First pair (released together, with accompanying advertising blitz on Saturday morning cartoons):
Quake a large animal/monster/guy- think "The Thing" from The Fantastic Four
Quisp a small alien creature.
Second pair
Count Chocula- tasted like chocolate Lucky Charms
Frankenberry- tasted like stale strawberry stuff
all of this reminds me of an old Calvin and Hobbes
Calvin: "Every Saturday morning I get up early, eat four bowls of Super Sugar Bombs and watch five hours of hyperkinetic cartoons."
Hobbes: Does that work for you?
Calvin: Yep, no brothers or sisters so far.
Quake is remarkable for many reasons. It was the first FPS to have a genuine 3D playing environment*, at a time when the rest of the industry was content with extending the "2-and-1/2-D" system of Doom. It was designed to be easily modified and extended, using Quake C and a raft of editing tools. (Which led to the classic Threewave CTF and many other classic mods.) It had a modern network play scheme, allowing for more players and dynamically entering and exiting servers. And, of course, it had Id's trademark dark visuals and an exceptionally atmospheric ambient soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails. The multiplayer gameplay was highly addictive, frantic and favoured a large number of players.
The protracted development period saw many changes in the design of the game. Initially, Id had hoped to place the game in a traditional medieval setting and incorporate more RPG features. It became apparent that this was not practical if the game was ever to ship, so elements from Doom were recreated and the game became the shooter we know and love. The single player game is often criticised for being linear, repetitive and unfocussed. All of these criticisms are fairly valid, but at the time it must be remembered that people had lower expectations - a Half-Life style plot would have been out of the question.
Quake was originally a DOS game, with 3D acceleration and support for other OSes being developed after its release. GLQuake was probably responsible for shifting a large proportion of the original 3Dfx Voodoo cards. Interestingly, Id favoured the Rendition Verite 1000 (aka Creative Labs' 3D Blaster PCI), and helped develop a version of the game for it (VQuake) which had some features the GL version lacked (such as proper dynamic lighting, anti-aliasing and decent particles).
After Quake shipped, John Romero left Id to form Ion Storm. John Carmack eventually opened the source code (as with previous Id games). The Quake engine was used by Hexen II and Half-Life (yes, that's the Quake 1 - not 2 - engine with the addition of software coloured lighting, plus umpteen other enhancements).
*For pedants: Yes, OK, Descent was released first. But the 'P' in FPS stands for person, whereas in Descent you controlled a gravity defying spaceship thing. There were fully-3D games viewed in the first person going back for years, but Quake was the first to put all the pieces together.
Introduction |- Episode I: The Doomed Dimension | '- E1M1: The Slipgate Complex | '- E1M2: Castle of the Damned | '- E1M3: The Necropolis | '- E1M4: The Grisly Grotto | '- E1M5: Gloom Keep | '- E1M6: The Door to Chthon | '- E1M7: The House of Chthon | '- E1M8: Ziggurat Vertigo (secret level) | |- Episode II: Real of Black Magic | '- E2M1: The Installation | '- E2M2: Ogre Citadel | '- E2M3: Crypt of Decay | '- E2M4: The Ebon Fortress | '- E2M5: The Wizard's Manse | '- E2M6: The Dismal Oubliette | '- E2M7: Underearth (secret level) | |- Episode III: Netherworld | '- E3M1: Termination Central | '- E3M2: The Vaults of Zin | '- E3M3: The Tomb of Terror | '- E3M4: Satan's Dark Delight | '- E3M5: Wind Tunnels | '- E3M6: Chambers of Torment | '- E3M7: The Haunted Halls (secret level) | |- Episode IV: The Elder World | '- E4M1: The Sewage System | '- E4M2: The Tower of Despair | '- E4M3: The Elder God Shrine | '- E4M4: The Palace of Hate | '- E4M5: Hell's Atrium | '- E4M6: The Pain Maze | '- E4M7: Azure Agony | '- E4M8: The Nameless City (secret level) | '- Shub-Niggurath's Pit Deathmatchs |- DM1: Place Of Two Deaths |- DM2: Claustrophobopolis |- DM3: Abandoned Base |- DM4: The Bad Place |- DM5: The Cistern '- DM6: The Dark Zone
Transforms from tank to robot and back!
