-
Home
-
PC games
-
Action games
- Quake II
Quake II (0)
Overview
Quake II is a shooter developed by and released on December 9, 1997. It was later ported to several systems including the and . Ignoring the Lovecraftian storyline of the original , Quake II sets the player in the role of a lone who must battle the forces of in a series of objectives and finally face off against their leader, the Makron. Quake II contains a single player game that can be played cooperatively online and a competitive multiplayer that is still played by fans to this day.
id Software released two years later which, unlike its predecessors, is a multiplayer focused game. , which is a direct sequel to Quake II, was released in 2005 for the and . Quake 4 Special Edition for the PC comes with Quake II and both of its expansion packs, and . Quake 4 for the Xbox 360 only comes with Quake II itself and not its expansions.
Plot
A space marine named finds himself separated from the rest of the invasion for sent to when an EMP sends his and the rest of the invasion force's off course. The mission, Operation Alien Overlord, is in retaliation of an earlier Strogg invasion (later depicted in 's ). Bitterman is tasked with preventing the from taking over Earth and assimilating its inhabitants. There are several main objectives that Bitterman must complete in order to stop the Strogg.
First, he must establish a communications uplink between TCM marine command and the Strogg communication computers. Second, he must destroy the Big Gun which is the air defense system that guards the planet Stroggos. Doing so will allow command to hit the Strogg with an . Next, he must disable the interplanetary gateway to prevent the Strogg from re-launching an attack on Earth. Lastly, he must assassinate the leader of the Strogg, the Makron. Doing so will cripple the Strogg's political structure and prevent the Strogg from organizing an attack.
Upon completion of all the objectives, Bitterman make his way to an escape pod and escapes from the Asteroid Arena, the area where the final battle against the Makron commenced. The Asteroid Arena explodes and the escape pod crashes on the planet Stroggos. The final scene shows Bitterman's arm emerging from the wrecked escape pod and he clinches his fist. He would return in the game's expansion packs under different code names.
Gameplay
Quake II is a fast-paced first-person shooter game similar to it predecessor. Some of the weapons from the original make an appearance in Quake II (Shotgun, , Grenade Launcher, and Rocket Launcher) along with many new weapons (Blaster, Machine Gun, Chain Gun, , , and ).
Singleplayer
The single player of Quake II contains nine missions each with one primary objective and several secondary objectives that must be completed in order to complete the primary objective. Along the way there are plenty of weapons to collect and enemies to shoot. The single player focuses on action and contains no , except for having to press switches to open up new areas, and minimal .
The game does include a few such as enemies running away from an imminent air strike, but these mostly consist of . The area for each mission is very large and has several sections, the game loads whenever the player reaches a different section of the area. Sections are identified by two doors in close proximity to each other, the player enters the first door and before entering the second the game loads. In addition, each section has its own separate statistics for secrets, enemies, goals, etc.
Multiplayer
Quake II could be played over the internet against other players in the form of standard , , or 1 vs. 1. Quake II's single player can also be played . Due to the multiplayer's immense popularity, id Software decided to rename an upcoming game that was originally unrelated to the Quake franchise , ignoring the singleplayer that made the franchise strong for the very first multiplayer focused game.
Weapons
| Weapon | Description |
|---|---|
| The starting weapon in Quake II. has , but has a slow rate of fire and is very weak. | |
| The fires 12 pellets and does decent damage at close range. Unlike most shotguns, it can be used effectively at medium range but it useless at long ranges. | |
| The fires 20 pellets and is significantly stronger than the shotgun, it fires two shells at once. | |
| The is a sub-machine gun with a good rate of fire but strong vertical recoil. Fire it in short bursts or maintain the aim until it reaches the top of its climb. | |
| The takes a few seconds to warm up but once it starts shooting it has an extremely high rate of fire and will drain the player's ammo supply very quickly. Unlike the machine gun the chain gun has no vertical climb, but is still inaccurate at long range. | |
| The is a simple weapon that can be thrown or used as ammo for the grenade launcher. The grenade can be cooked by holding the fire button. | |
| The uses grenades as ammo, once fired the grenades take 3 seconds to explode or if they make contact with an enemy they will explode immediately. | |
| The fires relatively slow moving rockets that have a large radius of splash damage making it a dangerous weapon to use at close range. Jumping while firing at the ground allows the player to to out-of-reach areas. | |
| The fires a depleted uranium slug at very high speeds. In the hands of an expert, it is one of the best weapons to use in multiplayer due to its accuracy and damage. | |
