Dimension of the Doomed: A Quake Retrospective- Part One

It’s June 1996. You just got your paycheck and you’ve been looking forward to this game for a while now. All those hours this week pushing carts at Kroger have finally paid off. You walk into your local game store and do a short nod to the cashier as you lock eyes with her. She responds with the same. You make your way to the counter and she already knows what your here for. She reaches behind the register and pulls out your precious prize.

It’s a Japanese copy of Super Mario 64. It just came out last week. She places it in an opaque bag and slides it across the counter as your fingers roll over and over onto glass in anticipation. Also releasing last week was a little game called Quake, made by the same people who made DOOM and Wolfenstein 3D. It’s not your type of game so you pass on it.

That could’ve been me, but it wasn’t. When Quake came out I was 2. I’m significantly older than that now and I’m ready to experience the technical marvel that is in my opinion Id Software’s magnum opus.

The only thing is…..I might have been ready 20 years ago.

Was it the most important PC game ever? Spoiler: yeah.

It’s May 2001. My uncle sold my parents a PC that he just built. It’s nothing wild. There’s no Voodoo graphics card installed or anything, in fact if I remember correctly the motherboard’s integrated graphics did all the work. It was mostly to be used for casual web browsing anyway. That being said since he and I both loved videogames he did right by installing NESticle- one of the earliest and best emulators at the time for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Along with the program came the entire library of North American NES titles. I had the world at my fingertips. I had a thing for medieval fantasy so I would sit and play Dragon Warrior for hours after school. I would learn later that these were originally called Dragon Quest, and well…that was that.

On top of NESticle though were a slew of PC games that he knew I’d like. We had Doom 95, Heretic and Heretic II, Diablo, and Quake. I didn’t play Quake all that much as it ran fairly poorly even in software mode. I did enjoy the atmosphere however. A decade and change later and I would buy Quake on Steam just to see what I was missing out on but I just couldn’t get as hooked as I wanted to.

That all changed last week.

It’s August 2021. I had just rolled out of bed after a night of feeling scared about the future and I do what almost everyone my age does immediately after waking up.

I look at Twitter.

I’m not necessarily doomscrolling but i’m definitely not having a good time doing what i’m doing. I vaguely remember something about Quakecon starting today.

I’m not going to pretend that i’m some kind of contrarian when it comes to game publishers. I don’t dislike Bethesda. Skyrim? Yeah I played it. Enjoyed it too. The 2016 reboot of Doom? That’s a game I played. Doom Eternal? Yeah I guess it is eternal when you get down to it. I bought the switch ports of Doom, Doom II, and Doom 64 the day they came out.

Still baffles me that Doom 64 only costs $5

Apparently the ESRB had rated Quake for Switch, Xbox, PlayStation, and PC before the official announcement. Soon after that the game would start to appear on digital storefronts and I’d have the game installed before they even started the Quakecon festivities. $10 for one of the most influential first person shooters ever made? Sign me up. Who was responsible for this port anyway? Nightdive Studios? Oh well i’m gonna have to buy this game twice just on principle alone. Nightdive are masters of their craft.

So with all this said, done and played a week has passed. I thought I was going to play for a few hours, put it down and move on. I’ve never been more happy to be wrong in my life. In these last seven days I’ve played more Quake than I have played any FPS and I’m not even tired of it. I have ABSORBED this game. It has seeped deep within my medulla oblongata in a cosmic benevolence that I can’t put into coherent words. I might as well stop writing this because you already know how I feel about it. I’m the worst person to review this game so I’ll do what’s best for me and not review it but instead just….talk about it- starting with it’s first episode.

Without any more hesitation let’s get right down to meat and potatoes of this game. We’ll start with Gameplay, Visuals, Sound, and Story. For episodes 2 through 4 I will simply start with each map and go through there. To make things quick today I want to make my words as short-winded as possible for each of the 4 pillars of what makes the game, then I want to go into each map and comb it over with a fine toothbrush. If I see cavities i’m calling them out.

What does it feel like?

Quake feels like a solo esport. The game is smooth like butter, and I don’t mean that in the way most people think when they talk about Quake. It’s literally buttery. Your character slips and slides around each map like he’s in a perpetual ice level. Guns are fun to shoot and Nightdive adding motion controls to the Switch and PlayStation versions is an excellent choice. Stick aiming just isn’t as accurate as using a mouse, and with the controller’s gyrometer we’re met with a happy medium between the two. I haven’t had this much comfort with motion controls since Resident Evil 4 on the Wii.

What does it look like?

Quake looks like an abandoned building from the early 1900s. The visuals do leave a tad to be desired but that’s a testament to it’s time. Quake is very dark, it’s very…brown, and it’s drab. I don’t hate it. The parallax scrolling skybox is great to look at. The game’s myriad of graphics options even on console are a welcome addition though. It’s a wonderful port.

What does it sound like?

Quake sounds like a pack of cigarettes paired with a rusty chainsaw. When the game hit shelves back in 1996 we were met with not only a wonderful experience but a wonderful ambient soundtrack courtesy of Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails. Trent himself even voiced the main character of the game, even if all that amounts to is grunts and screams. For the steam release however all the music was stripped from the game, potentially due to legal reasons. Well have no fear because with Nightdive’s remaster the music returns, and it’s as raw as ever. Quake and Nine Inch Nails really made the late 90’s feel alive, and then we got Limp Bizkit in the early 00's….and then Creed.

