i forgot to mention that the secret levels in the new episode are very boring for the most part! most of them are like “finish the trial” style challenge maps and are very mid, but at least you’re souped up with ammo and weapons by the end.
i really like it when secret levels are experimental weird stuff that they otherwise would have cut because it wouldnt have fit with the rest or the game
anyway im back to playing quake 1 now, did you know this is better than quake 2. doing one of the old school expansions.
kinda tempted to play unreal again but its so long
I’m playing quake II 64 for the first time and it fucks so hard. feels way more like a proper sequel to quake. all the things they had to cut to make it work on n64 also dramatically improve the experience. the level design is tighter, enemies are just ever-so-slightly less spongy, though the difficulty overall is much higher. it’s a little heavy on the monsters popping out of closets behind you thing, but so is the base game. it feels so much better that powerups are instant use, I really hate having to manage that kind of shit in a game like this. and I love the brooding atmospheric soundtrack so much more than the canned buttrock of the PC version. every area is so much more memorable, too. crazy that I didn’t even know this existed until now.
Finished my play through of Quake 1 on nightmare. Really good game but I do not like Episode 4 that much. Sandy Peterson had the right idea but the execution wasn’t really there imo. His mazes were often too symmetrical which meant half of his levels I kept getting lost. The secret level for this episode, The Nameless City, I spent a good 15-20 minutes stuck not sure where to go after finding the gold key that I eventually gave up and just looked up how to finish. That was the only map in the whole game I couldn’t complete on my own.
Episodes 1 through 3 had good enough flow that I was never stuck for more than a few minutes at a time on any given level. But episode 4 the levels are so large and confusingly laid out, and filled with those terrible Spawn enemies, that it felt like a chore to slog through it.
Might have been improved by using the Spawns better. They only appear in this episode but the way they behave kind of sucks for the types of levels you find them in. They bounce around and are hard to hit and when you kill them they explode and will kill you if you’re too close when they die. They work fine in large rooms where you can keep some distance and maneuver while they jump around but often you encounter them in hallways where they can end up mobbing you and boxing you into a corner. And there are too many of them to the point it felt like a way to artificially increase the difficulty.
There were memorable moments in Episode 4 though. Often you encounter areas with lots of zombies and it can be fun to gib them with a grenade launcher. Azure Agony is kind of a beautiful level to look at but a pain in the ass to actually play.
Debating on what I want to do next: Go back to Quake 2 stuff or start on some of the Quake 1 stuff. Start the Q1 expansions or go back and finish the Q2 expansions. Play through the N64 versions or get back to the Machine Games episodes. So spoiled for choice right now.
Spawns make the most sense to me as an enemy that is meant to add an overwhelming pressure to get out of the room you find them in. I don’t think they’re very fun or actually often meant to be fought when you encounter them.
If you want to start on a good bit of extra Quake content then try out Scurge of Armagon!
That makes a lot of sense because my reaction whenever I encountered them was to immediately backpedal out to a doorway or other piece of geometry and hope they would get stuck or just bounce around in that spot unable to chase me further so I could deal with them at a distance.
I have been curious about Scourge of Armagon so I’ll start it up after lunch.
Just finished the first episode of Scourge of Armagon. It was pretty good. Sci-fi base levels where you’re fighting your way through mostly grunt and enforcers to reach the portal where Quake’s forces are entering our dimension. They throw all the new stuff at you right away which is nice. I like the laser rifle that fires the red lasers that bounce off surfaces. This episode felt a little bit like Quake 2 in a way, due to the sci-fi setting and most of the enemies being lower level mobs you mow through fairly easily.
I haven’t used the proximity mine launcher much but was interested to see it show up here after seeing it in the Quake 2 expansions. Those apparently borrowed a lot from these Quake 1 expansions, between this and the gun that shoots ricocheting rounds. I also liked the wetsuit that showed up in a couple spots, and made swimming a lot faster.
So pretty good so far. I’m starting episode 2 now which takes you back to the Quake dimension.
Also, “empathy shield” is a great name for a pickup. It makes it so that some of the damage enemies do to you is reflected back to them.
And just now in the first level of episode 2 I picked up an item that summoned a shambler who now fights on my side. That’s pretty cool.
