I don’t need to tell you that Quake rocks. Father K already covered
that a while back, offering praise for it and the other iconic first person
shooters Lobotomy Software famously
ported to Sega’s mid-90s underdog console.
It’s also no secret that Quake’s presence on the Saturn was practically
a miracle in the first place. Digital Foundry’s John Linneman has even gone as
far as to dub it the “Impossible Port.”
The Saturn was notoriously a pain in the ass to develop for – particularly for devs
hoping to utilize the third dimension – and yet it still runs Quake somehow. Granted,
plenty of concessions were needed to make that happen. Compared to the PC
original, the Saturn Quake sports choppier frame rates, reduced responsiveness,
and less precise movement and aiming sans mouse and keyboard. But despite its limitations,
it remains infinitely more impressive than the PlayStation port of Quake…which
doesn’t exist.
Tech stuff aside, I’m more interested in delving into some interesting ways Saturn Quake managed to differentiate its player experience from the classic PC original. As a likely result of the technological and design compromises Lobotomy made to get Quake to function on Saturn hardware, I quickly noticed the Saturn version forces me to approach its gameplay in some fundamentally new and unexpected ways.
