First 50:
51. The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay (PC)(FPS)
52. The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena (PC)(FPS)53. 9:05 (PC)(Text Adventure)54. Mercenary Kings (PC)(Run and Gun)55. Super Pinball: Behind the Mask (SNES)(Pinball)56. Pinocchio (SNES)(Platformer)57. Iron Brigade (PC)(Tower Defense/TPS)
58. Iron Brigade: Rise of the Martian Bear (PC)(Tower Defense/TPS)59. Anachronox (PC)(RPG)60. Banished (PC)(Strategy)61. Rune (PC)(Action)62. Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter (PC)(FPS)63. Quake (PC)(FPS)
64. Quake Mission Pack No. 1: Scourge of Armagon (PC)(FPS)
65. Quake Mission Pack No. 2: Dissolution of Eternity (PC)(FPS)Ah,
Quake, last of the series for me to finally get around to beating despite being the first. It's a historical marvel, providing the basic building blocks for what would become fast-paced FPS gameplay in a true 3D space. The building blocks were all here, and while there were a few standards that hadn't yet arrived on the scene(such as crouching), this game pretty much built the blueprint for what we have today.
Unfortunately for Quake, that also means that the skills required to beat it have become the baseline skills for most FPS games. What I mean is that the methods of play that had to be invented to get through Quake are now the basics. As a result, on Normal setting Quake is easy for someone who has spent years with the genre. Really, really easy. It's tough to be completely fair to it, since at the time of its release ideas like bunny hopping, circle strafing, and rocket jumping were all still fresh, a twinkle in the eye of the gamers who would go on to invent much of modern gaming culture.
But Quake does what it does, and it still does it pretty damn well, making for an entertaining ride. The level and enemy designs are stellar, unique, and entertaining(with one exception, the exploding slime thing. I hate that thing), and while even at the time many of the weapons had become the bread and butter of the genre, they handle damn well. Nearly all of them get used, though I never could figure out a reason to keep the basic nailgun after getting the upgraded version, and the axe is effectively worthless. The Quake series is also one of the few series where I can go in and use a grenade launcher effectively without some horrendously inefficient time delay or bizarre physics ruining it. If I have any real criticism, it's that splash damage is huge, so I probably hurt myself more often than some of the enemies. Oh, and Quake's color palette is bland and brown, making for an early example of a complaint that has now been banded about for modern FPS for nearly a decade.
And then we have the mission packs, both developed outside of Id Software, both designed by teams that went on to continue working on FPS games. I suppose I should give each its separate section:
Scourge of ArmagonDeveloped by Hipnotic Interactive, which would later become Ritual Entertainment and create the SiN series, Scourge of Armagon serves as one long campaign against Armagon, the general of Quake's forces. While it is broken up into distinct subsets of levels, there is no framing level to select episodes like in Quake or Dissolution of Eternity. Instead it makes for a single campaign that is to be played in relative order, terminating in one boss fight after seventeen levels of pure mayhem.
Scourge is much harder than Quake, because the fellas at Hipnotic apparently believed in quantity over quality. The nastiest enemies of the Quake series are packed tightly into levels and appear even early on when the player has exceedingly limited means of combating them. There are new enemies as well, with varying results: scorpions, gremlins, and these spike ball things that explode. The spike balls are a rare occurrence, and while the gremlins are plentiful, they go down easy enough and make for a nuisance that helps add more threat to some tough situations. The scorpions are my least favorite of the new enemies, as they take a lot of punishment and eat armor for breakfast. Those little buggers are tougher to kill than I would have liked.
To combat this, there are a few new weapons, one of which I like: the laser cannon is a hoss. It lays waste to most things I encountered. But the Mjolnir, a hammer that shoots lightning....it never seemed relevant or particularly useful. And the proximity launcher felt like a step in the wrong direction. In a game where I'm meant to be rushing forward, proxy bombs means doing defensive setup. It just didn't fit the tone. Also, level design was usually setup in such a way that grabbing a new gun will probably hinder you. Auto-equipping weapons was used as a way to hurt the player, because the devs liked to put the least-useful weapon for the situation right before the situation. More than once I grabbed a gun and then turned the corner to find that the gun I just pulled out was the last thing I wanted to be using to fight whatever horror lurked beyond.
And then there is the final boss, Armagon, who loses to circle strafing. Keep an eye on the columns in his stage so you don't bump into one, and he'll likely never manage to keep up. I put him down with almost no problem at all.
Overall, I found Scourge to be lackluster. It definitely brought the challenge, but its additions were weak, and its methods uninspired.
Dissolution of EternityThis was much better in my opinion. Dissolution of Eternity was developed by Rogue Entertainment, developer of Strife. When Rogue shut down, many members went on to form Nerve Software, which has worked on a variety of games, ranging from Return to Castle Wolfenstein to some work on Aliens: Colonial Marines. They even did the Xbox Live conversions for Wolfenstein 3D and Doom 2. Obviously, these guys worked a lot with Id Software and even had an office in the same building. As a result, Dissolution of Eternity feels more like a proper continuation, incorporating a new framing system to pick between the two episodes, offering new upgrades to old weapons, and adding in new enemies that feel right at home in the Quake universe...mostly anyway.
Dissolution of Eternity offers 15 new levels split into two campaigns. The first feels more like traditional Quake-style levels, with dark castles, graveyards, and a sudden focus on the end on the new Wraith enemy. The Wraith is a nasty bastard, a flying spirit that can launch homing explosives and is highly mobile. I loved the design, and they were used effectively to provide a definite challenge. Electric eels roamed the waterways, statues of enemies would come to life at certain points to provide a new hindrance in previously cleaned out arenas, and even the most basic soldier and dog enemies were brought back to prominence throughout, something I feel like Quake neglected a bit. The first episode even ends with an uber-Wraith boss, who is one tough customer and must be taken on with a very mobile hit-and-run style.
The second is where things get a little weird, as the game takes on an Egyptian undertone. Enemies now include Pharaoh-looking guardians and durable mummies. Levels are now pyramids, temples, tombs, and puzzle-filled nightmares. Even the previous bosses return in a form or fashion, and the lead up to the final boss has you battling the previous uber-Wraith boss in a level, only to then put you up against a dragon. Yeah, the final boss of Dissolution of Eternity is a dragon, fought in a cavern full of lava, while you wear an anti-grav belt and unload on it with everything you have.
There are also new items, including the anti-grav belt I just mentioned which will allow you to jump around and slow fall and a shield that lowers how much damage enemies do to you. I loved this gear, it worked so well. And many of the weapons now get alternate ammunition to create a new kind of versatility. The nail guns now have burning lava nails, the grenade launcher gets a cluster bomb, the rocket launcher now fires clusters of rockets, and sudden the Thunderbolt gun fires a shotgun-style blast. Most of these were supremely useful, and my absolute favorite was the new variant rocket launcher which would absolutely cream the bigger threats...so the devs made it so you had to use them. Many of the areas in Dissolution require you kill all enemies in a particular room to advance. This isn't a cakewalk, you now have to fight, often with a horde.
If I have any complaint, it's that the new ammo sources are all treated as separate weapons, which clutters up the weapon selection if you use your mousewheel to scroll through it. This is a minor complaint, but it's one that I lamented repeatedly because that is my preferred means of switching guns. Other than that, I really liked Dissolution of Eternity and had a blast playing through it. It was exactly what I wanted out of an expansion.