What's up everyone this is White Pointer
with a new microphone bringing you an
in-depth analysis video. In this one I'll
be comparing the Nintendo 64 and Sega
Saturn versions of the legendary
first-person shooter Quake. Quake first
released on the ms-dos platform in 1996
and was ported to Windows not long after
it was one of the first games to truly
be three-dimensional and it's considered
by many to be the grandfather of online
first-person shooters, as it was fast
paced but unrealistic physics and
provided the means to play with someone
else over the Internet.
Why wouldn't you want this experience
on your consoles as well? The game was
ported to the Sega Saturn in 1997 by
Lobotomy software and the Nintendo 64
received report titled Quake 64 and 1998
that was handled by Midway. The game was
also ported to the Amiga which is more
or less identical to the DOS original,
but I won't be covering that port here.
The purpose of this video is to
thoroughly compare the Nintendo 64
and Sega Saturn versions so you
can make decision in the end on which
one was actually better.
Saying something is the best is pretty
subjective so I'll be comparing each
version against a common denominator to
determine how they stack up, and that
yardstick is the original dos version.
How do they do? Let's find out!
Quake was a groundbreaking game on the
PC being one of the first games to be in
true 3d and offer true 3d movement.
Unlike Doom before it, that focused on hell
and demons, Quake's aesthetics are
medieval and Lovecraftian inspired
horror, even down to some of the level
and monster names and the final boss
herself is shub-niggurath. Being an early
3d game the animations look pretty
primitive these days but in the way that
kind of adds to the unique horror aspect
as the monsters move in a way that's almost
like the stop-motion monsters in old
horror movies. The game is generally very
dark and menacing. The DOS original offered
the ability to crank up the resolution
to make the game look nicer and the
windows native port that followed
added support for early dedicated 3d
cards. To keep things simple though for
the purposes of this video we'll stick
with the DOS original as the point of
comparison. The game actually ran pretty
well even on modest hardware at the time too. The n64 version actually looks more
like the OpenGL Windows version it's lot
brighter by default too. While the game
overall looks better than the DOS
version and offers improvements such as
coloured lighting, some of the textures do
look a bit blurry in places. The water
and especially the skybox are also
notably different
Monsters look and animate at least on par
with the PC and perhaps even slightly
better.
The game doesn't just look pretty good but
it also runs very smoothly at least in
single-player. Overall it's a nice looking
port on Midway part.
The Saturn port is a pretty remarkable
feat of software engineering in itself. The
Saturn wasn't exactly known as a good
3d machine, but developers lobotomy
software pulled off what was thought to be
impossible. They couldn't use the engine
that was developed for the PC game though, so
they used their own in-house engine
called SlaveDriver.
As a result they needed to remake every
level as part of the porting process.
Remarkably this also supports some
improvements over the DOS original, notably
coloured lighting that could animate.
Unfortunately the rest of the game looks
noticeably worse. Textures are low quality
monsters lack detail and have ugly
animations, and the game runs at a
pretty poor framerate. Parts of levels
have we tweaked to try to compensate for
the framerate so the system doesn't
need to render too much stuff on once
but it doesn't help a great deal. The
skybox at least is more or less
identical to the PC but the water
surface is very noticeably not. However
underwater it actually looks pretty nice.
While the developers should be rightly
praised for managing to get the game to
run at all on the Saturn, it's just not up
to snuff when compared to the other
versions. The n64 point is the better
looking of the two, hands down.
