A sequel that's drastically different from the original game, and suffers because of it.
Sadly, what made Quake so awesome has been stripped out in Quake II and it looks like a generic “Marine must kill enemies on an alien planet all by himself”. The game takes place primarily on marine bases in space, however there is some variety in locations such as a prison with a lengthy torture chamber, a processing plant, among other locations.
There are countless enemies in Quake II, mostly ones with simple weapons and guns, a few melee enemies and very powerful enemies that take countless hits to knock out. Problem is the A.I. wasn’t really fleshed out, while they can strafe from side to side to make it hitting them a little harder, and duck to dodge some shots, they have the problem of no retaliation if they’re very badly hurt, so most of the time they’re another victim of the shotgun or machine gun. However, as a nice quirk that was also in the original Quake, enough damage give will make the enemy explode into gibs.
The game has a myriad of weapons; about 11 weapons can be equipped through the game. Breaking the habit of many first person shooters, you are not given a melee weapon, the first weapon you have is a “blaster”, a simple laser weapon that becomes neigh useless by the time you pick up the shotgun. There is also a standard automatic weapon (the machinegun) and an even faster automatic weapon (the chaingun), projective explosives that bounce (grenades and the grenade launcher) and shoot in a straight line (the rocket launcher), among others. There is a BFG in this game, a nice homage to Doom, this time it’s the BFG10K, which will mutilate anything in its path, even possibly yourself if you’re not careful.
In Quake, the moment you picked up a powerup, it was instantly activated. In Quake II, it goes into your inventory. Picking up from games like Heretic, the player may use certain powerups like an environmental suit or the famed Quad Damage at any time. This is a plus, being able to use them anytime gives the advantage of saving them for the most important moments like boss battles. Since this game was around before the WSAD control scheme became standard in all first-person shooters, the way to access these from the menu (using the left and right brackets and enter to activate them) is a bit cumbersome. Thankfully most of the powerups also have a hotkey that makes them activate when you press that key. But therein lies the problem of somebody hitting the key accidentally and wasting a powerup that would’ve been very effective later.
In regards to graphic quality, there are problems in this department. While the default graphic setting is “Software mode”, which resorts to a lot of pixelated graphics and the like. “Default OpenGL” is the recommended setting. OpenGL also makes the areas have lighted luminescence, which gives the bases a dark, foreboding atmosphere. While that makes everything look better, it also causes the problem of being very dark, resorting you to have to either use the blaster (your starter weapon) to see, or crank up the brightness settings in the game or on your monitor. In addition, due to the renderer, most of the models and the like look “washed out” in OpenGL, and appear to have more detail in Software mode. This is very strange, and quite disappointing because of this. If there were a form of happy medium, such as the detail of Software mode with the colored lighting and darkness of OpenGL, I wouldn’t have complained.
The sound in the game is pretty innocuous, it brings atmosphere, but it’s not very memorable. Almost every enemy speaks the language of Strogg, so it ends up sounding like utter gibberish, except some that say words that sound like English. The weapon sounds are good too, and almost every weapon sounds memorable, something that doesn’t happen all that often in games. The game’s music, which is primarily by Sonic Mayhem but with additional tracks by Jer Sypult (whom I haven’t heard of before or since) and Bill Brown (who would later be known for composing the Rainbow Six series of games), and to be honest, I prefer the two tracks from the additional composers than Sonic Mayhem’s. Sonic Mayhem’s tracks sound decent, but they have the problem of trying to sound too much like Doom’s tracks, made by the fabulous and memorable Bobby Prince. Personally Sonic Mayhem should’ve put their own twist on the music, because some of them sound a little obnoxious at times. They fit during multiplayer sessions, but they’re not as good in the single player department.
Quake II itself takes about 4-5 hours to complete, and there’s some bonus levels just like in the original Quake that take some time to find, but they’re not completely detrimental to the plot. There’s also a few easter eggs and the like, try to find the hidden ones in the last level, they’re a hoot.
Quake II’s multiplayer consists of mostly deathmatch and Capture the Flag. It’s still a fun romp despite its age, and it’s still fun to frag it on with friends. Quake II, like its predecessor, has a somewhat big mod community, with such mods like Action Quake II. However, Quake II was made before having the option to password-protect servers, so expect a few times to join a server and get asked to leave.
Quake II doesn’t have a memorable single player. It tried to mix a plot with a bunch of senseless killing, and it doesn’t work, because this game is basically “Quake in name only”. It lacks the cool feeling the original Quake had, such as fighting ogres and zombies with the thunderbolt weapon, and it seems like another generic first-person shooter in space. Sad, I personally think id software has gone downhill slightly after they lost John Romero…
Pros: Use-at-anytime powerups, Nice varieties of weapons and enemies, decent music and sound
Cons: Game seems a little uncreative, A.I. is somewhat average, graphic quality is mixed, not really a sequel.