I was a Saturn developer at the time and we were huge fans of what Lobotomy was pulling off. And Death Tank Zwei with 2 multi taps on the biggest available CRT TV at the time was just fantastic. Also it's worth noting that at the time, most people weren't high rollers with fast Pentiums and Voodoo 2 cards, so Quake on the Saturn wasn't *that* far from how many PC players actually were experiencing it.

back in '96, very few gamers could enjoy pc quake in all of its glory. most of us could only play it at abysmal resolutions and ~10fps. so, when the saturn quake came out, the overall feel wasn't that much different for most gamers and this made the lobotomy effort seem even more admirable.

I still play my copy of Saturn Quake from time to time. Sometimes just to enjoy the experience of a game that seemed so far out of the Saturn's capabilities. And that music really makes it the complete package.

In all fairness, the Saturn Doom was terrible as John Carmack nerfed it, Jim Bagley was working on a far superior port, but as it also used a different engine to Doom, Carmack nixed it. No idea why, envy has been thrown out there a few times. Bagley even managed to get Virtua Fighter working on a GBA, so he was immensily talented for getting blood out of a stone.

I remember playing Powerslave and honestly being in awe of what I was seeing, despite not really understanding graphical hardware power in those days, especially between different machines. I was also super impressed with Quake and Duke Nukem. I wonder where all those guys from Lobotomy ended up going, they really did have a special knack for doing 3D Saturn games.

I remember seeing Quake on the list of upcoming games for the Jaguar. That would have been an impressive feat

You forgot to mention that Lobotomy even added Deathtank Zwei (the follow-up of Powerslave's secret game Deathtank) in DN3D if you had a Quake save in your Saturn. 😊

I've been a "PC " gamer since my first in 1999, and I sure remember the freaky awesomeness which was quake. I had no idea this was even possible on a Saturn! I'm sure glad I came across this channel. And even though PCS are my thing I'm not going to miss a single episode on this channel. I absolutely love the content. Thank you sir, another ace in the hole!

John from Digital Foundry did a great video about this game on his DF Retro series. Since Powerslave only had sprite enemies and items the fact that they did Quake was pretty crazy. I just dug out copy and played it awhile ago. I can't believe that I actually finished it when it first came on in 97'. I never played multi player death match for FPS games,never been the competitive type,so the lack of it meant nothing to me. Any co op we did was when we linked up two PS1's and played Doom. Sadly Saturn Quake can dip below 10 frames per second at times making it very frustrating. Still it was pretty amazing for the time. They were some of the only developers that bothered to take the time to learn how to make the Saturn really shine. The PS1 was just easier to make games for so it's no wonder other companies didn't bother. All in all its an interesting piece of history. It's just like seeing Quake 3 on Dreamcast or Doom 3 on the Xbox.

It's a shame that Lobotomy couldn't find success equal to their talent. Powerslave was an addiction to me, I had the US and UK (Exhumed) versions. And who could ever forget Death Tank? Another awesome video.

The Saturn, PS1 and N64 were probably the last generation of home systems that had to have games optimised by using so many hardware and programming tricks and was probably the last truly special generation for pure programming wizardry as far as gaming goes. Although it probably continued a bit with the GBA. But actually programming around the hardware doesn't really exist anymore and was always interesting to see certain games running on low powered hardware that were really optimistic to begin with.

Quake's nailgun actually operates more like a mid-tier plasma rifle than the "chaingun/machine gun" type Doom weapons. Remember, it fires projectiles instead of a hit scan.

I wish Lobotomy Software was still alive during Dreamcast's life cycle. Who knows what masterpieces they would've made

I´ve played both Q and DN first on my Saturn.I can tell ya those still be the most memorable FPS games that i met in my life.

I always wondered how they could make Quake run smoothly on a Saturn. Even beefy PC from several years After the Saturn were not able to give it justice ! So it felt like this shouldn't be ! Using a dedicated Saturn engine, instead of the generic PC-oriented one, with different strengths and weaknesses, makes perfect sense. This is a great answer to an old mystery !