the presentation of quake is pretty
minimal to be honest the pc version
starts with a demo play and the main
menu is overlaid over the top of it the
start of the game puts you in a central
hub kind of area where you had the
choice of three difficulty modes easy
normal and hard and an episode selection
of one of the four episodes that can
played in any order
a fourth difficulty nightmare is in the
hidden location if the player wants to
attempt it once you're in the game the
HUD is at the bottom of the screen and
you can adjust the screen size to see
more or less of it pressing tab will
give you the level info and tilde will
bring up the console where you can
execute various commands the end of a
level just shows your level time kills a
secrets found the end of an episode just
shows you text from a screen and the end
of the game is also just text on the
screen no cutscene no credits nothing
the Saturn version start the cinematic
of source a rotating camera showing the
quake logo the Sega logo then the locus
of Eid and lobotomy software is
presented in the game engine and looks
okay
when you enter the main menu though the
camera stops rotating and the music also
stops
like the PC the game allows you to
select with difficulty setting in the
game itself although you'll notice here
this kind of central hub area has been
redesigned a bit and seems to be missing
hard mode at least I couldn't find it
only easy and normal are available
however oddly even though hard is
missing nightmare can still be found
again the episodes can be played in any
order this version actually tells you
what difficut are you enabled after you
select it once in game the HUD is more
or less the same as the PC if you opt to
see all of it level information is
displayed if you pause the game and you
can turn the ammo bar on and off level
end is the same as PC like the PC the
end of each episode just shows text on
the screen and surface the end of the
game
but unlike the Pacey you actually get
credits and a unique seen inside the
player characters apartment cool
the Nintendo 64 starts with just a menu
no demo no video nothing just my menu
the difficulty is also selected from the
menu before you begin the game you'll
notice there's actually no central hub
area in this version at all no
difficulty selection no episodes
location the game just throws you
strength level one of the first episode
and the levels are simply played
sequentially from there there's no
choice to play episodes in any order
once you are in the game the heart is at
the bottom of the screen but it's
notably different only your health and
ammo are displayed with no options
displayed anything else when you collect
armor is displayed above your health you
can see level information if you pause
the game level end is once again the
same as is the boring text at the end of
each episode and at the end of the game
to make matters worse the n64 game is
actually missing levels in addition to
the recent hub area it's missing another
6 levels from the main game who knows
why at least offer deathmatch maps are
included though
the sound version also doesn't have the
four secret levels from the original
game but unlike the n64 it actually
replaces them with four exclusive secret
levels of its own a reasonable
compromise the DOS version didn't really
have loading screens as such
whenever it needed to load something it
would show the word floating in the
middle of the screen and that was about
it
and even on minimum spec machines the
loading times who are never that long
the Saturn version actually adds proper
loading screens complete with the
progress bar and a nifty picture to look
at the most baffling one here though is
the Nintendo 64 version which has a
loading screen when it's building the
levels this is a cartridge based console
our ball actually wasn't the first
cartridge game to have load times the
load times in quake 64 are ridiculous
here's the certain and the n64 loading
the same level side-by-side in real time
yeah
when the CD loads faster than the
cartridge something has gone very wrong
somewhere it's pretty obvious which
version is closer to the DOS original
here even though the intro sequence is
different and the central hub area has
been redesigned the fact that those
things are actually present in the satin
version that the HUD is complete and
that all single play levels are
accounted for means it comfortably takes
this the shorter load times and the more
interesting loading screens are just a
bonus
the soundtrack of quake was composed by
Trent Reznor from hard rock band Nine
Inch Nails and is almost as iconic as a
revolutionary tech that powered the game
anyone ever noticed the text on nail gun
ammo pickup is actually the Nine Inch
Nails logo nice let's have a listen to a
track from each version now
well we're comparing apples to oranges
here it seems let's take a step back for
a moment the Saturn version actually
faithfully replicates the original
soundtrack of the PC game complete with
CD quality audio the same can't be said
about the n64 version though this was a
completely original soundtrack not
composed by Trent Reznor but instead by
Aubrey Hodges a video game composer had
previously done work on games such as
the PlayStation Saturn and n64 ports of
dude
it certainly sounds very dark horrific
and menacing and also suits the
atmosphere of a quake very well this is
honestly a very very tough call music is
always a matter of personal taste in
regards to what does and doesn't sound
good as someone prefer one but not the
other it's pointless to try and pick out
a winner here without going back to the
yardstick to measure them against as
always I need to compare both of these
versions to the PC original based on
that the Saturn has to take this
category I'm not saying the n64 music is
bad by any stretch I personally think
it's very good but it's completely
different from the original game who
knows what the reason behind that
decision was based on that criteria the
Saturn version has got this one covered
the sound effects in the original game
were pretty good from adding abeyance to
the levels to each individual muster
having their own set of sounds and the
weapons all sounds suitable this
comparison on the consoles will be best
tackled by showing you some footage of
each version with the music turned off
so all you can hear is the sounds let's
