Developer: ID Software
Publisher: GT Interactive
Year: 1996
Genre: FPS

Much like with my attempt to review Doom, there’s nothing about this game that hasn’t been said a billion times! There’s multiple books about the making of the game so this review is more of a grab bag of thoughts about it that I had as I played through the game. My absolutely lukewarm take on the game is that it holds up. It’s still a lot of fun to play and the controls feel great.

The game occasionally gets some criticism for the weird mix of aesthetics it has, with it combining Lovecraft, medieval, and futuristic stuff all together and it not completely meshing. I get it, it’s a mess since the game went through development hell, but I dig it. There isn’t really another game doing this mix, even the ones strongly inspired by it, so it still stands out even if it’s a bit sloppy. Maybe it being messy is part of the charm too.

The plot is meaningless junk, even more so than Doom. This is what happens when you push Tom Hall out of your company! I think this is one of the reasons why they haven’t really revisited this specific Quake game with sequels or reboots. There’s just nothing to really grab onto.

I used to really dislike the boss in the first episode, I think everyone was pretty critical of it at the time, but I’m into it now. Doom’s bosses aren’t actually that interesting mechanically so I think it’s fun that this one is kind of a puzzle. I’m guessing the disappointment is that it’s this massive guy but you don’t even shoot at him, which is understandable, but if that was the case I think the boss battle would have just been circle strafing around the boss and shooting it, much like the cyberdemon.

The secret level in the first episode has the really fun novelty of it being low gravity. There’s no other level in the game like this so it’s a really fun gimmick for a one off and feels like a nice reward for finding the secret level. Which makes it odd that none of the other secret levels have any gimmicks. They’re fine, but they’re just more levels.

I think it’s odd that Episodes 2 and 3 do not have bosses. I really wish they did. The end of ep 3 is especially a big “huh, that’s the end? Well ok.” At least the end of Episode 2 introduces a new enemy type, the Vore.

Speaking of which, the enemy types introduced towards the mid point and end aren’t as fun! The projectiles for the Vore are too accurate so it feels like you have to slowly work your way through them, which hurts the pacing. The leaping blobs are the absolute worst. They’re no fun at all to fight and they may actually be the most difficult enemy in the game since they’re the hardest to hit. The first episode of Quake is the strongest partially because it doesn’t have either of these.

The other reason I prefer earlier Quake levels is because of the designers. Sandy Petersen’s levels in latter of the game are a mixed bag for me. They either work really well or they’re too big and ruin the pacing. All lean into the Lovecraft theme very well though, which I suppose makes sense because he was the Call of Cthulhu guy. I get why they relied on him to make the last episode of levels.

I know everyone hates the last boss. I used to as well but now I don’t mind it! To me the final boss is getting through all of those enemies and then actually killing the big boss is just doing the final blow to end the game. It works for me!

I played this through the Nightdive remaster from a few years ago, which includes the two official expansions from the 90s and the two newer episodes from MachineGames. It’s fantastic and IMO much, much better than the more recent Doom rerelease, which I thought was poor and can go into in a later post. The two official expansions from the 90s are a mixed bag for me but the newer episodes have some incredible level design. Whenever new levels are made for an old FPS, they often make the levels too big and have you hoarding ammo to make it more difficult, but all it does is kill the pacing of the game. Not a problem in these! I loved them and would recommend them to any Quake fan. The first MachineGames expansion is available for free so even if you don’t have this remaster, you can still play them.

There, those are my thoughts on a game that’s nearly 30 years old. The first time I played this game was on Thanksgiving at my cousin’s house, so much like how people have Christmas and Halloween games, this is a Thanksgiving game to me.

Quake is available on Steam, GOG, and a billion other platforms.