Quake and proton

Quake it is, smoothed out and aspect-ratio-ed

With the recent announcement of "remastered" features to Quake, I became inspired and bought Quake off Steam.

There are various conversions and re-creations of the engine on various platforms, but this I felt was an official and definite version so I took the plunge.

As it's Windows-only game in Steam, it again needs Proton to function on Linux.

Apparently it's not 100% out-of-the-box experience for everyone. Looking at some of the tips at the protondb, I got it to work on my Mint 19.1.

The version of proton might need adjusting. Some have had success changing the proton version at steam game-specific properties/compatibility to 6.3-6. At least this was necessary to me.

One tip also offers the removal of all video files from the folder

steamlibrary/steamapps/common/quake/rerelease/movies/

...in the case the video playing is suspect.

I've understood getting multiplayer to work can require the use of protontricks. I chose not to try this at the moment.

The new stuff packed with the remaster

As for the game, although it is a milestone in the history of fps I don't remember being particularly impressed with it in the 1990s. 

Amusingly, Quake also became a symbol of gaming for the already gaming-negative Finnish demoscene, as "kids" playing Quake LANs had begun to take over the Assembly demoscene event. "F*ck off with your Guakes"(I'm paraphrasing) became the enduring demoscene motto and catchphrase for all demo-related events, and can be heard semi-seriously to this day.

Those floating, armless and footless monsters are silly, though.

But anyways. Quake felt somewhat strained in its dark-brown, pared-down world. Compared to Doom, Quake relied more on teleports and surprise traps, mechanisms and such. It was ambitious, and perhaps didn't always succeed in what it tried to do.

Now that I have a good mouse and a smooth framerate, it's easier to appreciate the speed and precision of movement and playability. Yes much of the single-player game is the trial-and-error save/reload fare typical for the era, but it is enjoyable.