Moose O'Malley's Software Valley Established : July 1996 Please bookmark this location only : http://move.to/moose

As soon as DOOM was released, rumours and magazine articles have been fuelling this fire of anticipation by listing the improvements and features Quake will have.

Now that the full version of Quake has been released, does it live up its expectations ?

Well, before I answer this question, I want to tell you about the game.

There is no doubt that in Quake, the graphics have been improved over Doom. The graphics are all 3D now, instead of the 3D graphics with 2D sprite monsters which we saw in Doom (even though these were still great and very effective).

In Quake, there are all new monsters, and you will have to deal with some real nasty sons of bitches. There are Zombies which pull their insides out and throw them at you, snapping piranha fish, huge fanged monsters, swordsmen, Doberman dogs, and loads of other incredibly evil monsters. The monsters are great, but I still was a little disappointed with the way they looked. Even at 800x600, they still look a little pixelly and a little featureless.

You will need to have your wits about you to defeat these monsters. Some weapons don't affect some monsters very well. For example, the Zombies fall over if shot with a shot gun, but soon get back up again. But send them a Rocket to play with, and you will see their body parts flying all over the place and dripping down the walls.

The monsters in Quake are sneaky bastards as well. There is a great Grave Yard scene, where Zombies rise up out of the ground, and pretty soon you are surrounded. Other monsters will sneak up at you from behind, while others will run at you for an all out attack.

You had better make sure you keep plenty of ammunition with you at all times. But, when your bullets run out (and believe me, they will run out !), you had better pray that your axe is sharp, because you are going to need it !!

The weapons in Quake are the Axe, the Double Barrelled Shot Gun, the Rocket Launcher, the Grenade Launcher, the Nail Gun, the Super Nail Gun, and the Lightning Gun. This impressive range of weapons is probably even sufficient to rival those found in an average Los Angeles High School !! ;)

The scenery in Quake is exquisite. Most of the game takes place in castles, and they are extremely well drawn.

The sounds in Quake are also superb, and the music will scare the hell out of you. When I play the game with headphones on late at night, I have to keep looking over my shoulder because it sounds like someone is talking / singing behind me all the time.

When you walk past a flaming torch, it crackles in your ear, and the moans and growls of monsters can be heard from a long way off (if you are lucky !!). When you go up on an elevator, the game generates some incredible draw-bridge sounds.

The music and sound and the new evil monsters are definitely enough to scare the hell out of you. I must admit that I have screamed in terror more than once while playing this game, and my heart was pounding in my chest.

Unlike Doom, you can now look up and down, jump, crawl, and even swim under water !! So, you can get to some tricky places. You will need to master these skills to complete Quake !!

The levels are massive, but most are fairly straight forward, requiring you to kill everything in sight and then find and open the door to the next level.

So how does Quake compare to Duke Nuke 'Em 3D ?

Well, this is a difficult question to answer because they are both different games.

OK, I know they both are First Person Perspective games, and both involve blowing the hell out of :

• everything that moves,
• everything that stands still,
• everything that stands still but looks like it will move,
• everything that doesn't move, doesn't look like it will move, but it's best to be sure so you pump a few rockets into it anyway.

Duke has cartoony graphics and a real sense of humour - you can take a piss in a toilet, and when Duke walks near a mirror, he says "Damn, I looking good !!". Duke, is a fun game, with good monsters, great weapons, and a real good sense of humour is behind everything.

Quake, however, has no sense of humour. There are some bloody evil monsters out there, and they all want to crush, slash, and blast the living daylights out of you. Meanwhile, the music and sound help to build a perfect atmosphere.

So, which game you choose, Quake or Duke, really depends on what you want. For me, Quake is the one I would choose.

id Software have also developed Quake so that it is fully expandable / extendible by the user, via Quake C.

id have also supported the development of a whole plethora of Quake Graphics, Sound, etc editors by Quake fanatics on the Internet.

id deserve a big round of applause for this.

The Quake Stomping Grounds ( http://www.stomped.com/) is one great Quake Internet site that has hundreds of new weapons, graphics, etc that people have already developed. If you fancy some Homing Missiles, a Tractor Beam, or Proximity Mines, Nail Bombs, or dozens of other weapons, check this site out.

