the first episode of Quake left a pretty good impression on me; although i wasn't convinced by some of the very early levels, the more i played, the more its gameplay loop established itself.
you navigate industrial complexes and compact dungeons that are crawling with various monsters, who all behave in quite unique ways and can make for some fun, varied gameplay dynamics. for the most part, the sense of progression in these levels is very logical and you are, more often than not, intuitively guided to the next step through semi-hidden passages, shortcuts and portals. all the environments really suit the grimy graphics (which i love) and the similarly oppressive Trent Reznor/NIN dark ambient and industrial soundtrack, which amplifies the game's somber atmosphere. phew
when it comes to weapons, the arsenal you have is pretty bizarre, albeit limited. there's an abundance of grenades and rockets, and a serious focus on weapons that look and feel highly destructive, though they often just aren't that, due to the tankiness of the enemies. their designs are always pleasantly weird too.
at this point in the review, i feel like i have described the entirety of Quake, but these are all things that you can experience in the very first episode. seven out of eight of the game's weapons are introduced before the first boss fight and most of the cool enemies are seen then, too. feeling like i'd already seen a lot, by the time i made it to the end of the chapter i wondered if this game could remain engaging throughout the next three episodes. but, as the game went on (past E2) and overstayed its welcome, the issues in enemy design and placement became glaring.
it's like, with every enemy there's a conceptual pro that i can see, but most of the cons are in the execution. ogres are interesting because they make you more conscious of your movement, but they are often placed in positions where they can spam grenades and force you to play passively (holding S, hiding behind corners). fiends are okay to manage when they don't come in ridiculous groups, or spawn directly behind you. though i appreciate the aggressiveness of heavy knights, they are so ridiculously spongy and annoying to shoot at. and after the beginning of each episode, you get barraged with these three enemies that make gunplay grating as it seems like most of your weapons are inefficient against the enormous health pools that they have (except ogres, i guess i'm more bothered by their shooting patterns). even though there's lots of rockets, there's also never enough to deal with all this tankiness.
and then there's the big three: shamblers, vores and spawns. shamblers feel like minibosses, being slow but dealing high damage, while also being far tankier than all other enemies. it's fine to fight them once or maybe twice a level, but when you start facing several of them back to back within the same mission, spending roughly 70-90 out of 200 nails on each one, it just becomes frustrating. spawns test your reaction time but they have more health than they need, so thinking quick and landing a super shotgun blast at them before they move can be completely unrewarding, as they survive anyway. vores force you to take cover, but, if their projectiles follow you past that cover, then you'll have to backtrack until you find a corner, which is not really my favorite part of the game.
it's also worth noting that, if these problems were more like gripes before episode 4, then in that episode they became nuisances. episode 4 is a nightmare: enemies that can melt your HP in a hit or two spawn behind you without warning; the levels are so dark that you cannot see large groups of enemies sitting in the pitch black shadows; spawns (the enemy) everywhere and a constant blitz of fiends. by the middle of this chapter, i just wanted to be done with the game.
id had a very good, extremely functional foundation on their hands, but this drive to make Quake "harder" in frustrating, sometimes cheap ways (especially in the last fourth), rather than simply... fun, leaves a pretty bad taste in my mouth and butchers the initial impression i had. i do believe that with more refined balancement this game could've been a consistent and great FPS, but since that's not what we got, all i can do is wonder about All That Could Have Been. shoutout to my friend lilr
you navigate industrial complexes and compact dungeons that are crawling with various monsters, who all behave in quite unique ways and can make for some fun, varied gameplay dynamics. for the most part, the sense of progression in these levels is very logical and you are, more often than not, intuitively guided to the next step through semi-hidden passages, shortcuts and portals. all the environments really suit the grimy graphics (which i love) and the similarly oppressive Trent Reznor/NIN dark ambient and industrial soundtrack, which amplifies the game's somber atmosphere. phew
when it comes to weapons, the arsenal you have is pretty bizarre, albeit limited. there's an abundance of grenades and rockets, and a serious focus on weapons that look and feel highly destructive, though they often just aren't that, due to the tankiness of the enemies. their designs are always pleasantly weird too.
at this point in the review, i feel like i have described the entirety of Quake, but these are all things that you can experience in the very first episode. seven out of eight of the game's weapons are introduced before the first boss fight and most of the cool enemies are seen then, too. feeling like i'd already seen a lot, by the time i made it to the end of the chapter i wondered if this game could remain engaging throughout the next three episodes. but, as the game went on (past E2) and overstayed its welcome, the issues in enemy design and placement became glaring.
it's like, with every enemy there's a conceptual pro that i can see, but most of the cons are in the execution. ogres are interesting because they make you more conscious of your movement, but they are often placed in positions where they can spam grenades and force you to play passively (holding S, hiding behind corners). fiends are okay to manage when they don't come in ridiculous groups, or spawn directly behind you. though i appreciate the aggressiveness of heavy knights, they are so ridiculously spongy and annoying to shoot at. and after the beginning of each episode, you get barraged with these three enemies that make gunplay grating as it seems like most of your weapons are inefficient against the enormous health pools that they have (except ogres, i guess i'm more bothered by their shooting patterns). even though there's lots of rockets, there's also never enough to deal with all this tankiness.
and then there's the big three: shamblers, vores and spawns. shamblers feel like minibosses, being slow but dealing high damage, while also being far tankier than all other enemies. it's fine to fight them once or maybe twice a level, but when you start facing several of them back to back within the same mission, spending roughly 70-90 out of 200 nails on each one, it just becomes frustrating. spawns test your reaction time but they have more health than they need, so thinking quick and landing a super shotgun blast at them before they move can be completely unrewarding, as they survive anyway. vores force you to take cover, but, if their projectiles follow you past that cover, then you'll have to backtrack until you find a corner, which is not really my favorite part of the game.
it's also worth noting that, if these problems were more like gripes before episode 4, then in that episode they became nuisances. episode 4 is a nightmare: enemies that can melt your HP in a hit or two spawn behind you without warning; the levels are so dark that you cannot see large groups of enemies sitting in the pitch black shadows; spawns (the enemy) everywhere and a constant blitz of fiends. by the middle of this chapter, i just wanted to be done with the game.
id had a very good, extremely functional foundation on their hands, but this drive to make Quake "harder" in frustrating, sometimes cheap ways (especially in the last fourth), rather than simply... fun, leaves a pretty bad taste in my mouth and butchers the initial impression i had. i do believe that with more refined balancement this game could've been a consistent and great FPS, but since that's not what we got, all i can do is wonder about All That Could Have Been. shoutout to my friend lilr