FUN FACT

Besides Super Mario 64’s Japanese version releasing one day after Quake, both games have one more thing tying them together. In Super Mario 64 when jumping into the hole next to the waterfall near Peach’s castle you’ll hear a kind of thwoop sound. In Quake you hear that same sound nearly every time you teleport. It’s neat to think that both Id and Nintendo use the same sound effect catalog.

As for Quake’s story there isn’t much. It’s there but it’s kind of in the background. There’s a short blurb in the manual and back of the case but like lead programmer John Carmack said:

“Story in a game is like story in a porn movie. It’s expected to be there, but it’s not important.”

Well I don’t quite agree one hundred percent. I don’t even agree…at all. This is the part where I would say that times have changed but when he said what he said we already had several good stories in games, and games that mostly amounted to just….stories. I’m saying that visual novels were already quite a thing in Japan at least, and not even just the pornographic kind. Wow we’re kind of going full circle on that quote then huh.

John Carmack must’ve known about Eroge when he said what he said

Quake was supposed to much more than what it was in the early concept stages anyway. It was born from John Romero and John Carmack’s Dungeons and Dragons campaigns. Romero had an axe-weilding brute named “Quake” and you can make out the rest. Quake initially had more of an RPG feel to it but more and more of the dark fantasy fade away into what was simply what we see now. Romero would exit Id Software on a sour note as soon as he was done with his portion of Quake and he would then found Ion Storm where he and his team would develop and publish games like Daikatana and Deus Ex. He’s still making videogames today but his medieval dreams of Quake never became a reality.

late 90's/early 00’s game marketing sure was something

I’ve talked way too much about things that don’t pertain to the actual game. I gotta get back on track and I already know this is way out of my wheelhouse but It’s now time to talk about the 8 maps in Quake Episode 1. Let’s get right into it.

Episode 1 Map 1: The Slipgate Complex

Immediately after starting this level you’re met with a large hall with sides identical to each other. You notice that the lights on the right are starting to flicker so you move to investigate. Here you’re met with a prompt to shoot a part of the wall and you’re met with your first of many secrets within Quake’s dozens of maps. This is a great example of how lighting in games can lead you to places you wouldn’t usually explore, and John Romero’s excellent level design in e1m1 is all about guiding lights. It’s a straight forward level that can be cleared in just around a minute but it’s a great offering of what Quake is here to show you, and I have to respect that.

E1M2: Castle of the Damned

Here we see the first instance of the double barrel shotgun being out in the open, ripe for the taking. In e1m1 you can find one in a hidden compartment but here the game is directly telling you to turn monsters into hamburger meat. This is also the first “maze” map in the game, and you can really get lost here if you have a bad sense of direction. Right at the end of the map you’re met with a battle against the beastly Fiend enemy and you’re out of the map before you know it. By now if you’ve played Doom and Doom II you might see that Quake is a lot more cramped compared to Id’s previous works. Level design be damned though Quake will open up to you in the coming maps.

E1M3: The Necropolis

Once again we’re met with environmental storytelling in the form of a grenade launcher immediately followed by a gaggle of zombies. You already know what to do. The game is saying

“Go ahead….blow em up”

and you do just that. It’s another maze level and by now you’re accepting that it’s all maze levels all the time. You’re not wrong, but you’re also not right. You see by the end of this map that you’ve had your potatoes, and now you’re ready for the roast beef. You’re getting the hang of it now, and you want more.

E1M4: The Grizzly Grotto

It’s a partial water level, and like most water levels in games it’s not that fun to play. On my first playthrough of the game I was getting smashed at this map in particular, and I must say it was my least favorite of the bunch. Hours later and I’d consider it one of the better maps based on the skill needed to clear it alone, paired with the secrets it holds. We’ll get into that secret later.

E1M5: Gloom Keep

Here we go. First main stretch of the map and you’re introduced to the rocket launcher. You quickly learn though that the blowback on this thing is ghastly. I found myself dying to the rocket launcher’s explosions more and more throughout the map so midway through I switched back to the nailgun- Quake’s answer to the machine gun. I will way however that this map is what it is all about.

It’s Quake.

E1M6: The Door to Chthon

This feels like a dungeon from Etrian Odyssey. This map absolutely rules. Traps, monsters, and fire are all present in this final map before the boss of Episode 1, and I almost feel like talking about this map in particular is a spoiler. Just….play this map. Go and play it. It’s great. A fun thing to know is that if you time your rocket firing with your jump you can fly in nearly any direction and skip a good portion of most levels. “Rocketjumping” has become a mainstay of most arena shooters and we have Quake to thank for this. In this map here you can rocketjump across the lava pit shown, grab the key, jump forward and skip to the end in a little over a minute. It’s a good time saver.

E1M7: The House of Chthon

It’s less a map and more a vessel for a boss fight but it’s on the map list so we’ll count it. You grab a rune to summon Chthon, run around, activate some pillars, give him a shock and repeat two more times (on normal difficulty at least). It’s the good old Nintendo three hits and their down approach to boss battle design. It’s good, clean fun and I approve.

Well.

That about does it…or does it?

Hidden in the game is a secret map that can be accessed by activating a series of switches in E1M4. It’s called:

E1M8: Ziggurat Vertigo

While labeled as E1M8 this map is technically the 5th map if you play them all in order. It’s got zero gravity meaning that when you jump you bounce in the air and slowly drop down. You make your way up the map and hit various buttons to traverse through the titular structure. It’s a fan favorite map but i’m going to do something different and be real with you for a second.

I don’t like E1M8.

It makes me nauseous.

To be continued in Quake Episode 2: The Realm of Black Magic…