For years, i kept my PentiumII Win98, just to keep playing this game from time to time. When it finally died after 20 years, i tried different VM's on my Win7, but never got it to work... So i was very happy to find it here on GOG! Race tracks like Mr Jolly Fairgound, USS Lewinsky, Local Nuclear Silo and the ski piste are just fabulously insane. Well, all tracks are brilliantly designed imo, but each time you think it can't get any crazier, it does... (remember the one where a plane lands on your head during countdown?) ;-) I don't think one has to choose between racing, wrecking or killing, but you have to mix them. In later races, it becomes clear that the more you race for checkpoints, the easier it becomes to get rid of opponents, but for racing, you need time and therefor you have to kill... After a few laps, the weaker opponents are easy to get wasted, while during the last two laps, the heavier opponents become easier to wreck, if they haven't wrecked themselves yet. Definitely one of my all time favorites!
Enjoyed this game in 1998 and again last month thanks to GOG. Sure, I also missed the darker sphere from Quake 1, but the gameplay is somewhat better. Back then, I hoped Quake 3 would be a mixture of both predecessors, but it became an arena game, much to my dismay. And although I liked playing Quake 4, it should have had that Quake 1 feeling. It felt like playing Doom 3 with somewhat different graphics. Some reviewers here forgot to check out the game folders, I think. There's a folder with all the songs. In the options menu you have to enable it. Nonetheless, in my case, it kept playing only the first song, therefor I copied the song folder to my laptop and played it there. The ReadMe also clearly states that when playing the expansions, it would delete the previous Quake saves. Unfortunetaly, I couldn't find the saves folder hoping to back it up. They're probably saved in GOG cloud, but I'm not sure. Guess I will have to play it again from scratch within 20 years or so. Let's hope by then, someone has come up with a sequal to Quake 1!
Like some other commentors here, I'm also reviving my childhood with this game. Thanks to GOG because the original refused to install on later windows versions. This game was so wicked, punk, pure fun and it still is. Some maps offer insane jumps that are capable of making my stomach twist like no other game ever could. And next, when thinking 'oh no, I'm gonna crash sooo hard', you even get rewarded for your cunning action. Wonderful! Yeah, the graphics are old and probably 256 colored, but I wouldn't want it any other way. That's part of the charm. With today's better graphic, I believe this game would lose its soul. One minor I'm experiencing, is that I can't turn off the music or even put it any softer. Even though the soundtrack is not that bad, it becomes somewhat annoying after hearing it over and over again. And all of the other sounds are pushed away because of that. That's a pity because I would play the game mor often if I could simply turn the music off.
