Finally an Quake expansion that isn't only decent at best or terrible at worst, in fact this far surpassed everything that came before.
One of my main criticisms with the base game was the level design, where levels would be just a bunch of corridors with sometimes slightly more open arenas made for combat, while complementing it with annoying enemy placements that pretty much forced the game into a cover shooter, as well as the overuse of a few enemies like the Fiends, and the fact that many types of enemies have way more health than they should, which really tampered my enjoyment of the game.
Fortunately, this expansion actually does justice to what the best parts of Quake 1 are, fast-paced mayhem in open arenas with enemies that can very easily tear through you in close quarters while the player has more opportunities for maneuvering over the arena in long range battles.
Where as Dimension of the Past felt like it was indeed stuck in the past, doing a lot of what I found already bad in the base game while also introducing new problems like the overwhelmingly scarce amounts of ammo while spamming Death Knights down your throat, Dimension of the Machine feels like it took many lessons from all the very best fan levels from Quake and put it at full display in here, while pushing the engine to its absolute limits and taking full advantage of the graphical settings present in the Nightdive remaster of the game.
And speaking of that, this expansion is absolutely no slouch at art direction, and its clear from the moment you appear at the main hub! Other expansions already had some decent moments of distinct theming, like the egyptian temples of Dissolution of Eternity, but in Dimension of the Machine, as said in the previous paragraph, they absolutely ran with the capabilities of both the Quake engine and the Nightdive remaster. Every realm feels like, indeed, different realms, all being very varied while still being thematically cohesive throughout, even the Realm of the Machinists, which is comprised of SEWERS, manage to stand out in comparison to the rest of the levels present in this expansion.
The level design in general here is great (for the most part), always emphasizing map control and constant movement with wide open areas, while still having some more maze-like levels akin to the base game, but even those more tight levels are open enough to allow mach speed maneuvering through the map. But as well as that, the enemy placement is (mostly) very on point, using the potential for interesting enemy encounters to its fullest (as far as official expansions go), to the point where, while there still are a few situations where you will just be using cover to get through certain rooms, rarely suffering from the same issues from the other Quake 1 campaigns, they manage to do a lot with every single episode, which by comparison have only two levels (two extensive levels at that).
Really, my only two criticisms involve the Realm of the Stonemasons (which still incorporate some of the bad parts of the base game like the overuse of a few strong enemies and cheap traps) and the final boss, but other than that, if you liked Quake 1, then this expansion is mandatory for you to play, and even if you didn't enjoy it that much, then this still has a lot to offer that the base game didn't quite use it to its fullest due to development issues.
One of my main criticisms with the base game was the level design, where levels would be just a bunch of corridors with sometimes slightly more open arenas made for combat, while complementing it with annoying enemy placements that pretty much forced the game into a cover shooter, as well as the overuse of a few enemies like the Fiends, and the fact that many types of enemies have way more health than they should, which really tampered my enjoyment of the game.
Fortunately, this expansion actually does justice to what the best parts of Quake 1 are, fast-paced mayhem in open arenas with enemies that can very easily tear through you in close quarters while the player has more opportunities for maneuvering over the arena in long range battles.
Where as Dimension of the Past felt like it was indeed stuck in the past, doing a lot of what I found already bad in the base game while also introducing new problems like the overwhelmingly scarce amounts of ammo while spamming Death Knights down your throat, Dimension of the Machine feels like it took many lessons from all the very best fan levels from Quake and put it at full display in here, while pushing the engine to its absolute limits and taking full advantage of the graphical settings present in the Nightdive remaster of the game.
And speaking of that, this expansion is absolutely no slouch at art direction, and its clear from the moment you appear at the main hub! Other expansions already had some decent moments of distinct theming, like the egyptian temples of Dissolution of Eternity, but in Dimension of the Machine, as said in the previous paragraph, they absolutely ran with the capabilities of both the Quake engine and the Nightdive remaster. Every realm feels like, indeed, different realms, all being very varied while still being thematically cohesive throughout, even the Realm of the Machinists, which is comprised of SEWERS, manage to stand out in comparison to the rest of the levels present in this expansion.
The level design in general here is great (for the most part), always emphasizing map control and constant movement with wide open areas, while still having some more maze-like levels akin to the base game, but even those more tight levels are open enough to allow mach speed maneuvering through the map. But as well as that, the enemy placement is (mostly) very on point, using the potential for interesting enemy encounters to its fullest (as far as official expansions go), to the point where, while there still are a few situations where you will just be using cover to get through certain rooms, rarely suffering from the same issues from the other Quake 1 campaigns, they manage to do a lot with every single episode, which by comparison have only two levels (two extensive levels at that).
Really, my only two criticisms involve the Realm of the Stonemasons (which still incorporate some of the bad parts of the base game like the overuse of a few strong enemies and cheap traps) and the final boss, but other than that, if you liked Quake 1, then this expansion is mandatory for you to play, and even if you didn't enjoy it that much, then this still has a lot to offer that the base game didn't quite use it to its fullest due to development issues.