ID Software vs. Epic Games

[cyberfluxor]

So, back in the 90's and into today what is the series of choice: Unreal or Quake. I'm refurring mainly to the older of the series i.e. Unreal Gold and Quake 2 but of course feel free to venture off from there.

Personally I use to love the Quake series from the first to Arena. I played the hell out of it and would connect IP to others and have all out braws. Towards the middle of 2003 I stumbled across the Unreal Gold game for a few dollars at an EB Games. I figured whatever and decided to buy it not realising I'd get hooked. Slowly my favoritism towards the ID games moved to Unreal and it's future games. It's somewhat funny because it was around this time when I also decided to start buying PC games that were dirt cheap just to check them out whereas before I'd just reject it as an older game (this was a little while after I dove into the classic console game market too).

[theshizzle3000]

Its hard to say, but Id is responsible for giving us Doom and damn thats a classic game.

[jajaja]

Between Unreal and Quake i played Unreal. For some reason i've never been a fan of Quake, guess i havnt gotten into it. I played Quake 1 just a few days ago actually hehe.

I played Doom 2 alot! That game still owns! :)

[Kitsune Sniper]

I tried Unreal and didn't like it so much. But I've been playing Quake II and its expansions quite a bit... they're great to blow off steam. :)

[skaar]

I actually don't tend to link Epic Megagames and Unreal in my mind - every once in awhile I have the realization that is what happened to them. Back when shareware didn't mean adware, they had some awesome demos.

What happened to 3d realms?

[neuropolitique]

Unreal. I got real big into FPSs when Unreal Tournament and Quake III Arena were recently released. Unreal consumed my soul, Quake not so much. I always had issues with the quake engine. I tended to un-intentionally run off ledges and such. Unreal I never had that problem.

[Griking]

Unreal Tournament was my favorite shooter ever. I never thought felt that any of it's sequels or any others games captured the same feel. Perhaps it's because I hate vehicles in my shooters and all new games feel the need to have them

[cyberfluxor]

Unreal. I got real big into FPSs when Unreal Tournament and Quake III Arena were recently released. Unreal consumed my soul, Quake not so much. I always had issues with the quake engine. I tended to un-intentionally run off ledges and such. Unreal I never had that problem.

Yeah, speaking of running off. I installed Quake 4 on my laptop, which is a new and great machine but not real powerful with graphics, and on the LOWEST possible setting the frame rate blows chunks, it's sickening. Now, that game was released in 2005. On the same laptop Unreal 2004 can be put on maxed out everything and runs smoother than a babies butt. Although Quake does have a few nice bonuses on their graphics, the satisfaction thus far with UT2k4 and it's performace just blows it away even for being a year older than Q4.

Now, falling back to the older days, yes 3D Realms was cool especially with the first 2 Dukes having similar gameplay to Commander Keen and Blackthrone (among a few that I played back then as well). When it came to the 3D game it was kick ass even with the textures. They had so many releases on different game systems and quite a few titles whereas ID software decided to port Doom to other consoles and bring the Hexen games along too (I wish they would have ported Heretic!).

anyways though, that's an older story to reach back into the Hexen, Heretic, Doom ownage of the early-mid 90's. :)

[calthaer]

Well, the '90s were clearly a golden age for PC gaming - and, I would say, for gaming in general.

Early FPS games - even FP games like Ultima: Underworld and the original System Shock - were landmark games. The original DOOM was definitely classic, and Quake was OK, but really - Unreal took the cake.

The game was so full of imaginative, ethereal, other-worldly ambience. Everything from the music to the level designs to the textures and sounds took you far away to this other world. It was sort of dream-like and yet gritty at the same time. You had great areas like the Sunspire and that floating city and the temple of Chizra-Nali water god and you had that behemoth that threw boulders at you and MAN - it was instant classic. From the moment you stepped off of the Riker's something (whatever that ship was called) and that bunny-creature hopped over to where the ammo was hidden in the crook in the wall...the game was a masterpiece.

Too bad Epic never made anything to top it after that. Sure, the Tournament games were OK, but they never topped the original Unreal.

And Unreal 2 flat out sucked. They spent way too much time on that chica's cleavage and not enough on good gameplay (they completely ruined the pacing of the first one with the weapon / armor / health balance) and interesting level design.