Quake Turns 15, Frag On!

It was brought to my attention that Quake turned 15 years old Wednesday. Games have come a long way since then, but yet these old games can still transport players into other worlds doing things mere humans usually only see in a movie. In honor of its anniversary I thought I'd load it up and play through it once again.

Quake is the story of a lone hero thrust into the precarious position of saving the world. The main goal is to stay alive, clear out the invaders, and advance through the levels. Of course, you'll encounter big bosses along the way and will need to collect powerful runes in order to defeat the main boss at the end.

Somehow many years ago I had gotten hold of a Linux version, perhaps it was distributed by Loki. However, that version in itself is so old that it doesn't play well on newer systems if at all. That's where QuakeSpasm comes in.

You can get the source for QuakeSpasm, but why? It comes in a handy dandy binary that seems to work just fine on every distro I've tried. So, extract your pak files and stick them into a directory somewhere. Then download and decompress QuakeSpasm then stick it into the same directory. Then execute quakespasm, adjust the options to taste, and immerse yourself in some top flight old school shoot-anything-that-moves action.

With QuakeSpasm you'll enjoy much improved graphics and controls. It "includes some new features, important fixes, and aims for portability and 64 bit correctness."

So, enjoy the weekend and celebrate Quake's birthday by loading up the old game and playing through. 15 years later, it offers a nostalgic look back to the innocence of our youth - jumping through portals and fragging everything in sight!

For similar Quake II goodness I recommend Yamagi Quake 2.