Something I never thought I’d say: Just finished Quake 2.
I got the game when it came out — Xmas, 1997. Eleven years ago. I had played the original Quake into the ground — I had downloaded the demo when it came out, gotten the full version when it was released, and found the online community of extras (more maps, etc). So, Quake 2 seemed like a good idea.
Hmmm. Not so much.
Quake 1 was a pretty simple story. Just go out and fight and attack and explore. The levels were hard, the adventure long, and the rewards good. The whole thing was pretty linear, too — you just kept going forward, and the adventure was laid out in front of you. The weapons were cool, but the combat was balanced — a fair fight. And the whole dungeon concept was pretty cool.
The other thing Quake 1 had going for it was network play. Me and the boys would get together for a Saturday of beer and killing each other. Those same simple elements of success for the game increased exponentially on a LAN. Quake 1 was strong because it had both good single player game and good network play (online play wasn’t a reality yet). The trifecta came with good user-created content online — stuff to download and add to the game.
Quake 2 only got two of these — network / online play was good, and so was the user-generated stuff you could download and add on. Single player just wasn’t that good.
There are a couple of reasons for that.
1. There was a whole new story line. Which is fine, that they tried it. Good effort, just irregular implementation. You and others have been sent to the homeworld of the enemy, to counter-strike. You get updates on objectives, and new missions as you have success. It’s OK, but the game took hits for this new sci-fi angle.
2. It wasn’t linear. You had to go forward and backwards at times, to get the objectives. This makes it difficult at times to know what to do next. Where to go. What you missed. If you play the game, experience it, exactly as the designers intended, it’s probably smooth and flows well. But I doubt many did. I wasn’t alone in being left with the feeling of what the hell do I do next?
Unlike Quake, I abandoned the single player Quake 2 stuff mid way through the 10 chapters. I got frustrated. I wasn’t enjoying it any more. I felt like I was getting stuck, and wandering aimlessly for something that wasn’t obvious to me. I played a lot of online Quake 2 — I loved the capture the flag add-ons — but wrote of the single player.
Why pick it up again, after all these years?
Well, I got it running on my Mac. id Software had released the game engine software, and someone had ported it to OS X. I decided to tinker with the OS X version, in preparation for going back to Iraq; a buddy of mine from back in the Quake 2 days is headed there with me, and we thought it’d be a kick to play the old game again. I got it working, after a few tries.
And I gotta say — on a modern Mac, the game is very fast. The graphics aren’t very slick, but it is smoooooth. And I gotta say — single player game play isn’t any better. Same issues, same complaints.
One additional issue, though, that I think is toed to this OS X version. The aim is off. By just a hair. You have to aim just to the left of the target to hit it dead on. Not an issue with, say, a shotgun, but an issue with a precision shot or a rocket at distance.
It was nice to play the old game, but I won’t play it through again.
