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"AMERICAN GOTHIC"

No other gaming company gets scolded as much as Sega nowadays from supporters, enemies and the press. N64 owners rightfully complain about the constant delays, lackluster titles and lack of an extensive gaming library; PSX zealots bitch about the glut of mediocre games and overhyped generic racers overwhelming the library. But we the Saturn loyal bitch about the company's management, the lack of RPG's, the import scene, the trickle of new releases, etc. Sega has made lots of dumb decisions during their effort to establish Saturn as a successful console, but at least give them credit for doing the right thing (and doing it fast and without hesitation). They fired the guys working on Saturn ports of "Duke Nukem 3D" and "Quake" (who were also responsible for the butchering of "Doom" and "Hexen"), and hired the folks of Lobotomy Software (who worked for PlayMates); these bunch of deranged programmers (read any print interviews and you'll know why they named the company Lobotomy) used their engine for the cult hit "Powerslave" as the basis for converting two of 1996's biggest PC hits into Saturn stocking-stuffers. Result: the first console version of "Quake" (which we'll review in detail), and the best console version of "Duke Nukem 3D" (I'll review this one when I get a chance to rent the PSX and N64 versions of "Duke" for the big comparison...does this reviewer love you or what?). Saturn's last successful Christmas is going out with a loud and resonant bang, and these two titles are a very big reason why Sega's machine ain't dead yet. There is some juice left in the old Hitachi processors, and "Quake" is using just about every ounce of it.

Let's get something clear right our of the gate: anybody who has a state-of-the-art PC, 3D accelerator cards, disposable income and an addiction to Internet gaming should not even think of getting Lobotomy's port of Id Software's smash hit "Quake" for the Saturn. Got that? OK. (You would be surprised the heat I've taken on chatrooms and usenet groups for defending this game...unbelievable).

Believe it or not, there are many gamers who do not wish to bother with the expense, technical configurations and compatibility problems that are common for PC gamers; I'd rather just pop in a CD or cart into a console, turn it on and get playing (life on the edge, I know!). Saturn "Quake" was designed for that console freak that can't afford or want to take on Internet deathmatches, but still wants to experience that gothic feel and adrenaline rush that only Romero and company seem to inject into the saturated first-person corridor genre. And as a one-player game, Lobotomy has tweaked "Quake" PC's lackluster Artificial Intelligence, added light-sourcing, kept the frame-rate at a respectable 24 per second, and earned their paycheck with flying colors yet one more time. Although flawed, "Quake" for Saturn is a small-scale miracle of programming within limited resources. You owe it to yourself to at least rent the game so you can see that the misguided loyalty you've felt for this system isn't built on a house of cards.

GRAPHICS/VISUALS: B+

Considering that it took tremendous horsepower to get this game running with any decent frame-rate on a PC, sacrifices had to be made in order to get it running on a three year-old console with 2MB of RAM. Levels had to be modified and reshaped, the resolution has been lowered to (occasionally) red-eye watery degrees of grainy textures, and transparencies like water or the slipgates are faked. Improvements over PC "Quake"? Just be grateful you can still get that Ogre chasing your rear end, and stop complaining that his arms, body and walking-pattern are all more square and blocky than the company that made "FFVII" :-); GL "Quake" this definitely ain't.

On the bright side, this is the third generation of Lobotomy's awesome "Powerslave" engine, and the most noticeable trade-off made in order to accommodate the all-polygon "Quake" engine is that the game runs at a constant 24 frames most of the time (higher when no enemies are on-screen, a tad lower when the action gets intense). The weapons create awesome light-sourcing effects that do not slow things down in any way; stand next to a dark corner and a shotgun blast will enlighten it, but shoot that same spot from afar and it won't lit it the same way. It isn't a dramatic or gameplay-enhancing feature (like the flares used by Laura Croft in "Tomb Raider 2"), but it's eye-candy that many of us thought couldn't be done on Saturn. The levels are fairly complex and quite massive by console standards, so unless you've beaten and memorized the PC version of "Quake", this Saturn version isn't a slouch in any way. The mood and eerie sense of (pardon the pun) doom that permutates every texture and surface of this game cements Id's reputation for being able to convey satanic and/or afterlife imagery like no other developer. Playing "Quake" with headphones late at night on a big-screen TV is a rush that only a handful of Saturn titles have made me feel: "Resident Evil", "D", "Enemy Zero", "Sky Target", "Batman Forever" (these last two caused a rush back to the retailer for a money-back exchange :-), etc.

MUSIC/SOUND EFFECTS: B+

Red-book audio tunes from the Nine Inch Nails are here, and although it's nice to have a top-selling musical group providing their talents for an "A" quality videogame, I'm not sure how anyone can call these tunes music. They resemble the background noise (screams, shrieks, incidental sounds) heard on "Doom 64", but with the sound chips of the Saturn providing a cleaner and meaner sense of being all alone in a foreign world where everything is out to get you. As part of the game this soundtrack works wonders in getting you sucked into the "Quake" culture; as stand-alone music, it's utter dung (but you may like it).

The sound effects could have ended up being cookie-cutter variety shotguns, yells, explosions, etc. They do come close to cliche', but "Quake" comes across with more finesse because the game involves the player so much into its realm (how many times can I say that with different wording? Keep track!). I guess the sound effects, like the music, end up getting good grades if the game is good enough to prevent the player from thinking about them while they play the game (the same could be said about watching a well-crafted motion picture). "Quake" achieves this feat with an ease I've only seen another game achieve: "Turok: Dinosaur Hunter" for the N64 (which, by the way, is that platform's equivalent of Saturn "Quake"). You'll never think for a moment about how scary the noise of the Zombie throwing their body parts sounds, or how nerve-wracking the Spawn sounds...but afterwards, try getting 'em out of your mind. Scary stuff.

