Remembrances of Games Past, Part #27 - Quake (1996) (PC) (id Software)

Channel:

Demiath

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Published on September 4, 2010 7:44:14 AM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6hEXQf1JNc

Game:

Quake (1996)

Duration: 6:50

6,637 views

13

It is a truth universally acknowledged that everyone hates Quake 1. Or at least that's what fanatic Doom fans like me claimed back in 1996 when id Software unleashed their first full 3D game and we found out that it didn't quite play like the earlier first person shooters from the same developer. Quake 1 replaced Doom II's massive, environmentally diverse levels and enormous quantities of bad guys onscreen at the same time with dank shadowy dungeons, claustrophobic brown corridors and a much lower body count. Quite why id chose such an oppressive medieval gloom as the overarching artistic theme for this game is not immediately obvious - it can't merely be a case of technical limitations since other games based on the Quake engine looked considerably less dreary. Whatever the case, Quake 1 still to this day has a distinct and unusually consistent look which it isn't easy to find anything nice to say about.

I still remember the day almost 15 years ago when I waited impatiently for hours while the Q1 demo was slowly being downloaded on my 14,4 kbps dial-up modem. Once I finally got to play the game I was definitely impressed by the polygonal graphics, although soon thereafter I did become one of those rabid Quake haters who's mood didn't significantly improve until, say, the release of People Can Fly's Painkiller. And being the singleplayer fundamentalist I am I've probably only played about 15-30 minutes in total of Quake 1 massively influential multiplayer.

Note: The game is played in hardware-accelerated mode at 1920*1080 using QLCrack. ezQuake looks a lot better but for some reason I didn't get the save function to work in that source port.