Quake 2 remaster = £7.99 RedDeadPleb port = £49.99 We feel it's justified. Because. Give money.

This. It looks good tech wise... it just looks nothing like Quake 2.

Oh snap, wanna play this together? I'd love to jump into 64 bits with you ;)

Quake 2 went from 24 simultaneous players to 2, 762.

Truth.

Yes I do! I however completed it, it was very short. But I'd love to play all of the other shit that isn't just Quake 2, as I haven't played those. Started the new campaign (Call of the Machine), but I'd gladly play that shit with you.

Yeah, I'll play the RTX version any day over this 'remaster'. Also, WTF is up with the frame rate and animations in the captured footage of the remaster? Terrible.

Because very shiny surfaces is more important than content.

No idea, mine's smooth.

lol, more I look at it, the RTX version looks so fucking dumb.

@Litchie: RTX Version is visually superior and they both play the same. Quake 2 never had good art direction and the campaign wasn't very good. It seems most of the people who are talking shit about the RTX version are just butthurt because they don't have GPUs capable of running it properly.

No they don't. The Quake II: Remaster doesn't just upgrade the visuals, it has a ton of quality of life improvements. Even the way AI works, they will now have new attacks, dodge and jump off ledged and chase the player up elevators. Along with numerous other QOL improvements.

And I disagree completely about the visuals. It looks nothing like Quake 2 and from an aesthetic standpoint everything looks overly metallic and coated in grease with lighting completely out of sync with how the game should look.

Quake 2: Remaster uses a new engine, enhances shadows, lighting, removes texture warp of the original, motion blur, all optional. While retaining how the game should look, subtle upgrades as opposed to looking like a different game.

Nope.

Nah, both art direction and campaign were good.

Okay. Played it on my 3070ti and thought it looked pretty terrible. Often very bright at places that should be dark, made it look very similar everywhere, and it just completely ruined the game's atmosphere. But yeah. It's shiny. Which is super impressive to some, apparently.

@Litchie: It being shiny is not what makes it impressive. The path traced lighting is what makes it impressive.

I question the validity of that video I posted if the games play differently and have different AI. The creator probably just recorded a gameplay run in the original game and then ran it again with RTX version. Now the scumbag is trying to claim it is RTX vs. remaster for views. Pathetic.

Some coop shots with @Litchie ♥

Well, that's an annoying human being.

@R4gn4r0k: lol, nice. I look great.

@Litchie: why is the gun in your hands always bigger than mine? Stop showing off 😭

Found 2 of the 3 secret maps. Refuse to use Youtube as it defeats the purpose of exploration.

Here's a nice breakdown of the stuff they done. I'm sure DF will do one as well.

https://bethesda.net/ja/article/6NIyBxapXOurTKtF4aPiF4/enhancing-quake-ii

I'm playing the remaster right now. I'm not playing the base game since I already beaten it last year so I'm playing the new campaign from Machine Games and the N64 Quake 2 instead. So far they're great.

Found this strange fellow.

This is very interesting. Technically Quake 3 already connected Doom/Quake 1/2, but that was more a throw-shit-at-the-wall.

The new Quake II chapter explicitly connects Quake I-II.

@uninspiredcup: Quake 1 and 2 are about as connected as Prey 2006 and Prey 2017. LOL

@BassMan: Since Quake uses Slipgates, they can pretty much do what they want.

Oh so that's what the callbacks to Q1 were about.

I'm onto the first expansion now, the one by Xatrix who later on became Gray Matter and developed my favourite FPS of all time (Return to castle wolfenstein). Just like Jedi Knight and so many others, it was on the Quake 3 engine.

Also finished the Machine games episodes with @Litchie and friends. The levels felt a lot bigger and there were a ton more enemies, which felt perfect for coop!

Yea been doing this expansion as well. Though took break. The first level was terrible. Almost going in a straight line being spammed with the same shitty boring melee enemy over and over. Stick with it, went to a factory area and might improve, but that opening level was trash.

Not sure what is the point of remaster when the RTX version looks much better.

Yeah I'm sure they did a jungle because "quake 2 didn't have a jungle" and to showcase the new Predator enemy.

It does start getting better in factory area. But I'm playing Quake 2 and Turbo Overkill back to back to improve my experience :)

No one in existence thinks this barring 4 people who don't know what art-direction is.

Same people that prefer Cinematic Mod over base Half Life 2 art direction.

Yeah I'm also playing both Quake 2 remaster and Turbo Overkill. So far I'm having fun with Turbo Overkill. Indie developers are going a better job on making first person shooters than AAA companies do these days.

