What is your favorite level in the single player campaign?

. . .

There are a string of levels in Quake 2 with really effectively disturbing
sound design, that gets under my skin, in and around the detention center /
torture chamber areas.

I've never been this unsettled while playing a game. It made me queasy in a
visceral way that I think only sound can accomplish. The same way only
music can physically transport the mind / body to certain extremes.

The sound track is just persistent anguished moaning, mixed with short
pleas for help and mercy. "Please, kill me now." "Help me." "Make it stop,
please, make it stop."

It's the mixture of these phrases on top of a constant moaning track,
played with zero music at all, that comes together into a pure impression
of hell and misery. I just wanted to get the fuck out of there as quickly
as possible.

They took sound design to an all new level of intricacy and psychological
manipulation in Doom 3, but nothing in Doom 3 actually disturbed me like
this did. It was a little too aestheticized to ever be quite this
nihilistic.

Those prison levels were very well done. Going back and forth between maps was very fun. id used a lot more of the features of the Q2 engine then they did of the D3 one, that's for sure. The level did have music though. All the maps played a CD track if you had a disc in the CD drive.

My favorite map or map set... I'm not sure. I liked that entire game. Unlike Q1, which I didn't like parts and really liked other parts, Q2 was one of those games I enjoyed it all the way through. Destroying the logistical train is one of the most memorable moments to me, with a train being wrecked by you. Also escaping the big gun level: there was a timer and a decent amount of AI firepower between you and the exit.

Do you still play MP?

"Do you still play MP?"

I only discovered Quake 2 recently. I had wanted to play it for years, but
didn't have the gaming PC to run it.

What's amazing is, the game not only "holds up", it's still better than
most games out there, in terms of gameplay, and I'd even argue, its unique
graphical style. Certain things are clearly dated (e.g., character models /
animations), but I like the crisp, industrial style of its architecture.

And the pace is just insanely fast. I haven't had a single player
experience with this much intensity and adrenaline since Dreamcast (e.g.,
Crazy Taxi, Sonic Adventure). Exactly, exactly what I want out of a game.

That said, I haven't played any multiplayer. I tend to prefer progressing
through levels with lots of enemies with tough A.I.

"Going back and forth between maps was very fun."

That was unexpected. I stumbled on this possibility by accident. id kind of
regressed with Doom 3 in that regard.

"id used a lot more of the features of the Q2 engine then they did of the
D3 one, that's for sure"

Care to elaborate? This interests me.

Beyond Within wrote:

I only discovered Quake 2 recently. I had wanted to play it for years, but didn't have the gaming PC to run it.

An FYI, Q2 can run on anything (quite literately) made since 1998. A 1998 top-of-the-line machine could run it quite well. A 1999 non-3d accelerated machine could run it quite well. I've got it running on my wife's Acer laptop with Intel graphics, my kids P4-D with Intel graphics & my Phenom with an ATI 3850. Software mode runs on anything, it's been ported to almost everything out there that can run C code.

Quote:

What's amazing is, the game not only "holds up", it's still better than
most games out there, in terms of gameplay, and I'd even argue, its unique
graphical style. Certain things are clearly dated (e.g., character models /
animations), but I like the crisp, industrial style of its architecture.

The art isn't as dated as you'd think. The model format has a "wobble" issue (due to rounding) but when you use Berserker (real time shadow client) it makes it look quite nice. The character design was really well done, they used some neat vertex-animated model tricks in there. It's hard to believe it, but there was no alpha channel textures in the entire game!

Quote:

And the pace is just insanely fast. I haven't had a single player
experience with this much intensity and adrenaline since Dreamcast (e.g.,
Crazy Taxi, Sonic Adventure). Exactly, exactly what I want out of a game.

Yeah, I agree. Some parts are paced out more slowly and you can have some stealth (AI can see/hear you but if you use a hand grenade they don't hear that & can't find you unless they see you). The ducking was very cool for it's time and the expansion packs also added dodging code for the AI. The boss fight was also HARD. You fought a total of 3 bosses, each getting harder and no rest between them. It wasn't the "3-hit-and-out" thing done in D3 (started by Zelda games, but Zelda's gone overboard and does it for every boss).

Quote:

That said, I haven't played any multiplayer. I tend to prefer progressing
through levels with lots of enemies with tough A.I.

