Review:

Quake. Can anything live up to the hype this game created? The answer is a resounding NO. Quake is about a guy who runs around and shoots everything in his path because of some guy named Quake who we never get to see. End of plot summary. Let's get on to the game itself. Quake was developed by the crew at id Software, the designers responsible for starting the whole 3D action gaming genre to begin with. While the games were given the 3D tag, only Descent managed to actually play in real 3D. Quake takes the concept to the ground-based shooter genre, and does that very well. The game engine is fantastic, you can really maneuver in all directions, walk across beams in a room, have rooms over rooms, and more that was previously unavailable to this type of shooter. The enemies are also polygon-based 3D creations themselves. When they fall down, they stay there and you can walk around them and view them from any direction. Fantastic job! I do wish, however, that the enemies were more INTERESTING. They are basically bland with a couple of exceptions. The Shambler firing bolts of electricity from his hands was superb. The graphics chosen to represent walls, doors, floors, ceilings, and the rest of your environment is, well... drab. Plain. Gray. Brown. Green. You get the picture. It's a shame that id took such a brilliant technological piece of work like this and dressed it in camoflage. The weapons are also drab. We've seen shotguns before, and this one doesn't even sound right. We've seen grenade launchers. We've seen rocket launchers. The nail guns are excellent, as is the Thunderbolt. Wish all the weapons were this creative. I also wish the grenades didn't explode into a shower of red and yellow pixels like a sparkler. Sound effects are typical, but the soundtrack by Trent Reznor (of Nine Inch Nails Fame) was fantastic! Worth the price of the shareware CD right there. Gameplay itself is the typical run-around-and-shoot-everything we have come to expect in this type of game. Nothing new here, but multiplayer is tons of fun, and supports TCP/IP natively. A HUGE plus there. One more point that I feel needs mentioning is the lack of bosses in the game. There are only two, excellent as they are (and you can finally beat a boss by THINKING, not shooting). Maybe this is a personal thing, but I felt dissatisfied after finishing an episode and not meeting a boss. The game features some wonderful potential for add-ons and modifications, but I am not reviewing that here. I am only reviewing the game as it comes out of the box. Nothing more. The potential is worth a couple of points, but as far as I am concerned, this review is on the shipping product only. This is a good game, but not great. As far as the Quake/Duke Nukem 3D argument goes, put me down for Duke. When it comes right down to it, Duke was just more fun. The levels looked like something, some of them even recognizable somethings. The weapons were more innovative and there were offensive items as well. But I'm not reviewing Duke in this space.

Bottom Line: GREAT game engine and soundtrack. Almost everything else is not quite up to the task. If you're a fan of this type of game, buy it, you'll like it. If you have to make a choice between Quake and Duke, go for Duke.