Games I have loved: Quake

Today is the first in a series of entries about games, especially retro ones, that I have been addicted to.

And for the first entry, one probably everyone has seen and played at some time, Quake. My first PC was pretty slow, only a 486DX at 166 Mhz, but when you put Quake on it it didn't matter anymore that it was an ancient dinosaur. No more shame at using an old PC when my buddies had shiny new PIIIs, Quake was just that cool. I got my copy of Quake from a friend who didn't play it anymore. I was immediately impressed by the 3d models, nice textures, lighting which put DOOM to shame, and... what an atmosphere! Quake was gloomy, eerie, and sometimes downright terrifying. The sound of a shambler suddenly roaring in your ear right behind your head as he ambushes you from behind still puts a skip in my heart to this day. A nothing quite gets your adrenaline pumping like having to wade through a battalion of angry chainsaw-wielding ogres just to escape from a room with a ceiling that's about to fall and crush you.

I still admire and frequently play this game, not just for nostalgia but because it's probably the most fun I have ever had in a videogame. The game was fast on two levels- even on a 486 you could get a very payable game even if your FPS meter said only 15 FPS. The game was that responsive. Secondly, the game was just fast paced in general. Most monsters weren't that smart, but they were usually fast, well armed, and strong. The premise of the game was perfectly executed for this- you're in enemy territory, they know you're coming, and they have prepared. So naturally, you get ambushed, trapped, tricked, and overwhelmed on a regular basis, and the only thing that can save you is tricky footwork, quick thinking, and good aim. Some people would call the game design "cheap." But it's more real that way- if you were a one man army in enemy territory, do you think you'd be given a fair chance? No way!

I have never played a single player game which has quite the same feel as Quake. Quake is known for two things- linearity and speed. The levels are straightforward, so you won't get lost or waste time trying to figure out what to do next- usually. You also have to be quick to survive, and if you're good enough you'll be able to finish the level in a satisfying short time. In Quake it can be very satisfying to romp through a level of armored psychos and monsters in just shy of a minute, and know you earned it too, because you pegged every one of the buggers and came through without getting your head blown off. Playing modern games like Medal of Honor was painful to me after playing Quake- I just wanted to rush in, dodge about with grenades going off and bullets flying just past my head, and finish the enemy like a winged bringer of death. No, you need to sneak carefully to the door without making noise, tip it open with a tap of your toe, and gently lob a grenade inside, like a complete pansy. Sure, I'd do it that way in real life- but I'm playing a game, for crying out loud!

Of course, the models are all really low polygon counts, the textures are small, and, as any all-knowing modern gamer will tell you, how can you take a game seriously when the default resolution is 320x280? I mean, you don't even need a GPU! I just ignore them. Here's why: the game will run on nearly anything. I mean, with a little tweaking you could run Quake on your cellphone. In fact, I've seen it done. This means that at the LAN party you don't need to bring a $3000 computer- you can just dig up the beast(s) in you basement and set 'em all up. Most geeks have enough hardware in their cellars to put together a 4 player lan party setup for Quake, and nobody would have to bring hardware.

One last thing about graphics, I kinda like the pixel look. Sure, photorealism is OK, but I just like some silky smooth pixel graphics sometimes. On a older PC I can run Quake at 60-100 FPS without breaking a sweat, and the pixel graphics fire the imagination. The low poly models seem to be given life through the pixelated medium. A shambler- blocky looking in high-res, bristles to life in low-res; straight sided and bland looking anti-aliased shoulders become hulking, rippling, furry, blood stained bringers of pain when you drop the resolution back down. The blurred non-aliased forms really add a feel of grunge to the game, which of course works perfectly.

All in all, Quake is one of my favorite games of all time, a true classic which has stood the test of time, and which, in my opinion, is still a shining example of all that a great FPS should be.