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Quake
Type of Program: First-person, 3D shoot-em-up
Supported Platforms: Win95, DOS
Company or Authors Name: ID Software
Version: 0.92
Price: $45
Installed Size: 19MB (shareware)
1-800-IDGAMES to order
Also check out all those UseNet discussions... this game is hot!
Rumble... rumble.... QUAKE!!!! Well I'm sure all of you interested in the first-person shoot-em-up genre knows about Quake. It's the successor to Doom... with better physics and stuff like that. You like that, you'll definitely love this.
GRAPHICS Much better than Doom could ever hope to achieve on its old engine. This new engine is in fact better than the Doom-killer
BUILD Engine which made up Duke 3D. Real world physics -the new grenades ricochet off walls... the screen shakes realistically when you're hit, and you can almost feel the recoil from your 12-gauge shotgun. More than that, the opponents have now been 3D-modeled, not the old flat sprites of the bygone Wolvenstein days. Lighting effects are more advanced. Architectural wonders like arches and bridges which were never possible are. Doom looks bare compared to this. That means, for those of you who don't appreciate the technical part of all this, a much better feeling of actually "being" there.
SOUND Brought some friends over to test this out... from the outside it sounded as if someone was playing with a wrecking ball in the next room. Amazing stuff. Of course you can expect the same quality from any other new game. There was one thing that I liked best: the track music comes from your own Audio-CD. You just put in your favorite heavy-metal music and it will automatically select a different track for every level. Ingenious - wouldn't you agree? (Unless you happen to like 60's music... then maybe it'll sound a bit odd.)
GAMEPLAY Well, not unlike all the kind in it's genre, this is basically a shoot-everything-that-moves-then-shoot-some-more game. All you "intellectuals" stay way clear - this is pure instinct. One thing that Quake doesn't have is a personality for the character -Duke 3D did extremely well there. Compared to Duke Nukem, Mr whatever-his-name-is here is totally hollow.
CONTROL Keyboard support, is of course good. Joystick support, however - now that is extremely poorly done, as far as I can tell. Maybe this is because I'm reviewing the shareware version but here goes: The only joystick supported was the conventional 4-button thing. No rudder, no hatswitch, no throttle. The joystick alone might be able to handle all of Quake's functions if it were supported to its fullest potential. The only game that I've seen which is worse in supporting a joystick properly when it's needed most, in the more professional genre, would be Fifa96. 2-button support only, causing a whole lot of actions to be unavailable to the poor gamer. ID should take a lesson from Duke 3D here... that is by far the best support I've ever seen for a game like this. Everything from hat-switches to rudders to even double clicking joystick buttons. Now that's what I call flexible. I would really like to see more support for the Microsoft 3D Pro and its 4 extra buttons; and I hate using a combination of joystick and keyboard since I have to look down everytime, and that's not good. Furthermore this Microsoft Natural is so large that it's hard to actually use both at one time (okay okay so I'm a Microsoft kind of guy....)
IN A NUTSHELL It rocks, except for lack of proper joystick support.
Performance  ( a Pentium 133 here)
User Friendly (old Doom interface... no problems)
Cost ($45... ouch)
Ease of Installation  
Support
Sound
Graphics
Reviewed by Betanik
Web Support
Found at http://www.idsoftware.com
Our web support pages provide the same information that's
available via
Automated Support, except it's free!
News Sites
For information, FAQ, or announcements, check out
rec.games.computer.quake.announce
For general Quake discussion, check out
rec.games.computer.quake.misc
Game Hints Line
Telephone -- 1 (800) id-games or 1 (900) call-2-id
Lines Open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year (366 in Leap year)
($0.85 per minute)
B. In Europe
Our help lines in Europe are open 7:30am - 5:00pm GMT, Monday -
Friday.
English: +44 01923 209145
German: +44 (0)1923 209151
French: +44 (0)1923 209148
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