I remember Quake driving my pickup of a 3D graphics accelerator card. Booting up quake in OpenGL for that first time was magical. I would just run around empty multiplayer levels and explore for hours with no clip mode.

lobotomy was today's nightdive...i owned this and dn3d, seeing it here makes me appreciate how impressed i was at the time playing it. sometimes we make the best of what we have, and it's humbling but also inspiring to look back on...thanks for bringing back some great memories, slx

Sega Lord X: I really like the individual Sega Saturn reviews. I hope to see more in the future. The background on the developer and development history is really interesting. So much I didn't know about the games. The Sega Saturn was the first time I got to play Quake and Duke Nukem 3D since I didn't have a PC.

The Quake vinyl just came out a few months ago. I’m going to buy it for Xmas and trip out while I listen to it.

I'm really loving this recent content

Lobotomy's ability to leverage the Saturn's hardware so effectively is still ridiculously impressive 25 years later.

Great video. Glad I have my copy of quake for the saturn

The SlaveDriver engine was nothing short of a small miracle and big revelation! Quake for Saturn is on my gaming bucket list and I need to play it before I die. Since PowerSlave and Duke Nukem 3D on SAT impressed the hell out of me and brought nothing but tears of joy to my eyes back in the day, it's a shame I somehow never got around to play Lobotomy Software's 3rd Strike. These three games are a magnum opus if I've ever seen one and it's shocking we never heard of the team again after that.

Lobotomy software was one of the great losses of the videogame industry.

Once I finish Yakuza Like A Dragon I’ll plug my Saturn in and finally use my LRG wireless Saturn controller and receiver

Both games turned out great, especially when you compare them to Saturn doom.

I did manage to finish Quake on the Sega Saturn. I don't know how in the hell they pulled it off but I'm glad they did.

Nice I just heard about this port and getting more info on it is great.

The dark textures was particularly notorious for me. Saturn Quake was my first experience of the game - I never played the PC original - and when I first played Saturn Quake it was so dark I quite literally couldn't see where I was going. For weeks I always started playthroughs on Episode 3 because I actually couldn't find entrances to the other episodes and thought that was the normal start point! Eventually discovering the gamma option and cranking it all the way up revealed that I was missing over half the game.

Very entertaining and concise review my man! Great video

I too indeed played Quake for the first time on the Saturn and personally I was blown away by how great it looked. Sure the the games framerate wasn't perfect, neither were the controls, but like with a lot of console 3D games back then, you quickly learnt to adjust and work your way around the games somewhat failings. Either way, the original Quake on the Saturn is a great game and I'll remember it's atmosphere well. Great review as always.

It's funny, my parents got a 486DX2/66 PC in the early nineties, which was pretty impressive at the time. Doom 1 and 2 ran silky smooth, but by the time Quake was introduced you had to turn the settings way down and even then it was kind of a slideshow. Saturn Quake runs at a higher frame rate than what that old Acer could produce, despite the awful performance of Saturn Doom years earlier. Talented developers creating custom optimizations really make a huge difference compared to raw hardware power.

My only experience with Quake on the Saturn is watching videos on youtube but the results are fairly impressive. Lobotomy made 3 absolute bangers for the Saturn and clearly deserved better.

Games like this on the Sega Saturn makes me appreciate game developer's efforts to push consoles to their limits, like Panzer Dragoon. I'd be very happy for a Saturn home-brew community someday maxing out the Saturn 's hardware capabilities.

great video as always. I really appreciate these deep dives where you dig into the nitty gritty of what the saturn could really do. A truly underrated system!

Never been this early to a Slx video. Keep up the great work as always!

This is what happens when ex-Nintendo employees are let loose... Pure insanity! (P.S.: Long live Lobotomy Software!)

