4.5/5 ★ – Oliver_Gamer's review of Quake.

A very important part of gaming history and easily one of the greatest first person shooters of all time. Unlike other ID titles like Doom and Doom II, the level design in quake is consistently good all throughout all the way up until the last level. The games plot is simple and involves “slipgates” which are basically teleporters and it opens gateways to other worlds and dimensions. The mysterious enemy only known as “Quake” sends squads of enemies to kill people in the human world. The Quake Ranger is there to stop them and fights his way through different dimensions to stop them. It’s simple and basically Doom with a different coat of paint but it’s there and gets the job done. A big part of this games identity is its gothic and Lovecraftian art style. The graphics may look like dated to some, but they are important in creating the Quake engine with real time 3D rendering. The enemy design, architecture, and lighting are all key to the games look and identity. The gunplay is satisfying with a great variety of fun to use weapons. The guns feel really nice and gibbing (blowing enemies to bloody chunks) is really satisfying. It has the same philosophy of picking up health and ammo on the move while dealing out damage to enemies and constantly moving. Power ups are also scattered around the levels and are all fun to use and spice up the gameplay. The level design is smart and always has a sense of direction without laying out the path to clear to the player and encourages exploration with well hidden but never too cryptic secrets. This well done and smart level design manages to be consistent throughout the entire six hours of gameplay. Enemies are aggressive and all have unique ways to approach them and all have a clear identity. For example using a rocket launcher on the Fiends is probably a bad idea due to the lunging attack which will probably cause you to blow yourself up but using a shotgun against them will work because they’re constantly in your face and you can deal a lot of damage really quickly. The zombies require you to gib them to kill them for good or they will resurrect. You can cause gibs by doing a serious amount of overkill but the grenade launcher will also gib the zombies and it’s very useful for groups of them. Each enemy poses a challenge and is well balanced. The bosses however are the weakest portion of the enemies and with only two it’s almost surprising they weren’t cut. The first boss Cnthon is very easy but he at least requires you to use your environment to kill him but the final boss level is just a generic enemy gauntlet with the same tanky enemies and you teleport into the final boss which can’t even attack you. It was a very disappointing way to end such an amazing game. The music done by Trent Reznor from NIN is very atmospheric and fits with the game very well. I don’t have much else to say about it except there aren’t many tracks but they’re all good. Overall Quake is a game you need to play to experience one of the most fun to play and consistently good first person shooters. It’s a blast you NEED to play this game.