| The is an automatic weapon that fires bolts on energy in a circular pattern. The weapon has to spin down after being fired so it can't be fired again for a few seconds. | |
| The is the most powerful weapon in Quake II, and it is a homeage to the famous from . When fired, it releases a large green energy ball that shoots out green lasers at nearby enemies. It consumes 50 energy cells per shot and can kill most enemies in one hit. | |
| The is a Capture the Flag only item and can be used to get to areas on the map that would otherwise be inaccessible, it is also very useful to gain high speed very quickly. |
Enemies
| Enemy (health points) | Description |
|---|---|
| The Light Guard is the most common and weakest enemy in Quake II. It carries either a Blaster, Shotgun, or Machine Gun and has the lowest amount of health points out of all the enemies in the game. Even in large numbers, the Light Guard posses little threat to the player due to its weak attacks and low health. | |
| The Barracuda Shark is a rare enemy only found in water and are usually seen travelling in packs. | |
| The Enforcer is a common enemy in the earlier levels, but in the later levels is much less common. The Enforcer attacks with its chain gun that is attached to his right arm when the player is at a distance. When up close it will attempt to melee the player with his right arm. The Enforcer's low health and slow movements makes it easy to deal with. | |
| The Berzerker has no range attacks and will only attempt to get up close to the player and use a melee attack. The player can easily tell if a Berzerker has spotted them because it will shot out "Trespasser" when it spots the player. The Berzerker is a quick enemy and its melee attack knocks the player back a long distance or can easily knock the player off of a ledge. However, the attack itself does not do a lot of damage. | |
| The Gunner is a common enemy that has a machine gun on its right arm and a grenade launcher on it left. Despite its relatively low health, the Gunner is one of the deadliest enemies in the game, mostly due to its very powerful grenade launcher. It can fire 4 grenades in quick succession that do massive damage if they directly hit the player. | |
| The Flyer is a small flying robot with low health, it attacks with its blaster cannons at long range and uses its wings to melee the player when up close. They are one of the most annoying enemies in the game because of their small size and the fact that they are flying, which makes them difficult to hit. However, if the player can get them up close a simple shotgun blast will kill them easily. | |
| The Parasite is a four-legged dog-like enemy that attacks by launching a organic tube at the player which drains the players health. The attack is annoying because its almost impossible to dodge and does a lot of damage. | |
| The Mutant is a rare enemy that only appears in two levels. Similar to the Berzerker, it has no range attacks and will only attempt to get up close to melee. It is more dangerous then the Berzerker due to its higher health and more damaging attacks. | |
| The Brain is a strange robotic enemy that appears rarely. The Brain has an energy shield on the front that protects it from damage. It has two attacks, an arm hook and releasing tentacles from its chest. Neither attack has a good range and that coupled with its extremely slow speed make it one of the easiest enemies in the game. The only problem is that its energy shield makes it a bullet sponge. | |
| The Medic is another rare enemy that attacks using its automatic blaster attached to its right arm. However, attacking is not its main use, the Medic is able to revive any enemy that is not . | |
| A flying enemy similar to the Flyer except with a lot more health and no melee attack. The Icarus is more of an annoyance than anything, its attack does very little damage and it poses little threat to the player. However, it keeps its distance from the player making it difficult to hit. | |
| The technician is a robotic enemy that contains a head encased in liquid. Other than being an incredibly strange enemy, the Technician posses little threat to the player because it is slow and does very little damage. | |
| The Gladiator is an enemy with high health and a very powerful shoulder mounted . The Gladiator is one of the most dangerous enemies in the game as its Railgun does a lot of damage and is difficult to dodge and its up close melee attack also does quite a bit of damage as well. | |
| The Iron Maiden is an enemy with a Rocket Launcher attached to its left arm and a claw attached to its right arm that is used for melee. Its Rocket Launcher attack deals heavy damage. | |
| The Tank is the strongest normal enemy in Quake II. It is heavily armoured and slow moving and has three main weapons. Its first weapon is a machine gun attached to its right arm which does low damage. Its second weapon is a blaster on its left arm that fires three blasts in a row which deals high damage. Lastly, it has a shoulder mounted Rocket Launcher which fires a stream of rockets and is the Tank's deadliest attack. The Tank is a very powerful enemy and has a lot of health, but if the player can take advantage of its slow speed it is much easier to deal with. Popping in and out of cover to shoot at it with a powerful weapon such as the rocket launcher or will keep the player from getting hit by the Tanks deadly attacks. The Tank also has a more powerful variation called the Tank Commander (not to be confused with the boss enemy of the same name). Tank Commanders have the same attacks that do the same amount of damage, the only difference is it has 1000 health points instead of 800. Tank Commanders can only be found in the games final level. | |