Q2 is one of the last SP games to include coop right out of the box, you can also play MP with monsters in the maps.

Quote:

Care to elaborate? This interests me.

Sure. Every entity in Q2 was used for something. A lot is considered hacky (even in the code comments!) D3 had a lot of script function and entities they didn't use for one reason or another (I can understand not using entities that could be replaced by scripting, that makes sense). It seems either in Q2 they designed the engine around what they wanted to do or what they wanted to do was based around the engine and tried to exploit both as good as possible. With D3 it seems like id made a really advanced engine, then made a game that's very simple in it's use.

Here's a listing of Q2 mods + review. The links might be dead for downloads but there on the net somewhere: http://planetquake.gamespy.com/View.php ... elect_id=2

CodeRED are two of my favorite SP mods.

(I think they're standalone)

I still play Q2 at least twice a year and, in fact, in a recent play-though, realized that Ground Zero is an unbalanced piece of shit. Either that or I'm just not as good as I used to be (doubtful

).

When you get the chance, play this mission pack. The link's dead on that page, of course, but the file can be downloaded here. It's very, very good.

Sikkpin wrote:

I still play Q2 at least twice a year and, in fact, in a recent play-though, realized that Ground Zero is an unbalanced piece of shit. Either that or I'm just not as good as I used to be (doubtful

).

When you get the chance, play this mission pack. The link's dead on that page, of course, but the file can be downloaded here. It's very, very good.

Thanks for that!

Sikkpin wrote:

I still play Q2 at least twice a year and, in fact, in a recent play-though, realized that Ground Zero is an unbalanced piece of shit. Either that or I'm just not as good as I used to be (doubtful

Of course everything was unbalanced back then. Players were just more determined and BETTER back then.

It wasn't "cheap", it was a "challenge".

I had Ground Zero in disk form before it melted. I have it now on my Q4 disc. I've got The Reckoning on disc too (along with my release disc of Q2). @ Tastyspleen there's a rogue & xatrix (as they're called based on the folder names) servers:
67.228.69.114:27947 tastyspleen.net::rogue
67.228.69.114:27919 tastyspleen.net::xatrix

There's also some non TS servers listed for those.

Zombie, id scheduled a Q2 anniversary game last month. Would be awesome if you could get some of the Rogue guys together and you guys schedule an anniversary.

http://forum.tastyspleen.net/quake/inde ... ic=20971.0

Apparently at one point there was 274 players on the server at once.

Zombie13 wrote:

Thanks for that!

"Unbalanced piece of shit" may be a little harsh, and vague at that. To be more specific, the level design, monster placement, etc was fine. My problem with GZ lies specifically with the fucking turrets and that spider-dog enemy. Both were frustrating and cheap. Too accurate, projectiles too fast, too quick to attack without any preamble to let you know they're about to attack (unlike all of the other Q2 monsters) and too strong (health and damage-wise). And the the way that damn spider-dog (I'm too lazy to look up the actual name) keeps switching from floor to ceiling while randomly attacking without any indication is annoying.

Other than that though, GZ is awesome!

I fucking love how challenging Q2 is. Even in some of the earlier levels,
the first encounters with the Gunner took me completely by surprise. I kept
being blind-sighted and would die out of nowhere. My skills had atrophied
thanks to today's watered down gameplay.

But I loved it. That's where the adrenaline comes from. So many times I had
the feeling of "How the fuck did I just make it out of there alive?"
Especially when I'd have to map out my attacks against multiple enemies
near the end. But not in the uber contrived way of current stealth FPS
games, in which the game basically highlights every position for the
player. I had to think creatively in Q2.

But I have to say, by far, the Mutant (the dog with the melee attack) was
the most annoying enemy. I feared those more than anything else.

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I remember drooling over the antialiased Open GL photographs in Next
Generation magazine in the run-up to the release of the game. I never
wanted to play it without the hardware accelerated graphics. However,
you're correct, that I could have probably run it on some of my older
machines without much of a problem. It runs on my 2005 Best Buy bargain PC
at 1024 768 reasonably well. Still some framerate hiccups.

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The boss fight was also HARD.

That boss fight was insane. Even using the secret underground chamber, I
still barely beat it (after many tries).

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When you get the chance, play this mission pack. The link's dead on that page, of course, but the file can be downloaded here. It's very, very good.

