Old School - Quake 2 (PC, 1997(?))

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If we were all alive in the Quake 2 universe, we'd all be dead bodies completely ravaged cities around the world. Why so? Alien forces have destroyed just about everything on Earth, and now it is up to the Space Marines to head into space and kill the aliens involved in tearing apart our Earth. You win, you get major payback. You lose, humanity ceases to exist.

Quake 2 was one of the most advanced games of its time, pitting you in massive levels, against all sorts of abominations, different environmental hazards, and with some bigtime weapons. Who said revenge was going to be easy? Perhaps one of the most interesting elements of this game is the ability to play against up to 32 people online. Imagine 32 gamers all battling at once! That's like the NCAA college basketball tournament is like before the Sweet 16 is decided! Anyhow, here's the PROS and CONS and the rendering of my final verdict:

PROS: wonderful graphics, even in its time; massive levels with danger in every corner; many enemies available from simple to nightmarish; powerful weapons; lots of multiplayer options; many characters to choose from

CONS: can be pretty scary at times; some frustrating and challenging missions; little margin for error; unique missions; not a real solid story line (but then, who cares? It's a first-person shooter! Kill or be killed!)

FINAL VERDICT: Besides the Doom series, Quake 2 is one of the classic first-person shooters out of the evil labs of iD software.

OTHER INFO: The upcoming Quake 4 picks up where Quake 2 left off. Quake 3 was more like a challenger to the highly-successful Unreal Tournament/Championship series. If you want to understand where Quake 4 will lead into, I recommend you play Quake 2 to know what's going on.
 
I never played Q2 for the single player. Though I did try and play through it... but didn't get far.
The real meat of Q2 for me was multiplayer. The release of the 3.14 patch was icing. The Edge (q2dm1) is probably, hands down, one of the best and most well known map of any FPS game.

Funny you wrote the review... as I'd just picked up playing the game last night.

I still remember when I went to a LAN competition for Q2. We had a huge Free for all game on one of the larger single player maps. 64 players! I finished 3rd and snagged myself a free t-shirt! :)
 
Here's a just for fun comment. As of this date (I hate talking about this), I'm currently wearing a T-shirt I've had for a while, about the Road Kill Tour of 1998. It was a huge Quake 2 challenge. I don't do the online thing, but I have to say that I was actually impressed with Quake 2 when I really played through it. Perhaps the middle and late 1990s were the age of the first-person shooter. This is true from games from Wolfenstein 3D all the way up to Unreal Tournament classic.

Microsoft had its own service at the time, called DWANGO, to play games like Quake 2 online. Other gaming networks I can recall around the time of this game include UGO, Heat.net, the TEN (Total Entertainment Network) network, Kali... I think this was the boom of online gamimg, especially among first-person shooters. And what better than to enjoy whipping up on 31 others in Quake 2? Biggest benefactor would be the online gamers.
 

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