Quake

aka: Quake 64, Quake Mobile, Quake: The Doomed Dimension
Moby ID: 374
Windows Specs
Note: We may earn an affiliate commission on purchases made via eBay or Amazon links (prices updated 3/28 8:44 PM )

Description official descriptions

An enemy with the codename ''Quake'', which is believed to come from another dimension, is using teleporter gates to invade Earth. The player takes the role of a nameless soldier who arrives at his base only to find out Quake has overrun it and killed everyone. Somewhere in the base, there must be a teleporter to Quake's realm. The mission is clear: take the fight to the enemy, overcome countless hordes of monsters, and exact revenge.

id Software's follow-up to Doom and Doom II, Quake is a first-person shooter. Its main technological innovation is the use of a true 3D engine - the levels themselves, as well as the enemies, are polygonal. This not only allows for more natural level-designs and character animations, but also for more realistic lighting and the inclusion of simulated physics that have an effect on gameplay: grenades can bounce off walls and around corners, for example.

In single-player mode, gameplay consists mainly of proceeding through the levels (spread over four distinct episodes) in search of an exit, killing everything that moves. Interaction with the game world is reduced to a minimum: since there is no use key, buttons are pressed by running into or shooting at them. As in id's earlier games, many secrets are waiting to be discovered, including a few hidden levels.

Unlike Doom's rather straightforward design that couples futuristic environments with demonic imagery, the theme of Quake's levels, enemies, and weapons is not so easily pinpointed. While each episode begins in a futuristic military base (with a technological 'slipgate' as the level exit), later levels take place in environments inspired by medieval fantasy and gothic horror (castles, dungeons, and caverns) and the player passes through magical portals to advance. In a departure from Doom's colorful environments, all Quake levels are dominated by earth colors.

The enemies conform to the mishmash of designs: there are human opponents armed with shotguns and energy weapons in the early levels, while the later levels include medieval knights, ghosts, zombies, ogres (armed with grenade launchers and chainsaws), and some more unearthly beasts. The player's weapons, while relatively modern, all have a low-tech feel. Besides a (bloodstained) axe, there are shotguns, nailguns, rocket and grenade launchers, and the Thunderbolt, which discharges electrical energy.

Quake was one of the first games playable natively over the Internet in addition to LANs. The single-player levels can be played cooperatively, but the game is most famous for its deathmatch mode. One-on-one duels, team play, and free-for-all competition are possible. The emphasis is on fast reaction and skillful maneuvering through the levels. All of the single-player maps can be used as arenas, but the game also comes with six maps specially designed for deathmatch.

Spellings

  • 雷神之锤 - Simplified Chinese spelling

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Videos

See any errors or missing info for this game?

You can submit a correction, contribute trivia, add to a game group, add a related site or alternate title.

Credits (DOS version)

27 People (15 developers, 12 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 87% (based on 61 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 465 ratings with 19 reviews)

All the other reviews are rubbish

The Good
Where Doom was in fact a technological step backwards (Ultima Underworld had a far superior engine a year previously) Quake was in every sense state of the art. One of the first truly 3D games engines, it was certainly by far and away the best looking thing at the time. A combination of great level design, fantastic music and Lovecraft-esque setting created the scariest atmosphere I'd met in a computer game. The out-of-the-box internet gameplay and free ability to create mods of the basic engine were better executed than had ever been before, perhaps due to id software has its roots in the shareware movement. The fact they have released the source code since is a nice nod to the independent game development community. But above all? The sheer playability.

The Bad
The downsides? Having to put up with people whining about the same old stuff when you say you like Quake. (It's too brown... no story... too much gore... don't like shooting games... Doom is better...) SHUT UP. The only real downside? It was such a success we now have to put up with endless inferior imitations.

The Bottom Line
It's easy in a genre that has advanced so fast to look back on the older titles with vague disgust rather than the admiration they deserve. Quake was a revolutionary game, and still is a fantastically fun one.