A destructive berzerker. Attacks everyone and everything with a vengeance. Doesn't stop shooting until everything is in ruins. Capable of leveling an entire Autobot installation in minutes. Titanium-based treads are equipped with special adhesive that enables Quake to climb sheer cliff surfaces. Known for his somewhat "off the wall" battle tactics. Teamed with Tiptop, a former circus strongman who transforms into a balance-altering, gyroscopic destabilizing weapon, and Heater, a smart-aleck street punk who transforms into a double photon pistol. Equipped with plasma cannon in tank mode.
Quake, a Leopard tank, was more interesting than the usual "small" Targetmaster because the tank gun barrel could be removed and replaced with either small weapon, and the second one could be mounted on top of the turret like a machine gun. Probably the best-looking of all the second-year Targetmaster toys. (A boxy tank is much easier to turn into a robot than a triangular jet or a dump truck.)
Online, players enter a world of identical, brawny vikings running through narrow corridors of stone and rusted metal against a soundtrack of screams and grunts. Quake takes the latent homoerotic fetishism that underpins most video games to its logical and delirious extreme, nowhere more than in the "frag" or kill messages, appearing every time a point is scored:
Ninja chewed on Vlad's boomstick Vlad was nailed by Mick Ninja ate 2 loads of Vlad's buckshot Vlad was punctured by Ninja Mick eats Ninja's pineapple Vlad rides Ninja's rocket Ninja accepts Vlad's shaft Ninja accepts Vlad's discharge
Quake would have been Fassbinder's favorite computer game.
Back in the Beforetime, Quake amazed people a great deal due to one little detail: It was amazingly moddable due to the use of QuakeC - you could make something completely amazing and complicated, and not just mess with graphics or levels!
(Should make a better list of Most Amazing QuakeC Mods, but this is a start...)
...and then some mods that really screwed up the brains of people who saw them. How the hell can you make a first-person shooter do that?
Since the Quake source code was released by iD Software later under GPL license, we now have several odd mods and game projects for Quake that also mess with the source code itself:
And then the entirely hypothetical:
Quake has also inspired art, in form of Quaiku. There are also numerous Quake movies (mostly in form of recorded game demos); One of the most amazing ones is Quake Done Quick with a Vengeance.
Thanks for additions to fondue
Quake's impact on the Internet is much more than most realize. (note: I will use Quake and Quakeworld interchangeably, because I don't believe Quake was "whole" until QW came out.)
Quakeworld (Quake's Internet modification) was the first wildly successful Internet videogame. There were previous games that stirred the multiplayer craze (Doom for one), but QW created a whole new set of rules of which future games had to abide by. First was the modifiability of Quake. Anyone could create or alter content in the game. This added to the games longevity and popularity. Second was the smooth game play provided by even the least reliable dial-up connections. The reason for this was the creation of client-side prediction, which smoothed out any noticeable jerkiness that plagued previous games. Third, players could join and leave games that had already begun. This freedom evolved into the basis for "dedicated servers," where games were constantly running, and players could join them freely.
Quake also revolutionized the Internet and gaming industry itself. With the modifiability of Quake came an influx of young talent. Teenagers were sucked into the opportunity to easily personalize a game. This lead to a huge increase in computer video game designers. From a young age students were learning the intricacies of map making, coding, and texture drawing. Within a few years first-person video games were an entire market on their own. What was once a niche market of 2 games (Doom and Duke Nukem) turned into a place for over 50.
Quake also helped create a new WWW market. With the popularity of Quake came many websites dedicated to it and its "mods." It gave people an excuse to learn HTML. This lead to an explosion in Video Gaming websites. Initially, some were solely dedicated to the author's own Quake mod or general Quake-related news. A few of the larger general news websites eventually added other FPS games, and now they're dedicated to the entire gaming scene (computer and console). Others realized the burgeoning popularity of gaming information and created large, commercial websites exclusively for games. Quake provided a substantial augmentation to the size of the WWW. It gave millions of kids an excuse to really delve into the Internet, that led to an increase in technical knowledge, and in turn those people began creating their own homes on the `Net. It's no coincidence that the explosion of the Internet roughly coincides with the release and development of Quake and Quakeworld. By no means am I implying that Quake is responsible for the Internet's popularity. What I'm saying is that in a synergistic, exponential way, this one video game has lead to millions of new webpages.