Also at the Stomping Grounds you can get "Bots" which are robots that will either fight for you or fight against you. This enables you to have your own multiplayer deathmatch games by yourself. One great Bot to get is the Reaper Bot, which is one real tough son of a bitch - it will learn / map levels as it goes along, it finds and uses the best weapons, and it puts up a damn good fight. Believe me, with a bunch of Reaper dudes running around, your blood and theirs will soon be clogging up the drains !!

All of these new weapons and BOTs are written in id's Quake C language. As I said before, id really do deserve a big round of applause for this - as it makes the game almost infinitely extendible.

A weapon I want to see is a Hydraulic Moose Hoof (TM), which I could use to kick / hoof people into walls (Heh !), larva pits (Heh Heh !!), and pits full of monsters (Bwa Ha HaaHaaa !!!!)

With new weapons and graphics freely available, you can increase the longevity of the game immensely.

Multi-player wars can now be held, as Quake supports up to 16 players over a network. Teams can be assigned by choosing the colour of your pants. Players with the same colour pants cannot harm each other, so you can really get in there and hit the enemy hard without fear of hurting your team mates.

Quake also supports Modem play. I purchased Quake as soon as it hit the shops, and modem play had a serious bug in it at this early stage. But, in true id fasion, a free upgrade was released shortly after that fixed the problems.

So, it is now time to answer my question at the start of this review "Does Quake it live up its expectations ?"

Well, for me DOOM ][ was an excellent game in its own right, but I was still disappointed with it. There was a long gap (over a year) between Doom and Doom ][, and I didn't think enough improvements had been made by id in this time. The new monsters (particularly the Arch Vile) were great. But the ability to look up / down and jump should have been in Doom ][ at the very least.

Now there has been a 2 year gap between Doom ][ and Quake, and (maybe foolishly) I was expecting more. But, then again, maybe I have got nearly all the things I wanted via Quake C and the add on weapons and BOTs that I have discussed above.

It still would have been nice if a rocket blast could knock you flat on your back.

And, I sure would have liked to be able to cause damage to the walls, rafters, lights, and scenery, just like in Rise of the Triad and Duke.

I would have loved the ability to pump a dozen rockets into the rafters and supports of a building and have the whole building collapse on the monsters below.

I was also hoping for improved monster intelligence (AI). e.g. I wanted some monsters to run for help when shot at, and come back with a whole gang of slavering bastards for you to deal with.

It would have also been have also been nice if you could take on the roll or body of one of the monsters. Or in multiplayer mode, it would be excellent if one team could inhabit the bodies of the monsters ! Then it would be a real Death Match ! Humans - Vs - Evil Slavering Bastard Monsters !!!!

One final thing I would have liked to have seen is beeing able to shoot the arms, legs, etc of other players / monsters in a fight - aka the Black Knight in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail". e.g. if someone has a gun in their right hand, don't shoot them in the chest - shoot their arm off instead !! Then (Heh !!) take their other arm and then (Heh Heh !!) take their right leg off as well for good measure.

But, alas, Quake didn't have these features. Maybe next time id ?

Quake is a DOS program, but will run under Windows. However, I don't recommend it. When you flip into Windows and back again, most times the screen does not reset, but remains black, so you have to kill the game and start again. Also, if you happen to hit the Windows 95 key on the keyboard (right next to the Ctrl and Alt keys - the 2 most important keys in Quake), then this will cause you to flip into Windows, but when you return, the ESCape key will no longer work !!

Given that it is 1996, id should get a swift kick in the backside for allowing these faults !!

Never mind, though, it is still an excellent game, and I highly recommend it to anyone with a strong heart !!!

Game Summary :

Name :	Quake
Developer :	id Software
Recommended Retail Price :	$90 Aus
Release Date :	September 1996
Graphics :	90%
Sound :	95%
Music :	95%
Atmosphere :	95%
Longevity :	95%
Operating System(s) :	DOS only. It is not playable under Windows until id fix the screen reset and Windows 95 keyboard problems (see above).
Expandability / Extendability :	95% Thanks id ! You can use Quake C to add / build new weapons, add new levels, add new graphics, etc.
Multi-player :	Yes Modem play (2 player) and Network play (up to 16 players) are supported.
HD Installable :	Yes. You can play without the CD, but you get no music then.
Any Copy protection :	No, thank God ! So you don't need to insert key disks, or type in words from a manual, or have the CD in the PC, etc everytime you want to play.
Overall Rating :	95%

Moose's Rating : 9.5 / 10

The above review is Copyright © Moose O'Malley, October 14, 1996.

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