

Quarantine, by Gametek
3DO version, 1 player.
It's not that I don't like the onslaught of Doom and Doom style games. Far from it, I love them. I throughly enjoyed EA's Immercenary and can hardly wait for the 3DO versions of Doom and Doom 2, but a game on a standard theme should have something innovative to make it worth while. Gametek's second 3DO release is Quarantine- otherwise known as "Doom in a cab." And the idea is certainly appealing enough.
	Quarantine's first person perspective is done well and the game's graphics look pretty good, though certainly not exceptional. The city itself, with all the various buildings, minimalls, parks, tunnels and slums is a fascinating place to venture though. The other opponents, drivers and pedestrians look pretty good as well. None of the graphics in the game are particularly sharp or especially well defined, unfortunately, and the road itself looks too lifeless and monotone- nothing like the asphalt perfect look of Road Rash and Need for Speed's highways. Fortunately, the game scrolls quickly and effectively, making the game quite involving.
	You must drive through the streets of KEMO, the city-prison gone insane, in search of fares in order to earn enough money and information to make your way out of this hell on earth of a city. Of course, blowing things up plays a huge role in the game. The weapons upgrades are varied and interesting- there are flamethrowers, buzz saws, missiles, uzis and other fun and destructive toys to play with.
	You, as cabbie Drake Edgewater, drive a modified '52 Checker hovercab. Upgrades and repairs to your cab are handled by driving up to the any of the appropriate vendors that are scattered throughout the city, though pulling up to the drivethrough window is sometimes a little trying. 
	Control is simple and quite responsive with one glaring, extremely damaging exception- no brakes. In Quarantine, you have to press back on the controller to stop, which also puts you in reverse. There is no separate breaking button. It sounds like a minor problem, but it isn't. 
	You only have a certain amount of time to deliver your fare to the specified location in the city and having to bother with the unresponsive, overly sensitive braking/ reverse controls is very frustrating and time consuming. Quarantine is also pretty obnoxious about saving the game- be warned, it requires a lot of your 3DO's precious SRAM. I had to start erasing saved games right and left to make room for Quarantine.
	Another aspect of the game that was perhaps overemphasized was the over the top pedestrian violence. There are people all over the road in Quarantine- despite the fact that all the cars are armed to the teeth and tend to shoot at anything that moves. These pedestrians move along like there's nothing wrong, or just stand in the middle of the road and shoot at you. Now, admittedly, the story of the game tells us that most of KEMO's inhabitants are insane because of a virus in the water supply, which could be seen as an explanation to bad crossing habits( But, I doubt it.).
	On top of that, when ever you run a pedestrian over- even if you barely nudge one- they just explode into a bloody, gratuitous pulp and that got annoying in a hurry. Also, Quarantine is obnoxious to control when you get in a pile up battle against various other road warriors. You'll hit a car and then find yourself careening and bouncing backwards about a hundred or so( subjective) feet and that got annoying in a hurry as well.
	There is definitely a lot of strategy involved in Quarantine, though. Collecting fares and getting them to the right place on time is what this game is all about. It's not always easy, either. You have to find the fastest route through KEMO's crazy streets and avoid getting turned into roadkill in the process. To say the least, Quarantine is definitely challenging.
	Quarantine also has an excellent soundtrack. The music was done by a pretty motley bunch of Australian rockers and some of the tunes are excellent- if you like the music of Road Rash and Way of the Warrior, you'll like Quarantine's rockin' soundtrack as well. Unlike Road Rash, in Quarantine the music is played during the actual game instead of just on the menu screens. Strangely and extremely ungraciously, Gametek gave virtually no credit to these unknown rockers. Not even the manual gives them credit. During the game, you can switch music tracks at anytime as well. The rest of the game's sound effects are alright, but not particularly stunning.
	The sometimes obnoxious control of Quarantine really pulled down the playability factor- the lack of responsive braking in particular. While I definitely prefer Immercenary for 1st person Doomish action, Quarantine still delivers enough spills and thrills to keep most gamers occupied for a while- longer perhaps then Immercenary due to the randomness of encounters in KEMO city. The game can be very frustrating at times, but, overall, Quarantine is a lot of fun. It's not a great game by any means and certainly isn't one of the best Doomers, but if this kind of game is what you like, then you'll probably find much to like in Quarantine as well.
