Quake 1 is one of my favorite games, and I still play it many years on
I remember playing the shareware version, and then I bought a Quake game pack
which had Quake, with a couple of mission packs
Dissolution of Eternity named Mission Pack 2 for some reason, and Malice
Sigh
Well I recall using the CD as a drinks coaster
But I managed to get hold of a copy and I’ve been playing it again
So has my attitude changed many years on
Well no
But at least I played the game through to the end
The game is set in the 23rd century, and is classed as a total conversion
even though it still requires the original game.
One review praises how well the game manages to get away from the original Quake
Yeah well a pint of rancid milk is different to a pint of nice fresh milk, but I know which one I’ll take
You play as the character “Damage”, a mercenary hired by the Bossman to bring down his main rival Takahiro Industries
The game starts off with this cutscene, and I do have to laugh at the cashpoint joke
Look Mouth movements in an in-engine cutscene
Well ok it's common now but in 1997 that was rare
So I cancel out of the story and start the game. It begins with a helicopter journey to the first level
nice but not futuristic
Here is a new feature - Reloadable weapons
Very nice, except they don’t show how much ammo is left
The basic weapon is a small pistol with infinite ammo, I like to call it a pea shooter
Well it’s better than the Axe in Quake
But you don’t have the fun of humiliating the enemies and other deathmatch players like this
Some other changes include: No armour, yes thats right no armour
you lose more health than Quake but have no armour
Parachutes to prevent long fall damage. This guy can’t take a long fall at all
Fire Extinguishers, these replaced armour
If you get set on fire that’s it, you stay burning until you find water or get a fire extinguisher to work
more than likely it results in death
All the weapons are different to Quake, the final one, a pulse gun seems to do more damage to you than the enemies
There is also a third person view available, nice touch, but its difficult to aim
There are cheap tricks like this, give me a shiny new weapon, but oh no the enemy above is shooting at me
Dammit where’s that fire extinguisher?
Oh never mind
So second attempt after a quick load I’ll avoid stepping in too far
I must admit it is satisfying to set the enemies on fire and watch them burn
perhaps I'm just too cruel and sadistic, but hey its a game
What happens with this lift?
It gets stuck at the bottom, forcing me to shoot a very small target
and I don’t have a rocket launcher yet
Then it moves just as I get bored and step off
Oi get back here! FFS
While we’re still young please
The enemies can be really annoying, most of them are these guys armed with machine guns
Get a couple of them on the screen at once, and if you can’t quite see them in time
you can kiss your health goodbye
Fortunately there aren’t too many enemies
but then that makes the level really long and boring
and that is the biggest issue with Malice, the levels are so long and drawn out
It might as well be called a scenic puzzle game with the odd bit of shooting
First time I played level one it took me 15 minutes
15 minutes with only 50 odd enemies. Arrgghhh! Thats boring
Give me the "Elder God Shrine", that had what 105 enemies
and it can be completed in a few minutes
you only have a basic selection of weapons at that point
Some levels in Dissolution of Eternity are huge and can take 10 minutes to get through
but there are so many enemies to kill
Malice just has huge empty levels full of scenery
Cool a rocket launcher in level 1 thanks
But why does it have to take up nearly a quarter of the screen?
Look at the Rocket launcher in the original Quake game
Now why couldn’t it have been smaller?
Its a long walk back along empty corridors
Would it have been so hard to teleport some enemies back in
Thinking about it I can’t remember the game adding any enemies back to a cleared area
The music is pretty decent, sure its no Nine Inch Nails
but its fine and puts you in the mood for some shooting
Shooting which I would like to be doing right now
Arrgghh! I’m still walking all the way back to the beginning of the level
Oh a timed bit how nice
well at least the bars don’t go back up
I can use the parachute to get back pretty quick
Another cheap trick - hide the enemies in the dark
Maybe it is my choice using the DarkPlaces engine
(no pun intended)
but it makes the dark sections really dark
Hey this is the first Robot in the game. Bet you’re tough and will put up a fight?
Oh
That’s pathetic
With a long path you can take them out with a pea shooter
before they have time to close the gap and do some serious damage
Episode two and oh look they show the key at the beginning
but they make it unreachable
Well we can’t say that Quake never did that
This level really starts showing off my major annoyance with Malice
Shooting these panels, and there can be so many to shoot
and they have a habit of hiding them in the pitch black
This is not fun! It’s extremely annoying!
First bit of real danger here when a pile of enemies drop from the ceiling
Ok here is where I’ll mention that I’m playing on normal difficulty
Hard difficulty increases the enemies strength
but leaves pretty much the same number of enemies
It takes so many shots that you have to use the little pea shooter of a weapon
so it goes from being a challenge to boring
Nightmare turns all the enemies into utter pussies
seriously you can kill them with one shot
I kid you not I played this level twice, but never found the way out until I did this video
Walls and grates can sometimes be shot
Another pile of enemies in this room but I noticed the stairs are slow to retract
Noticed that the first damn time I played it
Secret level can be found here from level two. That was too easy
The secret level is a pain in the ass
you have to go round in circles several times in order to make switches appear
These probe things can drain your health if you’re not careful
Half my health has gone on the first enemy. Oh great!
Another new enemy - these bitches
ok that’s harsh but they can be annoying with their ability to teleport
If there are too many on the screen at once your health will vanish
Oh look here is the difficulty of having female characters in the early 3D games
Their boobs look so unnatural
What is that a push up bra with triangle blocks stuck in each cup?
Lara Croft looked about the same in the first Tomb Raider
The problem is shortage of polygons
that’s why the 2.5 dimensional games like Duke Nukem and Blood looked a lot better in this era of gaming
Last level I want to talk about
So I make it to the end and destroy this Banshee robot
Easily I’ll hasten to add
Now I have a long fall drop with no parachute
Did the developers forget one crucial little thing here in this map?
Yes well now I can’t complete the level without cheating and using Noclip
That’s a look at Malice mission pack for Quake 1
Thanks for watching I’ll see you later