Player review, thread jump, reg. Ver bugs.
Jace Dinehart
After lurking for over a year I guess its about time to have some input. I have avoided posting
in the past because I was only here to get what tech help I could, and have been put off by
the high signal to noise ratio. There is entirely too much baiting/flaming/bashing/bragging
going on in the game news groups in general. If some of you are as good as you say...the
Airforce needs you, as for the rest try the marines.....either you’ll become useful, or brought
up against reality.
Quake vs. Duke, decent, aces of the pacific, prey, unreal, god, rules, rocks, sucks, etc....
I have run all of doom reg., doomII reg., ravenlevels, Heretic SW, strife SW, hexen SW, 70 or so
wads (thanks to the writers by the way), decent SW, duke3d SW, and many flight sims. I have liked
them all. Some times the criticism on the net of one game or another approaches religious
fanaticism. Lighten up. My impressions are: Duke was fun the first time through, I liked the
interaction with the environment very much and got a good chuckle, but did not want to buy the reg.
Version. The gimmicks are cool if the game has substance, but get old quickly otherwise. Decent
was good but a little antiseptic for me, I never got the visceral fear feeling that I got from
Doom/Quake, or even duke, just a personal thing I suspect. There is no Prey, or unreal (yet),
so they are nothing right now. Neither good nor bad......they can rock/rule/suck/ or whatever
when they show up. Nothing has (and maybe never will) give me the charge that I got when I first
tried the SW Doom. Your first time at anything is memorable one way or another isn’t it? Quake
is very very good, but I have to agree with some other reviewers I have read, it is evolutionary
more then revolutionary. I suspect (not a programmer) that there is much magic to be discovered
in the engine and I can’t wait for the additional levels Id will make
and the ~wad files I hope you all are dreaming up as I type.
I got my reg. Quake last night and played about four hours not including breaks for food and sex
(some days are just magical). I have run through episode 2 (just shy of the end last night) and
there is allot to like. The NIN music is good but not remarkable ( when I loaded the SW to play
on the 22nd of June I had forgotten that I had left the Mechwarrior II disk in the drive and Quake
used it just fine, I was just as happy). Just for back ground I always play ultraviolence, never
use cheat codes, save in three to five spots per level, and take due care about ammo use and
health/armor spending. I try to play each level as if I was really there and could get killed.
I move methodically, try to ambush the beasties, will happily snipe baddies I won’t encounter
till later in the level, entice them to fight each other, and am not ashamed to run until I have
the drop on them. Quake levels take me between 15 and 25 min. each. I generally come up with
most of the secrets (5/7 e2m1 all in m2,m3, etc.)
Weapons: In Doom/DoomII I used the Shotgun/Dbsg 80% of the time. In Quake I find it necessary to
use a good mix of dbsg/nails/grenades in most places, the ssg/rocket launcher to snipe, and the
sng to avoid surprises much like I used the plasma rife in doom. I almost never use the ax for
anything but a door opener, and never used the chain saw in doom except to clear large numbers
of pink things that would otherwise use up all the available ammo (some wadfile authors could
get carried away with the pinkthings). I don’t under stand the griping about the power of the
weapons, if they hit harder you have to think/run less and the whole games is too easy. I agree
that the design/sound of the guns lack something but would rather lack that than whatever else
id would have had to overlook to get the weapons perfect. Not the center of my attention...the
beasties are. Ammo count is good, I always have more than enough but never the “I’m loaded come
and get me” feeling you could get in most doom/II levels.
Beasties: I like the beasties, they are tougher in general than the ones in doom II.
If there were more nail gun ammo they would be too easy, but wading through them with a dbsg is
a good match. The AI is OK, and seems to be variable, some guys will chase you forever and others
don’t seem to want to leave their room (sounds a bit like hunters/campers in DM huh?). I like the
mix, sometime you get tagged when they are after you but sometimes you lead them to a spot where
you have the advantage. Same with the “campers” sometimes its tougher if you have to go in and
clean them out of their lair. In general good job (the first fiend I saw scared the sh*t out of me).
I hate the Scags way out of proportion to the potential threat, allot like the flaming heads in doom.