Finally, with Quake came conventions and professional video gaming. The conventions themselves are profitable venues for sponsors and managers; and the professional gaming scene is growing, with prizes of over $20,000 at major events. Professional gaming's roots began after the MPlayer competition where John Carmack gave away one of his Lamborghinis. Tournaments were also held for team competitions by Quake Clans. Clans were groups of individuals who formed a team, and played other teams either in online tournaments or for fun. These clans used IRC (another technology who profited) as a meeting place. IRC is an online chatting system, and it was the reason for the clan scene's social success. It helped bring the players together to exchange ideas, gossip, setup matches, etc... People became good friends online, but didn't meet until conventions or other events.
As with all good things, it came to an end. Quake2 itself should not be held responsible for Quakeworld's demise, as a good amount of avid QW players were dissatisfied with Q2 initially and never fully digested it. Quake2 is mostly a good bookmark for the approximate time when players became bored of Quake. For 2 to 3 years clans were playing each other the exact same way (4 vs 4 on level DM3), and because of trepidation for change (other maps or gametypes for example) the excitement and community fizzled. The Quake scene is practically dead, but it has left behind a footprint that will never be forgotten, not just by those who took part in it, but by anyone who plays an online game since.
Message me with any comments, criticisms, or corrections. Please realize this is my opinion, and I'm not applying to have this entered into future computer history books.
"The Well of Wishes awaits in the Crypt of Decay!"
Platform: PC Developer: id Software (1996) BBFC: Rated 15 Minimum System Requirements: 486DX4/100 VGA Compatible Display 8MB RAM minimum CD-ROM drive MS-DOS 5.0 80 MB of Disc Space
It's difficult to talk about Quake without mentioning Doom. Obviously its natural predecessor and one of the only games to have such a mould breaking effect on the genre, the fact that the two were created by the same team of people would give the impression that nobody else was trying. Of course that is not true. Apogee/3d Realms had been pushing the build engine for some time and it was in many ways superior to the Doom engine, however when Quake was released even Duke Nukem 3d seemed old and dated. I first played Quake on a 486 PC with a 1MB graphics card and I think it was 16 MB of RAM. I was unimpressed. It was jerky, slow, poorly defined and dark. Little did I know at the time that this was down to my poor hardware and not changing the gamma correction level. I spent the next few months making Duke 3d maps until I upgraded and my eyes were suddenly opened to Quake and I finally saw the closest thing I had ever seen to another world inside a machine and why it was so revolutionary. For those of you who have never seen the game here are the reasons it is a landmark in gaming history, for everyone else this will just remind you!
Plotline Quake, an unknown enemy from another dimension. You are the commander of `Operation Counterstrike', a mission to eradicate Quake before it uses slipgates to transport in and destroy the human race... The operation fails before it even begins. Quake makes the first move, infiltrating your base and killing everyone, now you are earth's only hope. Now you must collect the four runes to open the pathway to Shub-Nigguarth's pit!
The world A fully three dimensional world confronts you as soon as you start quake. This is a world where flat sprite enemies do not exist, you can move freely around all objects and see them from any angle. This kind of stuff had never been done before in a FPS game. Previous FPS games had relied on flat sprites to act as objects and rendering tricks to create walls, floors and ceilings. This could only take the genre so far. Duke 3d highlights these problems if you have ever attempted level design. Maps are effectively designed in 2 dimensions, rooms upon rooms cause graphical errors and design is limited because you effectively have to carve your level out, creating space as you go. Quake is the opposite. In Quake level design you are given space and have to fill it with all the components that your level requires. This includes floor, ceiling, walls and stairs. This was a sudden freedom given to the level designers allowed them to make worlds which felt real because they had been built rather than mapped out. This new world, like all worlds, required physics and Quake demonstrated a high level of attention to detail when it came to game physics. Rocket jumping is one of the most memorable applications of this, but gravity is also important. Although not immediately obvious, Quake has a gravity level muc
