Ah, Quake. Id Software's hugely popular PC first-person shooter came out in the US on 22nd June 1996, courtesy of publisher GT Interactive. And now, as Quake approaches a quarter of a century of existence, owner Bethesda is giving away the game that started it all free to anyone who signs in to its launcher from now until the end of the QuakeCon at Home event.

Yes, the Bethesda launcher is yet another launcher for your PC, but this is Quake. QuakeCon at Home ends at 3am UK time on Monday 10th August.

In a Quake retrospective published in 2011, Jim Rossignol discussed the influence of Id's game.

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What should have been a beautiful piece of retro fan service didn't quite work out. Last year, fresh ports of the original Doom trilogy arrived across a range of devices and while Panic Button's Doom 3 port hit the target, Nerve's conversions of the original Doom and its sequel left a lot to be desired. Incorrect lighting, broken music, stretched aspect ratios and other issues impacted what should have been a joyous celebration of a genuine gaming phenomenon. However, it's all changed now: while not quite perfect, I can highly recommend these revised ports and in fact, this is one of the most significant game patches I've looked at during my time at Digital Foundry.

To begin, it's worth pointing out that while the new update contains a wealth of new additions and fixes, not every feature is brand new - the game's first patch already managed to correct a selection of the more egregious issues. The incorrect lighting levels in the original release were fixed months ago in the 1.03 update, the mandatory Bethesda.net login requirement was removed and the speed and quality of the audio was also improved. Patch 1.03 basically delivered the game we should have experienced at launch and to be fair, Bethesda could have left things along at the point. However, the decision was taken to further refine it - and this is where things get interesting.

A crucial addition is support for additional WAD content packs. In its current state, both Doom and Doom 2 receive the WADs created for Final Doom while the original Doom also receives John Romero's Sigil with Doom 2 benefitting from Nerve's own No Rest for the Living. This is a huge bonus feature as these additional WADs are all of very high quality, bringing a lot of extra content to the game for no additional cost. According to the patch notes, the team is also curating additional WADs which will become available in due course. While the PC original has no restrictions on what WADs you can run, it's great to see extra content arriving for the console platforms.

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Bethesda's sizeable Doom 1 and 2 re-release updates - which were announced at the tail-end of last year, and add the likes of 60fps support, as well as free community created add-ons - are available now on Xbox One, PS4, Switch, mobile, and PC.

As Digital Foundry reported last summer, Bethesda's recent Doom 1 and 2 re-releases had more than their fair share of teething problems at launch. Since then, the publisher has issued a number of updates to improve matters, but today's offering is the most significant yet.

Once their respective patches have been downloaded, Doom 1 and 2 will see a frame rate boost from the original games' 35fps to 60fps on all platforms, and receive various quality of life enhancements, as outlined in Bethesda's latest patch notes.

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Quake 2 is over two decades old and yet the id Software classic is one of my favourite games of this year, radically re-invented from a visual perspective thanks to the ray traced remastering from Nvidia's Lightspeed Studios (based on original work by Christophe Schied). It's one of the most impressive examples of hardware-accelerated RT and thanks to the new 1.2 patch released a few days ago, a phenomenal game now looks a whole lot better.

One might think that Nvidia would simply move on from the Quake 2 project and concentrate efforts on the ray traced upgrades for other titles that are being worked on behind the scenes, but the improvements to the 1.2 upgrade are quite profound - and the most noticeable change comes from upgraded art assets. While the original Quake 2 RTX launch used physically-based variants of Quake 2 XP textures, not all of them appeared to receive the same level of love and attention. A key focus for the 1.2 upgrade has been to re-assess many material properties and get them looking just right.

Metal and how it interacts with lighting has changed immensely. The original release had metalwork that appeared to lack much in the way of specular properties, so even with the hyper-realistic path traced lighting, the material looked more like stone than metal. It's all change in 1.2, with art changes that dramatically change and improve many scenes. There are micro-level improvements too. For example, the original remaster's shotgun shells in ammo boxes use matte materials that show little differentiation between the box material and the shells themselves. Version 1.2 now sees individual cartridges exhibit metallic sheen and emphasise the coloured metals on the jacket.

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Welcome to another week of Five of the Best, a series where we celebrate the overlooked parts of video games, like hands! And potions! And dinosaurs! And shops! They're the kinds of things etched unwittingly into memory, like an essential ingredient of a favourite dish you could never put a finger on. And I want to spark discussion, so please share memories as they flash into your mind. Today, another five. The topic...

Health pick-ups! Oh how very specific - but I need to be. I'm not talking about health systems but the things you pick up to heal yourself. Used to be all games did it this way, but then Halo came along with its recharging health and all of a sudden everyone wanted the same. Now that feels like the norm.

But there are old-fashioned health systems out there (and they'll probably take offence at being called old-fashioned, so I'm sorry, I don't mean it in a bad way!). I still see Overwatch health packs when I close my eyes at night, and potions, which I've written a whole Five of the Best on, are a dime a dozen in RPGs. They're still out there, still crucial to how we get through games.

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Ah, Doom 64. In the absence of a PC, my console-fuelled video game childhood was left with Doom 64. But, improbably, Doom 64 was great.

This 1997 Nintendo 64-exclusive Doom game was not a port of the original Doom, or any of the other Doom games. Nor was it meant to be the 64th Doom game (although by this point will it be?). Rather, it was a sequel developed by Midway that took place after Doom 2.

I remember Doom 64 looking fantastic to my teenage eyes, and the music was properly atmospheric. You spent a lot of time shooting demons, of course, but there was a real horror feel to the game. It felt like Doom 64 was as good as Doom could get on Nintendo's console and, as someone who hadn't played Doom before, it also felt fresh.

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Rage 2 has topped the UK charts, but with significantly fewer sales than the 2011 original.

It's not a huge surprise - the first Rage game failed to find much of an audience, and this very-belated sequel never seemed to drum up the same level of excitement other games from publisher Bethesda usually enjoy.

In its opening week, Rage 2 sold just a quarter of Rage 1's physical launch sales. (Rage launched here in the UK on a Friday. Rage 2 launched on a Tuesday, so had longer on sale, too.)

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2016's Doom and the original Rage are now both available via Xbox Games Pass - their arrivals timed to coincide with this weekend's QuakeCon 2018 festivities.

It's especially well-timed as publisher Bethesda and developer id Software have spent the weekend chatting about both games' upcoming sequels: Doom Eternal and Rage 2.

This weekend we learned Rage 2 won't have multiplayer but will have "a social component", then saw our first look at Doom Eternal gameplay and found out it would also launch for Nintendo Switch.

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The official Rage Twitter account was sparked into life yesterday after the website for Walmart Canada listed a sequel to id Software's 2011 shooter.

Walmart Canada set tongues wagging after listing a raft of unannounced games, including Rage 2, Just Cause 4 and Forza Horizons 5. That's right - there's a listing for a "Forza Horizons 5", which suggests Microsoft is skipping number 4 entirely and has added multiple horizons to Playground's racer franchise.

Did Walmart just spoil the E3 marketing plans for publishers the world over? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Quite a few of the games listed by Walmart are inevitable: a new Assassin's Creed (although Walmart's rudimentary box art misses the possessive apostrophe in Assassin's), Splinter Cell, Gears of War and Borderlands are certainly in the works. We might be looking at an overzealous Walmart employee having a bit of fun.

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