Quake 2 [old review found]

Add your own reviews of games here.
Post Reply
User avatar
dosraider
Admin
Admin
Posts: 9243
Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2005 2:06 pm
Location: ROTFLMAO in Belgium.

Quake 2 [old review found]

Post by dosraider »

A review I wrote some time ago for a defunct French AW site, Thought I could post those ol'things here.

Quake II

==================
System requirements:
W95/98/ME/NT/XP
P90, recommended P133
Memory:
W95 16Mb
Others: 24Mb recommended
4*CD Drive
DX5 or higher
==================

You are alone in your MARK9A pod, launched from a troup carrier, heading to Stoggos. Stroggos is the home world of the Strogg, who have raided Earth, taking the resources they need, primairy materials, minerals and so, but mainly to get the resources needed to build their kind, cyborgs. To make new cyborgs you need fresh meat, limbs and such. Earth's habitants don't agree with that, so they gonna pay Stroggos a return visite, and it aint maint as a friendly visite. First things first, drop a whole lot marines on Stroggos and destroy their defenses. Main target: the BigGun, capable of destroying spacial invaders. That's the general idea.

As the Strogg's don't agree with that idea, they begin to shoot the pods down, also yours, you are crashing far away from the others, slamming into a large building, nothing else than a side arm, a poor blaster. Here your adventure starts, you will have to survive on Stroggos, hunted by all that is able to hunt you down.

From here on the game develops as a classic FPS (First Person Shooter), you have the usual doors to open, find keys, commander's head , datadisk, and such things. Some levels are more looking as gigantesque mazes, others are pure shoot-em-ups. The whole Stroggof world seems to be filled up with goodies, ammunition and armement. Enemies enough, in all variations, from easy to kill soldiers to damn hard to kill armored tankcommanders. All sorts of cyborgs, with arms attached on their body instead of limbs. You will even encounter female strogg, the iron maiden ( really ), kind of sexy, if you like their looks, with RPG launchers attached to them, also some cutting manicured claws. They have issues with you, and you with them, no polka here, no kiss and make up, they are malicious creatures.

The weaponry you will gather whilst maurauding Stroggos is varied, shotgun, double barrel shotgun, machinegun, chain gun, grenades and launcher, RPG's, Hyper blaster, Rail gun, and the return of the "BFG". Enough to party and do some serious damage.

How good is the gameplay of this Quake II in single player? I find the single player good, not extra. Too much the same looking searching opening this door that door. 50 % of the levels are build as mazes, you run around searching a way out. Tactics aren't necessary, dive in, slaughter the Stroggs, done, up to the next. Even if some levels have a kind of story, some technical stuff to do, power blocks, a pumpstation, a bridge, a mining station, getting ventilation on, it's a bit boring after a while. The good part is the variation regarding the enemies, the way your armement reacts in your hands, the trembling of the macine gun, those are pretty and certainly well done.

The real good thing in this game is the multiplayer game. As the game demands high transfer rate, no serial or parallel connection, multiplayer is only through LAN or TCP/IP (internet) avaible. Initialy no COOP, it was added later. Any fast enough PC can act as host (dedicated server).
The posible settings on a server are extended, initial map, frag limit, time limit, respawn limit for the armement or goodies, and others. The players can costumise their character in different ways.
Even ower days you can find many Quake II servers on the internet, sometimes with the basal game on it, sometimes with all kinds of mods.

The graphics are good in Quake II, I wonder why they put the 320*240 res in, it's ugly. How better your videocard , how higher the resolution you can run, up to 1600*1200, something every modern PC can reach. Eventually full OpenGL or 3DfX.
Artworks are also pretty good, finished, not some hasty job, neat.
The sounds? Good, pretty good even, the different armement have their own sound, the shotgun blast, the hammering of the machinegun, the sustained nailing sound of the hypergun, the whoosj from the RPG, nice sounds.
Music ? A nervous disordered beat, I always kill music ingame, and put my own music up, no exception here. Decide for yourselves if you like it.
The AI is not exceptional, more average.

Was the Quake engine a revelation for Dos based games, the Quake II engine was the revelation for windows games. Many games are based on this engine, sometimes altered, sometimes not. Half-Life, SiN, Kingpin, Soldier of fortune, Anachronox, Hexen II, only to name some.

My personal quote for this game is A, more given regarding the multiplayer than for the single player.

==================
Publisher : Activision Inc.
Developer : id Software Inc.
Platform : Windows, later also Linux, Playstation, Nintendo64.
Released : 1997
==================

PC Windows screenshots:

Here you are, your journey begins, you and your worthless blaster
Image

Stroggos, the homeworld of the Strogg cyborgs
Image

Blood and guts
Image

Spreading the joy around you
Image

This big boy can use some chain gun rounds
Image

Prisoners
Image

One of the end level boss
Image

A bit of fresh air
Image

A mean heavy tankcommander
Image

Easter egg, meet the designer crew.
Image
wardrich wrote:The contrasts in personalities will deliver some SERIOUS lulz. I can't wait.
Post Reply