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Quake moves to arcade with Intel's help

Anyone who has played Quake knows that high resolutions at fast frame rates are the goal, and with the help of Intel, Quake will be coming to arcades in the form of a 600x800 screen running at better than 60 frames per second. Best yet, the monitor is 35" and the version of Quake it will play uses high-end OpenGL graphics.

Based around the Intel Open Arcade Architecture program, "arcade Quake" will be hitting select venues this Fall.

Controls for the arcade version will include a trackball and six buttons. The buttons will include control for forward, attack, strafe, "mlook" (for "mouse look," a way to change the direction the player looks without moving the entire character), jump and start. The hardware? A Pentium II running at 266MHz with a high-end Quantum 3Dfx Obsidian video card. Four player "pods" will be made available in addition to the more typical standalone units.

Of course, even a fair Quake player could hog some serious time in front of one of these beauties, so some changes have been made to the game. The player's health rating will constantly count down one point per second. When you're firing a weapon, the rate drops to 1 point every 2 seconds. As you might imagine, this changes things somewhat dramatically: finishing a level is now a race against time.  Players will receive three lives per play and health bonuses will be available occasionally. Another major change: objects in the game are completely different. This was done to surprise experienced players and provide a new type of Quake experience.

Multiplayer pods are connected to a Windows NT-based network running proprietary software. This software will eventually allow connectivity between separate arcades in different parts of the country. Deathmatch pods will feature high-end sound systems and spectator displays over each unit so that the action can be viewed from outside the pods.

The first units will also include special versions of Shadow Warrior and Duke Nukem 3D. They will appear in test locations first, such as San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf, then spread to other areas

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