Green Mushroom Award: Quake
The recipient of the first Green Mushroom Award is Quake. Quake is at once beautiful, frightening, and an absolute gore fest. Released in 1996 under the veil of much hype, it seriously delivered. It swept like a storm across college campuses and the rest of the gaming world at a time when the Internet was really starting to take off. As a result, it had a huge impact on the future of multiplayer killing.
Quake is the first truly 3-D first-person shooter. It's predecessors, games like Wolfenstein 3d and Doom were damn good games, and Quake plays very similarly. The player runs around shooting monsters, finding keys, opening doors, and trying to locate the exit. However the Quake 3-D environment allows for subtle improvements in the game interface and mechanics that really add up. Leaping between moving platforms, negotiating moving walls and floors, swimming underwater, dodging spikes shooting out of the walls, bouncing grenades off surfaces, being able to look up and down (and with the mouse), and being able to jump are all improvements over the previous ID games that make the game more immersive and more, well, 3-D.
Update: It should be noted that some pseudo-3d games like Marathon and Duke Nukem 3d had some of these game features as well.
The graphics and sound in Quake are awesome. I have not seen a game able to duplicate its gothic/medieval/futuristic atmosphere. At the time, the graphics were state-of-the-art with more detailed texture maps and 3-D models for the weapons and monsters. Most striking is the gothic-dungeon 3-D architecture with arches, spires and grates all casting dark shadows. The great Trent Reznor provided music and sound effects as well as ambient dripping and wind howling. In addition, due to the robust programming effort, all of this could run at lightning speed, offering great framerates on slower computers.
However, what really makes this game incredible is the infinite replay value provided by the multiplayer mode. Games like Marathon provided a featured multiplayer mode, but this was limited to 8 players on a LAN. For the first time, raging orgies of carnage between 16+ players across corners of the Internet were possible with sprays of blood and fragmented body parts flying from the victims of well timed rocket launcher attacks. And since the Quake code is open source, interesting server settings (less gravity) and game modes (capture the flag, team fortress) have been pioneered. In addition, since third party level editors are readily available, anyone can create their own levels.
It is not an exaggeration to say that Quake laid the foundations for every 3-D first person shooter to come. Games like Halflife, Unreal, Tribes, and Halo all build upon the multiplayer gibfests that emerged in Quake's heyday. And for me, Quake still delivers. Despite the fresh graphics that recent takes on the genre provide, the simple gameplay and ominous atmosphere make Quake the best choice when the goal is pure chaotic killing.
Quake is the first truly 3-D first-person shooter. It's predecessors, games like Wolfenstein 3d and Doom were damn good games, and Quake plays very similarly. The player runs around shooting monsters, finding keys, opening doors, and trying to locate the exit. However the Quake 3-D environment allows for subtle improvements in the game interface and mechanics that really add up. Leaping between moving platforms, negotiating moving walls and floors, swimming underwater, dodging spikes shooting out of the walls, bouncing grenades off surfaces, being able to look up and down (and with the mouse), and being able to jump are all improvements over the previous ID games that make the game more immersive and more, well, 3-D.
Update: It should be noted that some pseudo-3d games like Marathon and Duke Nukem 3d had some of these game features as well.
The graphics and sound in Quake are awesome. I have not seen a game able to duplicate its gothic/medieval/futuristic atmosphere. At the time, the graphics were state-of-the-art with more detailed texture maps and 3-D models for the weapons and monsters. Most striking is the gothic-dungeon 3-D architecture with arches, spires and grates all casting dark shadows. The great Trent Reznor provided music and sound effects as well as ambient dripping and wind howling. In addition, due to the robust programming effort, all of this could run at lightning speed, offering great framerates on slower computers.
However, what really makes this game incredible is the infinite replay value provided by the multiplayer mode. Games like Marathon provided a featured multiplayer mode, but this was limited to 8 players on a LAN. For the first time, raging orgies of carnage between 16+ players across corners of the Internet were possible with sprays of blood and fragmented body parts flying from the victims of well timed rocket launcher attacks. And since the Quake code is open source, interesting server settings (less gravity) and game modes (capture the flag, team fortress) have been pioneered. In addition, since third party level editors are readily available, anyone can create their own levels.
It is not an exaggeration to say that Quake laid the foundations for every 3-D first person shooter to come. Games like Halflife, Unreal, Tribes, and Halo all build upon the multiplayer gibfests that emerged in Quake's heyday. And for me, Quake still delivers. Despite the fresh graphics that recent takes on the genre provide, the simple gameplay and ominous atmosphere make Quake the best choice when the goal is pure chaotic killing.
posted by flowbeus at 1:23 PM
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