Quake (series)



Id Software's series of gritty, (generally) Cyberpunk-ish First Person Shooter 3D eng... er, games, noted for their industry leading graphics, their fast paced multiplayer matches, and their placement firmly on the "unrealistic" end of the Fackler Scale of FPS Realism. Quake is the Spiritual Successor to the Doom series, with all that entails.

The games which compose the franchise are the following:


 * Quake I
 * Quake II
 * Quake III Arena (Includes Quake Live)
 * Quake IV
 * Enemy Territory Quake Wars

Quake was one of the first major franchises to go big with licensing its engine to third parties, creating games like SiN, Soldier of Fortune and Half Life, as well as later Medal of Honor and Dark Forces titles, and the first two Call of Duty games (and, on a darker note, Daikatana and one of the incarnations of Duke Nukem Forever.)

Tropes found all across the series include:

 * Artifact Title: Quake referred to the protagonist in the game's early stages, then to "the enemy" in the supposed final game. In the end, neither the first game (or any game of the series, for that matter) makes reference to any thing in particular.
 * Blatant Item Placement: In the first three games.
 * Crate Expectations

"Secret Area. You crazy rocket jumpers!"
 * Have a Nice Death: Courtesy of the in-game console system.
 * Hyperspace Arsenal
 * Killer App: People built new gaming computers to fully experience the first three games, but the most notable instance is GLQuake, which caused the 3dfx Voodoo Graphics accelerator card to become a must-own for every gaming computer at a time when software rendering and 320x240 resolution was the norm.
 * Ludicrous Gibs
 * Minimalistic Cover Art: The front covers of every primary entry in the series mostly feature the Quad Damage logo.
 * Not the Intended Use: The rocket launcher. Its intended use is of course to make Ludicrous Gibs of groups of enemies. Many players instead choose to use it to make massive Sequence Breaking leaps.
 * Punk Punk: Mostly Gothic Punk, with a healthy helping of Cyberpunk.
 * Real Is Brown
 * Rocket Jump: The Trope Codifier.
 * Speedruns of the first two games will show you how high a player can rocket or grenade jump, given the right equipment. Even some secrets in Quake required doing a grenade jump. It's lampshaded in one of the secrets of the second game which requires you to do this:

"No reward for you, jumper!"
 * In the Quake II expansion pack The Reckoning there's an area with an Invulnerability item which will vanish when you come closer, of course, by rocket jumping:


 * Many maps in Quake III Arena and Live are designed to reward skilled users of the technique. In the latter, there's even a tutorial!
 * Even in Quake 1, it was useful. In the two last levels before the boss of the first episode, rocket jumping could skip half of the level, and even lead to a quad damage item.
 * Slash Command: One of the earliest series examples, if not the earliest.
 * Speed Run
 * Splash Damage: The rocket launcher. Against fast targets, it's actually more effective to aim at the ground near rather than trying to hit directly.