In the 90s, id Software was responsible for one
of the greatest streaks in video game history. With just Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake, they single-handedly rewrote the book on 3D
graphics and the first-person shooter, three times. Each was a seismic shift in their own right, and
were naturally ported over to console systems. But where Wolf 3D and Doom received ports
to just about every system on the market, Quake's true 3D graphics limited
its console transplantability. Of course, that didn't stop a few
brave developers from trying. Welcome to Punching Weight - a celebration
of the weird, ambitious and unnecessary, and this episode is all about Quake console ports. Now for the record, like Wolf 3D and Doom, fans
have spent the last few decades working diligently to make all of id's early shooters
available on every device imaginable. We've got nothing against homebrews,
but just for the sake of simplicity, we're narrowing our scope to the official ports of Quake. Unfortunately there are only two ports of the first Quake. Let's start with the cheaper and
more common one: Quake 64. Released in the spring of 1998 by Midway, it's technically just "Quake", but...
c'mon, stay in your lane, Quake 64! This is a very competent version of the
game, but you could expect as much from the same talented team at Midway
responsible for all of their id Software ports. A solid framerate, great controls
and flashy lighting effects have your N64 running Quake
nearly as good as PC 3dfx cards. This was a huge deal for the time, since an
N64, a controller and a copy of Quake 64 were much cheaper than PCs and graphics cards in '98. Though this impressive performance comes at a cost: Quake 64 is lacking some serious
content from the PC version. It's only got 25 of the 30 campaign levels, is
missing the difficulty and episode selection level... - it instead puts difficulty choice on the menu screen -
and the campaign is just one long string of levels. And there are load screens!
Oh, sorry, "Building screens". And yes, I know, cartridges do technically load,
but most make an attempt to hide that. Maybe they had to fess up to it because it takes
nearly TEN SECONDS to load levels in Quake 64. Levels are mostly intact though, they certainly aren't
as truncated as levels in Doom console ports. Quake's classic campaign is more or less present here. The biggest change in Quake 64
is a completely original soundtrack. While Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor's ambient
tracks were incredible in the original PC version, the man responsible for the terrifying original music in
the Custom Playstation Edition of Doom and Doom 64, Aubrey Hodges is one of the
few who can fill those shoes. A true master of ambient horror in his own right, if not for the missing Nine Inch Nails logo on boxes
of nails, I probably wouldn't have even noticed! The N64 was the only major fifth-generation
console to commit to analog controls from launch, yet Quake 64's default controls have a Look button:
To look up and down, you must hold R. There are options to give you proper look controls, but it's so crazy to think that this
was the age of the analog stick, yet it took everyone freaking years to figure
out how to properly use them in an FPS! I love to dump on Turok's hilariously thick fog, but I will give it credit for attempting to
force full 3D look controls on the masses. However, unlike Turok, Quake 64 has passwords
instead of requiring a memory card. Those things weren't cheap back in '98 either! Damn, this game is all about just
trying to save you some money! No Quake experience is complete
without multiplayer and, well... ... Quake 64 does have multiplayer, technically. It is only two-player deathmatch, has no bots of any kind,
is only seven levels and runs absolutely terribly. Not only are levels kinda big for just two people, but
actual firefights chug so bad it's basically unplayable. Oof! That's some framerate right there, folks. For the record, we are capturing this off of an
actual N64 with the original composite cables. This game does not have Expansion Pak support,
so other than playing this on a flatscreen TV, this is the setup most people would
have been using back in the day. It's bad. And it was bad back then too! Duke 3D and GoldenEye, released a year earlier in '97,
had more feature-filled multiplayer modes and ran better. For what it's worth, multiplayer does have
Quake 64's other big piece of exclusive content: The level "The Court of Death"!
... so there's that, I guess. Putting aside the terrible multiplayer and the missing
single-player levels... and the frickin' load times... this is one of the better FPSes on the system! A solid engine running a solid campaign,
with an exceptional original soundtrack! By no means a definitive port, Quake 64
doesn't command much these days and is an easy recommendation to retro
collectors and Quake superfans. But let's be honest, it's not that surprising
seeing Quake running well on an N64. Coming from Lobotomy Studios, Quake Saturn
on the other hand is a true thing of wonder, not necessarily because it's good,
but because it simply shouldn't exist! The Quake engine was revolutionary in its day,
and running that engine on the Sega Saturn, a system that famously struggled with
3D graphics, was simply not possible. Instead, what you are looking at is a version of
Quake running on a completely different engine, with levels and assets completely rebuilt for the Saturn! Though a far cry from what PCs were capable
of at the time, it's a miracle it's running at all! In classic Punching Weight tradition, we're not sure
why the hell anyone would attempt such a fool's errand, but this port of Quake pushed the system
to limits no-one thought was possible. How they managed to do it is even more amazing: Lobotomy built the game on the SlaveDriver engine, which they had previously used for their
game PowerSlave a.k.a. Exhumed, a solid Doom clone for the time. Another funny thing is this game's rating:
This is the only version of Quake rated T for Teen, I guess because not as much pixellated
blood splashes off of the enemies. Still a loud, violent game where
you shoot people, I dunno. To clarify, the Saturn COULD do 3D, just not very well. Next to Quake 64, Quake Saturn maybe doesn't impress, but next to the best 3D the Saturn had to offer, and
it's one of the best-looking games on the system. And you know what, graphics aside, Quake Saturn
is maybe a better package than Quake 64. First off, there's no multiplayer to speak of, but hey:
If you're gonna do something, do it right! Instead, all four episodes are present, though
they also feature numerous tiny changes. This is apparent right away
in the difficulty selection room. To make up for this, Quake Saturn
features four exclusive levels taking the place of each episode's secret level. And they are some tough levels! Plus, Quake Saturn's load times
are about the same as Quake 64's! And Quake Saturn beat Quake 64
to market by almost five months! So there's more campaign to chew through. Unfortunately, at the end of the day, Quake
Saturn is a fascinating object to behold, but not a good way to play Quake. Framerate dips get pretty bad, controls aren't very
responsive, and the movement is too squirrely. Auto-aim does offer Doom-like aim assist, requiring
you only to line your shots up on the X-axis, but I still felt like I was missing
way more shots than I should. A crosshair is desperately missing, and tracers for your
nailguns are locked behind a cheat for some reason. Lobotomy attempted to balance
things by altering enemy behavior: Knights move way slower. Same for the Ogres,
however they spam their grenades a lot more now, and Scrags stay pretty still.
