{"id":685,"date":"2026-03-20T15:40:27","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T15:40:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sleepyadam.net\/?p=685"},"modified":"2026-03-20T16:02:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T16:02:16","slug":"blog-i-played-quake-2-for-the-first-time-and-i-want-to-talk-about-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sleepyadam.net\/index.php\/2026\/03\/20\/blog-i-played-quake-2-for-the-first-time-and-i-want-to-talk-about-it\/","title":{"rendered":"BLOG : I beat Quake 2 for the first time."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s very easy to get frustrated with Quake 2 for what it isn\u2019t rather than what it is. I\u2019m not sure it’s a game I ever disliked, but it\u2019s not a game I had much interest in for many reasons that a lot of people seem to outright dislike it for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quake 1 was a dimension hopping adventure that had a wide mix of fantasy influences with a unique dark and oppressive tone. Quake 2 is not that. It is a hard sci-fi shooter that takes place firmly in one dimension and one planet against one threat. While not wholly generic, especially for the time, it does feel somewhat monotone nowadays, and even feels like it’s retreading on a lot of thematic and aesthetic elements from the earlier Doom games, ironic for the sequel to the game that put an end to the term “Doom clone”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quake 1 and 3 are deeply minimalist games. Quake 2 is not. It is the most mechanically dense game of the franchise, and not all the pieces fit together as cleanly as the other two games of the original trilogy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a game that simultaneously feels like a serious deviation while also being a rather straightforward sequel that maybe adds too much bloat for its own good. I don\u2019t really agree with the take that it\u2019s “Not a true sequel to Quake” but it doesn\u2019t take the shape that I generally like Quake games to be and therefore I didn\u2019t play it that much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My history with Quake 2 is that I played it many years after I played 1, 3, and even 4, when I wasn\u2019t a kid anymore. So definitely take that into account when it comes to my biases here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I typically would get to chapter 2, die at some place, get frustrated and stop playing. Intending to play it again, but I\u2019d just forget about it. Then I\u2019d come back to it to try again, and get bored around the same place. Rinse and repeat. It\u2019s just a game that would refuse would stick in my mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Occasionally I\u2019d check out the multiplayer which I felt was a much better experience. And while I haven\u2019t played through Quake 2\u2019s main campaign, I did play through Call of the Machine–  the MachineGames expansion that came with the remaster– with a friend back when that was released.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So here I am, I made a generally well received Quake 1 video, and I want to make more videos. But when it comes to the obvious follow up, I don\u2019t feel very qualified to talk about Quake 2 since it\u2019s the game I played the absolute least amount of. I know it has its fans, and I don\u2019t want to be mean by talking about why the game doesn\u2019t work for me personally without at the very least trying to meet it half way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So my solution is this. I played all the way through Quake 2 for the very first time and I\u2019ve collected my thoughts on it and I\u2019m going to post them as both an article on my website and a reading on my YouTube channel for channel members. A little bonus treat for people who really want to hear what I have to say, that will be less seen than my main videos while my next big public video talks about Quake 3, the other Quake game I feel decently confident speaking on. I hope that\u2019s fair enough. Because I actually did enjoy my time with this game, but I am going to somewhat critical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With that being said, let\u2019s talk about Quake 2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First impressions are always very strong, the pre-rendered cutscene is pretty good for the time. It maybe hangs a bit too long on a POV shot of your ship floating around an empty 3D scene with hard to decipher radio chatter, but I do love the way the logo is introduced, and how intense the audio manages to make the situation feel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The opening level is also just really good. It\u2019s one of the more non-linear opening levels in id Software\u2019s history. You can go straight down the hallway the game seems to be leading you down or you can break the window and find some grenades, crouch under some rocks and find a room with some grunts and a shotgun which also leads to the main hall. It\u2019s simple stuff but it makes the level so memorable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sonic Mayhem soundtrack is so fucking good, especially the opening track to the first chapter. Despite the fact it\u2019s only like 9 earwormy songs that repeat a lot throughout the game, they never got old or annoying for me. There\u2019s a reason why Mick Gordon slipped Descent Into Ceberon into his Game Awards 2016 performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The action and violence is also immediately established to be extremely punchy and intense. I don\u2019t actually typically care about gore in my Quake, probably because I grew up with Quake Live and because a lot of Quake 1 and 3 multiplayer configs I used disabled gibs for better visibility. But I can\u2019t deny this is probably the best most impactful violence of the series. Quake 4 had more shocking and gruesome moments in cutscenes, but the actual gameplay