Quarantine (computer game)

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Quarantine

Developer(s)	Imagexcel
Publisher(s)	GameTek
Release date(s)	1994
Genre(s)	Racing, Cyberpunk, First-person shooter
Mode(s)	Single player
Platform(s)	PC (MS-DOS) 3DO
Media	CD-ROM
System requirements	286+, 4MB RAM, CD-ROM, Sound Blaster compatible sound
Input	Keyboard, Joystick, Thrustmaster Steering wheel

This article is about the video game. For other uses, see Quarantine (disambiguation).

Quarantine is a 1994 racing/first-person shooter computer game for MS-DOS and 3DO, created by Imagexcel and published by GameTek. In the game the player drivers a taxicab through a post-apocalyptic city, while picking up customers and killing enemies. Due to the gratuitous violence the game was controversial at the time of release.

1 Background history
2 Plot
3 Soundtrack
4 Trivia

[edit] Background history

The success of Doom by id Software in 1993 led to many other companies exploiting Doom's success. Most of them ended up making unsuccessful knock-offs. One of those knock-offs is Quarantine; but in no way was it a failure. Quarantine was one of the few games that won in successfully exploiting the features of Doom with its own texture mapped stages and vehicular combat gameplay. The game was later continued with the sequel Road Warrior, which largely kept the original gameplay, but introduced a more mission- and story-driven gameplay.

[edit] Plot

Like today's Detroit, KEMO city was known for the manufacture of hovercars, meeting the country's demands for transportation until 2022. Over time, however, KEMO's crime rate had risen so far that the economy collapsed and the city descended into disorder. Criminals roamed the streets in armored hovercars, terrorising the citizens of KEMO without fear of retribution. In 2029, OmniCorp promised city officials that it could clean up KEMO and return it to normal. The offer was accepted, and the corporation began the construction of a massive wall around the city under the guise of a "defensive measure". The wall was completed three years later, and the only exit sealed shut, turning KEMO into a massive prison city for all inside, criminal or otherwise. The outraged population reacted violently, and the city degenerated.

Ten years later, in 2043, OmniCorp decided to test the behaviour alternating chemical Hydergine 344 on KEMO. This chemical was supposed to pacify the citizens of KEMO, and was distributed through the city's water supply. Unfortunately, OmniCorp failed to predict the chemical's reaction to the stagnant water, resulting in massive brain damage and insanity in the many of KEMO's citizens. More than half the population became crazed killers overnight.

Drake Edgewater, a 21st Century cab driver and one of the lucky few unaffected by the spreading virus, is desperate to escape the city alive. Driving his '52 Checker "hovercab" armed with an assortment of headlight-mounted weaponry, he delivers passengers and packages for what money he can make to upgrade his vehicle and escape.

[edit] Soundtrack

The CD version features tracks from Australian alternative bands.

You Am I - Berlin Chair (2:42)
The Fauves - The Driver Is You (3:38)
Custard - The Wahooti Fandango (3:00)
Smudge – Ingrown (3:13)
Godstar - Lie Down Forever (3:26)
Screamfeeder - Snail Trail (2:49)
The Daisygrinders - Uranium Watch (3:47)
Underground Lovers - Weak Will (5:29)
The Hellmenn – Whirlwind (4:17)
Crow - Yellow Beam (5:00)
Sidewinder - Now You Know (4:51)

[edit] Trivia

Areas of KEMO bear names and locations similar to locations in southern Ontario. "Port Cretid" for example, for Port Credit, now part of Mississauga.
There are many storefronts whose logos resemble storefronts close to Gray Matter Games' Oakville office, include "Gifted Hands" and Tim Hortons.
It is possible that the game has been partially inspired by the movie Escape from New York, which also features a closed-off city with a dark feel and a man driving a taxicab.