Quake makes waves

Quake for PC CD-ROMs Game fans have been waiting for Quake with baited breath and it certainly lives up to their expectations.

Its designer, John Romero, has come up with a plausible plot for his masterpiece and there's some great shoot-'em-up action.

You get an emergency call early one morning from your commander. There is a fault in the scientific project you are working on, causing a 'slipgate' crack in space and time.

Unfortunately, someone else - codenamed Quake - has also discovered this and has been sending creatures through the crack to infiltrate the military and start a full-scale invasion. Your job is to stop him.

Quake was the most hyped game since Doom. It has the smoothest scrolling engine I have seen. Movements are so fluid that you can swoop down on enemies or sweep through rooms.

The polygon figures are like those in Alone in the Dark but the scrolling engine makes the monsters and beasties even larger-than-life and more threatening.

The monsters range from Grunts, armed with shotguns, to snarling Dogs, venom-spitting Wizards, huge but clever Shamblers, dangerous Zombies, Knights, who are great at attack, and surprisingly intelligent Ogres who have a pretty good aim.

In Quake you don't need maps to help you. The scenes have a very 3-D feel to them.

Rooms have height as well as depth. Dungeons are gloomy and atmospheric and sound effects are deafening, especially in the underwater scene.

With monsters and beasts pouncing on you from all angles, this is not a game for the faint-hearted.

It's a violent game, not really recommended for children, but it is not as graphic as, say, Mortal Kombat or Doom.

Even the menu is in Virtual Reality. You don't have to go to a pop-up menu to choose the difficulty level of the game.

There are three doors on the levels, offering a range of difficulty.

You just enter the room with the chosen level.

The graphics will push your graphics card to the limit.

The minimum requirement is an 8MB RAM (16MB for Win95), VGA, 486DX/33 - Pentium recommended - and 30MB of hard disk space.

Megahint: The Grunts are reasonably easy to shoot down but make sure they are well and truly dead or they will get up and come after you again.

Megahint: There is a secret level towards the end of the Grisly Grotto, after you kill the Ogres and press the switches.

A message appears informing you that a secret cave has been opened somewhere.

Go back to the lake and you will see a light patch.

There is a shareware version of Quake on the Internet.