@AcidTango: Turbo Overkill is rediculously good. Not only does it have a satisfying combat loop that goes above and beyond what Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal threw at the player. But it also mixes things up by making each level and each chapter feel like something different.

There is platforming, vehicle sections, powers and weapon upgrades... Just too much to name to make this game feel like an absolute blast to play through.

That's pretty cool. You think they are trying to form a connection to setup Quake 5? There are rumors going around ID is working on another Quake game.

Yes, Return to Castle Wolfenstein is one of my favorites. Arguably the best Wolfenstein game even 20 years later, the ambiance, the environment, music, Gray Matter nailed it. They also made Call of Duty expansion United Offensive, which I had lying around for like 7 years when I brought a Call of Duty War Chest like 10 years ago the boxed version. Opened it played it during the Pandemic and played through it, it was one of the best if not the best expansion in Call of Duty history. Too bad Activision guttered the Development team and relegated them to working on the Call of Duty franchise like they did with Raven Software, another great FPS developer.

Actually you are wrong about the art direction. Quake 2 art and animation was done by the late Paul Steed. He previously worked on the Wing Commander series before ID. He brought many innovations on art style and animation for video games that wasn't previously done before working on the Wing Commander series and later Quake 2. Here's an archive of behind the scenes of the art of Quake 2 that someone archived on a blog:

https://dondeq2.com/2022/02/06/quake-ii-magazine-archive-february-1998/

Quake 2 was actually ahead of it's time compared to other shooters like Goldeneye on the N64 which was nothing compared to Quake 2.

As for the campaign, well that's debatable. I guess it comes down to one's preference. I personally think Unreal and Half-Life when it came out after Quake 2 around that time was better and set a new bar for FPS but still enjoyed Quake 2.

@Xtasy26:

I guess what makes RTCW so good is that you could spend hundreds of hours playing the singleplayer, and hundreds on multiplayer, and it would make no difference: one complements the other.

If you are interested in a remaster, I sugges you look at RealRTCW on steam. It's superb.

Then we have United Offensive, another darling of mine. I bought it the day it came out as COD 1 was such an amazing experience.

I played through both COD 1 and UO again last year, and this time I also complemented it with a mod that is kind of a remaster:

it's called united fronts, it combines both games and adds a ton more campaigns!

Need to go back and do RTCW. Been a few years.

But yea, as posted above, want Quake Wars re-released.

LMAO the Switch version drops to 540p😁The system has trouble with 25yo games😁"gameplay>grapics" btw😁

They really outdone themselves.

The quality and price automatically shame what has now became cynical cash-grabs.

@BassMan said:

@Xtasy26:

Which FPS had better art direction in 1997 than Quake 2?

Nice! Thanks for the reference. Played through and beat RTCW 10+ years ago using widescreen HD patch. Remember the Multiplayer back in the day 20 years ago for RTCW. Thought it was pretty cool. Haven't revisited again but definitely interested. Interested in United Fronts because I feel that UO and COD 1 had great level design before COD series started become crappy in the 2010's.

The fact that they put this much effort and added new campaigns for $10 shows about how they really care putting out a quality product. As opposed to Rockstar which has infinitely more resources and money and look how their so-called re-masters went with GTA 3- San Andreas which turned out to be a joke.

Nightdive really should consider making re-makes from now on like they did with the original System Shock which brought modern gaming but kept to the spirit of the original.

@Xtasy26: The Strogg are lame and so is their homeworld. Nothing about the art direction and design was impressive back then and even less so now. The colour palette and overall level design is dull too. I never really enjoyed Quake 2 campaign, but I had a lot of fun with the MP. Quake 2 is worse than Quake 1 except on a technical level. Obviously, the engine is superior.

Damn, I don't like Quake but this is how a proper remaster should be done.

Don’t really understand bringing this game back.

I could get behind making a new one but not this.

And i don't understand why after all these failures, 343i is still in charge of MS's flagship title. You will never get an answer to your question, nor will i.

@hardwenzen: My Shadow is always near.

You should take up a hobby soon.

Come September you Cows are going to be on suicide watch.

Starfield is a PC exclusive, but nice try😎

Red Dead Redemption is a modern blockbuster that sold tens of millions of copies in the past decade-ish that it's been out, and will probably sell the same or more upon re-release.

Quake is an influential classic from the mists of time that (like it or not) won't have a fraction of the impact, in terms of sales.

You don't have to agree or like that. But that's why the prices are different.

Again, which game had objectively better art direction at that time in 1997? Campaign between Quake 1 and Quake 2 that can be subjective. Depends on some people like the Lovecraftian level design vs futuristic robotic Strogg world.

Think about what you are asking...