YMMV / Quake

• Abridged Arena Array: Expect to see dm2, dm4 and dm6 quite often in deathmatches. If you're lucky, the same is true of ztn1.
• Accidental Innuendo:
  • The first level of Dissolution Of Eternity is named "Deviant's Domain", which grammatically makes sense but also sounds like a strange sex-related venue.
  • Some of the end-of-episode text scrawls talk about how the rune you just grabbed is "throbbing in your hand", which sounds rather like something else is happening.
• Anti-Climax Boss:
  • The final boss is a defenceless Flunky Boss who you kill with a single Telefrag. The horde of Shamblers and Vores guarding the teleporter is at least memorably challenging, but nothing that hasn't already been encountered in the game. Certain mods try and expand the fight, such as Quake 1.5 & Underdark Overbright each featuring Shub-Niggurath's insides as a puzzle level.
  • The Nintendo 64 port takes this even further, removing the majority of mooks that made the level hard in the first place. There are only two Shamblers, one of whom only spawns after you get close to the teleporter so you're likely to not even fight him, and a single Vore on Shub-Niggurath's platform.
• Awesome Levels:
  • Though only the second level and not too hard on even the toughest difficulties, E1M2, "Castle of the Damned", is beloved by fans of both its single-player campaign (for whom it's an atmospheric introduction to the Medieval setting, with a memorable and graphically-impressive climactic battle against the first Fiend(s) in the game) and multiplayer (for whom it's one of the most widely-chosen Deathmatch maps, with excellent, balanced design).
  • E4M7, "Azure Agony", chronologically the final level before the end. It has a cool name and is quite pretty, being mostly blue rather than the typical Real Is Brown style of the game.
• Bizarro Episode: While the Netherworld (episode 3) is mostly Fire and Brimstone Hell-themed, E3M5 "The Wind Tunnels" is all about Tube Travel and has a fair amount of water in it. It's the only level in the episode other than the first with no lava in it.
• Breather Level: The levels of "Episode 3: The Netherworld" are very short and their difficulty isn't a match for Episode 2. Conversely, "Episode 4: The Elder World" picks up the slack, and contains some of the hardest levels in the original game.
• Come for the Game, Stay for the Mods: Much like its predecessor Doom II, Quake was also host to a notable modding community even upon release, especially since id Software packaged the game with the QuakeC programming language & QuakeEd level editor free for all players to use. Besides famously having spawned Valve Software's Source Engine lineage, similar advents of source ports, modern mapping tools and even updates to the QuakeC code courtesy of the 2021 Quake remaster have burgeoned a robust modding community just as its forebearer has.
• Demonic Spiders:
  • Spawns. They're fast, they bounce all over the place making them incredibly hard to hit, going full Kamikaze on you for visible chunks of damage, and being blue blobs who don't move when they immediately see you, preferring to wait for a second, it's easy to miss them in the dark until they're all over you. On top of that, they explode like a rocket upon death (which doubles as Suicide Attack), meaning it's easy to maim yourself (or worse) if you're careless while killing them when they're in your face. John Romero lampshaded this by mentioning that the id Software team found the monster so difficult, that they refrained from placing it frequently. Thankfully, it's only encountered in Episode 4, except for...
    • Hell Spawns in Dissolution of Eternity, which are even worse. It's easy to assume they're only texture-edited versions of regular Spawns (being green with orange "eyes", rather than the full blue of a normal Spawn) until then you realize they can duplicate themselves. Fortunately, their offspring (which lack the "eyes") cannot duplicate further.
  • Fiends. They're less mobile than Spawns, but in exchange, they're much more resilient, taking three rockets to kill, their leap attack hits very hard, and they're very keen on cornering you in a place where they can cut your ass to shreds with their claws. To make it worse, they almost don't flinch. Fiends can also deal far more damage than intended with their leap, potentially one-shotting a player with red armour and full health, due to a physics glitch. If their leap causes them to land above you, the game may register multiple full damage hits in rapid succession.
