The 1990s Shooter That Will Improve Your Aim, Awareness, and Humility in FPS Games is on XBOX Game Pass in 2022.

Quake will improve give your FPS skills a quad boost.

All screencaps by author.

Whether your lived through the 90s or not you’ve probably heard of DOOM, but if you’re young enough you might not have heard of id Software’s other title Quake which released in 1996. It’s similar to DOOM in a lot of regards, but it’s multiplayer mode reminds us all of what a hot and dirty deathmatch is all about.

Quake is currently on XBOX Game Pass and if something shows up there I’m likely to try it out. My aim hasn’t been challenged this much in an FPS game and I’ve never played a game with so many dads populating it.

I’m going to tell you the most important things to know about Quake before you dive in.

Backpacks are extra ammo dropped by other players.

Leave your ego at the door.

You can get ready to get wrecked. I don’t know how people do it, but getting frags in Quake is tough. You see frags in the sense are kills, but you lose a frag when you die. So don’t expect to see a K/D on the scoreboard. You can even go into the negatives. Frags are only part of the multiplayer modes. If you don’t like to lose, buck up because there’s a learning curb and the game feels so clean and raw you feel like you’re skating on ice at first. If you’ve ever played Lucio in Overwatch or Overwatch 2 moving almost feels like his skates. It’s a trip at first.

The actual game itself vs multiplayer mode

The campaign is fun and lengthy, consisting of three “episodes” and three difficulty levels, all of which you choose at the start of the game from a series of physical doors.

People will automatically join you to help out. You’re going to want them too, not because the game is particularly difficult, but because the levels are so maze-like and involve finding keys and pressing buttons. Imagine a Zelda dungeon on crack.

At the end of the day these other players will not only guide you through the levels, but some are so considerate that they hold back to let the newbie host get some kills on the way. Nothing is more annoying than being separated from your group and not knowing how to proceed. We’ve all been there in some game at some point.

If lost, use your jump button to send out sort of a verbal flare to let your teammates, possibly around the corner or through a wall, know where to come find you.

The ammo-pick-ups feature the Nine Inch Nails logo.

The music is by the Nine Inch Niles guy

Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails did the soundtrack for Quake, and it’s great. The music can be a bit loud for gameplay at default volume. I suggest lowering it to 70 percent to make the game sound better. The music can get pretty intense at specific points. There are lulls in the music that give the player breaks. Fun fact, the NIN logo can be seen on the ammo pickups.

Multiplayer maps are well-designed and encourage learning through repetition.

Winning multiplayer is about knowing the map layout and weapon pick-up locations.

The multiplayer maps are mostly maps from the campaign episodes, so the benefit of playing the campaign is learning the maps; however, most of the most popular deathmatch maps are made specifically for multiplayer with less linear hallways and such to get lost in. A small lobby with a long, winding campaign-level map will be boring.

In a match last night, one player said, “I’ve been playing these games for 26 years.” when someone seemed to hint that he was cheating. I do notice that people with ping over 200 do seem to come in first a lot, but it is just about knowing a few things.

The relic grants the player a temporary 4x damage boost, making the screen turn blue.

Play the “relic,” a boost shaped like the Quake logo that can be found somewhere on the map, and respawns every 30 seconds after the last player that had it dies. This gives you a quad boost to your damage output, meaning 4x the normal damage. You’ll know you have the pick-up when your screen turns blue.

Know what guns work best in what situations and where to find them. Rocket launchers are a prime tool, but you can easily blow yourself up in the tight corridors of Quake. Grenade launchers take a bit longer for the grenades to explode than most games, so keep the delay in mind. People love to spam these from one spot. These guns sometimes spawn in tricky places, so always keep an eye for detail. This is also true for traps, buttons, and secret areas in the campaign mode.

Make sure when you first spawn in from a death that you don’t just run back into battle before you get an armor pickup and maybe a different gun from the basic shotgun. You may find yourself in a death loop and negative Fragtown if you run into fights repeatedly without gearing up.

Off to the Nether!

Use portals a lot. Go through the portal, camp the portal, go in and out of portals, and play with the portal. Portals are things that look like Minecraft nether portals. I wonder if this game inspired Notch?

Don’t fall into lava.

You’re probably going to fall into, jump into, get knocked into, and back up into lava. Don’t do that! You’ll die!

Enjoy the kill feed.

Quake has some 1990s dude humor immortalized in its kill feed messages. Don’t be surprised when you accept MR SHAMBLES’ shaft when he kills you with the Thunderbolt or when you ride MAILBOX’s rocket.

It’s a shame it had to be this player in the screen shot for the kill feed, because they came out on top every game I played with them.

Try out the other modes.

There are other modes you can set your match lobby to such as cooperative (the campaign with other players helping you), horde, and capture the flag.

Cross-play is on by default.

Expect to play against PC players if you’re trying Quake out on XBOX Game Pass, but the game does support a mouse/keyboard on XBOX One and XBOX Series S/X.

Fair warning: you can not adjust the X and Y sensitivity. It’s all the same for everyone. Turning around can be a bit slow, considering how fast a lot of the other actions in the game seem to be.

You can make a lobby controller only, but we all know how that goes. Just play with the PC people. It’s all good fun. You can chat with the lobby by hitting the menu button and then X to access the chat box. I suggest turning on the voice reader for a chat in the accessibility options.

There are four ways to play Quake online.

Change your shirt color.

If you go into the options, you can change your character’s appearance under “shirt color”.

Customize your shirt and pants color to something that says “shoot me”!

Kick up the graphics in the settings.

It’s 2022, and we can party with all the settings cranked to the max! By default, some really nice upgrades are turned off by default on the XBOX, so if you’re running an XBOX Series S/X, I highly suggest turning on ambient occlusion and anything else that comes turned off. Motion blur is also available if you’re into that. I go back and forth myself. I can’t ever decide.

Play it raw or spice it up with better graphics!

Thank you for reading and give Quake a try on XBOX Game Pass or PC today. It will take you back even if you weren’t there to begin with and improve your FPS game. It’s different than a lot of the FPS games we see today and is a testament to what mammoth monuments can be built with bare bones. No season pass, no microtransactions, quick install time, excellent performance, great music, and exhilarating gameplay are great reasons to try Quake in 2022 and beyond.

One last note: the community is super helpful and friendly. Don’t take them for granted! It’s astounding for a game where it’s so easy to underperform your expectations; keep in mind that some players have been playing this game for over a quarter of a century. Don’t be surprised if you tremble in their quake.

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