Quake 2 Review

Quake 2 was a game I recall really liking in 2018 when especially back before this remaster existed and you had to patch the game to get it running properly. Now that Nightdive has remastered both the first game and this one and how much I am not a big fan of the former after replaying it in 2021, I am wondering if this game fared any better and for the most part it does.

All start with the good, the weapons all sound powerful and have great feedback to them. Blasting enemies whether it's be with the super shotgun, chaingun, railgun, technoblaster, rocket launcher or grenade launcher have all feel very gratifying to do unlike the first game where all the weapons outside of the nail gun felt terrible to use. Seeing enemies getting blown up into chunks never gets old and I just love seeing them explode with the various weapons you get throughout the game. A good FPS game needs weapons that feels powerful to fire and great to tear enemies with and this game delivers on just that.

Another positive is the level design, while the level design in the first Quake was one of the better aspects about the game, the level design in Quake 2 is just as if not even better mainly when it comes to progressing through the levels. In Quake 2, you have different objectives you will be doing to get through each individual level. In Quake 1, there was a lot of keycard hunting and switch pulling and while I like that style of design, it can get a bit tedious doing those style of objectives over and over through long periods of play since you know how level progression plays out after a couple levels.

In Quake 2, they added much more variety in the objectives you are doing. It may kind of seem like the objective system found in Rare games and games inspired by them but what makes Quake 2 stand out is that most "missions" you will explore kind of has an interconnected feel to them. For example early in the game, you will find a power switch that you need 4 cubes to activate, go to one of the zones and the with some switch pulling, enemy killing and light platforming, the level in that zone will slowly show you through the 4 cubes you need to get and then you back track to an earlier zone to power up a later part of the level to progress. You will also be doing other objectives, like finding keys, finding objectives to progress later on, blowing up small generators to progress, shutting off laser grids, powering on certain zones or deactiving certain enviroment hazards, all these objectives get reused or mixed up, making it a game while one could argue has some reptetitive scenry never gets dull with how you are supposed to make your way through the level and slowly get to the exit. It isn't switch pulling and key finding and then exit button, here it is bactracking through multiple zones, doing different objectives and then you get to the exit. This level design really does help stand out from the likes of Doom 1993, Doom 2, Goldenye, Medal of Honor and doesn't feel as obtuse as something like Turok 2 does. What I love about the level design in this game that while you can't 100% explore the Strogg homeworld and it's not as seemless as something like Metroid Prime when that would get released later, it is however a game that predates Half Life and Unreal where the levels while segmented gives the player the feeling they are going through a journey.

After all the positives what do I dislike about the game? The enemy AI is really dumb, the move around erratically with no sense of any self preservation, the smartest the every get is occasionally ducking to your projectile weapons, most of the time they move around like headless chickens.

A small issue I have and it tends to bug me since Doom 2 managed to avoid it but the game really should've only had the super shotgun be the default shotgun you get since it kills enemies much faster and enemies are more prone to react when getting shot by it. I say Doom 2 avoids it since the regular shotgun is meant to take down enemies from furthur away and takedown weaker enemies while super shotgun takes down stronger enemies and is meant to be used up close, Quake 2 doesn't do this and it's quite a shame since Quake 2 already has a number of good long range weapons that renders regular shotgun useless like the Railgun for example.

Another issue is and this can really annoy me about the game is that while the guns feel powerful when being fired and when enemies die, the moment to moment combat with the weapons can be really inconsistent, what I mean is that enemies react to getting shot but it tends to happen 50-60% of the time. You can hit an enemy and one minute, they will react and another minute they will shrug it off, this can especially be frustrating when fighting Strogg that sprint at you and they have a leap attack that can surprise you out of nowhere and super shotgun blasts might have a 50-50 chance of slowing them down or pushing them back. In Doom 1993 and Doom 2 for example, pinky and cacodemons reacted and to every time a shotgun blast or rocket launcher was fired at point blank range where Quake 2, you could fire lots of rockets and shotgun shells at enemies and especially when really outnumbered since the enemies inconsistently reach to getting shot means that they can get some really annoying cheap hits in. Enemies with expolsive weapons enemies can tear your health in half very quickly and them inconsistently reacting to getting shot can lead some grating moments. I can ignore this for the most part but it can sour my enjoyment at times. 

Final issue and this has to do with the remaster version but the waypoint system is a rather questionable edition to the game. The game's level design 90% of the time is good enough that you don't need an optional waypoint system to know where to go when lost and even when you do use it, the system is not 100% reliable since their is a part in the Strogg holding cells where you have to blow a hole in one of the jails that leads to the beaten path and the waypoint system did not tell me about it leading me to look up a walkthrough anyway. It's a questionable if harmless edition. 

Overall, unlike the first Quake, this game still holds up and is worth playing now, and Nightdive Studios as usual did an outstanding job remastering it. If only more game companies followed their example.