here is the better showcase for how brutal Quake can feel. The way the enemy texture changes to show different levels of damage, and can be knocked into downed states where they fight for life and die much harder than Quake 1\u2019s enemies. Desperately firing their guns and flailing around. It\u2019s good stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is accentuated by how heavy duty all the weapons feel. Another thing Quake 2 accels at. The guns feel big and weighty. For once in the series the guns don\u2019t feel like tools, they feel like guns. Helped by the fact they\u2019re fully animated at all times. I think just from a gameplay standpoint I do prefer the way Quake 1 and 3\u2019s guns are more simply and procedurally animated when it comes to things like being able to get a feel for firing rate and cooldown times. Like the railgun in Quake 2 just kinda shakes around a little until it falls back into place and then you can refire it, while in 3 it uses a clever mix of using lights on the gun and sound effects to tell you when it\u2019s ready to go again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I can\u2019t deny the animation here gives these guns a certain presence they just don\u2019t have in the other games. And I can see why this is a lot of people’s favorite Quake arsenal just by rule of cool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As much praise as I heap on the Quake 3 shotgun for just feeling like the only shotgun that game needed, I can see why a lot of people feel it is a stark downgrade to the Super Shotgun in this game. Despite the fact it works essentially the same as Quake 3\u2019s, and is nowhere near as devastating as Doom II\u2019s, the heft in the design and animation and sound design makes it feel worthy of carrying the name. It\u2019s a very nice upgrade from the 56 damage max double barrel from the first game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The chaingun and railgun are also obvious highlights here, really powerful feeling weapons. The chaingun in particular is just so satisfying to whip out and mow down hordes of enemies with, and the railgun is fun for a lot of the reasons I\u2019ve already talked about in my Quake 3 video. I\u2019m surprised by how well it plays in PvE. I always felt it might feel a bit bad against enemies with a lot of health with how long you have to wait between shots, but no it\u2019s still just as satisfying and powerful feeling somehow. I don’t know why I ever had any doubts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Though in an arsenal this big there are some duds. I think Quake 2 probably has the worst starting weapon of the series. The blaster does not feel good. It\u2019s goofy. It feels like it\u2019s nerfed to keep the infinite ammo supply it has from being overpowered. I think the approach of previous and subsequent games works a lot better. A more powerful starting weapon with limited ammo, complemented by a melee option. Doom 2016 is further proof of how this infinite ammo pistol thing just doesn\u2019t really work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And while there are upgrades like with the super shotgun, it does feel like there\u2019s some downgrades too. I said in the Quake 3 video that that game\u2019s grenade launcher was worse than the Quake 1 and 2 grenade launcher. At that time I hadn\u2019t spent a lot of time with the quake 2 grenade launcher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It definitely looks and sounds the part and I like its design better than Quake 3\u2019s. But no, this is the worst grenade launcher of the series. You can\u2019t fire it straight down or up, and it also arcs upwards above your crosshair in a very weird way. It feels bad and limited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s also just something a little off about the rocket launcher here. I can\u2019t really place my finger on it. It\u2019s got a strange kind of lag to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another thing that makes the weapons feel kind of jank sometimes is they fire from your actual right arm unlike the other Quake games which calculate shots from your head, and like that sounds right. That sounds like the right way to do it. But what it means is sometimes you\u2019ll be peeking around a corner and your crosshair is on the enemy, you think you have a shot, but then the wall just eats it. And with the rocket launcher you just blow yourself up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact Quake 3 doesn\u2019t do this is actually why in that game you will sometimes see railguns and lightning guns go through walls. It\u2019s not actually calculating the firing line based on where the gun is to where the crosshair lays, just the cosmetic detail of the shot. I\u2019ve seen some people say Quake 3\u2019s collision is bad due to this, and it\u2019s like no, everything is working as intended here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I swear that’s supposed to happen.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t actually hate the idea of more games aiming from your arm, mostly because I\u2019ve played enough games in my life where snipers can just peek the tippy top of their heads over a ledge and annihilate you. I think it would be better if it depended on where their gun is rather than their itty bitty little head, but in that case I do think you need to have some kind of dynamic crosshair or at the very least some kind of visual indicator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I don’t ever really run into that problem in Quake, so sometimes, maybe less is more. And that’s kind of how I feel about Quake 2, it tries to go much BIGGER AND BADDER. But I just generally prefer my Quakes a little simpler and arcadey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think one of the most obvious and fascinating places where Quake 2 tries to go much bigger than the previous game that I don\u2019t see a lot of people talk about is the inventory system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In basically every other Quake game even subsequent ones, the powerups are what I like to call “Pac-Man style”. They\u2019re like power pellets. You pick them up, they activate, and you go. Usually they have some kind of timer before their effects wear off. It\u2019s very arcadey and fun. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quake 2 on the other hand lets you store powerups for later use. It\u2019s an interesting concept but the game doesn\u2019t really do much interesting with it. Things like the silencer might be cool for stealthily taking out singular enemies in tough scenarios, but the level design doesn\u2019t really facilitate it. Most enemies will see you as soon as you come across them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t think I was ever underwater long enough to justify using the rebreather. Biosuits usually are placed in proximity to what you are supposed to use them on, maybe there\u2019s some super cool secrets hidden under acid pits somewhere in this game, but I dunno if that\u2019s worth the fact  that this system also kind of takes away from some of the tightness of design of Quake 1, quad damages were placed usually in proximity to some kind of upcoming bloodbath for you to rush through. The levels could be designed wholly around when they knew you\u2019d be using a powerup. The quads and invulns here just feel like they\u2019re there to cheese bosses with. An immersive sim, this is not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, there is a place where I think the inventory system makes things interesting and maybe even better, and that\u2019s in multiplayer. In Quake 2 multiplayer, items kind of work more Pac-Man-ish but you can also drop items and weapons for other players. This means in modes like CTF, you can have scouts seeking out quad damages for flagrunners, or defense upgrades for guards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Some CTF players exchanging powerups, Source : Rocket Jump Ninja<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I have heard a lot of people say Quake 2 is the best teamplay game in the series and I believe it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Team based modes have been done kinda dirty by Quake. Everyone thinks competitive Quake is solely the realm of duel and deathmatch when there\u2019s just as storied a history of gaming clans tied to Quake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s kind of a history of TDM and CTF players beefing with duellers which I find personally very funny. A lot of people were apparently pretty mad that Red Annihilation ended up being a duel tournament. Personally, I think we can coexist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quake 2 and Quake 3 also famously have beef. And while I do prefer Quake 3 overall, I do see why a lot of people have stuck with 2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quake 2 just has the most stuff going on in it. The most weapons. The most enemies. The most complex item system. The most everything. It is the BIGGEST AND BADDEST Quake game and that\u2019s reflected in its heavy weaponry and aggressive bombastic tone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For people who really enjoy the resource management and strategy that comes with arena shooters, there is a lot to chew on here. Especially in Quake 2 Vanilla, there\u2019s things like framerate specific movement tricks which take up their own set of binds for really hardcore players. Quake 2 might be the only Quake game to take up the entire keyboard in terms of controls at a high level. A real PC gamers PC game. I\u2019m more a fan of minimalist arcadey Quake, but I have nothing but respect for the people who really dig into Quake 2, there\u2019s an obvious appeal to this game that is unique amongst the series and classic shooters as a whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I had a lot of fun checking out Quake 2 deathmatch while playing.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So the PvP is very good and pretty much universally beloved, the PvE on the other hand is something I see a lot of people take issues with, but I\u2019m not sure if they entirely understand why it doesn\u2019t fully come together. I don’t think I did either, until really collecting my thoughts on it. A lot of people say Quake 2 is too easy. Now, the remaster tried to make it harder with more enemy moves added, some nerfs to certain weapons, and slight buffs to enemies, yet I still find the enemy roster to be somewhat unmemorable and the combat to be less compelling than earlier games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which is weird because if you stop to check out the enemy corpses there\u2019s inarguably a lot of really interesting things happening artistically. Just amazing body horror for one thing. Humans with horrific robotic implements turned into living weapons, or dogs, or tanks, there\u2019s a lot of tankmen in this game, there\u2019s living breathing drones. All of them with human anatomy shoved into these form factors, with faces stretched over them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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That guy’s having a bad day.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Cool ideas, but what I said right there, that\u2019s about it, most of the enemies are variants on the same 4 ideas of robot man, tank, dog, and drone, half the time I really need to get up close and personal to even tell what\u2019s going on with these creatures. From a distance there\u2019s a general sense of what they are. But most enemies kind of blend together. They all have a very similar color palette of white, red, and grey. Flesh, blood, and metal. Most enemies fall either into the humanoid or tank variety. It doesn\u2019t help that this kind of fusion has been explored plentifully in previous id games, but alongside other monsters. Here, it\u2019s the entire core of the enemy roster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s useful to bring up the game\u2019s influences here. Quake 2 is very inspired by World War 2 fiction, the Strogg are essentially alien Nazis. In a way Quake 2 really has a little bit of all id Software\u2019s big franchises in it. It looks and sounds like Doom, plays like Quake, and goose steps like Wolfenstein.