Quake is a game that I had been looking forward to playing since I played the Doom series throughout 2019-2021. I greatly enjoy the Doom series, especially the first two and Final Doom which I consider to be the pinnacle of first-person shoot level design. Because of that experience, Id Software became a developer who’s backlog I was more interested in delving deeper into, and Quake seemed like the perfect next step (though, let’s be honest here, Wolfenstein is the only other real contender). Much like the Doom series, Quake was remastered recently to be played on modern consoles, though so far only the first game has been given this treatment. The game looks and plays great on PS4 and comes with a bunch of free downloadable map packs that are nice additions. I didn’t delve into them all, there’s only so much Quake a man can take in the span of a few days, but they all seemed like good fun. The remaster also includes a quite a few official mission packs that I didn’t get around to playing. As of writing this review, I’m close to the end of the first one, Scourge of Armagon, but I’m not sure if I will continue any time soon. This is as good a segway as any into my main complaints with this game.
I think your mileage of Quake will vary depending on a multitude of factors. If you just love shooters, then this is a great game to play, and if you’ve only touched the newer Doom games, Quake is a great taste of the older generation of Id’s game design. As someone who has played a lot of the original Doom series, and thought that the 2016 game was fine, and hated my time with Doom 64, I think I was already a little worn out on this type of shooter going in, even if I hadn’t touched one for about a year prior. I’ll say this now, I think for what it is, Quake is a perfect iteration of an old-school FPS. The level design is labyrinthian and challenging, the enemies provide a good test of movement and the player’s ability to quickly assess a situation and act accordingly, and the grimy presentation sets a unnerving atmosphere. I wouldn’t call it an evolution of Doom in a design sense, which was kind of disappointing, but it’s another great entry into the type of shooter Id popularised which is now seeing a resurgence lately.
Playing this game now, so far from its initial impact, it’s not a special experience. It’s a game I feel I’ve played before but just with a different coat of paint. Even for the time, every aspect of it is so similar to Doom that I don’t think my opinion of it would be any different if I played it in it’s heyday. Quake doesn’t do enough for me to warrant me agreeing with its status as a masterpiece, but would never call it a bad game in any means. It’s fantastic, just unfortunately a victim of repetitive game design from my own personal experience with Id’s games.
For another complaint, the enemy roster is tiny, and while they provide some fun, challenging encounters, seeing the same monsters over and over again got stale. To be fair, Doom has the same problem, but Quake’s enemies I would say are much tougher to deal with, so I unfortunately tired of them quicker. It wasn’t a huge deal, however, but for two of the four episodes, they end with enemy encounters instead of bosses, which aren’t as interesting tests of skill. On the other end, the two bosses that are in Quake are terrible. The first one is pathetic, and the final boss possesses no real challenge apart from the swarms of the strongest enemies in the game coming at you in a tight corridor, so the actual boss isn’t even the real fight. You take it down in a strange way that the game doesn’t explain at all, though it was more confusing than frustrating at least.
The bosses pale in comparison to the early Doom titles, which still had very few, but the Cyberdemon and Mastermind are iconic battles with tough enemies made even harder because of the level design of their arena. It’s a shame Quake couldn’t muster similar encounters, but I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt as it was Id’s jump to 3D so designing a giant boss monster to overcome was probably too ambitious for the time.
As I stated before, I have yet to play through the remaining mission packs, so I don’t know if they address the boss issue or not. From what I played of the first pack, they do introduce a new grunt enemy which was nice, but they weren’t very interesting to fight. Frankly, I’m not sure if I will ever be curious enough to play through them all. Quake was a fun time, but even in it’s short length, it wore out it’s welcome. As a veteran of Id’s early games, Quake was nothing new. It’s the same kind of levels, same kind of enemies, same kind of weapon arsenal. Quake is just Doom with a 3D coat of paint. That’s not a bad thing. It feels like a proper Doom 3 than the actual one we got, but there is only so much of this type of game I can take now, and Quake showed me that my patience has unfortunately run out for this kind of FPS design.
