Quake was released in 1995, though id made the mistake of releasing the first episode free again. They would never make this blunder again.

            Doom had supernatural forces in it, from ritualistic rooms with decorative satanic wallpaper and crucified people acting as paintings put snugly above a couch to the black magic Arch-vile, although it still was mostly sci-fi. Quake took more of the supernatural side with runes, black magic, and names that seemingly came from some J. R. R. Tolkien book. And in a sense, Quake was the Hobbit as visualised by Jack the Ripper, the same sort of journey into a fantastic world though with a black filter stretched over all the visuals. Dragons and trolls would be mere plush toys when set besides a colossal Shambler or maybe a three-legged Vore.

            The game is titled after the codename for the main bad guy (or should I say gal) behind the whole invasion. The game was surprising though: the villain’s real name was Shub-Niggurath and she was a… tree. Right… Anyway, the military, as always, are doing some secret experiments with Slipgate devices that can transport people from one place to another instantly. Unfortunately for all you people too lazy to get up from the TV and walk to the couch, this Quake bad-guy started sending his own ‘death-squads’ through the Slipgates and they killed lots of people, so the idea died down.

            In many ways Quake shares more of a semblance with Doom rather than Quake II: there are no specific missions, just looking for exits, having objects that turn you invisible or make you invulnerable. Many of the guns are similar and it seems to me that some signs for armour and so on were brought over from Doom (call it a hunch). However, Quake was not a rehash, for its engine, beneath the skin, was of immense contrast to that of Doom. In my opinion, in the post-Doom days (post-Doom depression, mind you), Quake had the best overall design. Quake II was fun and very well-balanced, but art-wise, Quake remains unbeatable. Regardless, Hexen II was fashioned not long thereafter, though it did not enjoy the same success.

            Id then began work on a new game that was to employ Quake’s engine yet again (briefly mentioned above). They were to stretch it further, to push its limits, until the finalised product was released in 1997 under the name of Quake II. It was the first game by id to employ built-in methods of 3D acceleration (read: OpenGL, et cetera, not simply high resolutions). Finally one could clearly distinguish the crouched gunner from the control panel behind it. Honestly, that has never really been a problem, but 3D-accelerated Quake II simply kicks Strogg ass!

            Although seemingly titled as a sequel to Quake, Quake II had nothing to do with the first game. Quake was the codename for the original villain in the foremost masterpiece of code-writing magic. The villain in Quake II was not named Quake, nor was he some supernatural monster looking not unlike a … tree. Quake II created a whole new universe without Scrags or Fiends. It was completely sci-fi. There, an alien race of cyborgs composted from leftovers of other species taken out from the trash bin are attacking Earth. Now the problem is that they’ve got a gigantic weapon, cleverly titled ‘Big Gun’, trained on Earth, and no one wants to see exactly how it fires, so you and a whole bunch of other marines are sent in on your pods. Upon descent some ‘cowboy’ clips you and you fall off-course, which is actually a good thing because everyone who went where they intended to were slaughtered. For once, an idiot saves the day.

            Quake II was the first game to create what is the modern first-person shooter in the sense that players were no longer looking for exits; they had to carry out tactical missions, whether it be destroying a computer room or shutting down a sewage or processing facility. There were many things to see in Quake II, not just the usual Death Knight around the corner: occasionally, a gunner on an anti-aircraft turret would be kind enough to turn around and give you a turn. You had to put tracking devices on lines that were to be bombed. And man, id must have spent quite a bit of time on figuring out different possible devices for crunching up humans (I’m sure we all remember the processing facility, where numerous parts of the game remind me of a certain scene in Pink Floyd’s The Wall…).

            The company prepared one last product with the Quake engine, Quake III, which in turn had nothing to do with its predecessors. The game revolved around a futuristic gladiator-like arena where warriors with guns and all necessary means of destruction gathered and killed one another. Hey, it’s shooter games at their purest! The aliens that ran this arena for their own pleasure revived dead people so this cycled into eternity. Enough recycling to piss off any politician and to please any Earth-day fan. As original as this game was, it received much criticism because of its mainly-multiplayer gameplay, though for four years after its release, it held the best graphics in the first-person shooter arena.

            While gamers were still sticking their noses into their newly opened Q3 boxes that still had that new-game smell, John Carmack had already begun working on his next game engine. This engine evolved into what became Doom III, a sequel… no, not a sequel… not a remake… certainly not a rehash… Ok, let’s put it this way: a game that, among other things, brought back the anticipation and popularity of the original, as well as the feeling of loneliness and a dozen or so hell-spawned beasts. And of course, Mr. BFG, and we’re not talking about a certain Raul Dahl book here, either. Nope, we mean Big Freakin’ Gun! Note: the F is interchangeable, from the ‘Friendly’ to the, well, you know what I mean…

            Graphics were… indescribable, so I’ll stop there. Just go play the Big Freakin’ Game! And if you still don’t know what an Arch-vile is, slap yourself across the face three times and bang your head against some solid form of matter. Pull out a Periodic Table and decide for yourself, the element chosen is left up to the naïve reader. And if you don’t know who id software are, then make sure you send a self addressed, stamped envelope to me, and I will personally come and slap you in the face.

            Right. And while gamers readied themselves to pump lead into pinkie demon derriere, id had handed down Doom III’s engine to Raven Software, who were to develop Quake IV. Could life get any better than with a rail gun in your hands?

            Quake pushed technology forward, eliminating Doom’s ‘sprite’ monsters and so on. But how does the Doom III (and Quake IV) engine triumph over that of the original Quake? Well Quake did have a type of ‘sprites’. However, these flat pictures were strewn over a frame that held the shape of the monster, thus making it 3D. Doom III, however, had true 3D models, like ones used in Hollywood Computer-Generated movies. Any tubes or bends in a character’s armour or irregularities in their skin were rendered in reality rather than being flat pictures. But back in 1997, people’s computers couldn’t handle this much information. Or they probably could, but it’s not very much fun playing at 1fps.       

            As Darwin wrote, ‘survival of the fittest’. Id software has prevailed as the leader, their games being moulded into perfection through time. In 10 years, id went from pixilated (both meanings, mind you) 20-fps imp ‘sprites’ to bump-mapped, 60-fps monstrosities. Truly amazing. And after playing these games, the visage of its creators conjured is that of men dressed in black with pentagram tattoos, pierced tongues, and nails painted black on fingers enclosed in skull-shaped rings. So, it’s quite odd when you see John Carmack’s boyish looks, plain T-shirt, standing besides his red Ferrari. But there is no need of further comment, for only he can summarise it all into a single sentence:

“Y~(r)Øëæ(r)wG+.EbŽ´ÒÎ1/2'bC64H.”

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