Surprised at how good this was. I was too scared to play this at the time- I didn't want to see my Saturn "fail". It shows I should have had more confidence in it, as I think I would have loved this. Since it's currently sitting on the shelf (still unplayed after all these years!) I might take it off and have a go. Thanks SLX. Moral of the story: trust your Sega more, Ant!

Anxious for the review of Duke Nukem 3D.

Amazing video, as always. I really admire the legacy of Lobotomy on Saturn. I hope someday someone is able to interview Ezra about his work on the console.

Awesome video, SLX! I've always been curious about this game. It looks pretty impressive for the time.

I love these videos, but they also make me sad. They take me back to better, happier days that are gone.

Powerslave or exhumed as it was called in UK was an amazing game by lobotomy. You revisited levels to access previously unreachable parts of the stages with your new abilities that usually led to an alternate exit taking you to another level on the map. True end game was the collection of all the hidden figures some of which were extremely tricky to navigate to, most notable a laser beam filled area when you had the flying ability.

Great video! Good start for saturday with Q video! Thnaks!

Enjoyed this very much, glad I found this channel! I had Quake II on the PS1, had a lot of fun with it and thought it looked great. I've recently discovered Steam - coming back to video games after a long time away! - and enjoying the PC originals of Doom, Quake/Q2 and Hexen/Heretic.

Great video as always.

Great review!

Wow, that's some damn impressive sorcery Lobotomy was able to pull off. Also, seeing this makes me wanna play Powerslave again, that game was/is dope.

I'm playing this again right now and man, it's so much better than I remembered and I already thought highly of it. It's super quick and smooth. So impressive.

First thing i did when i got my Saturn was to boot up Quake...i finished it and i was blown away on how well it ran And btw. You can rocket jump!

Thank you Sega Lord X great job

I remember my grandma got a new computer in the mid-90s that came with a version of Quake and I was blown away by the graphics. I didn't think non-gaming computers could run games like that.

Nice video. Well worth checking out the Digital Foundry one on Quake for Saturn for more in depth on the technical aspects.

I really enjoy the saturn vids. I owned one back in the day with astal and resident evil but I gave it to a friend. I still kick myself for it.

The modern port of Quake includes an "adaptation" of Quake 64 (with the 64 OST too). Perhaps this version could be added as well... food for thought.

Nice to hear some new facts about Quake. Thanks !

Holy shit, the visuals look amazing to me, "for the Saturn"..! I'd love a copy to run in my Saturn.

I'm a PS1 fan but this is an extremely impressive showing by the Saturn.

Well written, good work. :)

One other fun fact, the guys at Lobotomy were responsible for the Game Genie on NES. There's a great interview with them in the Sega Saturn UK mag. They more or less said "The Saturn couldn't do this or that... so we built it."

I'm a huge fan of Duke Nukem 3D and Powerslave on the Saturn. But Lobotomy was too ambitious with this port. The major dips in framerate make Quake on the Saturn almost unplayable imo.

Another top notch video

Wow, thanks for this info! I really wasn't aware of Lobotomy Software or its titles at all. I had gotten a dirt cheap Saturn back when Blockbuster was dumping all their Saturn stuff for like $50, but I only paid attention to Japanese releases at the time (D&D, Vampire Savior, X-Men vs Streetfighter and such). I also visited Japan so I picked up a TON of cheap used Saturn games then. But I just didn't notice US releases for the most part. Ironically, the only version of Quake I ever got was the Dreamcast version. It played really nice with a combo of the mouse and arcade joystick. That 8-way arcade stick really made movement smooth and crisp, and of course mouse aim is the best way to go with any FPS. I was really hurting for control buttons, though (only two mouse buttons and the mouse wheel).

Quake is one of my favourite PC games, but I only recently tried the Saturn port. It’s very impressive considering the tech it’s running on. I really enjoy it!

I still have this game for the Saturn. I think I picked it up at a local retro gaming store in the early 2000s for pretty cheap. This game is pretty good, but I prefer Duke Nukem over it.