have listen to them now
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honestly this was difficult to judge as
both the n64 and the Saturn mirror the
PC original here pretty closely both
consoles have some changes to the sounds
here and there the effects have a couple
of the weapons are offered slightly on
the n64 but the Saturn sounds are all
generally noticeably shorter almost like
the answer to sounds have been truncated
especially the sounds the monsters make
and the pickup sounds that doesn't seem
to be any kind of reverb or echo to them
at all and it makes them sound rather
dull some of the monster sounds such as
the zombies are completely different it
should be noted that both versions are
missing the ambient sound effects that
are found in the PC version it's really
close but I need to give the edge to the
Nintendo 64 version even though its
sound effects do differ slightly to the
PC
they are overall more accurate and have
more oomph and meter
the PC version obviously is the best way
to play first-person shooters
keep on the mouse all the way the game
is playable without a mouse but why
would you do that
use the superior control method and
profit obviously need the console is
going to be able to match this kind of
accuracy and precision but which one got
the closest the Nintendo 64 version had
six different predefined configurations
but perhaps most importantly it actually
allowed you to completely customize the
controls including the d-pad and analog
stick doing so an able you to have a
kind of pseudo dual stick setup may be
controlling the movement with a d-pad
and aiming and turning with the stick or
perhaps movement with the stick and
aiming and turning using the C buttons
or using the d-pad for movement and the
C buttons for heymy
it wasn't perfect by any means but it
was nice to have the option and made the
game a heck of a lot more playable the
option to talk with the crosshair like
the PC version offered was nice too the
Saturn was far less optimal it too
provided a means to customize the
controls but it was far more restricted
and allowing buttons to be remapped and
not allowing movement customization you
were just stuck with the d-pad for
forward back and turning strafing needed
to be mapped to buttons and you needed
to hold a button down then move the
d-pad to look up and down there was no
crosshair option either
the game seemed to acknowledge these
restrictions and also included an auto
targeting feature but it was still
clunky and hard to aim properly
especially up and down far from ideal
and almost unplayable
especially on higher difficulties even
though the game supported the 3d control
pad it didn't make a play any better he
just substituted deep head for the stick
neither console was great in this area
but one was clearly better than here
that was the n64
gameplay is pretty closely tied to the
control section earlier to be honest
once again clearly the PC had the
advantage with its keyboard and mouse
combo the speed and precision that
offered will never be equal on the
console but the n64 controller plus the
much more customizable control options
gave it the edge of that category and
its effect on gameplay and not be
understanded obviously you can aim the
fire with much more ease and speed on
the n64 especially if you set in C
buttons and more change the d-pad
instead combo to turning and aiming the
Saturn version works okay for what it
has but it's just bad and the auto
targeting option doesn't help much
either it's just way too cumbersome to
need to hold a button down and move the
d-pad up or down to aim at something
above or below you and in quake you need
to do that often there's no way around
that particular restriction either I
stated earlier there isn't any way to
remap the d-pad at all so you can't set
d-pad left and right to sidestep even if
you want to the best you can do is set
them to the triggers or to two of the
face buttons which is kind of workable
but still not ideal the worst part about
this setup is that you can't aim up and
down while moving
you're completely stationary and a
sitting duck while you're trying to get
your aim right oddly there was a
noticeable delay when you were switching
weapons on the Saturn 2 I've got no idea
why that was a thing you can see here
clearly when I actually press the button
to switch weapons because you can see
the ammo counter changing the HUD at the
bottom of the screen you'll then see how
long it takes for the game to actually
switch the weapon this combined with the
imprecise controls the slower movement
with no run option the lower jump height
poor frame a wonky hit detection and
weed animations just contributes to the
games overall slow and clumsy feel
the n64 is the clear winner in this
category multiplayer was a big component
of division play featuring some advanced
tcp/ip networking code and the ability
to play not just from the land but
across the internet and this was in 1996
in the original game you could play
through single-player as a two-player
co-op team or you can play multiplayer
deathmatch this was one of the game's
biggest strengths and even though dude
before it also had the future it was
arguably quite that was the grandfather
of fast-paced networked deathmatch quake
64 doesn't offer a co-op mode nor does
it offer network to deathmatch it does
have a very limited deathmatch mode for
just two players voice wood screen
despite the fact the console could
support up to four players however the
performance took a hit even with just
two players so I guess for but at axis
system too much the Saturn version
doesn't have a multiplayer option at all
well that was easy
unlimited to play split-screen
deathmatch mode is better than nothing
the n64 wins this by default so that's
the end of the analysis and we see the
Nintendo 64 version winning the
categories of graphics controls sound
effects gameplay and multiplayer whereas
the Saturn version took the categories
of music and presentation
which system do you think had the better
version wasn't the n64 with his crisper
visuals better control options and a
better gameplay experience that included
deathmatch or was it the Saturn when
it's accurate music further presentation
and the complete single-player
experience with all levels included
what's your vote
drop me some comments below and give me
a thumbs up if you liked the video
thanks for watching
you