GAMEPLAY/FUN FACTOR: B+

You've played one? Then you've played them all, and the sequel to Id's "Doom" series (which was itself a sequel to the "Wolfenstein" series) doesn't push or attempt in any way a major breakthrough of the genre. Sure, the design of the levels finally matches the tried-and-true gameplay of "Doom" (which wasn't true 3D) with a real 3D environment that allows the player to look in every direction and study pattern attacks from enemies in every conceivable location. Other games before "Quake" incorporated the look-anywhere feature. But their engines and level-designs didn't match what Carmack, Romero and the twisted souls under their watch came up with. Although the sequel is already available on PC for the holidays, Saturn "Quake" is a console-exclusive until March of '98 (when a N64 version is poised to blow it out of existence). For $50, the gameplay in this game is tried-and-true, vitamin-enriched, adrenaline-packed carnage extraordinaire. How this game got a "T" rating from the ESRB is beyond me, but you should be aware that the level of darkness (visually and thematically), violence and gothic horror isn't for the weak of heart. The same way I feel the movie "Spawn" should have been rated "R" to keep right-wing conservatives from pointing it as an example of Hollywood trash, "Quake" would have less potential problems with censorship zealots.

While blasting the living chunks out of the freaks and getting to the end of the level are the primary objectives (the game doesn't even have an action button), there is some strategy involved in figuring out how to get the terrain fully explored and all the secrets revealed. The structures and buildings resemble a twisted mix of gothic European architecture, populated by a time-warped alien attack from rejects of "Men In Black" and "Independence Day"; not only must you take them down and keep your health at reasonable levels, but risk drowning in underwater lakes and leap-of-faith platform jumps. Unless there is some hidden Saturn-exclusive level in there somewhere (doubtful, since "Duke Nukem 3D" trumpeted it's exclusive level on the box; if "Quake" had one, they would have announced it already), there are 27 levels waiting for you to tackle. At the beginning of the game you'll have two slipgates to choose from, one set on an easy level and the other one at a much harder one; once you get passed that, you can select from four Episodes with different degrees of difficulty, each containing six to eight missions. Plenty of mayhem for the discriminating corridor-shooter junkie, with mission names like "Satan's Dark Delight" and "The Tower of Dispair". Although there are plenty of fiendish puzzles, level-designed traps and other goodies that stand between you and the exit, the environments won't give the designers of the "Tomb Raider" franchise a moment of sweat. You still need a key to open previously closed doors, you still get a shield, a biological suit, enough ammo to level a small country (not to mention sufficient nails to rebuild Irag after the US finally decides to level Saddam's palaces :-), and the joys of a job well-done: a static screen congratulating you for winning. Since the thrill of the kill is the constant reward of playing "Quake", the absence of an intro or a fancy ending aren't entirely surprising. Of special note is the ability to jump realistically (small distances and not very high), unlike the expected huge jumps that go for miles on end ("Powerslave" anyone?).

So why the score? For starters, the game was designed for multiplayer deathmatching and the absence of split-screen or Netlink support is disappointing, considering how starved for gaming support Saturn's Internet peripheral is nowadays. Lobotomy knew it couldn't pull off the Netlink support because of the polygons, so they improved the AI and the enemies are now more ferocious and deadly in their attacks (unlike the PC version, where they just stood still waiting to be massacred); with a Rottweiler and two Ogres simultaneously feasting on your flesh as you attempt to take them down over a lava river, you know this game can be a toughie...but can't match the thrill of not knowing where your enemy (an equal) will come from that "Duke Nukem 3D" brings over the Netlink. It's also a year-old game, which means the console versions of "Quake" are just cashing on the popularity of the franchise. Finally, the overall "Quake" experience on Saturn can't match that of the console leaders in the first-person genre: "Duke Nukem 3D" moves faster (Saturn) and has fancier-looking weapons (N64), "GoldenEye 007" has a better license and multiplayer scenarios that kick (N64), "Turok" is a safari trip into the bowels of an alternative wasteland (N64), etc. For Saturn, this game is the second-best single-player corridor shooter of the system, behind "Powerslave" and "Duke Nukem 3D"; fine company to be seen with, since all three titles form what will be regarded as the classic Saturn trilogy of premier "Doom"-type games. Of the three, I'd have to say that "Powerslave" is still king as a one-player game, but that "Duke" and "Quake" won't disappoint in their own unique way. You can't go wrong buying either one of these three gems (hell it's Christmas, why not get all three?).

OVERALL: B+

The folks at Lobotomy are Saturn's equivalent of Singletrac, the PSX third-party developer that emphasized gameplay over fancy graphics, and gave the world "Warhawk", the "Twisted Metal" series, and the "Jet Motto" series. Although their Saturn ports of hot PC titles won't sell as many units as the above-mentioned titles, Lobotomy has lived up to their name by being crazy enough to believe they could port games with totally different engines ("Powerslave", the Build engine for "Duke" and the "Quake" engine) and come away with three solid games that are fun to play. More like morale-boosters than blockbusters, Lobotomy's games have kept the Saturn faithful happily playing the best PC games as well as they could be done on Saturn...you won't even see a version of "Quake" for the PSX in the near future because the developers have given up on attempting a port, TWICE!

Enjoy this Sega (Saturn!!) holiday exclusive, and hope that Lobotomy will work their magic on the new Sega system and, maybe, give us one more Saturn game to play around with in 1998 ("Powerslave 2"?, Netlink "Doom"?). It would be a shame to have such a worthy piece of Saturn code just laying around without any use...how about selling it to Sony so they could port "Quake" to the PSX? That would be a nice change of pace for a change, Saturn code being totally screwed-up when moving to the Playstation (Saturn "Doom" anyone?).

NeXT!!!