June 22nd, 2023

Late to Quake

The legendary game Quake is 27 years old today. It has a phenomenal legacy, being a direct ancestor of all 3D first-person shooters. I was a gamer when it came out and it should have blown my mind. But it had no impact on me at all.

Quake’s entrance hall from the 2021 remaster. I’d never seen Quake look this good, a far cry from the game in 1996.

These sorts of articles usually embark on a deeply nostalgic journey, as the author recounts their experience of their favourite videogame and how it took over their life. But not me. In 1996 I played the demo of Quake and was unimpressed: the game was murky, indistinct and sluggish as hell. It couldn’t compete with the faster and funnier Duke Nukem 3D which I’d already been playing for months. With hindsight, I had rather poor taste back then.

Quake didn’t enter my sights again until earlier this year when I read an article discussing Forgotten Sepulchre, a huge level in a mod called Arcane Dimensions.

The screenshots of a rotten ruin had a dark and oppressive aesthetic that reminded me of a favourite old game: Thief: The Dark Project, all dark passages and bright windows, a maze of opportunities to explore. It looked like a place I’d once visited in a dark dream and I immediately wanted to visit this gloomy old world.

However, I’d never played all of Quake before and thought I should do that first. I bought the remastered version on GOG for a few quid and played it to the end.

It was quite a blast exploring the old dark corners of Quake’s mysterious worlds. Playing it after all this time sparked a certain kind of joy for the lost art of simpler games. However, there was just one problem: I sucked at it.

I could handle the puzzles and traps and combat against the lesser foes, but once the fiends, shamblers, vores and spawns turned up I almost noped out of there. I stayed with it, but godmode and noclip became my allies when the going got tough. I was fine with cheating: I wanted to see the world of Quake, even if I needed some extra help to get there.

I was ambivalent about the experience. I loved the vibe of the game, the grungy old-school visuals, the fear inducing soundscapes and the chaotic architecture. But the frantic gameplay was not my thing at all: much too fast for my ageing dulled reactions.

Some parts of the game hadn’t aged well either. I’d played the remastered version from 2021 with improved enemy and weapon models and great dynamic lighting and shadows. While the levels looked great – dark spaces full of disturbing architecture and creeping shadows – the enemies were still very low resolution and unattractive by today’s standards. Trying to see them by the standards of 1996 wasn’t easy, which does prove the power of nostalgia. I had no nostalgia for these chunky critters and thought they were crude and outdated.