Quote Originally Posted by caravel
The first quake game was very original and quite revoltionary for it's time in that it led to basically every FPS game that came afterwards and had quite an eerie and compelling atmosphere. The 2nd, 4th and later installments departed to the cliched "marines vs alien borg types" theme which for me was not as original or as interesting as the "slipgates between worlds" type scenario of the first game. The third is only good as a multiplayer game, and even then is quite cartoony and garish in it's attempts to recapture the atmosphere and gameplay of Q1. Another FPS game with great atmosphere was the first Unreal game. For it's time it's graphics were pretty amazing along with it's atmospherics, flora, fauna, landscapes, water and sound etc.
FPS games I enjoy are incredibly rare, for the main part thanks to the fact I find shooting things dull and for the rest due to my utter inability to dodge effectively. Quake never managed to appeal to me sufficiently to try it. It couldn't be said to have the keen humour of the two no one lives forever games or the narrative of Dark Forces 2, to give two examples from the very small set of FPS I've liked. I know neither game is fully contemporary with Quake; I don't think I played any FPS that were. They're the oldest two I can summon to mind, with the exception of the original Dark Forces. I played that because it was Star Wars.

Unreal came closer to making me try a demo. Atmosphere is something I consider important in most types of games, and on occasion I will slog my way through a game type I don't enjoy as much simply for the atmosphere. Never did get around to it; it looked too much shooty-shooty-kill-kill-bang! for me.