  • In the literal sense, Vores. They move slowly, but they have 400 health & their attack is to launch an explosive homing pod that moves insanely fast and won't stop until it hits something, and it's hard to shake off.
  • The Shambler is a really tough monster with 600 HP and quick movement speed. Even worse, it has a hitscan lightning attack that is guaranteed to hit you as long as you aren't behind cover. Oh, and explosives only do half damage against it without the Quad Damage.
  • The nailgun-shooting Centroid scorpion from Scourge of Armagon. Pesky to kill, durable, able to strafe side-to-side to dodge projectiles, and its Nailguns can reduce you to shreds.
  • Also from Scourge of Armagon is the Spike Mine, a floating mine covered in spikes that will accelerate in your direction as soon as you get close. It's tough enough to get close and deals a lot of damage upon exploding. To make matters worse, they barely make any noise, and their brown color scheme makes for fairly good camouflage. It's not uncommon for first-time players to be killed by a Spike Mine they simply didn't notice was nearby. Of course, Episode 3 on Hard or Nightmare relies on overly spamming them for death traps.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Unusually for a Mission-Pack Sequel Deathmatch level, "The Edge of Oblivion"^note hipdm1, the third Secret Level from Scourge of Armagon has plenty of remakes in later games and even in games non-related to the Quake franchise.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • At the time, Quake had a rivalry with Duke Nukem 3D. Both games were released in 1996 and received critical praise, with Duke Nukem 3D for its interactive, realistic-looking levels and wisecracking protagonist, and Quake for its polygonal engine and large multiplayer and modding capabilities; features that are commonplace in first-person shooters today. With that said, only Quake managed to spawn a long-running franchise, while Duke Nukem 3D's sequel stayed in Development Hell for 15 years and was released to mediocre reception.
  • Nowadays though, with the resurgence in popularity of 90's style First-Person Shooters, this veers into Friendly Fandoms, with fans of one generally being fans of the other due to the similar style of gameplay. YouTubers like Civvie 11, Gmanlives and Lazy Game Reviews who cover these types of games tend to lump them together and appreciate them equally.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Before Quake III Arena established that his name is Ranger, fans typically referred to the protagonist as "Quakeguy", after the similar (and later canonized) nickname for Doom's protagonist, "Doomguy".
  • The weapon officially named the "Double-Barreled Shotgun" is almost universally known to fans as the "Super Shotgun", the name of the equivalent weapon in both Doom II and Quake II. This even bled into some of the text in the two mission packs, which included phrases such as "Gremlin stole your Super Shotgun".
  • The Thunderbolt is often referred to as simply the "Lightning Gun", which is both apt and the name it's given in Quake III. It's also called "the shaft" by many deathmatch veterans.
  • The remastered 2021 version of the game is called "KexQuake", naturally due to running under Nightdive Studios's own Kex Engine rather than Ids own IdTech.
• Funny Moments:
  • At the end of the "Commonly Asked Questions" section of the manual:
  Q: Are you guys Satan-worshipers?
  A: No.
  • Any time an enemy gets caught in the crossfire of a different type of enemy, they'll start fighting each other until one of them dies. Unlike Doom, there's no aggro permanence, so a monster caught between two sources of damage will constantly switch targets as soon as it takes damage from one of the sources, like a very hostile form of ADD. It's not just hilarious, either, it's useful too: You can kill even a Shambler with the regular peashooter shotgun by sandwiching it between the sightlines of both you and an Ogre.
  • If you die to your grenade or rocket respectively, the game teases you with the following obituary messages.
    <Player> tries to put the pin back in.
    <Player> becomes bored with life.
  • In deathmatch, luring one player or more to water and firing the Thunderbolt gibbing yourself and the opponent(s) into a shower of gore. The 2021 remaster rewards you with the achievement "Discharge" if you succeed in doing so without dying.
  • The zombies attack by tearing off chunks of their flesh and using it as ammunition in a way that brings to mind either a Food Fight or even Dung Fu.
