What's a game you don't play for a stupid reason?

[sinisterseed]

My main disappointment with Quake comes directly from Duke Nukem 3D. Here we had a game that truly opened up the possibilities of what a shooter can do and then came Quake, which, while technically superior was really defined by its simplistic gameplay. When discussing the merits of both games, the only thing Quake had going for it was "it's true 3D".

Nah, I massively disagree here again.

Even when compared to the other main Build games, SW & Blood, Duke's combat and bestiary is just subpar. Blood is a whole lot more fun, has much better movement, and a more interesting arsenal - also a glorious Shotgun -, but I can see why the aesthetic and the Cultists in particular would be off-putting for someone else, especially at first. And in relation to Q1, I would never pick Duke's enemies over Quake's, nu-uh, not a chance. Pig Cops, Sentry Drones, Pigs Cops driving tanks, and Protector Drones? They can all go fuck themselves - then again, so can the Spawn do too.

[dpJudas]

I'm with InsanityBringer on this one. Yes, Quake is super underdeveloped, its weapons look like crap, its monsters ugly as sin, super brown - but playing through especially first episode at a high pace can be somewhat entertaining to me. Quake 2 on the other hand, second level I was so bored already that I quit the game. There were soooo many other better shooter alternatives at this point in history that I saw no reason to keep playing. In deathmatch gameplay it clearly wins over Quake 1 though. I only played it once at a LAN, but it had so much more of the Doom feel to it.

In general, I feel the Quake series was super uninteresting from a game play perspective. All the creative talent had left the building. All there was left was Carmack with his engines. They were amazing in how they advanced game technology, but as games.. not my cup of tea that's for sure.

[mjr4077au]

A SiN source release would be great. Although the original still works surprisingly well on modern systems, quite unlike many other games of its vintage.

The original as in off the disc? It works ok-ish but the Steam/GOG version is built against MSVC 2015 and runs really well on modern systems.

Nightdive has recently patched it since coming into possession of the IP and have also reversed most of the censorship bullshit that the original Steam/GOG release suffered from.

Even when compared to the other main Build games, SW & Blood, Duke's combat and bestiary is just subpar.

I was late to the party with SW and Blood so have to put Duke 3D on top. I like Duke for the reasons you knocked it, it's just a simple game without amazing AI etc. It's just fun to me. Quake was more strategic and had better AI despite the demo, I had to think a lot more to beat it as a kid and not just cowboy in.

In general, I feel the Quake series was super uninteresting from a game play perspective. All the creative talent had left the building. All there was left was Carmack with his engines. They were amazing in how they advanced game technology, but as games.. not my cup of tea that's for sure.

Agreed, but still like the original Quake . Take Quake III for instance, the best thing about that game isn't the game but the engine. So many amazing titles have been built on it and I think it's IDs last good engine. That's not to say other engines they've done afterwards have sucked, but they haven't been used for anything good. However with Doom 2016, I think it's a return to form in a way.

[Matt]

My aesthetic choices for enemies are Quake >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Doom > Q2 > Blood > Duke > Heretic > Hexen, but Duke definitely gets special credit for its stunningly realistic, unapologetically raw and authentic depiction of the Los Angeles Police Department.

[Graf Zahl]

On that list, for me Doom would win by a comfortable margin. The only other game whose enemy design comes even close is Blood, my problems with that game lie elsewhere.
Quake would be near the end, with Duke being on the last place because the sprites just don't look as refined as all the other games

[Enjay]

with Duke being on the last place because the sprites just don't look as refined as all the other games

It took me a very long time, and seeing several hi-res models, to finally get a good mental picture of what the basic Assault Trooper in Duke was even supposed to look like (particularly its face/head). It just looked like a mess of pixels to me.

[Cacodemon345]

I don't think the Quake series as a whole have been that great in the singleplayer department.

I played through Quake 1 however, and while the gameplay have been just about as good as Doom, nothing more, nothing less, I would call its aesthetics worse than Doom (not even Doom 2 was that dull). I haven't played the later Quake games though, but I did check some screenshots of the later Quake games, and I would say those are an improvement over Q1's aesthetics. I still would very much prefer Doom franchise over the Quake franchise; I feel like the Doom franchise aged better than Quake franchise.

