Quarantine

I was fourteen when I first controlled a car with a machine gun mounted on its roof. It wasn't in a driveway—it was in Quarantine. And that game made it crystal clear that no normal racing sim would ever offer this.

Quarantine came out in 1994 from Imagexcel and threw itself into a genre that didn't even have a proper name back then. The dystopian city of Kemo City, where buildings crumble, streets teem with dangerous figures, and you're sitting behind the wheel of a taxi. Not because you want to, but because you have no choice. The story is simple—you're trapped in a city behind quarantine walls, you need money and a way out. Fare, please.

You drive, pick up passengers, get paid, and use your earnings to buy weapons. That's the whole loop. Sounds straightforward, but in 1994 it was quite a culture shock. Cockpit view, fully 3D environments rendered on the fly, enemies actively ramming you—it all came together like compressed adrenaline. The engine isn't fast, the physics are about as realistic as a drawing of a car by a ten-year-old, but on a 486 back then, this was something you remembered. Controls are straightforward—no fine pedal work—you either drive, or shoot, or do both at once.

What set Quarantine apart from the competition was its tone. Dark, cynical, sometimes absurd humor ran through the whole game before that was fashionable. Kemo City isn't a pretty place, and the developers weren't betting on eye candy—they were betting on an atmosphere of hopelessness laced with B-movie ideas. It's like a mix of Escape from New York and a cheap action flick from the video rental store. Today, of course, the game has visibly aged: technically and in design. Repeating textures, monotonous mission layouts, and a grinding loop that wears thin on longer play sessions are things people overlooked in the nineties but can't anymore.

Anyone playing Quarantine today in their browser should have the right expectations. It's not a polished gem—it's a raw artifact from when developers were still learning what you could do with 3D action. If you enjoy retro experiences in their original, unvarnished form, or if you're curious what an alternative path looked like before it became the GTA series—Quarantine is worth half an hour of your time. Probably not much more. But that half hour delivers.