I finished Quake 1 with all its official add-on content and while it was interesting to play, I liked the older original Doom more.
The big difference to Doom is of course the real 3D levels with 3D enemies, which changes how you can hide from enemy fire and how the developers can place enemies and traps. But sadly, colours, as in plural, were too expensive back then, so the only colour they could afford was brown. Meaning everything looks so boooring, as there are few highlighting colours to contrast against. Brown castles, brown caves, brown labyrinths, brown outer dimensional planes.
The enemies are eyeless lovecraftian monsters and have different attack types leading to the player having to switch how to approach each fight depending on enemy composition and level terrain. But I did not enjoy the slower pace and more methodical approach in contrast to Doom’s more hectic Run & Gun gameplay. This is strengthened due to the smaller rooms and more tunnels and hallways.
I was surprised that the levels were, similar to Doom, more atmosphere than logical and coherent layouts, but the level packs luckily improved massively there. Inside those, there was a red thread flowing through the levels and a certain rampup of difficulty and setup in the level progression. This is in opposition to the almost random feeling composition and combination of levels in the base game’s chapters. And the newest level packs from the last decade really show what is possible inside the engine and how much level design improved from the birth era of the shooter genre. I also enjoyed the secrets inside the levels and how they were often possible to be found by paying attention to the environment and noticing odd parts.
Would I recommend playing it nowadays? Not really. This game was the first steps into a new genre and they didn’t yet found what works and what doesn’t. If you are interested in the birth of the shooter genre, sure, but it’s not a hidden gem that was unfairly forgotten in my eyes. The quake engine with its tons of fan made levelpacks though? That is another thing entirely.
Being slightly younger than Quake itself, I only played it for the first time a few years ago and I did enjoy it quite much. I agree with some of your points, though I wouldn’t say that Quake is more slow-paced, for me it was even more dynamic, especially if you start using rocket jumps etc.
In my opinion, the visuals were not, as you put it, “boooring”. I liked the atmosphere and I remember there being more colors than just brown ;) But it’s true that in general it has a rather gloomy palette.
The level design, especially its cohesiveness in the world of the game, is something that Half-Life improved and paved the way for future games.
IIRC, the engine people play on right now is not exactly the original engine, so it’s a bit misleading to say that the new levels show what’s possible inside the engine as a comparison to the original levels. I’m pretty sure those levels would not run on the original engine and PCs of '98.
Agree with everything you wrote but especially those ^
It was dark and gloomy on purpose and I loved (and still love) that. Op makes it sound like the art direction was lacking and that is hella-untrue. It’s just not their favorite kind of aesthetic.
True, that is something I forgot while writing it. But already the first level packs from 1997 are an improvement in my opinion.