Heck, I felt like Doom's sprites aged better than Quake 1's models. I only got into Quake 1 after I tried the KolibriOS port (god the mouse sensitivity was extremely high; moving the cursor by one pixel would turn the player 180 degress).

For the topic title, the stupid reason I didn't play Quake 2 is because it was not a continuation of Quake 1's story, lol.

[sinisterseed]

Heck, I felt like Doom's sprites aged better than Quake 1's models. I only got into Quake 1 after I tried the KolibriOS port (god the mouse sensitivity was extremely high; moving the cursor by one pixel would turn the player 180 degress).

For the topic title, the stupid reason I didn't play Quake 2 is because it was not a continuation of Quake 1's story, lol.

You're not the only one finding Q1's models ugly by far, and I agree honestly.

The thing about models is that they only look good when they have a decent number of polygons with a nice texture, but Q1's models didn't fit this criteria at all. The weapons fared better but that's about it, although I must say that ugly as they are, they're very iconic - I mean just look at the Shambler for instance. Personally, I think that the 3D models of this age generally sucked. Looking at various titles from this early period, I'd say it wasn't until after HL1 and UT99/Gold came out that some decent character models that didn't look like crap finally started showing up.

with Duke being on the last place because the sprites just don't look as refined as all the other games

It took me a very long time, and seeing several hi-res models, to finally get a good mental picture of what the basic Assault Trooper in Duke was even supposed to look like (particularly its face/head). It just looked like a mess of pixels to me.

Same here, it wasn't until I looked at some upscale packs when I could finally tell what the hell was the Trooper's face.

I knew it should have a mouth and eyes but I just knew it, not seen it.

[Enjay]

I knew it should have a mouth and eyes but I just knew it, not seen it.

Heh, yes, exactly that. Even in the upscales and 3D models there's still something about the face that makes it indistinct. This bit of art does a good job of cluing me in to what they are meant to look like though (maybe a bit too predatorish):

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https://steamcommunity.com/id/139516873 ... pid=225140

Interesting that the first comment on the image was: "back in the day I couldn't tell what the hell these things were lol I thought they were like tiger/cat monsters. I guess its sort of like some predator tiger"

[Matt]

...that's pretty much how I always imagined then, didn't think there'd be any issue o_O

I have a much harder time parsing the critters in Doom 3, Doom 2016 and DE.

[sinisterseed]

I knew it should have a mouth and eyes but I just knew it, not seen it.

Heh, yes, exactly that. Even in the upscales and 3D models there's still something about the face that makes it indistinct. This bit of art does a good job of cluing me in to what they are meant to look like though (maybe a bit too predatorish):

---

https://steamcommunity.com/id/139516873 ... pid=225140

Interesting that the first comment on the image was: "back in the day I couldn't tell what the hell these things were lol I thought they were like tiger/cat monsters. I guess its sort of like some predator tiger"

Lol yes, that comment, indeed we're not alone here .

I think it's mostly the texture set which doesn't offer much detail, nor does it create much contrast between the different features of its head, so everything just blends together and much of the distinction gets lost in the process. The other Build games fared much better here and you can tell the features of each enemy.

[Graf Zahl]

This was just poor graphics work, not an engine problem. But this smeared indistinct look can be witnessed in virtually every sprite in Duke. The enemy sprites all show clear signs of a poor downconversion job. When scaling down to such a low resolution it will need some manual touch-up afterward to make it look good but apparently that was never done.

[mjr4077au]

If only the original assets were never lost... . I find it ridiculous how much stuff was deemed useless back in the day and not properly archived, be it these game assets before down conversion, old master tapes of TV shows etc.

[Kinsie]

If only the original assets were never lost... . I find it ridiculous how much stuff was deemed useless back in the day and not properly archived, be it these game assets before down conversion, old master tapes of TV shows etc.

I believe a LOT of the Duke Nukem 3D assets have been preserved through old backups of individual developer hard drives. Problem is, nothing can really be done with that stuff given the current rights holder.

Shadow Warrior is a bit more optimistic a situation rights-wise, and a lot of prototype builds of the game dating back to 1993(!!) were released into the wild through the free non-Redux version of the game on Steam.

[mjr4077au]

I'm sure I've read that they were considered lost, but it could very well be old or inaccurate information. The current status of the IP is just terrible and very unfortunate.

I've not played with the older prototypes but its great that they've been released for those to play with and enjoy .