DOS · by rar (2) · 2004

The next step in the FPS evolutionary process

The Good
Quake literally revolutionized almost every aspect of the FPS genre apart from storytelling and level design. The 3D engine was not simply the first of its kind, it was also the smoothest and fastest for many years to come. It was also one of the most modifiable, giving rise to an endless surge of modifications. It was the first to feature gravity variables, thus opening the portal of physics to videogames.

The game itself was fast and atmospheric at the same time. The rusty, brown colour palette might not appeal to everyone, however it gave the game a distinctive look and oppressive feel. The music by the Nine Inch Nails was equally dark and industrial sounding and fit well with the theme. It was obvious id was trying to leave behind Doom's bright colours in favour of something darker and more subliminal.

Id also simplified the interface somewhat by introducing touch sensitive buttons and walls instead of colour coded keys and toggled switches. The point was to eliminate all the pointless search-button mashing while strafing with the face to the wall, a common practice for veteran Doom players looking for elusive secrets. The real secret of Quake was that it removed most obstacles between action, atmosphere and the player, thus providing an almost exhilarating experience while blowing enemies to bloody chunks, wading through murky water and trying to avoid the traps.

And multiplayer. The only game that could really stop gamers from blasting themselves for endless hours in Doom Deathmatches was Quake. We owe the existence of Capture the Flag, Team Deathmatch and class deathmatch variations to the huge community that the game amassed. However, Quake's own Deathmatch mode was a complete experience into itself and is enjoyable even today.

The Bad
Level design was good, but not quite on par with Doom's masterful levels. Still, it was far from "boring" or repetitive and offered some truly memorable moments. Quake is not "perfect" is the same way that no classic game is: however its strengths far outweigh its shortcomings.

The Bottom Line
Purity of form.

Quake had no story because, much like Doom or Duke Nukem 3d, it did not need one. The fun it offered was pure: when you are really thirsty nothing compares to pure crystal water and there is no replacement for that. It took Epic many years to learn this lesson and reach the peak that UT 2004 has. In effect, the Golden Rule that id set with Doom and Quake is that an FPS needs focus in order to be truly enjoyable. Thus it either has to offer the raw thrill of action that Quake epitomizes or the cinematic experience that Half-Life pursued. Either unhindered, non-stop blasting fun or realism and the restrictions which it imposes. The middle ground does not really work here and the pinnacle of pure action is truly the legacy of Quake.

DOS · by Silverblade (1382) · 2005

Great engine!! Great multiplayer code!!... Game? What game???

The Good
Quake was a technological wonder, after Doom id really had a hard act to follow technology-wise, yet they once again proved their programming prowess with Quake = the first fps with a true 3D engine.

And what an engine it was! After years of being stuck on the world of 2.5D games, Quake finally delivered true polygonal bliss. The end result was pretty much obvious: better sense of space and depth, smoother animation, use of effects like the portal or the cool underwater-distortion one, etc. etc. Quake also applied it's 3D-ness to such things as the player's Pov, which swayed and leaned around quite realistically. A feat that really made the game feel a lot different from the now static-looking 2.5D fpss; ditto the character models, which moved way smoother than sprites, and also came with the added bonus of being able to explode in little chunks of red meat, yes boys and girls, "gibs" were born with Quake.

The multiplayer area is also the other point were Quake broke the mold. As everyone knows by now, the game replaced all the hassle of multiplayer net-play with the now common server-client architecture, which was not only much more intuituive, but also much more reliable and fast, especially when you consider the setup prep-work that was usually involved with multiplayer gaming.

Also, being a metal fan I really enjoyed NIN's contribution to the game's soundtrack, tough it seems to be too depressing/experimental to most players for some reason. Still, if you don't like it, you can always pop in your own audio cd and let 'er rip while you get it on.

The Bad
What "didn't" I like about the game?? Well, there's no game to speak of!! :)). Seriously, Quake would begin id's trend of just forgetting about game design and instead providing the best technological wonders they could come up with. This is especially evidenced by the open architecture of Quake. It's set-up so you can customize it to your liking, ad mods to it, ad skins, textures, levels, sounds, etc etc. Heck, they even released the source code!

