05 August, 2011

Quake


  • Release Date: 1996
  • Platform: PC
  • Developer: id Software
  • Genre: First-Person Shooter


Despite being a pioneer of full three-dimensional graphics in the first-person genre-- or perhaps because of it--Quake is a master class in level design. It's brightly confident in it's grasp of space and solidity; even the difficultly and episode selection is its own memorable environment. The game crams in jumping puzzles, a secret area, and is also capable as serving as an unlikely death match arena. In fact, if you pick any of Quake's two dozen or so levels, you'll find that the critical path is less a line than a rabid dance lesson.

Chiseled into rock or beaten out of metal, Quake's forbidding angles remain unique, haunted by the ghosts of the games it could have been as id's designers fought between a dark fantasy RPG and a science fiction shooter. Though it was the instigator of the "brown corridor" visual treatment, there's art and intention to the oppressive monotone. Its disconnected areas are thick with a sense of place, of eye-catching incidental detail, stranded in crushing blacks: vaults hemmed with silver crosses, the massive embossed metal Jesus, charnel house window settings for apocalyptic stained glass.

All anchored by one of the great pre-music collaborations between developer and composer. Nine Inch Nail's front man Trent Reznor's amazing soundtrack is at turns deafening, oily, and pitiless, and never less than part of Quake's texture. Aural cues sound out environmental hazards and forwarn of enemies well enough to play blind (or a blind panic). In a Quake level, Run isn't a toggle, it's a commandment, and the numerous strengths within this title turn a game that should have been a "what if" into a "this is".



14 memories:

i thought the game was all right!

Quake is one of my favorites...I love how even now, lots of games are based off the quake engine.

I remember having a copy of Quake and not being able to play it because my video card wasn't cool enough... :S
I played the game many years later; it was really fun!

I love me some quake every once in while. The speed runs on youtube are fun to watch as well.

I wasn't a fan of Quake in that time. Duke Nukem for the win! ;)

Man I must have played this for thousands of hours.

I loved Quake back in the day

Trent Reznor did the soundtrack too yo.

oh god, so much memories. this blog is hitting my brain with a nostalgia hammer.

ahhh nostalgia... Now i have to dig this game out of my closet and play it again...

Quite possibly the first FPS I ever played.... Haven't played in yearssss though.

Most wasted hours ever playing this!

Quake used to love this game, QIII Arena was the best, rocket jumping XD

Always wanted to play that game....
I thiink im gonna buy this finally :D

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