  • The knight's death animation. It almost looks like he's facepalming right before he falls flat on his face.
  • The fact that the ogres' prototype, the axe ogre, was initially going to piss on your corpse when he kills you.
• Game-Breaker:
  • The Rocket Launcher is by far the most powerful (and useful) item in the game. Most speed runs make the most use of this weapon and the level's quirks. Of course, abusing the technique has its consequences, and it's easy to end up killing yourself at close-range.
  • The Thunderbolt is a pretty powerful weapon, due to the high damage and quick firing speed of its lightning attack. Balancing it are the facts that it's the last gun to be found and the one with the highest position, and is only a true Wave-Motion Gun when amped up with Quad Damage. If you attempt to fire it in water, it will result in instant death not only to you but anyone underwater (which also doubles as a Suicide Attack in multiplayer).
  • The Laser Cannon from Scourge of Armagon does away with most of the Lightning Gun's cons in exchange for a slower firing speed, though you risk nailing yourself with the Reflecting Laser beams.
  • The alternate ammo types from Dissolution of Eternity are generally noted as being overpowered. First of all, they run on a different ammo counter than regular ammo and are just as plentiful, effectively doubling the player's ammo capacity. Then, you have Lava Nails that deal extra damage to monsters (the Super Nailgun deals as much damage as the Thunderbolt when using Lava Nails) and ignore enemy players' armor, Multi-Rockets are significantly more cost-efficient (the Rocket Launcher hit can take down a Death Knight with a single well-placed Multi-Rocket when it takes up to three regular Rockets to do the same), and while the Thunderbolt's Plasma rounds might not look so impressive, they are an alternate Rocket Launcher and can even damage enemies when it misses, thanks to being a poor man's BFG 9000 (and you can remove the "poor man's" part when under the effect of a Quad Damage).
• Goddamned Bats:
  • Scrags. They're there to make your life miserable, but not in the deadly sense: they're kind of tough, taking four shotgun shells to kill; they can fly, which means they'll follow you everywhere, including underwater; and their ridiculously weak projectiles are fired in bursts of two that will be interrupted only if you outright kill the damn thing - flinching won't stop it. They're not quite as bad once you get the rocket launcher, as it one-shots them, but their ability to fly means they can pop into the room at close range and get you hurt with your Splash Damage.
  • Knights. These guys have as much health as a Scrag - not much, but enough to irritate -, they're fast, and their sword swipes can be started from a fair distance off. To make it worse, the mechanics of the game counts the swipe as a multi-hit attack, which equals a jittery screen full of red tint. But their biggest danger is evident when you're fighting them alongside other, more dangerous monsters. Why? Simple: their low threat level, attack method and high speed will often result in them running right in your face when you're going trigger-happy with the rocket launcher, and then it's too late to do anything except suck up your splash damage.
  • Ogres. Their grenades don't do quite as much damage as yours, but even if you don't take it directly in the face, they still bounce around, making them very annoying to keep track of and avoid. And they're beefy enough to take two rockets/grenades before going down. If you use grenades/rockets and don't miss (or gib!) an ogre, you can be ammo-neutral at least half the time, as ogres drop 2 rockets each on death. Dissolution of Eternity introduces the Multi-Grenade Ogre, which combines all of the above with the cascade damage factor of the Multi-Grenade for double the frustration.
  • The Gremlin in Scourge of Armagon can steal your weapons and use them against you (with the exceptions of the shotgun and axe), and if injured, they can run away to a body to eat it and duplicate themselves. Thankfully they're only about as tough as an Enforcer, so one rocket or two double-barrel shotgun blasts take care of them.
  • The Grunt might be one of the frailest enemies in the game and their attacks might cause light damage, but on Nightmare difficulty, they can be incredibly annoying thanks to their hitscan attacks and doubled fire rate. You can skillfully dodge the attacks of the most dangerous enemies, but the Grunt's shotgun blasts can still hit you, and while the damage might be light, it is not so funny when there are multiple Grunts together. The only saving graces are that their accuracy is subpar, their inability to lead the target and that pretty much any weapon in the game can kill them quickly.
