Customer Reviews

Quake

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Quake is a fast-paced, first person combat game that combines an improved Doom-style system and monsters with unimproved Doom-style weapons and storyline.

Four "dimensions," or game sections, each divided into five to eight levels, comprise the world of Quake. These sections, "Dimension of the Doomed," "Realm of Black Magic," "Netherworld," and "The Elder World," are dungeon-like settings infested with a wide variety of monsters, traps, secret areas, and hazards. Players must locate keys, typically two per level, in order to progress to the finish. No "action" button(e.g., the space bar in most Doom-style games) is required to open doors or push buttons; such feature are automatically activated when the character is in proximity. Looking and shooting in all directions, including up and down, and swimming are some of the improvements upon the Doom-style system.

A unique interface at the start of a new game allows a player to select different hallways for "Easy," "Medium," "Hard," or "Nightmare" difficulty levels (although the entrance to the latter is actually hidden, so people don't wander into it accidentally). Once difficulty level is selected, the player can enter any of the dimensions. While it is recommended that the dimensions be played through in order, this sort of interface essentially allows players to switch difficulty level in between levels, if desired.

Characters start off with an axe--decidely less dramatic than the Doom chainsaw--and a shotgun with 25 shells, and rapidly acquire an arsenal of progressively deadlier weapons, including a double-barrelled shotgun, a "nailgun," a "perforator," a grenade launcher, a rocket launcher, and a "thunderbolt," as well as ammunition, armor, and various power-ups, such as health, protective suits, rings of invisibility, pentagrams of protection, and a rune that temporarily quadruples your damage, turning you into even more of a killing machine. When a new dimension is entered, your character once again starts off with a shotgun and 25 shells (and the stupid axe).

Monsters include rottweilers, grunts and enforcers (basic soldier types), knights and deathknights (heavily armored, sword-wielding fiends), rotfish (to make the water hazards even more hazardous), zombies that won't stay dead, scrags (sort of like flying worms), ogres (armed with chainsaws and grenades), spawns (big ugly bouncing blobs), fiends (demonic werewolves), vores (spidery monsters), and shamblers (huge beasts that sling lightning). According to the manual, grunts are "goons with probes inserted into their pleasure centers, wired up so that when they kill someone, they get paroxysms of ecstasy." Gratefully, no evidence for this is provided in the game.

Unfortunately, for all that it has going for it, many aspects of Quake also suffer from a marked unoriginality. "You get the phone call at 4 a.m. and by 5:30 you're in the secret installation," the introduction to the game begins. Oh no, not 4 a.m.! Horrors! It then goes on to explain how you are a top notch government agent that must keep some evil being from opening the gates of hell and overrunning the world. Sound familiar? It should, seeing as it is the plot for fully half the Doom-style computer games on the market, including Doom. For a game that clearly required many months of work to produce, it is a bit sad that only about 20 minutes went into developing the background.

And while the weapons are pretty neat, they are not overly original. Essentially, you get two types of shotgun, two types of machine gun, two types of grenade launcher, and an energy weapon. Oh, and that damned axe, which does not even go "swish" or "chunk." In short, a selection that does not measure up to the weapons arrays of Doom or Strife. And some of the monsters, such as the grunts and enforcers, seem repackaged from earlier games.

Overall, however, Quake is a very worthwhile, challenging game that is certain to be a hit with most people who like this style of game. Its hackneyed elements do not really detract from play; a bit more originality, however, might have made this game even more enjoyable.

--Michael Varhola for Skirmisher Online Gaming Magazine

Excellent Game! You get to use 8 different and unusual weapons, and kill monsters that can use those weapons against you, such as the ogre and his grenade launcher! I recommend this great game to anybody who likes FPS games, and everybody who doesn't!

Quake is dark, incredibly atmospheric and just palin cool. The graphics engine was revolutionary for its time, which is id Software's tradition. As usual, John Carmack and his minions blend astounding new technology with their trademark nightmarish art to create an incredible gaming experience. While the later single-player episodes are somewhat inferior to the first, the real fun is to be had 'fragging' your friends in multi-player mode.