Playing Quake on 1996 in your average PC of the time - 486 - as literally a slideshow. This port is engineering at is finest. What a acomplishement by these guys.

Another high quality video.

I remember upgrading from a 368-40 to a 486-66 to a Pentium 100 with a 1MB Trident card and the effect it had on games. Doom and Quake in particular ran SO MUCH smoother it was kinda ridiculous. Didnt find out until many years later that consoles eventually got the FPS's that had been made popular on DOS.

Not long been collecting for my Saturn. This ones defo next on my list.

Sega Lord X is my favourite KZfaq channel. Our lord gets me pumped up to play SEGA games all day long. I can't do that cos I have to go to work. But you get my point.

Honestly the saturn version's lighting makes it look even better than DOS quake

I'd completely forgotten about the 'Jevons' control mode (3D pad) on this version; I'll have to dust of the Saturn and finally try. Although I actually completed the DOS version in '97 using a 6 button digital gamepad - I'd no idea about WASD+Mouse at that point!

Very cool version 😉👍

I couldn't understand why this didn't get released for the PS1. Especially when the second Quake game was released for PlayStation and that port is amazing 🤔

congrats for pumping out very good videos asap ^^ Btw, i own the n64 port..not bad

Lobotomy literally saved the Saturn console for me back in the day when it was all I had at age 10. I got both Duke Nukem 3D for my Bday (fall of 97) and Quake for Christmas of 1997 as my final Saturn game. Didn't have a PC to run them and was anticipating them all summer after previews in Gamefan and Gamepro. After finally getting them they were just incredible. I enjoyed every minute of both and it wasn't really til years later that I appreciated how difficult the task was of converting them. I also remember getting Duke 3D TM for PS1 years later and being appalled by how bad the frame rate was compared to the Saturn one. To the point where Id rather play the smoother Saturn version with many less levels. It was also amazing playing Duke 3D via Netlink, way ahead of its time (I have old videos on my channel of this) I will literally still to this day run through Quake and Duke on Saturn every other year just for fun. No matter what I still find them incredibly playable. The Slave driver engine is just great and the added lighting effects makes them interestingly more enjoyable than even more powerful PC ones. I will admit as years have gone on Duke 3D does have some minor issues (some large secret areas weren't finished and the shrunk feel to Duke are noticeable) but it was mostly due to deadlines and having to immediately move onto finishing Quake. So absolutely forgive these minor issues. Quake is probably the more polished of the two. The secret levels and rain effects are great as well (not in the UK versions) and the secret ending inside the apartment is such a cool touch. I cherish these releases as the Saturn had no business producing playable versions of these games for me when I had no other options and they did. I never could find Powerslave back in 1997 but had Alien Trilogy as sort of my poor mans 3 FPS option. AT plays incredible and along with the Lobotomy trilogy deserves high praise as an FPS.

Quake may not have made it to the PS1 but Quake 2 sure did and it looked amazing for the time.

Quake is one of that few where enemies can fights with each other,when one hits another like in 6:41.I dont know if its on Saturn ver.

PS5 - comes out SLX - let’s talk about Quake for Sega Saturn.

I'm somewhat impressed both Quake & Duke3D were able to run in some form on the Saturn but also a bit disappointed. Mostly because Quake on the PC can look & play even better than it does in this video! In 1997 if you had a PC equipped with a 3D card that supported OpenGL you could use the GLQuake patch. GLQuake running at 640x480 using a 3dfx Voodoo card was pretty stunning at the time. Especially since the vanilla version of Quake on the PC usually ran at 320x200 resolution. Still though it's a marvel Lobotomy was able to pull off what they did!

im soo glad i picked up Exhumed (Powerslave in the UK) for pennies at a game store a few years back, i had no idea how good it would be as i was just starting out collection for the Saturn. I love FPS' (the original doom is my all time fave game) so i was so impressed how good it was! I've obviously kept hold of the copy as its in good (albeit not perfect) condition and ive seen how much it goes for these days....not that id ever get rid of it ofc!

