Title: Quarantine
Developer: Imagexcel
Publisher: GameTek

Quarantine is one of my top 25 favorite PC games. I bought it back in 1993 in Electronics Boutique for around $30 to play on my 486. It was one of the many games I bought blindly, solely basing my purchase on the cool box art and screen shots on the back. Yes I know this is stupid but I was 10. And this was 1993, a time where if you randomly bought a computer game off the shelf, chances were that it would be good. After countless hours of messing around with DOS I finally got it to play, and I was greatly rewarded. The game had the best graphics I had seen yet, and it had polygons, yes polygons. No big deal now but it sure was back then. You may ask, "Why am I reading this?" Well, it's because GameTek made the excellent decision to port this excellent game to a most excellent system, our beloved 3DO.
3DO's Quarantine is a port of the CD-ROM version of the PC game. I had the disk version which didn't have the funny-as-hell opening video or the drive-by cam. The game's features include:

[bullets:]
You play Drake Edgewater, a 21st century hovercab driver.

Lightning fast new real-time 3D-graphic engine.

Combines the best elements of first person shooters, car racing games and demolition derbies!

Featuring, filmed live action music video introduction and music tracks from Australian alternative bands.

Earn money to purchase weapons and repair your cab!

Gigantic playing environment set in a dark, futuristic city!

Drive-by shooting cam.


The premise behind Quarantine I must say is a good one. It's set in the futuristic city of Kemo, where chaos rules and you're a cab driver shooting your way through the thick of it. Here's an abreviated timeline:

*2022- Kemo is a very prosperous city on the east coast. However, crime is growing at an astounding rate.
*2026- Kemo falls to criminals as economy crashes and black market takes over.
*2029- OmniCorp comes in and claims they can clean up Kemo.
*2030- A 5 meter thick, 10 meter high wall begins construction.
*2032- Wall is completed, making Kemo a prison city. OmniCorp's project Quarantine is in place.
*2043- OmniCorp introduces a new drug in the Kemo water supply intended to eliminate criminal thoughts.
*2045- Kemo's water supply contains bacteria and viruses that react with the drug to form a pyschoreactive virus that causes synaptic breakdown. It turns half the population into violent killer lunatics intent on killing anyone who isn't a violent killer lunatic.
*2047- The virus is spreading.

Graphics- 7/10
Overall this game looks pretty good. Points are lost for the pixelated cars and people, sometimes mediocre framerate, and lack of a real textured road/floor surface (the PC version had textures all around). Points are gained for the great opening video and no-holds-barred gory presentation.

Sound- 6/10
Music is alright, catchy. Sound effects sound like they could be on 3.5" floppies, like they originally were. Music is scratchy too. Still better than decent though.

Control- 7/10
Sometimes seems slightly delayed due to framerate problems. Pretty good though, considering the fact it's a PC port and the 3DO controller has only 5 action buttons.

Gameplay- 9/10
If you can get past the game's problems you will find a very enjoyable game here. Good story, good levels, good open game progression, fun challenging missions. Lot's of buyable weapons upgrades make this a great shooter. Think Carmageddon with a little less 3D and a lot more fun.

Final score- 8.5
Good game but some problems might not lure more superficial players back to the controller.