It was recently the 30th anniversary of Quake's release. According to Wiki the official release was June 22, 1996. Although I consider myself a day- one player of Quake, I did not play it until August 1996 when I bought the PC Gameplay magazine containing the first shareware release of Quake . Prior to that I got excited by looking at impressive (very impressive) screenshots of Quake in the October-November magazine of Dutch PC Gameplay 1995. By today’s standards it may look like nothing special but rooms with light and shadows, height differences and curves and arches were state-of-the-art.


Preview of Quake shown in the magazine PC Gameplay oct-nov 1995.

The October-November article was here to stay for a while. It was actually my uncle who bought this magazine so whenever I was over at his place I would read the magazines he bought and sometimes scan over the Quake articles (and many other great 1996 games ) again. I have scanned the article which you can read here.

A few months later, in the April-May 1996 edition of PC Gameplay, a new article about Quake popped up (read here). New screenshots, new information about high system requirements and a new screenshot of that poor old Drake that never got it to the full version . Also a mention of the Quake Test version which PC Gameplay was not allowed to release on their cover CD. I remember being disappointed a bit ... but since it was 1996 there were plenty of other good games to play . One could obtain the test version by downloading it via ID Software's FTP but I didn't know anyone with an internet connection back then.

I also recall seeing multiplayer screenshots in the English PC Gamer magazines (read here). I didn't have experience with multiplayer gaming over network so I couldn't really grasp what it was about. It did seem like a nice feature, especially if you could play together. In hindsight: I would never have thought I would spend quite a lot of time playing Deathmatch and Coop games of Quake .

The 0.91 shareware version

Then came August 1996. As mentioned earlier this was the time I first saw Quake running. The PC Gameplay magazine (read here) had a 4-page review of all the good and less good bits of Quake with one highlight about "is it the best game of all time?". I quote: "this is damn near identical to Doom" when they mentioned gameplay. The interaction with the world was lacking- especially compared to Duke Nukem 3D. While being technically superior the gameplay was sub-par compared to the competition from Apogee. I wasn't really that much into Duke Nukem 3D (I like the 6-level Duke3D shareware, gives all the bits you need and 6 levels is enough ) but I got their point after playing the shareware release.

So was I excited to play the shareware release? Certainly yes. Was I disappointed? Yes, that too. Not quite because of the lack of world/level-interaction but I didn't get the wow-factor I expected after seeing all those high-res screenshots. In August 1996 we had a Pentium 75 at home. It was bought somewhere in October 1995 and in that time-frame it was a stout PC but of course not the fastest one money could buy. Even for August 1996 standards it was a fine PC but in that era PC hardware dated very, very quickly if you wanted to play the latest games. This meant I could only really run it at a 320x200 resolution which looks horrible with Quake. I enjoy Doom at 320x200 much more. I feel like Quake was designed to run at 640x480 since the texture and level details really start to come alive at this resolution. The example on the right shows the difference between low and high resolution. I have scanned this screenshot from the German magazine PC Games September 1996. I have scanned the full article which you can read here.

At one point in time I started fiddling with VESA drivers and got to see 640x480 in real life (though with a struggling, unplayable frame rate). I guess after enjoying the high-fidelity graphics, I quit Quake and continued playing Settlers II or Warcraft II in 640x480 .

Gameplay-wise I really liked the way they set up to select difficulty and start episodes. Especially finding the Nightmare mode was a real treat. Also the effects of the clouds in the sky, crackling torches and the wandering sound effect of the teleporters somehow really turned out great.

After the shareware release

Quake kind of faded away quickly. I did read the review in PC Gamer August 1996 edition (read here) and the full version review in PC Gameplay October-November 1996 but didn't buy the full version of Quake. I guess games like Command & Conquer, Death Rally, Doom, Settlers II and Warcraft II took up the rest of my time.

When did Quake return?

So when did Quake make a comeback? I guess it was around 1999 when we first started fiddling with local networks at home. I can't remember or pinpoint exactly when we bought 10Mbps network cards and COAX-cables but it's probably around that timeframe. We did have more PCs at home by then. Both slower (486DX) and faster (Pentium MMX). I guess Doom was favourable since it ran better and we could play maps that we created ourselves. Simple deathmatch levels that ran well enough on the 486DX and bigger co-op levels where we had to defend our home base against a flood of enemies.

Later, somewhere in 2001, when faster PCs were at our disposal, we started playing Quake multiplayer again. This naturally matched the time when LinteLAN (our local LAN-party) was born. Some of the screenshots at my Quake benchmark page feature gameplay of Deathmatch sessions. Many thanks to the guys at id Software for implementing a record function and many thanks to my brother for recording all this .


Quake Deathmatch: DM6 was favourite!

