Been chipping away this for the past couple months, but all the hulabaloo around Quake's 25th anniversary pushed me to finally polish off the remaining maps today... I really wanna give some of these new Quake birthday projects a go!
'Arcane' feels like the perfect descriptor for this game, in every sense of the word;
'Arcane' in the sense that it feels like dark software engineering magic that should be sealed away in an ancient vault - how did they get Quake to do all this?! Modders rule!
'Arcane' in the sense that it's crammed with classic unimaginable Quake bullshit. I love that the mappers all worked really hard to recreate (and enhance) the feel of classic Quake, but HUP HUP HUPing around empty cathedral halls to find the hidden ledge holding the Skull Key of the Unmaker that I need to insert into The Runepillar of Eekum Bokum on the other end of the map quite often just kills the flow and atmosphere - Trent's tracks work best as five-minute moods, not half-hour loops. I respect the hell out of the map-makers who decided to make their contributions into sagas that span the length of an episode from the original game, but I really do wish the game warned you if the slipgate you're about to pass through is a 5-minute romp or a quest across six pillars of eternity. Ironically, I think I enjoyed the maps that homaged DOOM and Quake 2 the most...
'Arcane' in the sense that this is a work of genuine quality and wonder that will never make it into the hands of most players because it requires such an esoteric computer-touching methodolgy to play. If Bethesda and Zenimax knew what was really up, they'd have a Quake sourceport and official mod support on the go for the big 2-5. This mod alone could shift some serious units! I don't need Quake Eternal - I just need more people to try this game!
'Arcane' feels like the perfect descriptor for this game, in every sense of the word;
'Arcane' in the sense that it feels like dark software engineering magic that should be sealed away in an ancient vault - how did they get Quake to do all this?! Modders rule!
'Arcane' in the sense that it's crammed with classic unimaginable Quake bullshit. I love that the mappers all worked really hard to recreate (and enhance) the feel of classic Quake, but HUP HUP HUPing around empty cathedral halls to find the hidden ledge holding the Skull Key of the Unmaker that I need to insert into The Runepillar of Eekum Bokum on the other end of the map quite often just kills the flow and atmosphere - Trent's tracks work best as five-minute moods, not half-hour loops. I respect the hell out of the map-makers who decided to make their contributions into sagas that span the length of an episode from the original game, but I really do wish the game warned you if the slipgate you're about to pass through is a 5-minute romp or a quest across six pillars of eternity. Ironically, I think I enjoyed the maps that homaged DOOM and Quake 2 the most...
'Arcane' in the sense that this is a work of genuine quality and wonder that will never make it into the hands of most players because it requires such an esoteric computer-touching methodolgy to play. If Bethesda and Zenimax knew what was really up, they'd have a Quake sourceport and official mod support on the go for the big 2-5. This mod alone could shift some serious units! I don't need Quake Eternal - I just need more people to try this game!