| The Tank Commander is a boss enemy that is encountered twice in Quake II. It has tank-like treads to help it move around quickly, and it has two weapons, a chain gun and a rocket launcher. Its chain gun attack is very dangerous because it can kill the player in a mater of seconds and has no start up delay. Its Rocket Launcher attack fires three rockets that do massive damage. | |
| The Hornet is the second boss enemy, encountered two times (three counting the secret level) in Quake II. It has less health than the Tank Boss, but is harder to hit because it is able to fly. Like the Tank Boss the Hornet has two attacks, a twin chain gun that does the same amount of damage as the Tank Boss' chain gun and a rocket launcher that fires four rockets rather than the three rockets the tank boss fires. The Hornet is a very tough enemy to kill and its chaingun attack is hard to dodge and does a lot of damage. | |
| The Jorg is an exoskeleton used by the leader of the , the Makron. It is tied with the Makron himself for the most hit points in the game, and is equipped with twin chain guns. The chain guns deal similar damage to that of the other two bosses, the main difference being the Jorg's chaingun lasts indefinitely while the other bosses chain guns only fire in bursts making the Jorg's chaingun more dangerous. In addition to the chain gun attack, the Makron himself will fire his BFG 10K. This attack is extremely dangerous because the beams that shoot out from a BFG 10K energy shot are extremely hard to dodge and drain the players health and armor very quickly. One BFG 10K shot can kill the player instantly or cripple them if they don't find cover quickly. When Jorg is defeated it will explode and the Makron is left exposed. | |
| The Makron is the leader of the and is fought after destroying the Makron's exoskeleton, Jorg. The Makron still has the powerful BFG 10K attack which he uses in the Jorg battle, but he also has two new attacks. The first is a blaster attack that fires 20 blaster shots, the attack does moderate damage but is easily avoided by strafing. The second is a Railgun attack very similar to that of the Gladiator. It can also be dodged by strafing, but is harder to avoid than the blaster attack. |
Expansions
Main Articles: and
Two official expansion packs for Quake II were released and neither were developed by id Software. The first, named The Reckoning, was developed by . The second, named Ground Zero, was developed by . Both added new levels and enemy types, and Ground Zero also added 5 new weapons.
Modifications
Quake II had a very active modding community which spawned a large number of total conversations, maps, player models and more.
Action Quake 2
Perhaps the most noteworthy of Q2's mod legacy is (AQ2) which implemented a realistic setting and modern day weaponry, it also introduced bleeding and the ability to cripple enemies so that they need to bandage themselves.
Some AQ2 developers later went on to develop for .
Rocket Arena 2
Returning from the original Quake, (RA2) is a mod which pits players against each other in a round based game mode with all weapons and full armor, there are no item pickups.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack for Quake II was composed mostly by German producer (aka Sascha "Buzzfunk" Dikiciyan) with additional tracks by .
| Track Number | Song Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Operation Overlord | 3:30 |
| 2 | Rage | 2:17 |
| 3 | Kill Ratio | 2:34 |
| 4 | March of the Stroggs | 2:55 |
| 5 | The Underworld | 2:36 |
| 6 | Quad Machine | 3:37 |
| 7 | Enter Big Gun | 3:08 |
| 8 | Descent into Cerberon | 2:41 |
Quake II - The Reckoning
| Track Number | Song Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gravity Well | 2:35 |
| 2 | Counter Attack | 3:13 |
| 3 | Stealth Frag | 2:59 |
| 4 | Crashed Up Again | 2:56 |
| 5 | Adrenalinei Junky | 2:52 |
Quake II - Ground Zero
| Track Number | Song Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ETF | 2:52 |
| 2 | Complex 13 | 2:58 |
| 3 | Pressure Point | 3:05 |
| 4 | Pressure Point 2 | 2:28 |
| 5 | Ground Zero Theme | 4:33 |
System Requirements
- Pentium ® 90 MHz processor (133 recommended) or higher or Athlon ® processor
- Memory: 16MB required for Windows 95/98, 24MB required for all other operating systems
- 25MB of uncompressed hard disk space for game files (Minimum Install), plus 45MB for the Windows swap file
- Quad-speed CD-ROM drive
- Supports network and Internet play via IPX and TCP/IP
Playing Quake II on modern systems
It is recommended to use a source port when playing Q2 on modern hardware and operating systems.
Source ports
- - Multiplayer port with anti-cheat module, it is outdated but still used by many players and is required on some servers.
- - Multiplayer port with many modern features and optimizations for competitive play.
- - Singeplayer port that remains true to vanilla Q2, supports music playback via OGG files.
Compilations
- - community made installer which offers a quick setup for new players, it offers a free, stand-alone and multiplayer enabled version of Q2 (demo + latest patch).
Note: In order to play the single player component, you will need the "pak0" file from the original Q2.
