I still remember my first ever grunt encounter in Quake 2. It was in 1998, and it may actually may have been the first encounter in a 3D polygonal game that made me go ‘huh, that’s cool’ rather than ‘damn, pixel-art shooters likeDuke Nukem 3Dand Blood really lookedwayyyybetter than this.’
Each shot I took from my little fairy-dust pistol would leave convincing damage on the grunt, leaving them a flesh-shredded mess by the time I delivered the killing shot. The grunt fell on his back, then lifted his head and blindly took three more shots in my direction before laying down for good. Looping back round to this body, I was impressed and appalled to find it had flies buzzing around its corpse—it seemed that insect life on the planet of Stroggos acted fast whenever there was a feast to be had.
Quake 2 was a game of strong, fleeting initial impressions for me, which faded quite quickly. The grey-metallic environments were neither as impressive as the otherworldly planetscapes of Unreal nor the strange gothic grunginess of the first Quake game (not to mention the fun Earthbound environs of its late 90s peers like Duke 3D or Blood). Even though Quake 2’s level design was less complex than its predecessor, I still found myself lost in its indistinct grey-brown corridors.
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But credit where it’s due to remaster masters Nightdive Studios, because Quake 2: Enhanced Edition is indeed just that. Somewhere between a regular ol’ remaster and an elaborate fan overhaul, it really gives the venerable FPS new life, and that makes revisiting it an absolute joy.
The changes here don’t just make the game look better and feel smoother; some of the quality-of-life and AI updates legitimately lift the flow of the game. If you’re used to navigating modern games, then it can be easy to get lost in Quake 2’s corridors, but you now have a compass to point you to the next objective, with the option of showing clear lines on the ground telling you exactly where to go. This being an action-shooter that was never really about the exploration (unless you go rooting for secrets), it really felt like no loss to me to occasionally use the arrows to point me to the next objective or next shootout.
Enemies, meanwhile, have been endowed with new moves like jumping down off ledges, side-stepping, and actively ducking underneath your projectiles, while those metal-legged Berzerker things now have a leap attack that was originally intended by id to be in the original game (that, in truth, is a bit overpowered and frustrating to fight against in the game’s tight environs).
Interactable objects in the environment pop more thanks to new lighting that makes computer terminals and buttons glow, while shooting feedback is much improved thanks to a new muzzle flash effect.
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Then there’s the content,the content! Naturally, both of the original expansions are included here, but it also bundles in the N64 version of Quake 2, which had its own levels, and even introduced things little graphical flourishes like the muzzle flash and BFG10K lightning effect, both of which now feature throughout the rest of Quake 2 Enhanced Edition. The N64 version of the game is inferior by any objective measure, but as a historical artefact in this lovingly put-together package (which, by the way, is afree upgradeif you already own Quake 2 on Steam or GOG), it’s golden.
As with the Enhanced Edition for the original Quake, full local and online competitive and co-op play is now included, and Wolfenstein developer Machine Games was tasked with making a brand-new campaign spanning 28 levels. I began playing through this, and it’s nice to see that it doesn’t mess around, throwing you in at the deep end, facing you off against far more enemies than the original game ever did, and giving you a powerful arsenal to take them on with. It’s a little out-of-character for Quake 2 to feel so slaughtery, not unlike a modern boomer shooter, but it actually works great, especially with the trails of enemy gunfire being more visible in the remaster, making it easier to evade even when there’s loads of it.
It’s always cool to see modern design sensibilities superimposed onto an old game in this way, and I’ll be ploughing through MachineGames’ campaign to see if their take on Quake 2 leaves a better impression on me than the original campaign did all those years ago (with that said, I definitely owe it to the base game’s campaign to give it another go with all the bells and whistles of modern gaming).
Even if Quake 2 isn’t my favourite shooter from this golden era of FPS games, this may well be the best implementation of an enhanced or remastered edition of an old game I’ve ever played. Being able to play the original versions of the game and all its Mission Packs is a nice bonus, and id Vault is a veritable trove of cutting-room floor ideas, concept art, and interesting tidbits about the game (maybe I’m an ignoramus, but I never knew that Quake 2 wasn’t originally intended to be a Quake game, which perhaps explains why it always felt a bit discordant to me back in the day).
This is pure fan service—generous and bountiful—and brings a legendary game that I never fully appreciated up to a standard that makes the game worth returning to for me, and worth playing for the first time for newcomers curious about the early years of a genre that’s still ahemboomingtoday.