Will check it out. What is the best graphics mod? I found a website that
has fairly intricate instructions, implying that I need to patch up a bunch
of times before I can apply them. I installed Q2 using a CD of it I bought
around its release. Is there a website with good, clear instructions, and
only the very best, most up-to-date mods? Higher resolution textures would
be nice. Although a "Sikk mod + Wulfen + Monoxead" style upgrade would be
ideal.

Q2 clients, for the most part, aren't geared towards SP graphics but towards MP. However, there's a few clients that make things look quite pretty:

http://fps.maros.pri.ee/index.php?event=610

Berserker is the most advanced I'd say. It's getting on part with D3 in visual effects. His site (all in Russian) also links to paks to enhance the visuals of Q2. I haven't had good success with it in MP though, and (for some reason), the entire engine has been put in to a single .C file & the game library has been put in to a single .C file.

For a MP client, r1q2, aprq2 or q2pro are the ones of choice.

Tastyspleen has links to texture pak replacements, bright skins (yuk) & the like. It's also got almost every mod, map, player model & texture ever made hosted there.

Before you try any new client, be sure to update to the last release of Q2: http://tastyspleen.net/quake/downloads/ ... ll-ctf.exe

The GPL code is a 3.21 code release, a major bug was reported after the GPL code was released so id updated the code to fix, but custom clients fixed it already.

BTW, you'll have a hard time getting "up to date" stuff on some mods. Many of the mods stopped being developed before '00, but after the 3.20 update, so they'll work, but there's quirks.

Yes, I still play Quake2 from time to time, I always keep it on my harddrive. It's one of my all-time favourites. I also played about every custom SP level for Q2 I could find.

Beyond Within wrote:

What is your favorite level in the single player campaign?

I think the warehouse levels in Unit2 are my favourite.

Try quake2xp

its based on berserker but has some additional eyecandy and is setup more like the standard quake2.

I don't believe it's based on berserker at all (came out a few years before?) but it's a more mature one in stability.

Hm i was sure barnes (the dev) mentioning it though it could be just the renderer that was based on berserks.
Even some of my code in it ... heh :mrgreen:

he could of. the q2 dev forums went down a bit ago and I never read everything on berserker there.

One neat thing about Berserker is it's likes are editable in real time like D3's. There's also dynamic and non-dynamic lights, the nondynamic ones aren't used in real time and are used during map compile.

Here's a shot I made where the house uses prerendered lights for it & the sun outside is dynamic: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/40 ... 000dv.jpg/

Nice shot

and aye its pretty configurable it uses a blend of the old colored light code with something a bit like D3's dynamic one (darkplaces does something similar i think).

Thanks.

Now that I think about it more, I remember there was some discussion about the guy behind Berserker using someone else's code w/o permission, but it was GPL code he used. Since one doesn't need to ask to use GPL he used it anyway.

Eigther way, it's a nice looking engine, the only reason I'm actually using stock Q2 & r1q2 for projects is because of his combining all the code in to two single files (4 if you could the headers).

If you know how I could include other C files in my MSVC project so I don't need to plug everything in his giant file, that would be much appreciated.

The last time I started a C project from scratch was high school, and that was Borland C++ for Dos 3.0.

i remember the bersek code was obfuscated into one massive file for the engine and one for the game data yuck :S quake2xp is not though

it uses pretty much standard
quake2 structure though you will probably need the intel compiler since barnes uses that one for it (dependency can be removed with a little work). intel got a trial version that will build it just fine if you just want to hack about in it

.

quake2xp uses devil for image formats so it supports quite a load of different ones even dds.
the menu is a beefed up version of the standard quake2 menu (no mouse support yet but that might change).
it has parralax mapping quite good support even.
it uses glsl.
it also has a compatibility mode for mods that are not compiled against it so you can run pretty much any quake2 mod on it "+set net_combatibility 1".
ingame radar map with two modes full or map only (kinda cheating with full mode on as you can see monsters in the room next door heh).
sun and lens flares decal particles and a ton of other stuff.

http://quake2xp.sourceforge.net/

first time i started on C i was using the watcom compiler (tough son of a bi... to learn) but it was and probably still is in many regards one of the best C compilers out there.
now its opensourced so no more MFC for U

heh i can live with that i newer been much of a gui coder anyway hehe.