  • Enforcers in the modern expansions. While they lack the Grunt's hitscan shotgun, their Laser Cannons fire twice, travel decently quickly and most annoying of all, have slight knockback. Said knockback can disrupt your jumps, making them a typical fixture of a lot of the platforming sections. Also thanks to the increased enemy count of the modern expansions they come in large numbers that can overwhelm you quickly and make you waste ammo due to their durability.
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • HIP3M1 of Scourge of Armagon, Tur Torment, has a group of Fiends spawn when you reach a slime pit that has red armour inside it. However, it seems that some of them freeze or jump in place instead of all running after you.
  • You can prevent the spawning of the Mummy Queen in Dissolution of Eternity by standing in her spawning place while the casket is opening. As monsters cannot telefrag players (it's the other way around), she will be telefragged, saving you a lot of ammo.
  • The Thunderbolt fires two invisible beams next to its lightning bolt to make its attacks easier to hit the intended target. These invisible beams are supposed to go in the same direction and length as the lightning bolt, but some botched vectorial calculations cause these invisible beams to behave in a very strange way. Depending on the direction you're looking at, the Thunderbolt's invisible beams can attack enemies at a ludicrous distance, through walls, and attack monsters you are not even trying to hit.
  • In the earliest version of the game, it was possible to kill Shub-Niggurath using only your weapons, since she's technically not invincible but simply has a ludicrous 40,000 health points. Unfortunately, the ending cutscene was only programmed to play when you telefragged her. This alternate method would crash the game, so subsequent versions tweaked her programming to make her truly immune to all weapon damage.
  • The 2021 remaster makes the level skip trick in E3M2: The Vaults of Zin effortlessly easy. When you are selecting a weapon from the weapon wheel, all entities freeze in place, while you slowly slide forward. That means that if you have the weapon wheel open and activate the trigger that would trap the Silver Key in another room, the elevator that carries the key moves down, but the Silver Key remains in place. After closing the weapon wheel, the key is free for grabs.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The operation that kickstarts the Excuse Plot of the game is called "Operation Counterstrike". Made even funnier with Quake being one of the earliest popularizers of Deathmatch in FPSes.
  • In a very odd way, the Anti-Grav Belt item from Dissolution of Eternity, which allows you to float. Apparently, Epic Games was taking notes with a map^note CTF-LavaGiant, whose description mentions combatants being issued "special anti-gravity belts" before the match begins.
• Just Here for Godzilla: The Multiplayer turned out to be by far the main draw of this game (to the point of being the entire purpose of QuakeWorld). Fan reaction to it ultimately led Quake III: Arena to be built around Multiplayer and multiplayer alone.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • HUH!^ExplanationThe Ranger's jumping grunt, which is heard every time you jump. The same sound effect is also heard in Quake 2, albeit with higher audio quality.
  • *sip* Yep, Quake was a good game. ^ExplanationA part of the "30-year-old boomer" meme, which compares fans of older video games such as Quake to members of the baby boomer generation. While meant to insult them for not moving on, it has been appropriated by these so-called boomers, who also fired back by calling fans of modern video games "zoomers".
  • The Timbler. ^ExplanationStraight from a shitpost by Twitter user KinoFabino comes the Timbler, a photoshopped image of a Shambler wearing a pair of Timberland brand boots (known as "timbs"), a New York Yankees cap and a yellow puffer jacket. In memes where the said Shambler is featured, he's known for his flamboyant sense of fashion aside from posing a threat.
  • Fluffy Shamblers. ^Explanation Due to the low resolution of the game's textures, fans have debated over whether the Shamblers have pale leathery skin, or white fur. The 2023 remaster of Quake II would end up stating both types co-exist, but still doesn't make a visible distinction.
• Most Wonderful Sound: Take your pick.
  • The meaty noises ending with the "nyom" of a zombie you just gibbed.