If anything, Quake was a nice swan song to play as I say my farewell to the ‘boomer shooter’ (I hate that term). This review isn’t really here to recommend this game, more as a way to document my feelings towards this type of early shooters. I am still a big fan of the early Doom games, and Quake was good fun for a while, but my appetite is sated for now. If you think you’ll like Quake, then you should play it. I’m still very glad I finally played it.
It’s a testament to the quality of Id’s game design that even though I would classify my experience this game as a mostly negative time, I can still eagerly recommend Quake to anyone who is even remotely interested. Quake is a great game, unfortunately, it’s just not my thing anymore.
I think your mileage of Quake will vary depending on a multitude of factors. If you just love shooters, then this is a great game to play, and if you’ve only touched the newer Doom games, Quake is a great taste of the older generation of Id’s game design. As someone who has played a lot of the original Doom series, and thought that the 2016 game was fine, and hated my time with Doom 64, I think I was already a little worn out on this type of shooter going in, even if I hadn’t touched one for about a year prior. I’ll say this now, I think for what it is, Quake is a perfect iteration of an old-school FPS. The level design is labyrinthian and challenging, the enemies provide a good test of movement and the player’s ability to quickly assess a situation and act accordingly, and the grimy presentation sets a unnerving atmosphere. I wouldn’t call it an evolution of Doom in a design sense, which was kind of disappointing, but it’s another great entry into the type of shooter Id popularised which is now seeing a resurgence lately.
Playing this game now, so far from its initial impact, it’s not a special experience. It’s a game I feel I’ve played before but just with a different coat of paint. Even for the time, every aspect of it is so similar to Doom that I don’t think my opinion of it would be any different if I played it in it’s heyday. Quake doesn’t do enough for me to warrant me agreeing with its status as a masterpiece, but would never call it a bad game in any means. It’s fantastic, just unfortunately a victim of repetitive game design from my own personal experience with Id’s games.
For another complaint, the enemy roster is tiny, and while they provide some fun, challenging encounters, seeing the same monsters over and over again got stale. To be fair, Doom has the same problem, but Quake’s enemies I would say are much tougher to deal with, so I unfortunately tired of them quicker. It wasn’t a huge deal, however, but for two of the four episodes, they end with enemy encounters instead of bosses, which aren’t as interesting tests of skill. On the other end, the two bosses that are in Quake are terrible. The first one is pathetic, and the final boss possesses no real challenge apart from the swarms of the strongest enemies in the game coming at you in a tight corridor, so the actual boss isn’t even the real fight. You take it down in a strange way that the game doesn’t explain at all, though it was more confusing than frustrating at least.
The bosses pale in comparison to the early Doom titles, which still had very few, but the Cyberdemon and Mastermind are iconic battles with tough enemies made even harder because of the level design of their arena. It’s a shame Quake couldn’t muster similar encounters, but I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt as it was Id’s jump to 3D so designing a giant boss monster to overcome was probably too ambitious for the time.
As I stated before, I have yet to play through the remaining mission packs, so I don’t know if they address the boss issue or not. From what I played of the first pack, they do introduce a new grunt enemy which was nice, but they weren’t very interesting to fight. Frankly, I’m not sure if I will ever be curious enough to play through them all. Quake was a fun time, but even in it’s short length, it wore out it’s welcome. As a veteran of Id’s early games, Quake was nothing new. It’s the same kind of levels, same kind of enemies, same kind of weapon arsenal. Quake is just Doom with a 3D coat of paint. That’s not a bad thing. It feels like a proper Doom 3 than the actual one we got, but there is only so much of this type of game I can take now, and Quake showed me that my patience has unfortunately run out for this kind of FPS design.
If anything, Quake was a nice swan song to play as I say my farewell to the ‘boomer shooter’ (I hate that term). This review isn’t really here to recommend this game, more as a way to document my feelings towards this type of early shooters. I am still a big fan of the early Doom games, and Quake was good fun for a while, but my appetite is sated for now. If you think you’ll like Quake, then you should play it. I’m still very glad I finally played it.
It’s a testament to the quality of Id’s game design that even though I would classify my experience this game as a mostly negative time, I can still eagerly recommend Quake to anyone who is even remotely interested. Quake is a great game, unfortunately, it’s just not my thing anymore.