On the face of it, Quarantine sounds like a fun game: you’re a post apocalypse taxi driver, eking a living out on fares and the odd bigger payday mission – to buy BIG GUNS to put on your car and therefore blow the opposition to smithereens.

In reality, Quarantine is a barely-controllable Doom-clone, with a touch of Carmageddon and Grand Theft Auto about it, but with none of the good qualities of either of those games.

The idea of building up funds to buy better weapons is appealing, but the process of picking up and delivering fares is tedious in the extreme because it doesn’t feel like you’re driving a car. It feels like you’re inside a pinball machine… Plus, initially you don’t actually have any guns, so driving around doing taxi jobs (and constantly bumping into other cars) isn’t very exciting. Actually it’s quite boring.

The basic graphics don’t help either as there are few really recognisable landmarks to help guide you around. The ring roads are all mined, which is really annoying as they spring you around like nobody’s business (and add to your overall damage). Actually, keeping control of the car is a real challenge and it doesn’t take long for frustration to set in. Having to spend all your money on repairs is bad enough, but having to find a repair shop is a real drag. The “splat” effects are pathetic too – not a patch on Carmageddon, which this is competing with. Ultimately, though, it is the frustrating, shallow gameplay that renders Quarantine as “bad”.

Canadian developer Imagexcel later went on to become Rockstar Games Toronto. I’m guessing they probably want to forget Quarantine…

More: Quarantine on Wikipedia