The Quake deathmatch sparked my interest in Quake again. Since I had better hardware at my disposal, I also played the full version of Quake. This time all four episodes on Nightmare skill in glorious high-res software rendering! Yes, a 3Dfx card was fitted but I didn't like the washed-out GL texture filtering. I still play Quake either in software-rendering or, at least with texture filtering off when I play modern versions.

Quake was bought in a dual-pack with Doom II. I think my brother bought this box (we both still lived at my parents' home). I later bought, second hand, the original Quake box.


In 2003 I assembled a new PC around this AMD Athlon XP 1700+. It was a very good overclocker, so I was the lucky owner of a very fast PC in 2003. Did I need that? Of course! Especially the snappiness of the low-latency memory, fast Athlon XP and fast chipset did wonders. I played the Quake add-ons "The Scourge of Armagon" and "Dissolution of Eternity" on this PC in high-res software mode. I liked these add-ons more than the original levels of Quake. If you haven't played them, go ahead and do so! Playing Quake at high-res software combined with the levels from the add-ons really felt how Quake was meant to be in August of 1996 .

Fast forward

So Quake never really left and, for me, it came back with deathmatch and the original add-ons. Quake also never left in the benchmarks I ran on various CPUs and graphics cards. I have seen DEMO3 a million times: either crawling on a 386DX with 387 FPU installed or flying across the screen at, for its time, high-end systems.

In the meantime I also picked up the PC Format August 1996 magazine (read here) which features a nice review that highlights the programmers and designers, and wrote a handy Quake Survival Kit which was necessary for the die-hard Quaker in 1996. I also picked up a bunch of German PC Games magazines which include the September 1996 magazine that contains an extensive review of Quake. Remember that games like Quake were banned in Germany so German magazines didn't write that much about Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake. I recall seeing Bestseller-lists in the German PC Action (which I frequently bought in late 1996 to 2001) that often showed 'Indiziertes Spiel' for games like Quake, Medal of Honor and such. I looked up the charts in PC Action 08/1996 (which has the Quake review) and PC Action 10/1996 and noticed that they removed Quake from the list but didn't remove the row from the table. I took a photo of both magazines so you can see for yourself .


Quake magically disappeared in next months' charts.

The first page of the German magazine PC Games September 1996 (which features the Quake review) is this lovely advertisement. Magazines in other countries also had full-page commercials, but for a German magazine, it’s quite unique. Who doesn't want such a lovely sweater for Christmas?

One happy family.

Fast forward²

Fast forward in quadrant: the time is 8:47 AM. Current topside temperature is 93 degrees with an estimated high of 105. The Black Me... wait! The Dawn of the Machine was released! It was said to be included for free if you owned Quake. Peeking at my 1996 box that has sat on the shelves for many years ... I doubt this is going to work. So I bought Quake again but this time the remake version on Steam (which lists just as "Quake" not including remaster in the title). Boy was I in for a surprise! I wrote about playing the Quake add-ons in 2003 using a high-res software mode, which I felt was the way Quake was intended: Dawn of the Machine is this all over again. Perhaps even more. I played through the whole thing with texture filtering off and the field of vision setting to the max (yeah, that's something left over from playing Deathmatch). I loved playing every bit of it. If you're not convinced find some videos on YouTube and think again. If Quake is for you, then Dawn of the Machine is too .

I don't spend that much time gaming anymore but Quake pulled me straight back into the pit again. Because of cookies, algorithms and what not, I also got more Quake videos in my feed on YouTube. I didn't pay much attention to add-ons and maps between 2003 and 2026 but looking at the examples shown here I feel like I should return to exploring Quake maps. Just like browsing through WAD files on shovelware CDs but now it's online and I can read comments and filter the best ones out directly .

More of Quake?

I'm sure Quake is going to stay. Who knows, maybe I'll be posting another article in 2046 when Quake is 50 years old. In the meantime keep on fragging, create gibs and perhaps speedrun a bit along the way.

Speedrunning

Check out this video by Karl Jobst about speedrunning. The way he narrates the achievements and progression in speedrunning is amazing. Also give the speedrun a go and try to beat E1M1 as fast as possible. It really is difficult to shave a second off a fast run.

Quake - Dawn of the Machine

I really liked playing this one! See the Quake: Dawn of the Machine - Launch Trailer on YouTube. This gives you an impression of what to expect when playing the 30th anniversary add-on.

Quake Rooftops Jam

There are many third-party maps available but this one has 19 maps packed together. The theme is, you guessed it, Rooftops . The jam ran from August 4th to September 15th, so mappers all over the world took their time to create something beautiful. I haven't played it myself yet (well, not past the skill selection) but the screenshots look very promising.

Read more on slipseer.com.