  • The deep, fast BA-DUM-BA-DUM-BA-DUM-BA-DUM-BA-DUM of the Super Nailgun firing.
  • The thunderclap that comes along with discharging the Thunderbolt on some hapless mook that won't live more than 3 or 4 seconds.
  • Hearing a Shambler's death moan will fill you with joy.
  • That pinging sound when a grenade bounces off a wall (except when it's not your grenade).
  • The hot "fizz" sound of a Nailgun loaded with Lava Nails stops firing, often after a prolonged carnage.
  • The death scream of Armagon in Scourge of Armagon. Ditto the dragon in Dissolution of Eternity.
  • The Quad Damage sound effect, which not only plays when you pick up the thing but also with every shot you fire when under its effects.
• Narm:
  • While the Grunt enemy may look terrifying, his pain and death scream sounds like Trent Reznor himself doing ridiculous grunting noises on the microphone.
  • Trent Reznor also provides the vocalizations of the Ranger himself, which includes the unedited Grunt's pain sound ("YEEEAAGH!"), the overly-dramatic "HUH!" when he jumps, and the hilarious screams when he takes damage from falling into lava or slime. Also when listening to his death screams out of context, he almost sounds constipated.
• Polished Port:
  • The Sega Saturn port doesn't use the original Quake engine, but Lobotomy Software's in-house Slavedriver engine, specially tailored to the Saturn. As such, its optimization allows it to be a lot closer to the PC original than other ports.
  • The 2021 Kex Engine remaster by Nightdive Studios brought the game to PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series X|S, Nintendo Switch and PC^*where it is presented as Quake Enhanced and offered for free for those who already had the original iteration. It not only offers a near-faithful experience but is also comparable to playing the game on a source port. It offers various graphics settings that allow players to make the game look as retro or modern as possible, supports widescreen and HD resolutions up to 4K, running at 60 FPS (with the PC version being able to run up to 500 FPS or higher), remappable controls for console players with optional gyro controls on the PlayStation 4 and Switch versions, includes Trent Reznor's soundtrack^*which was missing in the DOSBox re-release on Steam, all of the game's official Missions Packs plus Dimension of the Past and the new Dimension of the Machine, and cross-platform online multiplayer. Similarly to the 2019 re-releases of Doom and its sequel, this remaster also features downloadable curated mods while PC players can load vanilla-compatible mods. The downside however is that the online multiplayer and downloading curated mods on consoles require a Bethesda.net account.
• Remade and Improved: The 2021 remaster, while still operating under the same codebase as the original Quake (as the Github repo for the game's source code can attest) adds lots of new features to the game, including actually integrating the Expansion Packs Scourge of Armagon and Dissolution of Eternity, as well as the MachineGames's free episode Dimensions of the Past and a completely new, graphics-heavy episode, Dimension of the Machine (and eventually integrating the Threewave CTF multiplayer gamemode as well). It also added the new Horde gamemode and curated add-ons on top of all of this, as well as extra console support, a weapon wheel, and even curated mods. And that's just the playable content, as there are also tons of graphical and sound-related options. Suffice it to say, like Nightdive's other remasters, this remaster is seen as a shining example of how to make a proper remaster of a videogame.
• Replacement Scrappy: Jeehun Hwang's soundtracks for the two expansions are usually compared unfavourably to Nine Inch Nails' soundtrack for the base game, as they are far more conventional and upbeat, sounding much more like other game soundtracks of its era. Most fans of Hwang's tracks still agree that the NIN music is better and more distinctive to the game's universe.
• Retroactive Recognition: Matthias Worch, the creator of the curated add-on Beyond Belief, later worked for Legend Entertainment, with whom he developed, among other games, Unreal Mission Pack: Return to Na Pali, The Wheel of Time and Unreal II: The Awakening.
