Together Retro: The Quake Series / Quake Live -WHEN TO PLAY?

[ExedExes]

Now it's time for Quake 2!

For those playing Quake 2, it helps to know how the BFG10k works. First it fires a projectile that shoots lasers at everything in range for a decent amount of damage. When it hits an enemy or a wall it does a bunch of damage to the target and a small splash radius. Then it calculates three line of sites between yourself, a monster, and the impact point, for all the monsters in the room. If all three line of sites are clear it does a ton more damage to the monster. The net effect is that you need to be able to see the monster (not hiding behind a pillar) to do the real big damage to it; the weapon is not very good if you try to just pop off a shot and then hide.

The Quake Live version of BFG10k is a bit less sophisticated than that, but good for a lot of damage.

A *lot* of games have used the Quake III engine, besides MOH Allied Assault and the original Call of Duty.

[MrPopo]

Yeah, assuming the Quake Live version works like the Quake 3 version then it's just a huge damage projectile with splash. The Quake 2 version is similar to the BFG9000 from Doom in terms of having an invisible secondary mechanic that encourages you to be up front blasting rather than just shooting from cover.

[noiseredux]

Now it's time for Quake 2!

actually I'm holding out Q2 for my A-Z challenge. And although I have both expansions, it would be stupid to play those before Q2. So I guess I could try the single player of Q3 or just delve into Q4. I have those as well already.

I also got a copy of Masters Of Doom to read this month.

[Ack]

Now it's time for Quake 2!

actually I'm holding out Q2 for my A-Z challenge. And although I have both expansions, it would be stupid to play those before Q2. So I guess I could try the single player of Q3 or just delve into Q4. I have those as well already.

I also got a copy of Masters Of Doom to read this month.

Give Q4 a go. The Q3 single player experience is...meh. It's like the Unreal Tournament single player experience, though not as good in my opinion. You really need to play those games in multiplayer to get the full effect.

The same goes for Quake Wars: Enemy Territory. I'm not a big fan of the game, but you have to play it in multiplayer, and you need at least 30 people minimum to make it a good game. Otherwise I find the game to be too small.

[noiseredux]

yeah I actually have played a bit of Q3 on Dreamcast before, so I'm a lot more interested in Q4.

[noiseredux]

and now I've spent a good couple hours with Quake 4.

As a side note: it's funny how things change. Back when I was averse to getting back into PC gaming, one of my main reasons was that games "just didn't play." Now, I find the thrill of getting an old game to play on a modern OS a rewarding part of the hobby. Ha! Pulled Q4 off my shelf, was alerted that it was incompatible. Pfft. Compatibility settings tweaked to install, and then found a nice no-disc patch and some visual mods. Shit looks great!



My initial reaction is... this isn't Quake. It doesn't have even a similar atmosphere. It's now space marines I guess. And you have a squad, which makes it a lot less scary. And it's sci-fi-ish instead of the sort of gothic creepiness that was Quake.

But at the same time, it's hella fun. Sure it's super linear. Sure it's a lot easier (so far). But it's definitely fun. Enjoying this.

And to go back to the initial "funny how things change," because I know some of you are just hanging off the edge of your seats, YES, I'm playing it with keyboard and mouse and actually doing just fine. Weird.

[ExedExes]

Pulled Q4 off my shelf, was alerted that it was incompatible. Pfft. Compatibility settings tweaked to install, and then found a nice no-disc patch

That's exactly what I had to do to get Call of Duty 2 working on Win 8.1.

Anyway, back to Quake and the infamous E2M3.

Here's an example of the enemy infighting mentioned upthread -

Fiend vs Death Knight

And yes I managed to find the Dopefish room -

[dsheinem]

It is weird to me that you are playing Quake 4 before Quake 2. I get why, and the games do stand alone, but the aesthetic shock you mentioned wasn't one I experienced because of what came before in Quake 2 (which is more sci-fi/industrial).

[MrPopo]

It is weird to me that you are playing Quake 4 before Quake 2. I get why, and the games do stand alone, but the aesthetic shock you mentioned wasn't one I experienced because of what came before in Quake 2 (which is more sci-fi/industrial).

Yeah, Quake 2 is essentially a sci-fi Quake; the gameplay is similar to Quake but a but slowed down, and the environment is this sci-fi environment. You're a space marine but your entire squad gets lost before landing so you must single handedly take down the enemy.

Quake 4 makes a couple of offhand references to your character in Quake 2 (nothing important) and it's sort of like the slog through France and Germany to Quake 2's D-Day.

[noiseredux]

It is weird to me that you are playing Quake 4 before Quake 2.

yeah, but what can I do? It was either "don't play anymore Quake this month" or "assume that the A-Z challenge would probably just end after P."

That said, I'm enjoying sort of jumping around and taking in various Quake-related stuffs this month. So playing the first game and then jumping way out to 4 is giving me some pretty extremes in the series to play with, watched that iD retrospective I linked earlier, planning to read Masters Of Doom and get into some Quake Live before the month's over. Good TR month!

(Maybe I'll watch Doom just to go nuts w/ iD-related media )

I get why, and the games do stand alone, but the aesthetic shock you mentioned wasn't one I experienced because of what came before in Quake 2 (which is more sci-fi/industrial).

Am I right to assume that Hexen/Heretic are closer in spirit to the original Quake?

PS, I think I <3 iD.