Quake

I played the shareware version over and over again, longing for the day I could afford the real thing. One of my co-workers came to the rescue with an illegal copy. I was in heaven, until I had a really bad day, finding out that my computer was infected by a virus. I didn't have much experience in how to get rid of viruses at that time so I did what most people do = C:\format and cleaned the hard disk drive completely.

Only to find out that my illegal copy of Quake just didn't want to load anymore! I tried everything, but no such luck. God almighty, was I pissed!

A few days later I was walking around at a flea market, looking for things I might like to buy. Sure enough, there was plenty but what really drew my attention was a big box filled with computer related gadgets and stuff. I didn't know much but thought there might be some interesting things in the box, maybe even things I really could use.

The guy who was selling it, didn't want to let me go through the contents of the box. That made me somewhat suspicous but soon more people started gathering, showing interest in the box. I bought it for 200 SEK (about $25), knowing very well that the possibility of getting cheated was more than likely.

It contained a lot of thingamajigs, cables and cards of which I had no idea what they actually were used for. Having lifted out most of the stuff on my living-room floor I was in for a real surprise. The whole bottom of the box was filled with games!

Now, that sounds as if I had struck gold or something but most of the games were in really bad shape. But there, among chrushed diskettes and plastic rubbish... there it was... a brand new, LEGAL, copy of Quake. I just couldn't believe my luck! Furthermore, both Mission Packs too! I'll tell you more about them in a later post.


Now, about Quake...

This game was released in May 1996 by id software, the makers of Hexen and Doom. It was the first real 3D-game where everything actually was modelled in 3D. It is said that Quake single-handedly kicked off the 3D-card revolution.

Quake is a first-person-shooter, ie. you look through the eyes of the main character. You have a gun and that's it. The storyline isn't especially important since your goal is to kill as many foes as possible until you reach the final boss, in Quake's case the horrible deity Shub-Niggurath. Yes, the same being that was created by H.P. Lovecraft.

In Quake the storyline is that you're a marine, sent through a slipgate by the government. Your orders are simple: Kill the enemy known as Quake!


Quake is fun. By today's standards the graphics might not be regarded as top-of-the-line artwork but if you're playing Quake, you're not playing it because of the beautiful views. You're playing to get an adrenaline rush. That's exactly what you get.

You run through dark hallways, crammed with monsters that want nothing less than rip your head off. You jump, run, walk, sneak and swim your way to the grand finale. You search for ways to open locked doors or to get to secret places with more ammunition, health packs and heavier weaponry. Now, can you find a better way of spending an Saturday evening?

Years later I found ways of making my own maps, mainly with the help of QuARK (Quake Army Knife). I still enjoy making my own maps, occasionally, and Quake is still one of the games that gets to be played when I'm bored with everything else.

The first game...

... that comes to mind is Frontier: Elite II. If you haven't played it, or even worse, never heard of it, you probably stopped wearing diapers rather recently. This is the space sim that every game producer has tried to surpass since 1993. So far, imho, no one has succeded.

It all started in 1982, when David Braben and Ian Bell started writing a game called Elite. Released in 1984 it became a huge success on as many as 21 platforms! In 1988 David Braben disappeared for five years, writing the sequel.

And what a sequel! When it was released in 1993, I just couldn't wait to get my hands on it. I had been playing Elite and it was cool but when I finally got hold of Frontier: Elite II (Amiga version), it totally blew me away. By that time the game was already two years old.

Unfortunately my Amiga died in the hands of my oldest son. It wasn't his fault, it was the bloody cat that somehow managed to tip it over the edge of his desk. Anyway, that was the end of playing FE2. Or so I thought.

Recently I stumbled upon a website with links to the Elite Homepage. Full of joy I downloaded the shareware version of FE2, installed it and immediately ran into trouble. Playing an old DOS-game on Windows XP isn't all that easy. Enter DOS-Box to save the day.

And I played FE2 almost a whole night. And the next. And the following night.

To be honest, the graphics suck, by today's standards. The music sucks too. But no game has captured so many people for such a long time. I've played many other games in this genre but this game can definitely hold it's own without fancy graphics and 5.1 sound. I don't know what it is about it that makes it so special, but I think the joy of discovering new things all the time has a lot to do with it.

I'm really looking forward to Elite IV, because after the disasterous Frontier: First Encounters, it can only get better.

If you find this game, in original box, hold on to it. In the world of PC-games, Frontier: Elite II, is a true classic. In this world where everything just goes bigger, this game proves that small can be better.

First post.

I love PC-games and have done so since I finally, in late 1991, could afford a used C64. By that time, I was 30 years old. Don't ask me where my money went before that, 'cause I don't know. I had been using computers at work for several years but never thought of them as pleasure machines.

My co-workers often talked about this-and-that-game and that speedy new 386 cpu that one of them recently bought. It was all jibberish to me, but I listened and I learned. I never participated in the discussions but the urge to find out more grabbed me.

Eventually one of them had a C64 for sale. I bought it. From that day on, I was stuck. A year later I bought an Amiga 500, learned a lot and finally, in 1995, I bought me a Pentium II 333 MHz, thanks to government subsidairies. I almost married it.

Three years later I bought a new machine, AMD 1,3 GHz, and two years later a Pentium 4, 3,06 GHz, the machine I still have and love.

Unfortunatly I'm poor. Not need-social-welfare-poor, but poor in Swedish standards. With four kids, I have to choose if I want to feed my offspring or buy the latest games. Of course I choose the latter.

Just kidding. Of course I feed the family first. The gaming might come in seventh place or so, but nevertheless I love playing computer games. Since I can't buy the latest games, I'll have to buy games that everyone else seems to have played already. That gives me the advantage to have read about the games I buy and knowing if I really want it or not. The keyword is patience.

I know that there are more people like me out there in cyber-space. Everyone doesn't have a rich daddy who will pay up for a bug-infested, rushed-to-be-published-before-Christmas kind of game. Some of us have patience and are clever enough to wait for the patches and reviews before we buy.


Now, what kind of games do I prefer?

First-person-shooters, space-sims, tetris-like and racing games. I don't like online-gaming. That's because I suck at it, not because I have trouble with lagging. I have a 10 Mbps broadband-line so that's no problem.

Why do I want to review old games? Because I can't very well review the new ones.

I hope some of you find my reviews useful. If not, who cares. I'm having fun and that's what matters to me.