• The Scrappy: The Rotfish is generally derided as a boring enemy, a generic piranha in a world of far more interesting monsters who are far too weak to ever be a threat, even for a player who runs out of ammo and armor. Indeed, the designers don't seem to have cared for it much themselves: despite being the only aquatic enemy in a game that's chock-full of water, it appears in a very small number of levels, and it's also subject to multiple obvious programming errors^note It has terrible collision detection that can easily lead to it getting stuck inside walls, the model for its corpse is displayed incorrectly resulting in it having a tiny head, and the original version of the game mistakenly counts every 1 Rotfish as being 2 enemies that you'd reasonably expect a careful developer to catch. Dissolution of Eternity tosses it out entirely in favour of the Electric Eel - who, tellingly, is only slightly stronger and sturdier than the Rotfish, but even that is enough - and most mods don't even bother including it.
• Sequel Displacement: Quake codified a lot of tropes associated with the modern FPS, such as weapon jumping/climbing, Capture the Flag, 1v1 arena, dedicated servers, lag compensation, green/brown palette, etc. However, it rarely gets mentioned in any Best Game Ever lists along with its progeny. Quake III: Arena "steals" most of these honours instead due to its greater focus on multiplayer keeping it relevant.
• Special Effects Failure:
  • Depending on where Armagon stands when he explodes during the final cutscene in Scourge of Armagon, the player may walk through Armagon's legs when the scripted cutscene has the Ranger running for the portal.
  • The enhanced models in the 2021 port do not extend to models added in the first two expansions. This means that Rangers equipped with Mjölnir will be low-poly in Scourge of Armagon, and weapons will revert to their low-poly models when equipped with alternate ammo in Dissolution of Eternity.
• Spiritual Adaptation: Dimension of the Machine is the closest thing we got as an official adaptation of the game's fan mod Arcane Dimensions.
• That One Boss:
  • Armagon himself in Scourge of Armagon, which is not much more than a buffed Cyberdemon in terms of attacks. He has two fast-firing Rocket Launchers whose rockets not only hit as hard as yours, but are much faster, fired four at a time, and Armagon is surprisingly good at leading with them. He also carries two Laser Cannons that, while less threatening than the rockets, are tricky to dodge. And just in case you are trying to take cover right behind him, Armagon can unleash a shockwave that sends you flying (and very vulnerable to his rockets). He's no slouch in terms of health either, topping at over 4000 in Hard/Nightmare. You better hope he gets stuck on a wall because it will be a very difficult fight otherwise.
  • The Dragon from Dissolution of Eternity is somewhat easier than Armagon in terms of having more cover and having the Multi Rocket Launcher, but it's otherwise still a difficult fight because the Dragon will not forgive a single mistake. The arena has several powerups, but they are not very convenient, and the Anti-Grav Belt, in particular, is a Power-Up Letdown as it will compromise your ability to dodge the One-Hit Kill fireballs... and you may fall into the lava. Made worse by the intermittent earthquakes that rob you of your footing, make it impossible to move in a straight line and last much longer than they need to. A good number of players just corner-peek the Dragon to death from the entrance of the map.
• That One Level: Note that this section assumes play on Hard or Nightmare.
  • "E2M3: The Crypt of Decay" is a rude awakening. The goal is to reach the top tier of a castle to reach the main exit or you can opt for the switch to open the secret portal barrier, either requires reaching the top level. The level has a fair number of Shamblers, traps that can wear down your health, tight-quarter ambushes, and limited healing items. Better save your strength for the grand finale where a Shambler and friends throw a surprise party at the upper bridge of the castle where nailgun traps restrict your movement. Still a memorable level for beautifully showing the 3d capabilities of Id-Tech 2. Not to mention the Easter Egg.
  • "E4M2: The Tower of Despair", thanks to being a Drought Level of Doom when you've got nothing but a shotgun and a nailgun, and still forcing you to fight a Shambler and a Vore on top of that. It also forces you to make an unreasonable number of drops long enough to guarantee falling damage.
