2y ago

Nightdive's Quake 2: Enhanced, out now

Developed by id Software in 1997, Quake II is a critically acclaimed first-person shoote

Just like Quake 1, if you already own Quake 2, the enhanced version is available as a free update. Although unlike Quake 1, Quake 2: Enhanced is also available on GOG day 1.

In addition to visual updates, there's a new episode "Call of the Machine", Quake 2 N64, a pass to the enemy AI which changes a few behaviors and attacks, removes machine gun recoil, a new infinite use item that shows the player where to go next, and a number of other qol and accessibility options.

Anecdotally, I find the addition of Q2 N64 very appealing. It's a mish-mash of pared-down maps from vanilla Q2 and the expansions in a strictly linear fashion - no backtracking. Of course, there's also changes to the lighting and a new OST by Aubrey Hodges. Being able to control the game from keyboard / mouse is a godsend. I played the game in emulator with a modern gamepad and it was barely, barely doable, even when I could manually set deadzones and sensitivities and the like. It was awful.

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Nightdive Studios just keeps on pumping out banger releases.
- I hope they do Turok 3 eventually.

- I've seen this sentiment in a few places, and feel like I'm going nuts over here. Am I really the only one who thinks Quake 2 RTX looks like absolute ass?
  It's got nice real-time shadow effects, obviously, but everything else is a washed out mess of stretched textures and normal maps that make everything look like it's made of plastic.
  This is one of the official screenshots used to promote it and it looks like a 2007 tech demo.

I noticed a few things while playing the N64 campaign.
It's not 1:1 parity with the console version, and it's not meant to be (and that's a good thing, actually).
How it works is they use N64 textures, OST, and maps. Everything else is from the new engine - including the new enemy AI changes and balance adjustments, etc.
A good portion of the game is spent in anti-gravity. You may not have the rocket launcher, or much ammo for it yet, relying on grenades to take down bigger baddies like enforcers or tanks. The trajectory of a grenade on authentic hardware is net positive, so it's about impossible to aim. On Q2 Enhanced, it just means the grenade fires straight out of the barrel. Little things like that stand out.
The Nintendo 64 campaign on Hard, with deaths, took me about 3 hours. This is how I have always wanted to play this version of the game. It's indescribably better than trying to play it on an actual Nintendo 64 or even emulated.

a new infinite use item that shows the player where to go next
Why? Isn't Quake II a little too linear as is? This would've been much more welcome in ROTT remaster honestly.
- I have been playing RotT Ludicrous Edition, and it's my first time through the game in general. I can't tell you how much of my time is spent on key hunting or looking for that one touch plate, so I get that.
- It's linear in the sense that there's only 1 correct way to go, but there's so much back tracking and with no map and very little contextual clues where to go, it's fair to look up how to progress once or twice if you've never played Q2 before.
  
  I never had trouble with where to go honestly, except for one of the later areas that I don't remember the name of. For me wherever I needed to go was always pretty obvious. ROTT though...

I'm liking it but some of the gameplay changes are a little jarring after having played through the original hundreds of times over the years. The only one I really wish I could toggle off is the barrels exploding after a short timer, it's bit me in the butt a few times and even helped when I managed to somehow make a barrel launch across a room and kill some strogg when the one next to it went off.

Nice to play some Q2 Deathmatch with people. Real lag. Feels like the good ol' days!

Awesome, the episode they added to the original Quake was fantastic so this should deliver as well. Also, I never played the N64 game either. Nightdive is too good for this world.
- I've booted it a few times on my n64, it's playable... but this is a much better way to play those levels.

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