---
layout: post
title:  "for the love of quake"
date:  2017-07-12 
categories: gaming 
---
[Quake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quake_(video_game)) is for me, one of the most hardcore and purest forms of mouse/keyboard mastery that there is. I have invested significant hours into these games. Growing up, my next door neighbor bought a gateway 2000 pc and he showed me quakeworld and team fortress. I never had a good enough PC at the time, so my brother and I would go over to his house to watch him play. 

Eventually, I did get a gaming PC and was quickly able to participate in the world of online deathmatch. Quake 2 was the game of choice, using the now defunct service mplayer to search for servers of available players. We had a 56k modem, a second phone line, and America Online. I still remember having to time the incredibly slow rockets and accomdate for the 250ms that our connection had. This was the ultimate form of prediction aim training. 

From there, I joined a clan. I found a group of players on mplayer that played CTF. For an example of what Quake 2 CTF looks like, here is the threewave mod

{% include youtubePlayer.html id="mGvQcCfawJg" %} 

It was fast paced in Quake 2 and there were lots of cool ways you could run the flag. Throughout this time, I also made the upgrade to cable modem. This made the biggest difference. 250ms became 50ms. Everything was now so much more responsive.

For a few years, I was distracted with Counter-Strike. I played in some clans with some teammates in that game and it was also an enjoyable experience, but nothing like the intensity of the deathmatch games that I played.

Fast forward about a year or two and I finally found Quake 3 CPMA. This was a super fast paced, instant weapon switch, entirely random spawn system, and air control. It was a throwback to the speed of the original quakeworld, and this would soon become my favorite form of Quake ever. I spent hours each day in a server by myself just learning the movement system and practicing trick jumps. Here is a really good frag video of CPMA. Check out the flag runs and the quad dmg runs. 

{% include youtubePlayer.html id="Q3ui0hz6sm0" %}

Quake is one of the only games where you can have a slight skill gap between two players, and the score would not reflect this minor difference. It would be a score of 40 to 0, even though player A is only slightly better than player B. This hardcore aspect is what kept me playing the game. Nobody likes to be owned 40 to 0 and when that would happen to me, it would really push me to try to improve and learn from my mistakes. 

Quake Champions is id softwares newest implementation of the series. It is currently in beta stages and I have been having fun with it. It is a combination of all of the movement styles of the previous Quake games. Really fun to play. I recommend anyone who is curious about deathmatch games to pick this up and enter into the arena to test your skills among the most skilled fps players. I leave you with a quad damage run that I recently made in Quake Champions. Enjoy.

{% include youtubePlayer.html id="S-wxLi7YSXk" %}
