Potentially controversial take but I don't think Quake 1 holds up as well as other shooters from the era. It's still a fun game don't get me wrong, but I've always felt it's a great interior with a bleh exterior. The core combat of Quake is really solid, from the movement to feedback everything about the engine was obviously priority number 1, and I think that's why it's fun to play. It's just that, for me, the rest of the game around that isn't as interesting as it's contemporaries. The atmosphere is sort of a strange hodgepodge of Lovecraft, medieval, and sci-fi that never really makes anything cohesive, with the overwhelmingly brown color palette being a big reason. The weapons are fine for what they are but feel safe and limited. Other games like Duke 3D and Blood had Shrink rays and Voodoo dolls, but the craziest Quake ever gets is a lightning gun with relatively limited ammo. Probably my biggest hot take about Quake is that the music is kinda dull and forgettable. No disrespect to Trent Reznor, he's super talented, but I just don't think these tracks stick with me much.

All that being said though it's still a fun time. I respect it as a massive leap forward but I just think other games did it better. To look at it a bit more optimistically, I think it goes to show how many great retro shooters there are when a relatively enjoyable game like Quake can fall kinda far below the rest for me. I just love this genre I suppose.





Oh yeah and minus a million points for the fucking blobs in chapter 4, those things can die in whatever hellish nightmare realm ID Software conjured them from.