yet a nuisance (and not in a good way).

Last, but certainly not least is an enemy type found in the final episode; that's considered "spoiler-y" (but we're talking about a game that's almost twenty-five-years-old at this point so who honestly cares), but I'll refrain from talking about them in too much detail. I'll just say that their high movement and explosive tendencies when shot (add on top of that they're rather spongey) make them a serious pain, and even more so when - you guessed it - are accompanied by loads of them and/or other enemy types.

I know that was a lot of complaining, yet I feel Quake is fantastic despite these issues. The soundtrack slaps, level design is - mostly - great, the general gothic-like aesthetics are beautiful and haunting, and the core gameplay underneath everything is simply great. I'll return to Quake again in the future, even if I don't think it's as strong as a few other shooters of its ilk.

This feels like some kind of Ur-Game that congealed from the rotten blood of hardcore flesh demons in a pit in a pain factory in hell. You're a man who only knows speed, violence, and architecture. He runs at 45 miles per hour and feels no emotion other than the satanic angst of having a grenade launcher as your only friend in a dead world ruled by slavering fleshbeasts. At least he has some really lovely Hell-Cathedrals to murder-sprint through while grabbing his favorite keys and runes. And Trent Reznor kills it on the soundtrack. Evil, powerful game. I love it!

Fuck those blue slime bastards though, they are my nemeses and I will hate them eternally. May they all careen off a wall and slam-dunk themselves into the trash where they belong.

Not only did this game revolutionize the first person shooter and how they control, but it evolved the arena shooter for multiplayer games of this genre. The campaign of this game has hands down the strongest first chapter to come out of a FPS. Everything is perfectly designed and replayable. Just that first chapter is worth this game in gold for me, but it's starts getting dodgy in chapters 2 and 3 as it seems most of the effort was put into the shareware part of the game to entice people to buy the full game. This isn't bad tho because the other chapters are still fun to play just not NEARLY as fun as the perfection that is chapter 1. The multiplayer basically invented the arena shooter. Picking up random weapons scattered around the map all perfectly balanced with one another and duking it out with pure skill. It's addicting, fun, and has an endless skill curve. Movement plays not only a big part in the multiplayer, but also the campaign as bunny hopping and sharp momentum based movement makes this one of the most satisfying FPS games I have ever played. if you wanna give this game a try it has a Shareware version with the first chapter you can play for free, but it usually goes on sale for about a dollar on Steam all the time.

get the Arcane dimensions mod or suffer through the Johns favorite color palette of brown.

Has better map design compared to the doom games comparatively, Weapons selection Don't feel as varied as they would.

The shambler is only skin, And if anyone tells you they are fur filled yeti-like monster , they are lying and are not to be trusted.

While Doom let me have fun from the beginning, Quake took some warming up to. Doom starts you off gently with low numbers of weak enemies, but the basic enemies in Quake can tear you to shreds and require concentrated fire. Trying to play in a slow, methodical way will get you killed, even when you feel like you're not making any mistakes. Enemies seem to come from random corners, grenades are bouncing everywhere, and the levels are so complex that it can feel random and overwhelming. The key thing to realize is that while sprinting around enemies in Doom was a careless way to play, it's what you have to do just to survive in Quake. The basic enemies using powerful but slow grenades was meant to inform you that the best way to handle an enemy is to be in constant motion and maintain fire as you pass. Once you get the hang of the combat’s momentum, this game really gets amazing. The high speed mixed with enemies that demand careful reaction placed within intricate levels makes for an experience that simultaneously rewards instinctive skill and observational intelligence. As much as it’s become a video game boomer meme to say, I have to admit that Quake really does hold up beautifully.

First time playing through since my cousin showed me the noclip cheat on the N64 port and made me think my console was gonna go on fire. Beat the DOS version with no mouse (inspired by reading about Carmack's no-mouse preference in Masters of Doom last year) and the Quakespasm source port with all the mod-cons. It's a pretty short game!

The spongey enemies and awkward my-first-3D layouts give this a clunkier feel than Doom, but it's still satisfying to strafejump around at top speed and pump anything and everything full of nails and grenades. The array of weapons feels a lot less distinct than Doom, but the rocket and grenade launchers are still some of the most iconic members of any FPS arsenal.

Reznor's sounds and soundtrack are operating on the level of the John Williams Star Wars scores here, imbuing something inherently ridiculous with far more gravitas and atmosphere than it probably deserves. The ranger's HUP never gets old, but his lava screams get pretty annoying when you're trying to take shortcuts!

Surprisingly easy outside of a few slogs against the meatier enemies (shambler whats up) - might come back for another playthrough on Nightmare.