  • "E4M6: The Pain Maze", truly lives up to its name. While not that maze-like, the sheer number of Spawns makes it a nightmare to get through, including one section where you are helplessly pushed into a pit full of the things, and which you have to traverse because it's where the Gold Key is. The Grenade Launcher has never been so useful. Furthermore, there's an achievement in the 2021 remaster where you need to finish the level without taking a single bit of damage, appropriately titled "The Painless Maze". You better make good use of those Pentagrams of Protection and Rings of Shadows.
  • "HIP1M3: The Lost Mine", from Scourge of Armagon. Full of Enforcers and Grunts that will shred your health to bits, and then there's the cave section. Sinking areas into lava pits, falling rock debris that force you to restart, and earthquakes everywhere messing with your aim. And the ending forces you to go through a rock-shredding device. Watching your step is a requirement if you want to get out of this level.
  • "HIP3M1: Tur Torment", also from Scourge of Armagon. You are pitted against a lot of tough enemies, including Vores and Spiked Mines, right from the start, and you've just lost all of your weaponry. Sure, there's a rocket launcher on the other side of a slime pit, but going for it right away is not a good idea if you don't want to be targeted by everything in the map's first open area, which includes Vores.
  • The 2021 remaster lowered the max health of the Player Character to 50 in Nightmare mode, which means even some of the previously easy levels become quite hard, forcing the player to continually strafe, engage in Pixel Hunt and find new ways to attack enemies that don't involve self-damage.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: When traversing underwater in the 2021 remaster, the screen will always have a mildly distracting blue tint regardless of water being clean or a murky brown color.
• Too Awesome to Use:
  • The Lightning Gun's limited ammo can make players feel like saving it for being cornered by the most deadly enemies, or when they find a Quad Damage. Less pronounced in the expansions, as cells are more common and there are more options for high-end firepower (the Laser Cannon, lava nails, multi-rockets, plasma cells, etc.).
  • To a lesser extent, the Super Nailgun may become too awesome due to how quickly it can empty your nail ammo, nail boxes being uncommon and meagre compared to shotgun shells, and the sheer usefulness of the SNG against ambushing Shamblers.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic:
  • The Rottweiler enemies look & sound mostly like ordinary dogs, including some very pathetic whines they make when shot or killed. Although their blood-soaked faces and paws certainly confirm that they're killers, and they may be intended to be mind-controlled like the Grunts, many a dog-lover might still feel sad when shooting them.
  • The crucified zombies are mainly present in levels as decorations to creep out the player, but since they are rendered completely immobile and thrash around helplessly as they moan in pain, one couldn't help but feel bad for them despite being aggressive undead monsters. Too bad you can't gib them.
• Vindicated by History: On release, some criticized the single-player for how close it stuck to the formula of Doom, and was later overshadowed by the success of the multiplayer component. The success of Quake III: Arena then turned the series into multiplayer-first games, with campaign seen as an afterthought outside of the Raven-developed Quake IV. Around 2012, however, the single-player found appreciation by more due to the refinements it made to the Doom formula, chilling sound effects, surreal environments, non-linearity (in a time where games were mostly linear and story-driven), and its unique Gothic Horror atmosphere with a Lovecraftian touch few other games dared to replicate. The vindication was also invoked in the creation of the well-received 2021 remaster, with its trailer explicitly stating "Re-introducing the dark fantasy FPS that inspires today's retro shooters", referencing games like DUSK and HROT, both inspired by the original Quake's campaign.
• Visual Effects of Awesome:
  • For 1996, the game was often considered a "feast for the eyes", especially with hardware acceleration enabled. Despite the limited texture resolution, it can be argued that the gritty textures help get around this limitation by helping create the illusion of extra details and distract the eyes from the washing-out effect due to hardware constraints of the time. It helps that the game supported much higher resolutions than Doom to further boost visual appeal.
  • The Dimension of the Machine episode released as part of the 2021 remaster pushed the Quake engine to its limits, using improved rendering and lighting to create some large and colourful settings that surpassed the Real Is Brown levels of the original. Special mention goes to "Nazard Terminal", featuring floating islands under an ethereal cosmic backdrop, and "Grave Machine" which starts at a cliffside cathedral.

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