Quake: The Paragon of FPS

Oppressive gothic cathedrals, dirty marine bases, and Lovecraftian horror soar by at over 400 units per second. Gnarled textures and haggard enemies inhabit each map, constantly reminding the player he is not welcome within the nightmare. Screeching industrial music loops and assaults the senses. Noises and grunts give away positions as lighting flickers and hides the violent adversaries seeking to lower the player's health counter to zero. The environments of Quake are dissonant. Single player levels are tied together by a nonsensical story to ground the perfection of FPS gameplay.

Quake is first person shooter freedom. Absent are modern limits to what the player can do to build up absurd speed: no friction penalties during jumps, no lowered successive jump heights, no sprint buttons. Maximum speed is uncapped and acceleration can be gained through a variety of advanced techniques. Bunny hopping, prestrafing, and wall strafing all allow the player to accelerate. Air strafing allows the player to have full air control in order to bob and weave through levels. Ogre's grenades and Vore's purple homing attacks are no match for players with full mastery Quake's movement. The grenades lie harmlessly on the ground, detonating on enemies. The Vore's attack erupts onto walls or can be led back by a bunny hopping player into a Vore herself for tons of damage.

Regardless of the power that the movement techniques grant the player, he is not a messiah of mayhem and gibs. The enemy composition, like DOOM, relies on melee enemies charging the player along with projectile and hitscan enemies standing back to assault the player. Although unlike DOOM, enemies have high health as there are usually fewer of them on screen. The true form of Quake is on Nightmare and it requires maddening levels of concentration. There are more enemies, they aggro immediately, and they attack twice as fast. A room full of Ogres and Death Knights will send a flurry of grenades and sword swings towards the player. Evasion and prediction has to become second nature in order to avoid taking damage and dropping to the floor.

The player must keep a constant beat on his enemies with the 7 different weapons at his disposal. As the levels progress, the player has access to better and better weapons, culminating in the rocket launcher and lightning gun. Rockets have a large area of affect and can deal damage back to the player if used too closely. They kill most enemies other than the Vore and Shambler with 2-3 direct hits. The lightning gun is the most powerful weapon in the game and has the rarest ammo containers. It has limited range, but it is hit scan and does 30 damage per shot and fires 10 shots a second for an eviscerating 300 damage per second. A mighty 600 health Shambler will fall in two seconds from 20 cells when up against the weapon. Alternatively is the super nail gun which fires 600 rounds a minute at 18 damage per nail. It only take 34 nails fired over 5 seconds to kill the beast.

Quake's use of health and armor pickups lengthen the tension of levels. Instead of ducking behind cover to regain his vitality, the player must dodge attacks and constantly seek out health and item caches. Many outstanding games have a player constantly experiencing a sense of degradation, such as in Quake's requirement that the player continually seeks health and better armor. Levels are long and later on contain many different keys and switches to get to the end. The player must learn to dodge and aim effectively in order to maintain health while finding caches of hidden yellow and red armor, as they absorb 60% and 80% of damage respectively compared to blue armor's 30%. With low health and armor, the player will scramble to find anything to abate his suffering and delay perishing which is when the game is at its most unnerving.

As one nears the end of a level, turning each corner turns into a potential hazard that may end the player's life and force a restart. Power ups help the player conquer the levels but require him to act quickly to capitalize on them. A Mega Health promises the player 100 more health over what he currently has, ticking down slowly after five seconds of carrying it if his health goes over 100. Quad Damage is the single most important item for quickly clearing impossible overpopulated rooms. But it runs on a 30 second timer and must be used as swiftly as possible in order for the player to maximize its effects. The penultimate level of the new 5th episode DOPA for Quake contains 3 Shamblers on Nightmare difficulty. Finding Quad Damage and ferociously sprinting to the end with the lightning gun allows the player to kill each Shambler in only half a second and finally complete the level.

Everything in the game is frantic, degrading, and oppressive. There is no regenerating health and no 30 second slices of action like in Halo. The action is nonstop for all 5 to 10 minutes it takes to finish a level. Only aiming, movement, and secrets will save a player from certain death. His heart will thump as he bunny hops, firing rockets at Ogres in alcoves and lightning at Vores around corners. He will exclaim when happening upon Quad Damage, knowing he can now conquer hordes of Ogres using only the quick firing basic shotgun. But after powerups subside and his armor and health is low, his only solace will be the exit door as Aftermath pounds in his ears.