know this is going to fall on deaf ears, but I told you so. Quake, just
like Quake test, is nothing more than a 3D Doom. After weeks at hearing the
whine; "but, but, but, its just a test. Its nothing like what Quake is
really going to be. There have been huge improvements.." it turns out I
was right.
First the good parts. Yea the maps are true 3D. However with the exception
of the Persian styled castle and the pier, the 3dness was wasted on the
"rat in a maze" styled levels. I must say that the biggest suprise was the
sound. They were really good. (Qtest didn't work with my sound card so this
was the first time that I've heard them) The best part is interacting with
the monsters. Taking an axe to the orge was treat to see him bob and weave
from the blows. The game ran really well on my P100 on mode 10. Some nice
touches were the way the screen tilted when you moved left to right and
movement underwater.
The rest of the game seems weak. For one, its short. Even on hard, it only
took around 90 mintues to complete the entire game the first time I played
it. I haven't found the nightmare level yet. At no point did it seem that
I was over welmed with attackers. I imagine the engine has a polygon limit
preventing huge number of attackers. The worst part is that there doesn't
seem to be much to do. With exception of killing things and picking up
things, and the odd switch, interactivety is at a low. Another
disappointment was the AI. What AI? Most of the monsters were fairly dumb.
Quite a few had problems with door ways. The orge was the only thing I saw
that gave me any sort of a chase, however he became confused when I jumped
in the water. Also, most weren't drawn very well either. Both Future Shock
and Fade to Black have better looking polygon creatures. Things such as
dynamic lighting didn't add anything and probably slowed the game down or
at lest required a decress in the polygon count. The lighting in general
didn't seem well used either.
The bottom line, will I buy Quake? Probably not. If the user design levels
that will come out show some thought, maybe. But for the most part, I'll
stick with better games.