A Gaming Diary
Posts tagged quake
Quake Live Beta (PC)
Feb 8th
I got an unexpected beta key through in my email.
Installed it, grabbed a USB mouse, then tried to play.
Two problems.
1) I have to sit hunched over, leaning way down onto the keyboard and mouse, which is very uncomfortable.
2) My cat finds the mouse the most interesting thing ever and wouldn’t leave me alone as I tried to play. I didn’t even manage to finish the ten-minute training match. D’oh.
Quake 2 (PC)
Sep 7th
As well as finishing Bioshock yesterday, I also finished this, but forgot to post about it.
It really is an exceptionally entertaining shooter. I was playing it through on Easy with sound off and was never bored or annoyed with it. The look of it still works, too, with the chunky design looking “classic” rather than “eye-breakingly horrible”, even using the software driver (because the OpenGL version is far too dark on my PC, for some reason).
Excellent game all round and one that’s stood the test of time very well indeed. It’s not complicated, or deep, but as a fast-paced run-and-gun arcade shooter it’s brilliant.
Now, if I can find a copy of the 360 version of Quake IV for less than a tenner I might be tempted to get that.
Quake 2 (PC)
Aug 28th
Ah, I remember back in the day when Quake 2 came out and the single player mode seemed like a huge step up from the first Quake. Looking back now, I don’t see that. They’re really very similar indeed. Still, Quake is great fun, so Quake 2 is too. I’m not complaining.
Quake (PC)
Aug 21st
I played Quake yesterday for the first time in many years and seems to be a better single player now than it was at the time. I remember thinking it was a bit dull at the time, but now I’m seeing a lovely quick arcade blast, with some ingenious level design and great set pieces. I think at the time I wanted something epic and huge, but now I’m just happy being able to zoom around at a hundred miles an hour shooting things in the face.
But most of all, maybe, is that now I’m so used to the keyboard and mouse interface I can play it as id intended all along. There’s no interface now, if you know what I mean, and it feels a lot like Doom to me. Surprisingly so.
It’s actually really good fun.
But, yes, it really is as brown as I remember. Maybe browner.
Quake 4 Demo
Dec 30th
Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
Just downloaded this demo for the 360. Now, it seems like it might be a nice straight up blaster, but it’s difficult to tell.
The single player doesn’t seem to allow saving and doesn’t feature check points. Which means that every time you die you have to do back to the beginning of the game… and watch the lengthy, unskippable, deeeply boring cut scene again. I sat through it twice before I just couldn’t stand it any more.
So I tried multiplayer. Jumped straight into a game, which took a while to set up and seemed to be over in seconds, but which was fun enough for a first go. And then the demo refused to connect to any more games and came up with annoying error messages which, helpfully, said “There has been an error” without giving any details.
So I quit out and turned the 360 off. As I said, then, Quake 4 might be decent, but the demo’s bloody rubbish.
