izigame.me

I had a few epiphanies today after watching a YT vid of Ray Tracing on Doom 2; I finally figured out why Quake 2 holds such a special place in my heart, and love it so much over all the other id games. It's because it's the first PC game...no, it was the first game EVER that really had me stepping into the shoes of the player character seamlessly, and roleplaying as them.
With all other games I had played upto that point, like all the 8 bit console games, and Dangerous Dave, Doom (heh, unexpected alliteration), and other forgettable stuff played on the PCs at school for a few minutes at a time while taking turns with the other kids, I didn't ever have that feeling; it felt like I was still myself, operating a basic program that was simulating a person and/or doing some actions.
But with Quake 2:
- For the first time ever there was an unprecedented cinematic that introduced the universe in a hard hitting, visceral way that had me riveted right from the first few frames
- It was my favorite genre, sci-fi with aliens, a shooting war, and space travel
- Humans were boldly going to invade an alien species THAT ARE THE MOTHER FUCKING BORG in all but name (which is ALSO similar, now that I think about it), in retaliation for them invading Earth (I suppose it could be called my first introduction to the HFY genre, in retrospect!)
- I was a kid in 1997 who had just gotten a new PC at home and an actual legit copy of Quake 2 that I could play to my heart's content, and it was the only computer game my extremely frugal dad ever bought me before he died in 2004
And it introduced me to the possibility of ROLEplaying in computer games, truly becoming the character and experiencing everything they go through:
- I was the one shot out of that interstellar warship in a coffin-sized orbital drop pod that got damaged and knocked off course by a showboating loudmouth jock/cowboy (who was a perfect stand-in for a showboating loudmouth classmate/frenemy I hated and was verbally bullied by regularly)
- I was the one who crash landed on Stroggos all alone, while everyone else who dropped along with me were either wiped out by the EMP and subsequent crash, or captured and imprisoned, tortured, driven insane, and processed into raw material or more Strogg (including the damned showboater)
- I was the one desperately fighting for survival with horrible amalgamations of flesh and machine that kept getting progressively worse
- I FELT every shot that hit me and every shot I fired
- I felt relief at finding medkits to patch myself up, and happiness finding new weapons, items, secrets, and powerups
- I felt sadistic glee at imagining every insane captured human I put out of their misery mercilessly (not mercifully) and gibbed just like the Strogg, was the fucking showboater
I felt thoroughly and completely awed and amazed:
- at the highly detailed 3D world, where you could jump and crouch and look around at whichever angle you wanted (unlike Doom), go swimming in water or acid or even lava
- at the insanely realistic and varied enemy types and animations - who ducked my attacks, had multiple kinds of attacks of their own, tried to get off a last few shots at me before dying, could be completely gibbed into pieces of flesh, and who could be turned against each other
- and last but definitely not least, at the most MIND BLOWING BLOOD PUMPING FACE MELTING METAL SOUNDTRACK I have EVER heard in my life!
Quake 2 was also the only FPS I'd ever had the sheer pleasure of playing coop on LAN, and it was an unforgettable experience - even though it was only the first 2-3 levels.
It was also the first game I ever figured out I could use cheatcodes in - I shamelessly cheated through the second half of the game, on a power trip ripping through everything in my path with godmode enabled - I truly felt like a vengeful god. It changed the way I looked at reality after I discovered what the noclip command did.
Speaking of noclip, did you know that every Iron Maiden (the only female enemy type in the game, not the band; coincidentally the first music album cassette my mom ever bought me was their X Factor album, haha)... has 3 holes between the cheeks at the back? :D
P.S:
To uncensor words in reviews, add .* to the list of words that won't be filtered in Store preferences. Either that or write things in a roundabout way like I did in the spoiler tag, instead of simply writing "assholes". Bah. FUCK censorship. And FUCK not having a way to disable it easily.