The fiends are medium tough after you’ve killed a couple, but I love to watch them move...extra
credit to id there. I generally do the shambler with the dbsg (circumstances allowing) is it me
or does he move kind of quickly for something so big?
Stuff: I have to agree with the heretic/duke people here, I wish I could save stuff I find for
later. I rarely need the power ups I find (except armor). Too often I find myself at the end of
a level running around collecting power/100% health to bludgeon my way to the exit because if I
don’t use it its lost. I’ll decide when I need the help, if I can get through a tough spot without
the power up shouldn’t I get to keep a reward? I also don’t like the 100% power up count down, it
forces the pace of the game and leads me to charge in and do indiscriminent mayhem till its gone.
I like the architecture, and love what they have done with water....it really adds to the game.
The six degrees of movement need no comment, if you don’t get it right off , you need to take up
golf.
Net Stuff: All my computers run either win3.1 or winNT, I don’t own any copies of win95, microsoft
has just about enough of my money already. I run microsoft tcp/ip and don’t really want to buy the
B&W stack, and have no modems because all the machines are on ethernet. So I am isolated from the
melee. I do run four pentiums as clients off a 486 server using a Local net and IPX. Death match is
amazing, the enjoyment of shooting someone in the head with a dbsg is well.......scary. I don’t
like to think about what it means that I like it so much. If someone knows how to convert ip #’s
to ipx addresses and let me out that way I would love to see what the level of play out there looks
like. For now its big fish in small pond stuff. The last three games have been 60-4 , 50-1, 101-11,
and those are totals me against them. I know I’m not THAT good, just they were not nearly as good as
they thought they were. To be fair allot of the BIG losers were keyboarders, sorry guys but you are
just raw meat. I use a logitech tracball, and left hand on the keyboard. Fire,run,back on the mouse
strafe/weaponcycle/mlook under fingers on the board.
Campers/hunters: I mostly hunt, but I will camp if the fraging is hot, and will snipe if the op
presents. Mostly I get bored with waiting (only four to a game) and go looking for a target. Also
when sniping its rare that the guy is in your sights long enough to kill unless he panics. Mostly
I’ll get a few hits in, then jump down and chase the wounded. Although I generally don’t camp, I
don’t see the hate they generate. The object is to get the most frags(with some extra enjoyment for
quality frags/gibs) if they camp, kill everybody else and they lose!(Timelimit/fraglimit). If the
camping pisses you off , load up on armor and health and root them out! The grenade launcher ought
to help unseating a camper. If you are not skillful enough to get a camper maybe you should
consider camping yourself.
Complaints to Id: Real problems/and wish list.
Problems:
1. You have a secret you have to bang your head into to find? Get real. (I’d like to know how the
guy that found that one did it, how much stuff did he bang with his head till he opened something?)
2. Beasties seen to have a wall problem. Swords slice through, dead bodies stick through, lightning
goes through (a little, maybe intentional?), scags tails wiggle on my side of a wall but I can’t
shoot them till I go to their side. Etc.
3. I finished a level (e2m3? They all run together and the names are useless) I got 100% secrets
(including the entrance to the secret level) and got all monsters but the score read 48/56. More
importantly there were no more sounds, usually when you missed one you can hear that he is left
somewhere. I suspect that the missing count belongs to all the fish that the ogres blasted with
grenades trying to get me, and were long dead before I took a swim.
Wish list:
1. Let me carry stuff I didn’t need at the time, this has been more than covered.
2. Let me carry hard earned health on to the next level.
3. Environment interaction on a limited scale would add to Quake (which is good without it, the
opposite doesn’t work)
4. The only additional weapon I would have a use for would be trip mines (Good idea duke)
I didn’t get to play last night (basketballnight) so I am still 2/3 through e2m5, and tonight is
DM night and I have more meat coming in. Damn, I’d like to get back to the game. I guess the delay
gives you all some time to write me some new levels. ;-) I’d love to see some posts about how some
of you play/fight- flames read, but ignored if from anyone under 15 (or sounding like it). Good
hunting! ....And thanks to the authors of redwoods quake page, and stomped (aftershock till it died)
you’ve provided me allot of entertainment and should know that your work is appreciated. Last of
all- thanks to id software, great game guys, remember despite the complaints we know no game is
ever perfect for everyone except the unreleased.