Alternate Intro for Quake
ClanRing T3 Finals GameLet me repeat up front that I didn't compose the content of this video. It's just something I liked back in the day (more about that below). When I had the urge to re-watch it, I was eventually able to find the original Quake mod that plays this sequence in-engine, but I couldn't find any video rendering of the content. So I thought a video needed to be made.
If you'd like a higher-than-YouTube-quality version, you can get the original MP4 movie from the download link below. Of course the highest-quality solution would be to run the mod yourself! so I've linked it below as well. Remember though that the mod was aimed at WinQuake and may not work well in other engines.
This is a replacement for Quake's attract reel, created in 1997 by Damian Scott of TeamFortress Software. It's one of my favorite little bits of original Quake moviemaking.
I like it because it works as a game intro. Specifically, it looks like an intro for the game that Quake singleplayer could have been. I'm a Quake fanboy but it's not hard to admit that the singleplayer would have been improved with... well, not necessarily with a better traditional narrative, but at least with a more coherent theme and progression.
This reel uses standard Quake assets but spins the presentation to play up the Lovecraftian horror aspect. The result is a trailer for a Quake-like game that begins with heroic monster mashing and slowly morphs into some creepily hopeless eternal struggle. Kinda disturbing, and very cool. Or at least it's cool for those of us old fogies who remember playing Quake (and seeing Quake "machinima") for the first time back in the 90s.
The video was created using WinQuake in all of its pixely software-rendering glory. Several bits of this reel will go wrong if you render it with GLQuake.
The audio is Trent Reznor's "Aftermath", from the Quake soundtrack of course.
) except where indicated otherwise