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hmm… Looks familiar.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I always love abstracting the horrors of war because I think it can tell us a lot more about war than traditional war media can, and in that sense I really love the Strogg. They are an ugly grotesque representation of the kind of things that happen when you try to shove all of humanity through this narrow tube of militarism and subordinance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s nothing too deep. I’m not about to sit here and tell you that Quake 2 is a brilliant commentary on fascism. But as a concept for villains, the Strogg are really interesting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the Strogg\u2019s concept is also where some issues start to crop up for the combat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What this World War 2 imagery means is we are fighting soldiers, not warriors. There is a difference, warriors are meant to be more singular and glorious, while soldiers are meant to be expendable, and in a metaphorical sense, programmed like machines. This explains the monotony somewhat. But the thing is in World War 2 games, when you fight soldiers, they typically go down pretty easily. We\u2019re all still human after all and as humans we are very susceptible to lead poisoning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quake 2\u2019s soldiers however are built like… Quake enemies. They can take a lot of punishment and in many cases in this game are literal tanks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One thing I\u2019m struck by playing Doom and Quake 1 in comparison to this game is how few enemies have guns. Usually the lower tier enemies that go down in one shot from just about anything. Doom in particular makes this a lot of fun. You have to take out the weaker enemies first while dodging the stronger ones because the weaker ones are glass cannons that can do unavoidable and devastating hitscan damage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coming across a chaingunner in Doom 2 puts you into panic mode. You need to kill that thing. NOW. Because if you don\u2019t it\u2019s going to shred you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A sprite that makes my stomach do backflips.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In Quake 2 there are like 5 enemies that have the chaingun. Many of which take many more shots to kill than the Doom 2 chaingunner. Most of the enemies are carrying two or three weapons. Like one on their arm, and one or two on their shoulders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the problem should be that Quake 2 is actually too hard, right? That you\u2019re wading into No Man\u2019s Land against a race of hyper strong heavily armed aliens… Well… No.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because, all the enemies do feel extremely weak despite how brutally powerful they theoretically should be. They can take punishment, but they have trouble dishing it out. Getting hit by a chaingun in Quake 2 PvP is brutal, in PvE it\u2019s a minor annoyance. The bullets do pitiful amounts of damage, and this is a problem across the whole roster of enemies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Woof. 100 shots need to land to kill a man.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

They have to be designed like death machines, so they fire a flurry of attacks at you which makes them difficult to dodge compared to previous games where most enemies had a single attack that usually amounted to a single projectile at a time. Quake 2\u2019s enemies have to be nerfed down to make it so it doesn\u2019t completely devastate the player. So a lot of Quake 2 really just ends up feeling like you\u2019re being pelted with rocks– no– pebbles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have to admit that I made this problem worse on myself though because I played on nightmare which means no enemies ever stun. So every fight just ends up feeling like that part of Wolfenstein : The Old Blood where you and the guy just stab each other till one guy goes down. But he has to hit you like 10 times to kill you, and you only have to hit him like 3 times, even though he\u2019s in armor and you\u2019re not, and this is made blatantly obvious by the fact he gets a head start, and the whole thing just seems kind of goofy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Still a great game, to be clear.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Still I don\u2019t think stuns would\u2019ve really helped what I feel are fundamental issues with the enemy\u2019s attack patterns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What you’re left with is a game that feels chaotic, with combat arenas that are hard to really grasp. Full of samey enemies carrying entire arsenals on their backs that are hard to differentiate. A lot of them are going to hit you before you hit them, and you just kind of feel like the game is letting you win when you get out unscathed anyways. And this is what people mean when they say Quake 2 is “too easy”. It\u2019s not a fundamental issue but a symptom. And fixing it is not just a matter of buffing enemies. I like Nightdive\u2019s remaster, but I don\u2019t think this is something that can be fixed by giving the enemies more attacks either, that just compounds the problem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They add a healing move to an enemy to make it more like the Archvile, which is annoying. But the Archvile wasn\u2019t just annoying, he was fucking scary and brutalized the player if they fucked up. Here it shoots out a tongue, and pulls you towards it and barely does any damage. So it just kinda feels like you\u2019re being jerked around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I took like 2 damage from this.