Loved quake series

Hi Sega Lord X! Great video as usual. There are a couple of points that I kinda beg to differ with you. First, the lack of multiplayer on Saturn Quake was never an issue for me, given that we were more used to single player experiences back in the day. The bad controls and how they affected the gameplay, that's what really hurt the game for me. The second point I want to signal is that while Quake wasn't ported over to the PS1, Quake II was. True, it's not a one-to-one conversion of the original PC release, but it's still a good game, one of the best FPS games on the PS1 IMHO. So, while it's true that the first Quake game is a technical marvel on the Saturn and it could have been worse on the PS1, the Quake II port was very good on its own merits. Then again, Q1 and Q2 are different games for different systems, developed by different teams at different times, so most gamers out there would say there's not really much point in comparing them. Thank you and have a good one!

I see that the color palette mostly revolved around the color BLACK on the saturn port. . . GD is that dark. It honestly is impressive as hell though. Quite the undertaking they took on with this... I mean, the concessions made, when in respect to being on a console at the actual time and era it was current, were hardly concessions at all. Back then, this was simply incredible.

It goes without saying that Sega should have bought Lobotomy Software when they bought Visual Concepts. Heck, Nintendo should have scooped these guys up after Powerslave dropped. We would have had 3D Metroid on Nintendo 64.

Thanks for the video. This is the only one of the three Lobotomy games that I still do not have for the Saturn. It will be mine at some point.

Used to love the hidden Deathtank game in Powerslave/Exhumed

I have just burned myself an NTSC copy of this to gain a few more frames (though i could force my original PAL copy to play in 60Hz but this way the status bar goes over the screen border because of the resolution difference). Right of the bat the main theme plays at the main menu (it doesn't in pal for whatever the reason is) PLUS there are a few more control options as well! Most importantly: You can turn OFF the bloody invert aim! It's the whole world of difference mark my words! Also there is an autoaim option which i highly recommend leaving turned on! Also there are some weird and interesting differences in certain hidden levels (green sky and rain effects in Purgatorium rather than regular pink-red sky in PAL)

Im actually surprised this seems to be very playable, and the sound sounds amazing!!!!!!

Makes me wanna sip a Monster energy drink.

Omg only played this at the weekend on the Saturn!

Great Video as always! Had a question I was hoping you might know the answer to with all the Expertise you have with the Saturn. I have an Action Replay 4M Plus 2.02 Cart. It works with everything but when trying to play Shadows of Mystara, one day it just started asking for the 4M of Ram. I was wondering if you knew what could be causing this or if there is a specific card you recommend? I was so bummed that we weren't able to boot it up when I had before in the past. All other functions of this Action Replay still work by the way.

I have the PC version since 2017. Funny enough, I was originally going to buy it for Sega Saturn years ago when I tried to get the Sega Saturn console. After I get the Saturn, I'm planning to get it for Saturn, despite I already have it for PC (which worked perfectly on newer computers).

*Lobotomy are amazing and both ports are amazing too!* ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Lobotomy also created the PC version of Powerslave, which was basically different game based on Build 3D Engine. And if by any chance you're own both PC & Saturn/PS1, when you're got linear but still awesome Powerslave 2. Which means, Lobotomy made 4 games in 2 years!

"Quake review" is one of your finest videos! also it´s very sad.... The Sega´s fans didn´t support Lobotomy Software like we should and lost one of the greatest saturn developers.... It´s too late now

It's worth mentioning that the Saturn version of Quake has four secret exclusive levels.

I've beaten all three Lobotomy Software Saturn FPS games. They're all stellar. Still own all three.

Lobotomy were amazing developers exhumed aka powerslave was superb

Console versions of Quake, I’d go with the N64 version, it simply runs smoother & looks nicer. And I prefer the more ambient soundtrack vs Trent Rezners weird abstract rock.