REVIEWER: Bob Meyers EMAIL: meyersrl AT cts DOT com (Anti-Spam coding) PRODUCT NAME: Amiga Quake BRIEF DESCRIPTION: This is a level exploration and trap/puzzle solving "kill everything that moves" bloodfest game, similar to DOOM. Many different weapons, levels and monsters. Has a large number of options for multiplayer games. DEVELOPER INFORMATION: Orginal Quake by: iD Software Website: http://www.idsoftware.com Amiga Re-Write by: Snail Mail: PXL computers / clickBOOM Box 969 31 Adelaide St. East Toronto M5C 2K3 Canada EMail: info@clickboom.com Website: http://www.clickboom.com LIST PRICE: $48.00 USD direct from clickBOOM (depending on Canadian - USA currency rates), may be available for less from various Amiga mailorder companies. SYSTEM CONFIGURATION USED FOR TESTING: Model: A4000T OS: Kickstart 3.1, Workbench 3.1 CPU: Amiga Technologies 68060 @ 50MHz Memory: Chip - 2 Mb, Fast - 128 Mb 50ns EDO (Installed in '060 Board) Drives: Connor 2.3 Gb SCSI-2 Hardrive, DD Amiga Floppy, Iomega 100 Mb SCSI ZIP, Toshiba 32x SCSI-2 CD-ROM Graphics: Cybergraphics 64/3d with 4 Mb and Scandoubler module Packard Bell 15" Multisync Monitor Network: C= A2065 10Base2/10BaseT Ethernet board (Used in 10Base2 mode) TCP/IP: Miami Version 2.1g registered (Of course!) Scanner: Microtek Scanmaker 3+ SCSI-2 Other: GVP I/O Extender 2 High Speed Serial and 1 Parallel ports Modem: Motorola ModemSURFER 33.6 external (Connected to the GVP I/O board) INSTALLATION: Game is shipped on CD-ROM (Of course - it's about 50 Mb of data not counting the music). Has a standard Amiga Installer script. For me it was completely smooth and hassle free. Just double click and answer a few simple questions, then watch Quake do the install. REVIEW: I hesitate to call this a port of a Wintel game, it is such a complete and perfectly playing game that I think it's really a re-write. This is an addictive, time sucking game. Very, very fun to play. Takes a few sessions to learn the controls, as well as how to customize their layout. I especially like playing this in multiplayer mode. There is nothing quite as fun as blasting your buddy into dripping giblets of red meat. I played this in a small LAN with two friends, they were both using A4000's. One had a 68040 @ 25 MHz with no graphics card and 16 Mb of Fast memory. The other was a 68040 @ 40 MHz machine with a Picasso II card, also with 16 Mb of Fast memory. I believe that a 68040 @ 25 MHz WITH a graphics card is really the lower limit to play this game. A 68040 @ 40 MHz would be the lower limit without a graphics card. A 68060 is highly recommended, as is a minimum of 16 Mb of Fast memory. There are already some Quake C custom addon's being uploaded to Aminet. I haven't tried any Quake addons yet from the Wintel world, but I'm told that they should work fine. I haven't seen any new level addons so far. I believe there is no level editor available for the Amiga as yet. DOCUMENTATION: I think the documentation was just enough to get you up and playing, there could have been more information in there, especially about various command line options. However, I think clickBOOM has done such an incredible job on the game coding itself, I'm glad they didn't take more time away from that job to put into documentation. LIKES: Background sounds and music fit into the game seamlessly, and add a sense of foreboding and danger, greatly enhancing game play. Multiplayer networking is transparent and worked perfectly the first try. This was true for the TCP/IP and serial drivers, I don't have IPX so I couldn't test that network mode. I was easily able to connect to Internet Quake servers and join multiplayer games. Graphics are incredibly and beautifully detailed. DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS: No real dislikes. It would be nice to have level editing tools to make your own games. Better documentation. COMPARISON TO SIMILAR PRODUCTS: Totally outclasses DOOM in every category (And I do mean "gory"). I can only compare Quake to DOOM, as that is the only other gane in this genre that I have played. The 16 Bit Quake graphics modes are slower, but they have incredibly detailed images, especially when compared to Quake on a PC (8 bit only). Much more responsive and playable than DOOM. BUGS: 16 bit mode can cause odd double reflections to be generated in the underwater areas which make it impossible to play the game (underwater only). This problem happens fairly often but seems to be random in nature, I haven't yet detected a pattern in relation to my system or other operations in progress to help narrow this down (sorry clickBOOM!). If I am able to detect a pattern or cause, I'll forward that info to clickBOOM asap. I suspect it's probably something in my system, since I haven't yet heard from anyone else with this problem. I downloaded the '060 optimised code from clickBOOM and tried it out. It ran great but if I jumped into any underwater areas, the display would become trashed with an odd grid pattern of horizontal and vertical lines while I was underwater and the game was unplayable as a result. This would happen in all graphics modes. I wonder if this might be related to the first bug above. VENDOR SUPPORT: I haven't tried to obtain any as yet so I can't comment. I will say clickBOOM seems to have a positive reputation in this regard. WARRANTY: Standard software warranty (faulty disk replacement). CONCLUSIONS: Absolutely excellent game. Well worth every penny I sent to clickBOOM. Even after I finish the standard solo game (I am only 3/4 of the way there after 3 months) there will be many, many wasted hours splattering human players as opposed to the monsters. The multiplayer modes of this game are what are truly challenging and fun. I expect to be enjoying this game and various add-ons for years.