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s an unenviable position to be in. Because you have to give players the same power fantasy they expect from the game, but if you actually buffed the Strogg to how they reasonably should feel against the player, it would turn Quake 2 into something more akin to Blood, which might not be the worst thing, but it would be much more fundamental a change that longtime fans might not be happy with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Strogg might be more effective in a horror game, where you\u2019re disempowered. They\u2019re built like Terminators, and the best Terminator movies are the ones where they feel like an actual threat. I do want to believe this combat could work better. I think it could. But I also think what needs to happen is future games and mods need to fully embrace what the Strogg are as a concept.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s also the fact that this was my first playthrough and I might just be bad and can\u2019t dodge the attacks YET. In Doom and every other Quake the player can also take a lot of punishment. The difference is I feel like it\u2019s easier to read the combat and not be in a situation where I have to abuse the player\u2019s roided out strength to get by. And the enemy\u2019s single fire attacks means higher tier enemy attacks can be more devastating. Getting your health slowly chipped away at just doesn\u2019t give the same panic response as seeing my screen turn bright red in Doom after getting hit by a Revenant or Archvile. It doesn\u2019t make me hiss through my teeth in the way I do when I know I\u2019m about to be hit by a Shambler due to bad decision making. I\u2019m not sure if there\u2019s really an equivalent to that in this game where everything is volley based.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most obvious instance of brutality in the game might be the dog\u2019s tongue but that saps your health. And I don\u2019t think I came in contact with a boss\u2019s BFG once. Making either of these harder to dodge might be going too far, in fact the dog has been made much more dodgeable. The balancing act here is just so razor thin and I don\u2019t blame id or Nightdive for not getting it exactly right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I will say is a lot of the time it is a very fun clusterfuck to blast through. I\u2019m just not thinking in a particularly strategic or engaged way in the same way as previous games while I\u2019m doing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m definitely going to have to check out Call of the Void at some point, the Quake 1 and 2 crossover project, because some of Quake 1\u2019s variety might be exactly what this game needs. More variance in creatures and attack types to let the gunner enemies breathe and maybe allow them to be more threatening when they do appear, and MachineGame\u2019s Call of the Machine shows the pieces are kind of in place for the Strogg to go and take over this hodgepodge of monsters that we already defeated in Quake 1, kind of like how the Combine in Half-Life 2 take over Xen from Half-Life 1 after you\u2019re done with it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

People say they want a return to Quake 1\u2019s world. But I think they mean tone because Quake 1 has an extremely definitive ending. Telefragging the fucking deity who literally gave birth to all these creatures is about as definitive as you can get. How do you bring them back? Somehow the shamblers returned? Maybe the Strogg is the key to all of this. Ok, I\u2019ll stop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know it\u2019s ironic to imply that the space Nazi enemies require a diversity quota to be more threatening but I think it could work. There are like two enemies that feel like they\u2019re a part of different alien races, so the Strogg seem like they\u2019re more a representation of the militaristic side of fascism than the racist side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking of variety, maybe one of the biggest issues I have with Quake 2 is the way levels or chapters just… are. I admit that I am very biased here. Because I really like Quake 1\u2019s smaller scale and more experimental levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the main thing. Having much larger chapters I think leads to a lot more monotony. Quake 1\u2019s episodes were generally centered around a single theme, but the level based structure allowed for more variety within them. Underwater castles, trap filled dungeons, catacombs, pyramids surrounded by low gravity for some reason, all places you explore in just the first episode of that game. Now you have entire chapters dedicated to exploring a jail, or a castle. Episode 1 of Quake 1 had 3 unique castles, and one of them, I have to reiterate, was underwater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not that you can\u2019t do big Quake levels, I think the community has thoroughly proved that you can. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in Quake 2, these themes just don\u2019t feel like they\u2019re explored enough to justify it. A lot of the rooms and hallways look the same. To the point where I feel like it contributed to me getting lost, a lot. In a way that I haven\u2019t since I first played Doom 1. After I got better at Doom, I felt I also got pretty good at navigating the notoriously labyrinthine classic FPS level design. I never felt lost in Doom 2 outside of the city levels. I never felt lost in Quake 1. Or Duke Nukem or Blood or any of those games. Or any of the various custom Doom and Quake levels though that may just be because people have learned how to design levels better over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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