Quake Favorites

Quake
1

First off I’d like to say that my all time favorite Quake monster is the fiend. I love fighting them in groups of 3 or so. Though I’m not a fan of most Quoth monsters (especially that annoying stupid green blobby thing), I do like the Gaunt. Their echoing screech is eerie and awesome, as well as all their bat-iness and cool wings. I’d have to say that the Gaunt is probably my 2nd favorite. The Drole’s death animation is one of my favorites though, right up there with the death knight falling to his knees.

My favorite Quake map in original Quake is the Dismal Oubliette, though Azure Agony(blue perfection! well sorta) and The Hateful Place are tied for 2nd.

My all time favorite Quake map ever though is the Black Cathedral in Mission Pack 1 which is one of the best and most thoughtfully laid out levels ever from the original series. I love the clock and the bell toll as well as the thunder claps joined by lightning flashes from the windows.

My all time favorite custom Quake map ever is the Marcher Fortress. I’d have to say that the Marcher Fortress’s fights are definitely the most epic Quake battles ever!

My favorite Quake weapon is the Double-Barrel Shotgun. You may be thinking, “What??? Not the Rocket Launcher or the Thunderbolt!!!” Frankly I don’t use the Thunderbolt hardly at all, usually only for Shamblers and Vores and more powerful enemies, although it’s great for spawns. I’m rather accident prone with the rocket launcher. I end up eating my rockets a lot. I love using the DB Shotgun with Quad Damage the best because I just plain like blasting everything into bits with a shotgun, especially zombies! GgrrrikichikikOIMP!!! :smiley:

2

Favourite monster: Ogre. Initially terrifying, then you figure out how to take them down.
Favourite original map: The Necropolis (E1M3) for atmosphere and invention.
Favourite custom map: After all this time, still Insomnia (czg07) for scale, exploration and playability.
Favourite weapon: super-nailgun. So satisfying.

3

Monster: Ogre as well. It has such fun mechanics!
Map: Haunted Halls I guess, I love the metal theme.
Custom Map: Changes all the time.
Weapon: SNG because the sound is perfect.

4

Disclaimer: I reserve the right to change my mind completely about any or all of the following.

Favourite id monster: Zombies! They pretty much encapsulate everything that’s so great about Quake. They’re scary and funny at the same time, they require a specific strategy to fight effectively, and their being in the Quake universe makes no sense whatsoever other than abiding by the http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool – in other words, Quake in a nutshell. Vores would come a close second, mainly because of my arachnid fetish (see below).

Favourite id monster animation: The Ogre’s sitting down when hit (followed closely by all of the Zombie animations).

Favourite id map: Introduction (Start)/Welcome to Quake. I love start maps, and this is where it all …um… started. As with the Zombies, to me the Quake start map conveys a lot of what makes the game special. It does a great job of introducing the wonderfully, hopelessly disparate aesthetics while immediately and nonchalantly smashing the fourth wall (with a handful of soggy, necrotic entrails that somehow manages to do as much damage as live ammunition).

Favourite custom monster: Probably Quoth’s Voreling, although it is hard to choose. I am partial to spider-like monsters in general (like the spiders in Arcanum, for instance). All the custom monsters in The Marcher Fortress are wonderful (albeit sometimes infuriatingly difficult), and work great together. The modified Zombies in Altar of Storms are delightful too, as are the hovering Enforcers and retro robots in Rubicon2. I’m probably forgetting several others. Oh well.

Favourite custom map: I could not name just one; it would have to be at least a top 20 – and even then, like Spirit’s favourite map (see Spirit’s comment above), it changes all the time.

Favourite id weapon: Probably the nailgun. Yes, the regular one, not the super nailgun (gasp!). It’s probably the least favourite weapon of the majority of players, since the super nailgun renders it effectively obsolete … but I actually often prefer using the regular nailgun. The SNG, while great, just makes things a little too easy and just feels like a chaingun (which does make it nice to receive towards the end of a map or episode as a reward). The regular nailgun, however, does not feel like any real-world, practical weapon, but rather like something that actually shoots rusty nails – which seems to fit the dirty, bizarre world of Quake a little better.

Favourite custom weapon: It’s also hard to choose just one, but perhaps Zerstörer’s chainsaw. I had great fun with the hyperblaster in Sludge Factory too. As with the custom monsters above, I’m probably forgetting several other fantastic custom weapons.

5

If I would be honoust my favorite monster is The Old One.
I could never defeat it, so actually I still don’t know where Quake ends.
I did all I could, even cheated god mode, ammu, my night rest, it didn’t work.
So for Quake’s sake…, it has to be the zombie.

The Wind tunnels is one of my favorites, although I have to admit, who’se the best in betterland.
But the way they flushed me from one way to the other made me marvelous excited.
Of course, a teleporter is a magic thing, it squeezes from place to place, but I have no notice.
The windtunnel at least give me the reminder I am in one peace and traveling.

Favorite custom map must be “Satan’s Dark Delight” as I am a bit scared for heights.
I don’t know what it is, but the sense of hanging so high with so many space to fall made me shiver.
It’s all imagination, sure…, but as it was one of the first first shooters it still reminds me of my heights.
Map where the evil face of that horned demon never left my sense of awareness.
And ended with a beautifull stairway, that hillariously went down through a hole in the ground.

Favorite weapon: the shooting gun.
Might sound strange, but it is the most preliminary thing…, why ask for more.
Now I’m a more convienent player I still draw back to the shooting gun aftter getting the double barrel.
I still have the habbit to change back to the axe facing knights.
Why be superiour to your oppenent?

