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Indeed Carmack was wrong. And the game that proved it was Quake, not HL. Wolfenstein and Doom were both great, eye-opening games because their rendering gave

Indeed Carmack was wrong. And the game that proved it was Quake, not HL. Wolfenstein and Doom were both great, eye-opening games because their rendering gave us a visual experience we hadn't seen before. Nobody cared if they were the gaming equivalent of dumb, loud rock. Besides Doom's art had a terrifying -- if brainless -- grandeur. Quake also delivered a step up in rendering, a great feat that I admire as a software engineer. But as a game, it was dull. It was no more brainless than Doom, but we had already seen that particular kind of dumb-horror before, and the full 3d really just felt like an incremental improvement.

mrob 10y ago
>as a game, it was dull My guess is that you only played single player. Single player Quake is indeed less exciting than Doom, largely because of lower enemy counts. The people correctly praising Quake as a classic played multiplayer. In multiplayer the 3D environments really matter. It's more than just an incremental improvement because full 3D gives you so many options for movement. Quake has very high skill ceiling and mastering movement is a big part of it.
- adrianratnapala 10y ago
  You are right that I am thinking only about single-player. Which is a big limitation on my thinking. However, in terms of an argument between story-driven vs. just-shoot-em-up, I think single-player is the most relevant.
miek 10y ago
Quake and its mods (Team Fortress!) were pure magic for me as a young kid. I can't imagine how many hours I spent in that game. The multiplayer community was a big draw, and services like Mplayer that had voice-enabled chat rooms were also amazing at the time. Lots of Quake LAN parties. It was a total game changer. I still love the atmosphere and total weirdness of the game.
Tomis02 10y ago
> But as a game, it was dull. I disagree. The art, skybox (not really a skybox; I spent so much time just looking at that grim-looking moving purple sky), sounds and music made it incredibly immersive.

mrob 10y ago

>as a game, it was dull My guess is that you only played single player. Single player Quake is indeed less exciting than Doom, largely because of lower enemy counts. The people correctly praising Quake as a classic played multiplayer. In multiplayer the 3D environments really matter. It's more than just an incremental improvement because full 3D gives you so many options for movement. Quake has very high skill ceiling and mastering movement is a big part of it.

adrianratnapala 10y ago
You are right that I am thinking only about single-player. Which is a big limitation on my thinking. However, in terms of an argument between story-driven vs. just-shoot-em-up, I think single-player is the most relevant.

miek 10y ago

Quake and its mods (Team Fortress!) were pure magic for me as a young kid. I can't imagine how many hours I spent in that game. The multiplayer community was a big draw, and services like Mplayer that had voice-enabled chat rooms were also amazing at the time. Lots of Quake LAN parties. It was a total game changer. I still love the atmosphere and total weirdness of the game.

Tomis02 10y ago

> But as a game, it was dull. I disagree. The art, skybox (not really a skybox; I spent so much time just looking at that grim-looking moving purple sky), sounds and music made it incredibly immersive.