My Stint With Quake

The following is a story, a recollection of my memories and how I ended up playing FPS games, most notably Quake. This will be the first of many posts I hope to make; ones that involve perhaps a personal history with videogames in some way or a post going over to some kind retro game of sorts. But anyway, on the with the good stuff!

It all really started with the game called Doom. You know that one where you fight off hordes of demons on the moons of Mars? That was my first introduction to the FPS genre, and was really the first FPS of its kind to do anything significant. Full 3-D movement, vast environments. It also set the tone for what most FPS games do now: Blood, gore, guts, and lots of action.

My parents let me play Doom in the summer of 1993, and I loved it. id Software some how managed to create a holy grail in gaming. They knew it was bloody, scary, and well down right blasphemous. I mean you play as a lone space marine; you are all that stands in the way of the demons of hell and them getting to earth. It was something that I couldn't really explain. Maybe it was the way the game presented its action. Maybe it was the fast paced action. Mouse and keyboard controls were second nature to me, left clicks with a shotgun, blowing away the pink demons. I didn't really play many other PC games for two years.

Then in the summer of 1996, the gaming magazines, and the beginnings of the internet were rumbling about some new engine and game that id was creating. A game called Quake. The first time I laid eyes upon that game was when I set out to get at demo disc at the local PC store. It cost me $9.99 + tax. Probably the best ten dollars I ever spent. After I installed that game on my 486 DOS 6.2 PC, the graphics were unlike anything I had ever seen. The difference from this game and Doom was quite simply amazing. Full polygonal environments, and you could now look around with the mouse! And the gameplay was just as fast as Doom. Quake brought something to the table that Doom had introduced, but made it better; Multiplayer.

There was many a night of me and my friends hooking up over the internet with our 56k modems and playing games of Quake. Blood, rockets, nailguns, and giblets were all common place. I got to a point in that game where I would usually win every match we played. Give me a rocket launcher in that game, and kiss yourself goodbye. Those were the days...sitting back and drinking Mountain Dew will electrocuting your friends with the lightning gun.

Some time after Quake was released, id quietly began work on the engine that would eventually power Quake II. If I remember correctly, Quake II was not originally going to be called 'Quake II.” The press called it that, as id themselves had not revealed the name of the game. It became so popular that eventually id just decided to go with that, as it was a name and title everyone new at that point.The multiplayer in Quake II was fast and furious. I couldn't believe how awesome it was. The rail gun was my preferred weapon against people on the internet and my friends. I eventually got good enough that I played in several tournaments. Unfortunately I was not nearly as good as the some other players out there, like Thresh. He infamously won John Carmack's Ferrari in a game of Quake.

Quake II introduced some awesome customization options, one of the most prominent was a feature that allowed the use of custom player models. My preferred player model was one based around the comic Calvin and Hobbes; Calvin's alter ego Spaceman Spiff. Eventually though, time moved forward, with the introduction of Quake III Arena.

In December 1999, Quake III was released to the PCS. The game had no single player component, as its focus was multiplayer. I loved that game...still do, but it was also the last version of Quake that I seriously spent time playing. Combat was fast and intense, moving much faster than an previous version of Quake. Again the rail gun was a personal favorite, but I also enjoyed using the lighting gun. Shocking opponents to giblets was fun and entertaining.

For years after that, I played Quake III exclusively. More and more FPS games followed and I played Quake III until I simply couldn't play it anymore. My tastes evolved a little more as Halo and Killzone 1 came out. Quake simply fell off the radar for me. There is still a thriving hardcore community out there, but chances are if I went back to any one of the Quake games, my head would be blown off the second I spawned.

I love FPS games...and I would love to go and play some more Quake again; get back into that groove. In the mean time, I have an RPG called Final Fantasy XIII. Expect something on that soon.