Last reminder, I heard iD was planning to cut out all medieval maps before release.
Can’t understand…, for me Quake is only medieval, I’m not a millitary man.
Well ok, I will play the maps, but my senses tell me the real strength in Quake is it hazyness, darkness.
The appealing to my most instictive roots, the hidden shade of long gone ages.

6

I don’t have favorites, as i never took the time to think and have some, but there is some that i can highlight:

Monsters:

  • Dog: a monster highly underrated, i think that has a very high potential for a variety of situations. Also, it has some hidden features, as it still jumps at you even if stun locked and gives some surprises. its downside its that it needs a very thoughtful placement or some good situations that favor it, like in https://www.quaddicted.com/reviews/ananke.html.

  • Wraith: i love them, both for gameplay and visual reasons, it is a pity that from DoE you only see in the maps the candle entity.

  • Zombie: they are the unrelenting monster in Quake, that you can’t kill till the mapper gives you the choice. Very nice if used with some melee monster mixed in. There should be a way to make it better, but the mummy isn’t.

  • Voreling and other similar ones: this provide a fast small monster, and i like them for that. Their small size makes them good for ambushes and narrow places, where the demon and the dog are too big to maneuver and the knight too slow. It is a pity that lots of people react to them by waiting till the vore hits them before shooting, it isn’t that hard to hit, but i do understand that compared to the huge hitboxes the rest of the monsters have, these are harder to aim to.

  • Shambler: very, very good. Even if today we can dance them and take no damage, they still are a monster we can’t disregard, dangerous both at range and close combat, and its low-medium speed makes them more frightening.

  • Shotgun: i use it a lot, not only because it is given at he beginning, but i use it too at all the stages of the game, because of it suits my style of play, with cautious and planned shots, without wasting ammo. I can’t withstand looking when people at demos and videos use the double-barreled shotgun for everything, even for long/middle range shots or when aiming through small gaps.

Grenade launcher: i prefer this way more than the rocket launcher, as you can be more tricky with it (bouncing at corners, lobbing it to hit the second line of enemies of a group so you hit more enemies) instead of just having a simple ‘‘aoe’’ large range weapon as with the rocket launcher.

Plasma gun from DoE: i love the possibilities it offers, with the lightning enemy-search it has. If you want to feel this gun in your flesh, play a map that uses the drake mod and you’ll see what i mean while confronting the warlock.

e2m4: this is the map i remember the most from when i was playing this game back in 1996, because of the spawning zombies on the darkness and how crazy and nervous i became while throwing grenades at the darkness in panic.
Nowadays, i remember more maps like e1m2,e2m3 and e2m5 or those from SoA or DoE (except some of the roman and egyptian ones)

https://www.quaddicted.com/reviews/back2forwards.html: it will always have a nice spot thanks for its constructed-feeling brushwork, as oposed to carving into void/rock (Unreal type) type of brushwork sawn in almost every other map.

https://www.quaddicted.com/reviews/add2.html, even though it is completely unbalanced in nightmare.

https://www.quaddicted.com/reviews/abandon.html for its original layout and brushwork. I don’t mind getting lost that much, i even appreciate it from time to time.

https://www.quaddicted.com/reviews/alk08.html, on how good can a DM map for SP can be. Later, i got a bit bored of this style, but it was mainly because of the bad AI from Sauerbraten DMSP. The best of this type is probably https://www.quaddicted.com/reviews/q1shw2sp.html for the reasons stated in the comments, and how it doesn’t look like a DM map at all.

And well, if i were to put more custom maps that catched my eye, i would be here the rest of the month so, even though i am missing a lot of them, i will stop.

7

My favorite standard Quake monster is the fiend. It can be a devastating monster when well-placed or in groups, definitely the terror of my childhood (although I actually had more nightmares about the shambler :D).

My favorite custom monster is probably the drole. They tend to be placed in such a way that you end up sniping them, at least in most maps I’ve played, but playing Gloomier Keep the other night showed me the joys of fighting them at close range. Truly an effective and versatile monster, one of the best in Quake. Other than that I can’t think of too many great custom monsters (mostly because I’ve forgotten a lot of the ones I’ve only fought in one or two maps). The bosses in Rapture were really fun. I have a feeling they’re from some other map/episode I haven’t played yet.

Either of the nailguns would be my favorite weapon, but honestly I use them all quite a bit with the exception of the axe. Even the lowly shotgun gets a lot of use from me for taking out groups of knights, scrags, and even ogres to save ammo. I’ll often whittle down tougher enemies like death nights with the nailgun and switch to the shotgun for the final two or three shots. Quake really stands out from other shooters, even old ones, for not having a wasted weapon in my opinion. (Same with monsters too even, except for the rotfish).

Custom weapon: probably the plasma gun.

Azure Agony is my favorite Quake map from the original campaign, perhaps followed by the wind tunnels. Actually episode 3 is the one I can’t remember too well but there are a lot of great maps in there from what I can remember.

I can’t name a favorite custom map but the one I’ve been itching to replay the most is Februus Depth.

My favorite custom episode/map pack is a tie between Rapture and Insomnia, though there are some classic episodes and campaigns I haven’t played yet (including Nehahra and WarpSpasm!).

8

Been playing through Episode 3: The Netherworld lately. So many awesome maps in that episode, I don’t think any custom metal/runic map I’ve played really compares to the id originals. Definitely my favorite id episode, and I’d have to think hard to name my favorite map.