Id just figured "Why the hell bother designing the game when we just can release the technology?" It may be a reprehensible idea, but it's smart! Think about it, Quake off the box was a piece of shit. The game itself has even less story than Doom (and you thought that wasn't possible!!), the weapons are copies of Doom's (save for the Axe and the Lightning-throwing thingie) with new yet crappy 3D models (the rocket launcher is just a brown rod!!), the level of interaction was toned down to near-retarded levels with the removal of the use key in favor of a jump key, essentially trading off the ability to use things for the world's crappiest jump (primary reason for the discovery of the rocket-jump) result? You activate gigantic buttons by bumping into them... groan....

But wait! That's not all! The levels are dull techo-goth places with a heavy dose of the brown color (hmmm, crap comes to mind in more ways than one!!), populated by stupid traps (??WTF??) and seemingly randomly-placed enemies, which to be fair are the only cool things that come with the game. The single player campaign is a joke, with the only good moment being the fight against Chthon at the end of episode 1 and the initial joy of watching everything in 3D and all the Lovecraftian imagery. The multiplayer part saves the game, but then again the maps that came with the game were sorely lacking in just about every level.

...yet...

The Bottom Line
Quake sold Gazillions of copies!!! Why? Because it didn't matter whether it was good or not off the box!! You bought the game, and then turned it into whatever you wanted! And I'm not just talking about the level add-ons and stuff like that, I'm talking about serious reworkings, like Quake Rally and the like.

Quake is sort of like a piece of real estate, get it? It's what you put in there that eventually turns the game a worthy experience. It's a piece of remarkably well made technology, with enough of an open architecture to satisfy most pseudo-designers (though it would still require a high level of proficiency to do stuff like "real" level editing). That's what you pay, and that's what you get. Not a game, but a 3D-enginered, multiplayer-capable, piece of clay. This is good, REAL good. On the other hand it's pretty shameless in the sense that the developers simply washed their hands of most, if not all, creative content... hmm. That's bad, real bad...

In the end you'll have to ask yourself what do you really want. Back on those days Quake meant 3D and multiplayer. If you wanted that, you went for that. If you wanted say... good fps gameplay, you went for Duke3D (or even Quake add-ons like Scourge of Armaggon) and the like. You had to think before you bought. Of course, nowadays it's just completely stupid to play Quake. No reason to bother with old technology when you can have the new and upgraded version: Quake 3 Arena, even less of a game than this one, and destined to the same oblivion as soon as Quake 4, 5, 6, etc. get released.

DOS · by Zovni (10504) · 2002

[ View all 19 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Paul Steed credit leilei (343) Aug 13, 2012
What music? null-geodesic (106) Jun 12, 2008

Trivia

1001 Video Games

The PC version of Quake appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Scrapped versions

The Game Boy Advance version of Quake was in development by AGB Games. There were also plans for port to Sony PlayStation by Lobotomy Software, which was able to work, under some circumstances, in 60 FPS. First one was cancelled for unknown reasons, while second cancellation was caused by fact, that developer failed to find a publisher.

3D cards support

The original game had software rendering mode only. You could download glquake to use your 3d accelerated card. A special version was made for the intergraph rendition cards called vquake.

Anaconda level

Bizarre product tie-ins: for the release of the movie Anaconda, Sony pictures released through their website an add-on level for Quake titled Temple of the Mist were you made your way trough an ancient temple searching for the altar that holds the key to escape. Obviously, before escaping you have to go mano a mano with the Anaconda itself...weird uh?

Development

The original Quake was supposed to have a medieval environment, but a few months before its release, most of the medieval-role playing aspects of the game were removed (i.e. one of the weapons was going to be a sword and there was a dragon to fight with) and the result was a game with guns but such enemies like the fiend or the death knight (these were included in the original project). Many original design elements were scrapped -- the kernel idea behind Quake was this massive Thor-like warhammer that you could slam down on the ground to make shockwaves ripple through the game world. This "ultimate weapon" idea followed John Romero to his game Daikatana.

