Menus & Slipgate Complex (Quake 64 Part 1)
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Here is a part of my playthrough of Quake 64 recorded from real Nintendo 64 hardware. This port of Quake was done by the same team who made Doom 64 thus, despite a lot of it being a straight port of the PC maps, there are some significant differences. I summarize many of them below.
The N64 version of the PC maps have a simpler geometry (to keep a stable framerate) but it added in some colored lighting effects. In terms of graphical quality, I remember gaming magazines describing it as equivalent to a "mid-range" PC. There are some texture changes, where textures seem to be lower resolution overall. Likely this was a cost-cutting measure to save memory considering the N64 cartridge limits. But they make up for it with colored lighting which really improves the desaturated Quake textures.
One of the biggest changes is the music as the N64 cartridges couldn't hold the original CD audio soundtrack. Aubrey Hodges, from PS1 Doom, PS1 Final Doom, and Doom 64, was commissioned to make a new soundtrack in MIDI. It's a very dark and foreboding soundtrack that fits right in with a Lovecraftian mythos. In 1998, IGN said this of the soundtrack "Many will disagree, but we like the ambient sound effects in Quake 64 better than Trent Reznor's soundtrack for the PC version." If you aren't normal like I, and need a soundtrack to sleep to, Quake 64 is my favorite for that. It doesn't have as many high-pitched sounds to wake you from your slumber as Aubrey Hodges' earlier soundtracks.
This year Erick, of the GEC Master Edition team for PSX Doom and Doom 64, was able to rip the sounds from the Quake 64 rom. In general they are the same as the PC sound effects. However, they are 16-bit as opposed to 8-bit, and typically at 8 kHz instead of 11 kHz. What this means is they sacrifice some higher frequencies but make up for it in lacking noise which plague 8-bit sounds. This discovery could be leveraged to remix the N64 and PC versions of the Quake sounds together for higher quality versions.
The level progression is changed as well, where there are no episodes and progression is completely sequential (with a handful of missing levels). Interestingly, after you get a rune, you will start the next map without your weapons. It is a bit funny that the rune text describes the rune of giving you such power, but in reality you end up in a weaker position for grabbing it. Also the difficulty select level is missing and replaced by a menu. And there are a further 6 levels missing. Not sure why these were cut; perhaps they didn't play well on the N64 controller.
In general, the controls are nicely "smooth" like Doom 64, but slightly trickier since vertical aiming is a thing in Quake. It is surprising to me that the analog joystick controls were made much worse for Quake 2 on the N64 by not having any smoothing, but it was ported by a different company. So I enjoy playing Quake 64 quite a bit more than the port of Quake 2 on the console. Also Quake 64 lets you rebind all of the buttons and save your settings and set up to the controller pack. which is really nice.
When Doom 64 was released, it was after Quake, thus many critics wanted Quake as opposed to another Doom title. How was Quake 64 received when it finally came out? Midway did a great job in porting Quake 1, 3D enemies and all, over to the N64 since it keeps a good framerate. Many game reviewers roasted the port for being mostly a straight PC port. It's understandable since professional game critics would have a PC and own all the consoles. The reduced geometry, missing levels, and lower resolution textures were also disappointing for critics. This resulted in Quake 64 not being a hit on the N64.
After the lackluster reception of Doom 64 then Quake 64, Midway moved away from porting ID games and using the ID tech engines. Quake 2 was later picked up by Activision, where Aubrey Hodges returned on music but with the name Ken "Razor" Richmond as to not violate his Midway contract. It wasn't long after that Midway folded. Aubrey Hodges described Midway's management of having the attitude of they could do no wrong. Hodges seen the writing on the wall early and left before Midway collapsed. It was rare for N64 developers to care about stable frame rates, yet the Quake 64 and Doom 64 developers did, so it is a shame that their ports were received with little fanfare.
In my neighborhood it was rare for anyone to own a console and a PC during that time period, so it was a delight for me to play the grittiness of Quake for the first time. And now I appreciate its moody soundtrack and lighting even more. When I look into what was achieved on Quake 64 given the hardware limitations, it is amazing that the game runs as stable as it does. Quake 64 and Doom 64 introduced me to the FPS genre, and ruined me from enjoying any FPS that doesn't include some sort of foreboding horror.
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