The year was 1998 and I was 9 years old when my brother and I got our first computer from our parents, a "COMPAQ PRESARIO" with an amazing AMD k6-2 500 processor.
The internet was still a novelty to most people. Our connection, via modem, had a maximum speed of 56kb/s with a limit of 50 hours of use.... per month !!!
That's right, the ISP limited our usage to 50 hours per month and we divided that between two people for one hour each maximum per day.
But we were still happy anyway. 🤣
Since the beginning of my history with computers I have been interested in games, both offline and online.
I have played many many games of any and all kinds since then, as long as they were fun, but, my first contact with online games was with the classic of classic shooter games, the amazing QUAKE.
Quake, for the younger ones, is a first-person shooter game created in 1996, it became a fever and a success in the late 90s, because it innovated graphically by being the first game to enter entirely in the 3D era.
Quake, like all games, had the option to play alone in offline mode, but it was also possible to play against your friends, through direct connection between computers, or even strangers from all over the planet in online mode.
I must confess that in the beginning it was not very easy to get to play online mode, because everything was very new and not nearly as easy as it is nowadays to play online quickly and conveniently.
For a computer novice, as I was, the four multiplayer game mode options were a surprise at first, but then I figured out what type of connection for each of them, see:
The "Modem" and "direct connect" options allowed you to play against another friend in your home, duly connected through their modems or by null-modem cables.
But in the TCP/IP option was where the magic happened, through such you could play and face several players spread around the planet.
But not everything was wonderful, to play online you had to search for a server on the internet, which was not a very easy task since Google was not famous, and you should not care much about the incredible LAG that only a 56kbs connection gives you.
One amazing option that was available in multiplayer mode was the ability to "customize" your character. Granted, the options were pretty sparse, just the color of the shirt and pants, but it was a lot of fun to make your character colorful.
Well my friends, what I can say is that I have spent many, many hours playing Quake online, and it was an amazing time of my life. 😊
Besides the online mode you could also play in offline mode by facing monsters and going through the stages to collect runes.
The Single Player mode has three difficulty levels, being Easy, Hard and Medium, which you choose right from the start screen of the game:
easy, medium and hard
The game is divided into 4 episodes: "Dimension of the doomed"; "The Realm of Black Magic"; "The Neterworld" and "the Elder World"
To write this post I decided to kill my nostalgia and play a little quake (you can play HERE) and, since I was a little out of practice, I chose the first episode in easy mode.
But at the first steps, a possessed and totally insane Rottweiler decided to attack me, and with my amazing shotgun I tackled him.
But I had no chance, he was quite nervous, look at these shark teeth 😌
On the second try I ended up choosing episode three instead of the first, so I wouldn't have to face the killer Rottweiler. Then I came across other types of monsters:
That's a Wild ENEMY
In single player mode you had to go all the way through each episode killing the monsters that appeared, collecting lives, weapons, and the runes you found.
It is amazing how in 1998, and even today, Quake managed to transport you almost inside the game with a macabre atmosphere created by the addition of dark 3d images and the sounds of screaming and grunting.
You might say that these graphics today are a little unpleasant, but in 1998 they were amazing. Take a look at the shadows and the gloomy look in this hallway.
another spot
Look this sky
Additional weapons were available throughout the map, here a double shotgun at your disposal
Yes I took the double shotgun and, well, it was carnage.
You can also find armor scattered around the map
You could also use an axe
As I said, Quake marked its epoch and certainly stayed in the memory of the oldest who had the pleasure of spending hours and hours challenging and defeating their friends.
And that's it my friends, a short post about this amazing and revolutionary game that can be considered as the granddaddy of first-person shooter games. I hope you enjoyed it.
All the pictures in this post were taken by me at Quake
Translated with the help of www.deepl.com