Fiends are still trouble though. It's a weird Quake experience, where enemies
don't attack with the same ferocity, but encounters are still white-knuckle
due to poor controls and bad framerate. The Saturn controller was basically a Genesis six-button
pad with shoulder buttons, so strafing is no problem, but your look is mapped to the X button, so
looking and moving simply isn't possible here. I can't imagine the analog controller that shipped
with NiGHTS into Dreams could really help much, but unfortunately, mine is in a storage unit in another
state, so we'll have to save that for another day. Quake Saturn is a feat of truly exceptional engineering,
an absolute must for Quake superfans, game collectors, and anyone interested
in how games are put together. Just look elsewhere if you actually want to play it! But that's still more than enough to earn
the Punching Weight Seal of Approval! Lobotomy shopped around a port
of Quake for the Playstation 1, but somehow couldn't find anyone to publish it. Shortly after wrapping up their also-incredible
Saturn port of Duke 3D, they closed their doors. For years, the original Playstation
would remain Quakeless. Flash forward to 1999, when Hammerhead
Studios did the unthinkable and ported the even more technologically
impressive Quake 2 to the aging Playstation 1. And holy crap! It looks and runs amazing! Great lighting, solid framerate,
great animations, great controls... It has its compromises, of course,
but like all fantastic ports, it's hard to imagine this game
running any better on a Playstation 1. The actual campaign is a bit
compromised from the PC version, with various levels truncated or cut altogether. Extra hallways were added all over the
place to make room for load times. This isn't as bad as you'd think,
load times are really quick, though in a few spots this actually disrupted combat. And get used to never hearing more
than, like, a minute of each song. By '99, analog sticks had
become the norm for consoles, but developers hadn't yet nailed down the
best way to map FPS controls on a controller, so, in a totally charming way, this port has a bunch of control schemes and most of them are unplayable. Standard PS1 controls well enough, but
the Look is with the shoulder buttons. You definitely need a Dual Shock controller,
which controls about as you'd expect. The "Both Sticks" option is just incredible though: Right stick looks up and down, strafes left and right,
left stick turns left and right and moves forward and backward. It's so awkward, it hurts my brain trying to play this way! The best way to play is with the mouse! Yes, that's right, the Playstation
had a mouse, and it's incredible! Controller in one hand, mouse in the other, it plays
wonderfully! Basically keyboard-and-mouse! There are plenty of options to fine-tune sensitivity, and
working in tandem with the solid framerate and visuals, it's definitely one of the best FPS
experiences on the Playstation 1! Honestly though, Quake 2 was
never my favorite campaign. For me it's all about that multiplayer, which... god
damn, this version is flush with multiplayer options! Unfortunately there's no bots, but you'll
make up for this with four-player splitscreen. We only have a Playstation 2 multitap,
which unfortunately is not compatible, so we weren't able to get four-player
splitscreen footage ourselves, but a few brave souls have uploaded their footage,
and it appears to run exceptionally well! Okay, but, full disclosure: There's one reason why I've always wanted
to talk about this game on Punching Weight, one option that just takes the cake and makes this one
of the greatest-with-giant-air-quotes games ever made. If, for some reason, you have two Multitaps,
four controllers, and four Playstation mice, you can play four-player splitscreen
controller-and-mouse deathmatch! Yeah! Got a few Playstation mice hanging around and three
friends who'll put up with your weird video game bullshit? Then it's time to get busy livin'! At Punching Weight, we honor the unnecessary, and this might be the most "no-one asked for it but we
put it in the game anyway" moment we've yet discussed. Okay, jokes aside, it's my dream to one
day acquire the Multitaps and mice to play THE dumbest and most
unnecessary multiplayer mode of all time. Well, for this and Street Racer's
EIGHT-PLAYER SPLITSCREEN OH MY GOD IT'S SO DUMB I WANT IT!!! We'll return to wrap things up on the other Quake 2 ports
and talk about Quake 3 Arena ports another time. I wanna thank our Patreon supporters
for voting on this topic, and of course we always appreciate requests
from our viewers, so let us know if there are any weird, ambitious or unnecessary video
games you'd like us to cover on Punching Weight. Don't forget to subscribe, and if you'd like to help
fund more videos, please support us on Patreon! Thank you so much for watching,
and we'll see you again real soon!
