Quake
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Quake Mission Pack No. 2: Dissolution of Eternity
(1997) -
Quake Mission Pack No. I: Scourge of Armagon
(1997)
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Abyss of Pandemonium
(1998) -
Aftershock for Quake
(1996) -
Aftershock Toolbox for Quake
(1996) -
Dark Hour for Quake
(1996) -
Deathmatch Maker
(1997) -
Earth-Quake
(1996) -
Eternal Darkness: 100 new levels for Quake
(1996) -
Malice: 23rd Century Ultraconversion for Quake
(1997) -
Phenomenon
(1996) -
Q!Zone
(1996) -
Q2
(1996) -
Qu.......ke
(1996) - Quad Damage (1998)
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Quake'em
(1996) -
Shrak for Quake
(1997) -
Tremor for Quake
(1997) -
Ultra Level Add-On
(1997)
-
Quake
(2021)
-
id Anthology
(1996) -
id Super Pack
(2007) -
Quake and The Ultimate DOOM Compilation
(1998) -
Quake: The Offering
(1998) - Resurrection Pack for Quake (1998)
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The Quake Collection
(2007) -
Ultimate Quake
(2001)
-
Quake
(2021 on
Windows,
Windows Apps,
PlayStation 4...)
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 +
- 3D Engine: Quake
- 3D Engine: SlaveDriver
- BPjS / BPjM indexed games
- Game feature: In-game screenshot capture
- Gameplay feature: Drowning
- Gameplay feature: Recordable replays
- Games with Dopefish
- Games with officially released source code
- Inspiration: Author - H. P. Lovecraft
- Online Service: Heat.net
- Quake series
- Replay (GT / Infogrames / Atari) releases
- Total Entertainment Network (TEN) multiplay platform
Screenshots
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Credits (DOS version)
27 People (15 developers, 12 thanks) · View all
| Programming | |
| Tools Programmer | |
| Level / Scenario Design | |
| Music | |
| Sound | |
| Project Manager | |
| Support | |
| Biz | |
| Biz assist | |
| Special Thanks To | |
| [ full credits ] | |
Reviews
Critics
Average score: 87% (based on 61 ratings)
Players
Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 465 ratings with 19 reviews)
To be honest, i found this to be sub-Wolfenstein, but still great
The Good
Despite my one line summary, don't get me wrong, this game is great. When the shareware was released I had it loaded on and blasted away. I loved it. The gloomy atmosphere, the great bad guys (that wacko with a chainsaw, great idea, also those mad flying greenstuff spewing wierdos, top), the great level designs. I particularly liked one of the early levels where you spent a lot of time in the water gibbing the hell out of the skeletons.
The Bad
When i got the full release i was dissapointed. As usual when i spend so long on the demo, i don't bother playing the full game. I enjoyed Wolfenstein more because although Quake has great badguys, nothing can beat killing Nazi scum. A glaring ommision from Quake's arsenal is the chainsaw, the most fun and violent of all of Doom's weapon
The Bottom Line
A great first-person shooter. Excellent follow up to Doom. id could have really done no better at the time.
DOS · by Julian McKenzie (160) · 2000
The Good
The 90’s were the golden age of FPS. The earlier days of the decade gave us Doom, and Wolfenstein. Midway through the decade, Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, and Hexen, were our dark masters. However, 1996, ID Software would release a game that would usher in a new era of FPS’. That game was Quake.
In Quake, you are a soldier working for a team of scientists that are researching dimensional portals, when they accidentally stumble on the haunted realms of Quake. Now the horrific dimensions are going to invade the Earth Realm. It is up to you to stop them. The plot is pretty light, there are no cut scenes, or any thing like that. But the story is rather dark, and supposedly inspired by H. P. Lovecraft.
There are 4 terror filed realms of Quake. Each with multiple levels. In the levels you fight monsters collect keys, find secrets, and eventually find the rune of the realm you are in. There is an array of weapons at your disposal. From an Axe, to Shotguns, and my all time favorite, the Nail Gun.
Monsters seemingly inspired by the nightmares of madmen, also fill levels. Each has a particular weakness, and best weapon to take down. Finding the weakness is another story. Boss fights are rare, but always impressive.
For the time the graphics of Quake were amazing. It was the first true 3D FPS. Levels are dark, and foreboding, and the monsters are truly scary. Nice lighting effects abound as well. If you can get Quake to run with even an older 3D card it will look much better almost like a new game!
The sound really shines in Quake. Both the music and sound effects were done by Nine Inch Nails. The music itself is more ambient, than in traditional FPS’. The sound effects are creepy, to say the least. Each monster has a distinct sound, so you will come to dread what is around the next corner. Weapon sounds are very good as well. Try playing the game with surround sound. Or in the dark with headphones on. You’ll swear that you can hear things with the headphones that you could not hear with out them.
The Bad
Quake is not an easy game. So not for those not looking for a challenge. But otherwise not a bad thing.
The game of course is dated, it’s been 10 years after all.
Getting Quake to run on newer machines is a challenge.
The Bottom Line
This is one of the best FPS and a landmark, not only in it’s genre but for games in general. If you have the means play it. Or if it has been awhile play it again.
DOS · by MasterMegid (723) · 2006
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
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
- Issue 02/1997 – Best Multiplayer Game in 1996 (together with Jagged Alliance: Deadly Games)
- 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
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Related Sites +
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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 +
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by robotriot.
Zeebo added by chirinea. Nintendo 64 added by Kartanym. Windows Mobile, Amiga, Acorn 32-bit 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.