I’ve always been a fan of the minimal koan-like phrasing in early games like we dove into with that earlier Zelda discussion.
I’ve also always been kind of fascinated by the choice to make Quake 1’s deathmatch death messages homoerotic. I don’t think it was made for the right reasons, and I think in light of how toxic the online gaming community—especially the online FPS community—has become it really doesn’t play well. But back in 1996, I think it could be easily read as maybe having more in common with—to make an extreme analogy—Congress’ battle against Robert Mapplethorpe, rather than the misogyny of the infamous Daikatana print ad that was still lurking around the corner.