I've always been familiar with Quake, but only as a multiplayer game. I've played a lot of arena shooters (I'm more of an Unreal Tournament fan), but for whatever reason I never got around to playing the real Quake. I didn't really expect much considering how badly DOOM has aged, especially in terms of level design and general game feel, but I was really impressed.
Quake holds up on all fronts. The gunplay feels good, the movement feels great, the enemy variety is pretty good, and the level design is a night and day difference from DOOM and DOOM 2. It's hard to imagine that they came out only two years apart.
Despite being copied a million times, I feel like Quake holds its own against modern shooters. I would recommend it to anyone who likes movement shooters, and I probably should've played this ages ago.
P.S: I HATE SHAMBLERS I HATE SHAMBLERS I HATE SHAMBLERS
The Quake remasters are well done and I've been enjoying them on the Deck. I wanted to play something I already knew to get used to the gyro aiming and the remasters came out shortly after I bought it. Perfect timing.
The games have aged surprisingly well. I don't think you give Doom 1/2 enough credit but I'll be the first to admit I liked Heretic more. Hexen on the other hand has aged poorly but when modded it is fun.
I liked them all, but Rise of the Triad was my favorite in some ways. I remember it being a lot of fun.
RotT has really fun weapons and a banging soundtrack, I can see how that would be the defining FPS of the time for some people. I think my favourite FPS of the 90's was Blood, they nailed the atmosphere in that game.
Heretic, damn. I hate to put Doom behind any of them, but Heretic is engaging as hell.