To be honest, a lot of it is nostalgia. The gameplay was pretty danged good, but feels pretty repetitive and meaningless to modern players - basically no plot or progression to speak of, an endless array of elaborately sculpted mazes with monsters in them for you to explore to find the way to get to the next level.
However, Carmack was the most brilliant engine developer of his time and was heavily committed to open platforms, so that meant these games looked head and shoulders above their peers and played amazing online and had massive communities of modders and admins running the online games. Basically they created the modern FPS genre.
Until Unreal Tournament and Counterstrike came along, the Quake series was the king of online FPS gaming. And even after they appeared, Quake 3 held its own.
No plot or progression and just endless shooting? That's almost some kind of meditation for me and other people.
Both the resurgence of "boomer shooters" (at least in PC) and by extension the recent remastering of both Q1/Q2 indicates an existing target group for these kind of games.
Point taken that younger players may see no fun or meaning in games like this, but modern gamer <> young gamer.
> No plot or progression and just endless shooting? That's almost some kind of meditation for me and other people.
Indeed, some years ago i'd wake up, take a shower, make some coffee, do a quick play of the first episode of Quake (i stopped at first death but i pretty much knew the game so well by that point that i rarely died before the last couple of maps) to wake up and then go to work :-P.
Honestly if it were endless shooting I'd like it more -- for me that's the Serious Sam series. Q1/Q2 is a lot about navigating the map and rationing your ammo. Doom 1/2 had more fun pitched battles but also had some very tedious map design -- games where I have to look for corpses to figure out where I've already been hold no nostalgia for me.
My main experience at the time was with Heretic (only slightly more sophisticated than Doom I/II) - you're right that it's a bit tedious but at the time (when 3d was still a novelty) it somehow added to the feeling of really being there. Additionally I was 12 years old in 1995 which must have helped :)
Yes, you're right. 90s-early 2000s/boomer shooters have different levels of "map complexity" ranging from open pseudo-flat landscapes or big rooms ala Serious Sam (afair, I haven't played one in years) with tons of enemies, to more complex mapping and enemy positioning like Q1/Q2/D3D/etc.
One can drift naturally to one or another extreme, but the more the variety the better imho. I just enjoy simpler games both in graphics and gameplay.
However, Carmack was the most brilliant engine developer of his time and was heavily committed to open platforms, so that meant these games looked head and shoulders above their peers and played amazing online and had massive communities of modders and admins running the online games. Basically they created the modern FPS genre.
Until Unreal Tournament and Counterstrike came along, the Quake series was the king of online FPS gaming. And even after they appeared, Quake 3 held its own.