Quake Multimedia CD – October, 1996

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

This game is a must if you like first person 3d shooter. Quake provides a wide variety of game play. The multiplayer aspect of the game makes it worth playing over and over. There are many mods (modifacations) that you can add on for extra and different game play. Team Fortress, which is by far the most popular mod, is the most fantastic multiplayer game out there that I've played. Also for those of you who are nerds, Quake II multiplayer actually shrinks the players and makes you think that the levels are actually bigger. :)

I usually buy a game, sure, play a couple of months..then after beating the game sevreal times I am bored out of my mind. Quake, however, is beyond a game. I have been in at least 50 clans and have played this thriller for almost 3 years, and I never get bored! And who says graphics is the main part of the game? Quake has fairly good graphics, but it owns those "amazing 3D" games like mario and junk. If you do not have Quake, well.....GET IT!

I believe that if you havent got Quake by now, you never will, but order it if you havent. I feel that Quake has one of the best graphic engines around, and if you have a 3dfx card you can get glQuake (accelerated) even after you get bored with regular Quake you could always go on over to planetquake.com and get some Total-conversions or play online against friends and family, oh and by the way Quake is better than Quake II and Duke Nukem by far :)

(whenever I finally got around to sleeping, anyway)
It's the creepiest/scariest game of it's time. Amazing level of violence and brutality. A sureal landscape of mind-warping 3D architecture. Most fitting soundtrack for a game ever (Trent Reznor, you rule), it sets the mood beautifully. Super-intense multiplayer. Gripping and involving single-player environments.
For the thousands of hours I have put into this game, I see no loss.

Not many things can simulate the ultimate game of man-versus-man combat. It is one thing to kill computer monsters, it is another to lock horns with another human being. This is as close to actual warfighting as you can get without pulling the charging handle on an M-16. Deathmatch Quake is not only an adrenaline rush, it hones instincts and reflexes more than anything I have ever seen. ROCK ON!

Since DOOM, many people is getting tired of simulations and first-person shooting games. Quake is a good one, but not a new one. I strongly recommend Duke Nukem 3D. Even tough Quake has better graphics (no doubt about it), Duke Nukem has more features that make it great. If you want to buy a Quake game, buy Quake 2. It's OK.

For a game that got as much hype as Quake, it sure is disappointing. Sure, the graphics are an improvement over Doom and DukeNukem 3d, but it's just too dark. As for multiplayer, DukeNukem 3d is much more fun to play against others. If I were you, I'd test it out at a friend's house first.