The original concept was inspired by a character named Quake in id's long D&D campaign (which actually ended with demons destroying the universe due to John Romero's greed), DM'd by John Carmack. Because of the switch to sci-fi, Romero was angry enough to leave id after Quake, even though Carmack fired him first. He later used another inspiration from the D&D campaign to make Daikatana.

Deathmatch

Kornelia, a famous female Quake player, won the "TEN GibFest Contest" at the computer game developers conference at Santa Clara. As a result, she was afforded the opportunity to play John Romero in a 1v1 deathmatch. She beat him 22 to 1 and also took home a P200 MMX system.

Dopefish

Quake is yet another of id Software's games that contains the infamous Dopefish. The level you can find the Dopefish on is E2M3, The Well of Wishes, in a secret location that you'd probably need a walkthrough to get to. Incidentally, "The Well of Wishes" is the same title as a Commander Keen 4: Secret of the Oracle level where the Dopefish first appears.

Engine

The engine that iD Software started to make Quake with was called Six Degrees of Freedom

German index

On August 31, 1996, Quake was put on the infamous German index by the BPjS. For more information about what this means and to see a list of games sharing the same fate, take a look here: BPjS/BPjM indexed games.

IFQuake

Taking John Romero's work on the Apple ][ bootloader for Infocom's Zork Zero as a point of departure, in 2004 Jason Bergman released IFQuake -- the difficulty-selection stage and first level of the shareware version of Quake implemented as a text adventure game, downloadable at http://mirror.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/zcode/ifquake.zip

Innovations

Almost incidentally, Quake introduced the now-standard concept of a FPS 'console', and popularised 'mouselook' as *the* absolute standard control interface. Although the specifications required a Pentium, Quake ran acceptably well on a 486 DX4/100 and, at a push, the faster 486es. Along with Magic Carpet it was however the game that most established the Pentium as a must-have processor. It was also the first game which offered the opportunity for both Amiga and PC gamers to play online together.

Machinima

Machinima, an animated film using the 3D environment of a game, started with the Quake engine. Doom already had a recording feature, but it wasn't until Quake when people added narrative and called it "movies" that the genre was born. The first known machinima is Diary of a Camper, by a group of players called The Rangers, released on October 26, 1996.

Qtest1

Quake was preceded by Qtest1, a tech demo which was released in February 1996. It consisted of three small, monster-free levels which illustrated the game's engine. Of particular note was Test3, which became the basis for the second level of Quake's first episode (of the other levels, Test2 seemed to be a very, very early incarnation of 'Ziggurat Vertigo', the infamous low-gravity secret level). The engine was almost fully complete, although wall-mounted torches were still sprite-based.

Although the test had no game - rather like the original Doom 'alpha releases' - multiplayer support was, fortunately, included. The infamous 'rocket jump' was discovered quite quickly, as Qtest included both rocket and grenade launchers.

"Chris ([email protected])" eventually discovered that monsters were included in the game's source code, and a patch released in June 1996 allowed players to experience early versions of Quake's beasties.

References

All of the sounds and music for Quake were produced by Trent Reznor, the man behind the industrial/alternative group Nine Inch Nails. The ammo boxes for the nailgun ("nails") have the band's logo (NIN) on the side.

References to the game

One of the songs on Karl Sander's album Saurian Meditation, "Elder God Shrine", was named after the Quake level E4M3 which has the same name.

Saturn version

The Saturn version of Quakeis the only version with coloured lighting, something Lobotomy Software added to the saturn version

Source code release

In 1999, id Software made the complete source code for Quake freely available to the public. You can download it here.

Speedruns

Quake inspired the art of speedruns: trying to beat a game as fast as possible. The initial release was Quake Done Quick, completed in 19:49 and released on 1997. As of 2012, players still work on breaking the latest records.

Zeeboo version

On June 15, 2010, both Quake and Quake II were removed from Zeebo's wireless network, the Brazilian Zeebonet. Both games were offered for 10 Z-credits and each Brazilian Zeebo came with 35 Z-credits, so the games were sold virtually for free. They were replaced for Zeebo Extreme RolimĂŁ and Zeebo Extreme Jetboard as free downloads.

