Original and best? (Quake 2 (PC))

Member Name: rob_writer

Product:	Quake 2 (PC)
Date:	04/04/02 (424 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good fun, Railgun rocks

Disadvantages: Hmmmm

Perhaps this game can't really be original, saying as it's a sequel, but it was the first game I ever played over a network, and to me is the original multiplayer first person shooter. The original Quake had multiplayer, even Doom did, but few were played on the same scale as Quake 2 was. Perhaps it was because it coincided with the time the internet got popular, or the time everyone bought PC's, or even because it was one of the first games to use a 3D accelerator and it looked great, but for some reason Quake 2 just had the edge in multiplayer.

Throughout the years numerous FPS games have been popular with gamers, the biggest being the Quake series, Half Life (and the Counterstrike mod) and Unreal Tournament. Unreal Tournament and Half Life are still being played today, years after their original release, a testament to their greatness. The Quake series has now moved on from Quake 2 to Quake 3, which was designed as a multiplayer game from the start. Of them all Unreal Tournament has to be my favourite, but a close second comes Quake 2.

Perhaps the reason I don't like Quake 3 so much should come in a Quake 3 review, rather than here, but for some reason Quake 2 seems a lot more gritty and life like than the often garish, more fast paced Quake 3. Quake 3 moves more towards an Unreal Tournament style of play, but it doesn't do it as well.

To me Quake 2 is a lot more tactical than most of the other games. The weapons are more finely balanced, the aim simply isn't to find the best weapon and use it all the time - it is possible to win consistently with at least 5 of the 10 weapons on offer - each comes in to it's own in different situations. The game seems to be played at a slower pace than most of the others of its ilk. While in Unreal Tournament I rush in headstrong, shooting while jumping and strafing to avoid fire, in Quake 2 I would actually take cover behind a wall, then dash out to let off a few rounds befo
re heading back for cover. You know that one good shot from the rail gun will kill you, but as long as you keep moving you are much harder to hit, and you can release a burst of the hypergun and know that some will hit your target. It is perhaps because the game is so well balanced, because this doesn't happen with the other games where the tactics are to run in shooting and rely on your accurate aiming to win the day.

Of course, Quake 2 is getting a little old in the tooth, can it really compete in the fast changing world of the FPS?

Graphically Quake 2 hasn't suffered too much. New PC's can easily play it at the highest detail levels and resolutions, and although it lacks the latest visual sparkle it is still looks very clear and sharp, nothing to moan about at all. Everything else about the game is pretty much the same as you'd see in games like Half Life and Unreal Tournament - for example the controls are definable by the user (so you can have your usual layout).

Back when Quake 2 was released it would have been unheard of not to have a dedicated one player mode, so Quake 2 also offers a challenge for the single player. This is actually a rather good game to play, as it has moved on from the simple level based 'collect red key card for red door' style of gameplay that Doom and the original Quake offered. You know play what is in effect one large game from start to finish, with a plot and objectives to carry out. The story line is simple (you've crash landed on a planet, need to escape etc) but you have various tasks you have to carry out, rather than just getting to the end of the level. It's a far cry from Half Life or Deus Ex, but it's still more enjoyable than the first games single player mode.

Enemy intelligence is also increased somewhat, as enemies don't simply charge at you as they once did. They will duck under shots, and generally are a lot better than previous games. Weapon
s are (as in every fps) introduced one at a time, starting with the worst and working up to the best. Ammo for some of the better weapons is limited though, so proceed with care. You have the usual blaster, shotgun (and super shotgun), machine gun, chain gun, rocket launcher etc, as well as a few new additions like the grenade launcher, rail gun and hyper blaster. The rail gun (as in the film Eraser with Arnie) shoots metal slugs at near the speed of light, which basically means that when you see it fired, the bullet hits you. The weapons are greatly balanced though, for example the railgun leaves a trail of smoke in the air when fired, so if you miss your position is revealed to your opponent. Another example is the chaingun, it fires bullets at a massive rate, but takes a while to get going or stop, leaving you vulnerable for a fraction of a second. The machine gun on the other hand is rather powerful, so firing it makes your arm lift upwards, making it harder to control. Each weapon has it's strong points and it's weak points, you have to know when to use each one and how to make the most of it.

At the time of launch Quake 2 probably was geared up more for the single player market, with the only multiplayer offering being deathmatch with human opponents, although the game did ship with a lot of great multiplayer maps. Over time mods (add ons) were released that can add bots to the game and add different game modes, such as capture the flag (CTF), and of course, lots of people made new maps. Online play is good, although ideally you need a good ping (which means ISDN or cable), but the game really comes in to it's own on a network. The good thing is that it doesn't need mega-fast computers to run, so there's a good chance you might have a few machines that meet the specs.

To play you need

Pentium 90 (133Mhz recommended)
16MB Ram
Sound card
250Mb HDD space

Although this estimation is woefully low.
You'd better add some of kind of graphics accelerator to that, although an original Voodoo 3dfx card will do (or even the original powerVR!). 32Mb ram would help too, the lowest spec PC I've seen the game on is on my old 300Mhz K6 with 96Mb RAM and a Voodoo 2, and the game runs perfectly. A few old computers, some cheap network cards and you could have yourself a great (and inexpensive) network capable of running Quake 2.

In my opinion still one of the best multiplayer FPS games out there.

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