Another high point is the excellent ambient musical score by Trent Reznor (of Nine Inch Nails)

"Quake" is the game to buy if you want good, low-cost, solid, gory fun on your computer. First time I played it I was quite bored, so I layed it aside for quite some time. Then I felt again like wreaking havoc, played "Quake" again - and I was completely taken in. This game simply IS fun. The enemies look pretty eerie - I probably wouldn't want to meet with a grunt at night... The weapons are awesome (I prefer the super nailgun! ) - you can choose either to toast, spike, slice or shoot the baddies. Good old shotgun isn't missing as well. The levels are kind of mazes altogether, but none of them are too difficult to finish. You really get to know while playing what fun the designers must have had with creating "Quake"!

If Quiver, the macintosh editor for this game, had never been released, I would rate this a 2. This is the only fully 3D game with a mac compatible level editor in existence (Marathon is 2.5D). Unfortunately, Quiver is shareware and costs 20 bucks. I still have no idea what the storyline is (being a marathon addict, I expect a storyline), but the gameplay is okay. What really boosted my opinion of the game is the fact that a program that converts maps made for quake to quake 3 has been released. Now it is possible to make Q3 maps on a mac.

I've owned Quake for the PC since late 1999, but I have been playing Quake since it's release three years before that.

The story is kind-of dry, but I think it's safe to say this won't matter to many folks. Aliens are invading Earth through dimensional slipgates, or something to that extent.

There are four main dimensions, each with about seven levels to them (I don't keep track). It's good that the guys at ID released the source code to the public; that allowed rune-quake, capture the flag, and a myriad of other fun add-ons to be implemented. Trent Reznor should've won an award for the sound & music, which are extremely well done.

A highly recommended program for those who slam the graphics is called "GLQuake" (also known as Quake Pro Plus). It adds Quake3-style graphics to Quake. Another thanks to the folks at ID for allowing (and even assisting in) the production of this add-on. How many other companies would take time out to add to a product, several years after it's been released?

Playing single player gets boring fast. You're better off downloading Gamespy3D and playing online against other players. Everyone knows everyone else who plays, it's a family atmosphere. This game is what makes guys like American McGee my idols, and the people at ID software legends, as well as filthy rich.

Buy it.

This game is awsome, I played it I beat it and I still love it! It's not as gory as some people say but it's not exactly a "no blood" game... so you won't have your mom banning you from the game. this is a really fun game with 7 awsome weapons and 15 types of monsters to pump some ammo into. with three diffrent levels of hardness an one secret nightmare level there is no way to hate this game, so get out there and buy it!

great game! I love it, cant wait for another one . great graphics & so much fun! they don't have a lot of good games for Mac :(

This won't be a long and drawn out review, I'm going to keep it short and sweet. I wanted, no, I NEEDED Quake for my Mac. I had to have it. This seller advertised Quake for Mac brand new in the box with excellent support if needed and that is exactly what I got. Quake for Mac, brand new, unopened, with a help cd and instructions. I didn't need any support though however, everything was so straightforward, installation couldn't have been easier. The whole process from ordering the software to getting it running on my Mac couldn't have been any more painfree and easy. 150% satisfied customer right here!

I really miss games like this. This game may seem to have nothing to do with the Quake or Doom series as far as story, but think again. Look in the game booklet and there should be a background on the story. But anyway, this game really impressed me. I loved it. I've had it for many, many years, and it was the very next game I got after Doom I & II. They still sell those two games, along with Final Doom, which I intend to buy eventually. But as for this game, I actually prefer these graphics to those of today's over-realistic games. There's many strange enemies to fight in this game, none of which reappear in the later Quake or Doom games. I wish there was some kind of expansion for this game like there was for Quake II (The Reckoning and Ground Zero). I've pretty much mastered this game, and found every secret, and learned how to easily kill each monster I run across, and basically I just play this game for fun now. This game is a true classic, along with Doom I - 2, Quake II, even Quake III. Games like this surpass the new ones recently made. Doom III and Quake IV are both so real, they don't even run properly without a million dollar computer. No, actually Doom III works fine, but Quake IV is the one with the problem on my computers. I have five computers, and it won't work on any of them. No matter what setting I choose, it just won't work. But I recommend this game to anyone who longs for the good old days of truly original games like this, when there wasn't such a thing as a stereotype as everything is nowadays, and make sure you get Doom I & II, Doom 64, Quake II, and Quake III to get all the best first person shooters of all time.