Quake

"Dooms dull and brown looking cousin."

I recently re-bought this game after seeing it in a fancy looking plastic case. On playing it again I remember why I sold it in the first place. Now the original Quake released on the PC would have been for it's time a pretty impressive game no doubt, akin to a full 3D Doom and with few other decent FPS shooters around at that time it's easy to see why Quake was lapped up by PC gamers at the time. Quake 64 though for the most part being the same game is a different kettle of fish being a port to the N64 in 1998, when there were quite frankly better FPS games around both on the N64 with Goldeneye and the PC with Half-Life. That's not to say Quake 64 is a bad game as such, and I'm sure those who enjoyed the PC original, or the original Doom games for that matter would still likely enjoy this if only for nostalgia.

As mentioned Quake is very much akin to Doom, only this game runs in full 3D as opposed to the 3D/2D hybrid of Doom and other early FPS games. Though the 3D graphics are hardly going to blow you away, while they may well have seemed amazing as they were on the original PC version on the N64 they seem very crude indeed in comparison to other N64 FPS games around at the time such as Turok 2. The graphics at least allow you to see what is what, but they are fuzzy, low textured and dull, the primary colour throughout being a muddy brown, and enemies that that are equally dull pale and colourless. The atmosphere may have been to create a dark atmosphere but Doom managed this in a visually vivid and colourful way, Quake by comparison is gloomy and generally quite uninteresting to look at, though at least you can still tell what everything is supposed to be and that at least is the main thing. Sound effects range from a series of muffled explosions, bullets pinging and stifled moans and groans, only music is in the beginning, the rest of the game consists of admittedly fairly nicely done ambient sounds that do add some atmosphere to the game. Level design is fairly workmanlike for the most part, levels sprawl along with monsters here and there, buttons to push, keys to collect, green liquid goo to avoid falling into, and the occasional unavoidable death trap that kills you instantly, by in large the only way you can really learn of these is to be killed by them, and given that levels do not have restart points this can be very frustrating indeed.

The monsters you encounter are a fairly generic assortment of zombies, chainsaw wielding ogres and gun totting grunts, not quite the diversity there was in Doom, and the weak enemies such as the grunts and attack dogs are only found in the first 2 levels or so. The more powerful beasts are thrown at you fairly early in the game, and you also find the more powerful weapons early in the game as well so you see pretty much everything there is to see in the first 5 levels. Guns are a relative bog standard assortment of shotguns, nail guns, missile and grenade launchers , nothing fancy but they get the job done. Worth mentioning that zombies will come back to life again unless you blow them up with grenade or rocket, these zombies won't be taken down with a shotgun blast to the head. Which brings me onto another point , monsters don't have separate hit boxes for arms, legs, head and body as you generally see in all FPS games made now, the shot will hit the same place and do exactly the same amount of damage each and every time, it's more akin to Doom in that sense. Another thing Quake 64 has in common with doom is the placement and positioning of your gun, which is seen in the dead centre of your screen, as opposed to the vast majority more recent FPS games where the gun is positioned just off to the centre right. Unlike Doom however you can jump, just not all that well, though there are few times when you would really need to.

The difficulty level is admittedly quite well balanced, you can normally get through a level after enough tries, but as mentioned the lack of restart points is a real pain in the neck should you be killed somewhere toward the end of a level. There is a password system, passwords given to you on completion of a level, but thankfully you can also save games to a memory pak which saves a great deal of time.

I would only really recommend Quake 64 if you were a big fan of the original Doom games, and even then it's probably better to get your hands on the PC original if you can. Not to say Quake 64 is a bad game and it does have moments but there are far better games, FPS and otherwise you could be playing on your N64. Alternatively you can try out Quake II which moderately better if very much different to the original in many ways.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 10/14/05