I’m almost through Episode 2 of Scourge of Armagon but I have to take a break. It’s really good. Some devious traps in these levels and tougher enemies as a baseline. You can pick up Thor’s hammer and if you have cell ammo it will do lightning damage.
I like the architecture here and the levels aren’t frustrating. Very little getting lost or not knowing where to go next, and the spaces are more or less sized correctly for the enemy types you face off against. You always have just enough room to move around in that failure feels like your fault and not the game’s.
huh it must be random because coincidentally i’m going through this episode too and the horn on that level just gave me a zombie. at least it couldnt get killed by non explosives, i guess…
same level also gave me two moments where i said OH SHIT out loud, it’s nice that quake can still do that to me (i’ve played through this exp a few times, but not nearly enough to remember all the surprises)
I’m on the last level of episode 2 now but the one before that, The Crypt, was insane. There were two or three rooms near the end that I just squeaked through on pure luck. I had low health, almost no ammo, and it was throwing me into rooms with shamblers, scrags, ogres, gremlins, zombies and hell knights. One of these rooms I had to run into to get the gold key and after grabbing it by pure luck I ran into a teleport that zapped me out to temporary safety. I didn’t even attempt to clear the level of enemies (over 20 left) or secrets. I just made my way to the exit.
Also I’ve been really lucky with these monster summoning horns. The first time I got a shambler. The next level or the one after I got a hell knight. And now on the this level it gave me a fiend AND a rottweiler. Blessed by the RNG.
what difficulty are you playing on? could be related to that. I’m playing it on hard. I remember it giving me a shambler last time i played, but it was on a different level.
I finished episode 2 but just barely. My main criticism is the level designers don’t give you enough ammo to kill all the enemies. They must be expecting you to use the horns/get the monsters to fight each other. Or maybe nightmare difficulty was an afterthought and not something they were designing for. I had to rely on a bit of monster in-fighting on this level, the last one of episode 2. Will have to remember to employ it more on subsequent replays.
the original Quake stuff feels totally doable on Nightmare to me. I think a lot of the custom maps later developed make things a bit too much on Nightmare. But I really enjoyed clearing the whole remastered version on Nightmare a couple years ago.
I want to say my Spawn Protocol is just to carpet bomb the room with rockets and get them that way but admittedly this probably doesn’t hold up on higher difficulties because I assume resources are more scarce.
I have also been playing Quake 2 stuff all this while, just keeping my mind silent while I try to get my thoughts in order. I’m nearly done with The Reckoning. The one early thing I’ll share about that is just to resound in agreement that, if you don’t like Quake 2, or, rather, if you don’t like Quake 2 DX (this version), then I don’t think The Reckoning is going to cause you to flip your bit about anything.
Finished SCOURGE OF ARMAGON, it’s a really solid expansion! It feels more polished and refined than vanilla Quake, but also feels a bit less imaginative and more restrained, especially in the use of 3D space (though some levels use it very well). But still very good! Also more colourful than vanilla quake.
First episode is all tech base stuff, very traditional quake design with good flow. the new weapons are fun, there are some very clever secrets (i love the way you access the secret level, even if the secret level itself is whatever), and it looks great. better sense of place than vanilla, but still largely abstract
second episode goes to fantasyville, with levels focused around castles and dungeons. tends to be a bit more non-linear and explorative than the first and third episode, but not in a way that gets you lost. just feels a bit more free. secret level is fine.
third episode combines enemies from both dimensions and is much more abstract and focused on tricks and traps (the penultimate level is just a gauntlet of challenges). my fav ep in the expansion. also the secret level is dope, it’s like a proto version of those void maps we saw in quake 3. hard though!
simplistic but fun enough boss that interestingly feels like it somehow ties into quake 2. they did come out the same year, so maybe the devs saw some early stuff.
speaking of the devs, this was their first game, they went on to make… sin. huh. should i give sin a try? i loved the demo level.
anyway, yeah, nothing too crazy, basically just more quake by people with different design philosophies to the original peeps. also very polished and solid.
I finished Scourge of Armagon last night too. I’m co-signing all of Sykel’s thoughts, right down to that one secret level having big Quake 3 vibes. Good stuff. Started Dissolution of Eternity and played the first map. Impression was positive.