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) - #36 in the “150 Best Games of All Time” list
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – The Best Way To Die In Computer Gaming (being telefragged)
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) –Worst Back Story of All Time
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #5 Least Rewarding Ending of All Time
    • May 1997 (Issue #154) – Action Game of the Year
    • May 1997 (Issue #154) – Action Game of the Year (Readers' Choice)
    • May 1997 (Issue #154) – Special Award for Technological Achievement (for its engine)
    • April 1999 (Issue #177) - Introduced into the Hall of Fame
    • March 2001 (Issue #200) - #8 Best Game of All Time
  • GameSpy
    • 2001 – #5 Top Game of All Time
  • GameStar (Germany)
    • Issue 12/1999 - #7 in the "100 Most Important PC Games of the Nineties" ranking
  • PC Gamer
    • April 2000 - #14 in the "All-Time Top 50 Games" poll
    • April 2005 - #26 in the "50 Best Games of All Time" list
  • Power Play
  • Ĺšwiat Gier Komputerowych
    • February 1997 (Issue #50) – readers' award Hitek'96 for the best foreign game of 1996

Information also contributed by Adam Baratz, Ashley Pomerov, chirinea, Darksaviour69, D Michael, Erkan O; keth, Maw, n-n, PCGamer77, Pseudo_Intellectual; Sciere, Scott Monster, Xoleras, Zack Green and Zovni

Analytics

MobyPro Early Access

Upgrade to MobyPro to view research rankings!

Related Games

Quake II
Released 1997 on Windows, Linux, 1999 on PlayStation...
Quake III: Arena
Released 1999 on Linux, Windows, 2000 on Dreamcast...
Quake: Episode 5 - Dimensions of the Past
Released 2016 on DOS, Windows
Ultimate Quake
Released 2001 on Windows
Quake II
Released 2023 on Windows, Windows Apps, PlayStation 4...
Quake Live
Released 2010 on Browser, Windows
Quake Minus One
Released 1985 on Commodore 64
Smokin' Guns
Released 2009 on Linux, Windows
Quake: Champions
Released 2017 on Windows, 2022 on Windows Apps

Related Sites +

  • FitzQuake
    The most faithful custom engine available.
  • Func_Msgboard
    An ever-active forum dedicated to custom mapping, primarily focusing on the original game but also covering the following games in the series from time to time.
  • Matt Chat 54
    Video interview with John Romero about the development of Quake
  • Planet Quake
    An exhaustive quake site visit it for news, mods, levels, tips and all you want related to Quake
  • Quaddicted
    The most comprehensive site for custom singleplayer maps.
  • Quake
    Official page on id Software's website
  • Quake cheat codes
    Detailed information on Quake 1 cheat codes for N64, PC and Sega Saturn
  • Tenebrae
    Tenebrae is a modification of the quake source that adds stencil shadows and per pixel lights to quake. Stencil shadows allow for realistic shadow effects on every object in the game world. Per pixel lighting allows you to have fine surface details correctly lit. These are essentially the same algorithms as used by the new Doom game.

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 374
  • [ Please login / register to view all identifiers ]

Contribute

Are you familiar with this game? Help document and preserve this entry in video game history! If your contribution is approved, you will earn points and be credited as a contributor.

Contributors to this Entry

Game added by robotriot.

Zeebo added by chirinea. Nintendo 64 added by Kartanym. Acorn 32-bit, Amiga, Windows Mobile added by Kabushi. Windows added by The cranky hermit. Macintosh added by Ace of Sevens. SEGA Saturn added by quizzley7.

Additional contributors: JubalHarshaw, Andrew Hartnett, Ledmeister, Roedie, Unicorn Lynx, Atomic Punch!, erc, Kabushi, Patrick Bregger, Titan10, Karsa Orlong, MrFlibble, FatherJack, R3dn3ck3r.

Game added November 3, 1999. Last modified March 6, 2024.