Quake II (1997)

Gameplay

The gameplay in Quake II for PC, X360 and StOS is characterized by high dynamics. Contrary to its predecessor, the developers decided to introduce a number of missions that form the basis of the single player mode. While controls are very similar in both titles, the weapon arsenal of Quake II underwent significant changes. Only the shotgun, super shotgun, grenade launcher, and rocket launcher remained from the original. Some weapons—such as the axe and the nail gun—were replaced by more futuristic ones, including the blaster, hyper blaster, railgun, machine gun, minigun, and BFG 10K borrowed from the Doom series. Instead of dark dungeons and caves from parallel, hellish dimensions, the players traverse military bases, warehouses, and factories, facing hordes of various kinds of cyborgs.

The multiplayer mode bases on the solutions of Quake. The available modes include Free-for-all Deathmatch, One versus One, and Capture the Flag, among other things. The single player missions can also be played in cooperation with another person.

Upon launch, Quake II for PC, X360 and StOS was considered a masterpiece in terms of visuals. The graphics engine allowed to fully utilize the capabilities of contemporary graphics cards which had an impact both on texture quality and animation smoothness. Suffice it to say that the same engine powered dozens of other games by various developers. The soundtrack of Quake II was composed by Sonic Mayhem and Bill Brown. Apart from three official expansions— The Reckoning, Ground Zero, and Netpack I: Extremities—the production received two unofficial ones, namely Juggernaut (Canopy Games, 1998) and Zaero (Team Evolve, 1998) as well as three huge fan-made mods: Action Quake 2, Rocket Arena, and Weapons Factory.