Quake II
Encyclopedia
Quake II, released on December 9, 1997, is a first-person shooter
computer game
developed by Id Software
and distributed by Activision
. It is not a sequel to Quake; it merely uses the name of the former game due to Id's difficulties in coming up with alternative names.
The soundtrack for Quake II was mainly provided by Sonic Mayhem
, with some additional tracks by Bill Brown
. The game was made available on Steam on August 3, 2007.
The next game released with the title Quake III Arena
, is not considered to be related to Quake or Quake II as it is multiplayer focused, and has a dissimilar storyline. A direct sequel, titled Quake 4
, was released in October 2005 for the PC
(Microsoft Windows
and GNU/Linux), and later for the Xbox 360
and the Macintosh
. A prequel to Quake II, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
, has been produced by Splash Damage
.
environment. In the single-player game, the player assumes the role of a Marine named Bitterman taking part in "Operation Alien Overlord", a desperate attempt to protect Earth
from alien
invasion by launching a counter-attack on the home planet of the hostile cybernetic
Strogg civilization. Most of the other soldiers are captured or killed almost as soon as they enter the planet's atmosphere, so it falls upon Bitterman to penetrate the Strogg capital city alone and ultimately to assassinate the Strogg leader, Makron.
The game is played in general first-person shooter
paradigms, in which the player shoots enemies from the perspective of the main character. The gameplay is very similar to that featured in Quake, in terms of movement and controls, although the player has been slowed down, and now has the ability to crouch. The game retains four of the original Quakes weapons (shotgun, super-shotgun, grenade-launcher and rocket launcher), although they were all redesigned and made to function in slightly different ways. The remainder of Quakes eight weapons (axe, nail-gun, super-nailgun and Thunderbolt) are gone. Newly introduced weapons are the blaster, machinegun, chaingun, hyperblaster, railgun and BFG10K. Some power-ups from Quake are still present, including quad damage.
The single player game features a number of changes from Quake. First, the player is given mission-based objectives that correspond to the storyline, including stealing a Tank Commander's head to open a door and calling down an air-strike on a bunker. CGI cutscene
s are used to illustrate progress through the main objectives, although they are all essentially the same short piece of video, showing a computerised image of the player character as he moves through game's levels. Another addition is the inclusion of a non-hostile character type — the player's character's captured comrades. However, it is impossible to interact with such characters, because they have all been driven insane by their Strogg captors.
The game features much larger levels than Quake, with many more wide-open areas. There is also a hub system that allows the player to travel back and forth between levels, which is necessary to complete certain objectives. Some of the textures and symbols that appear in the game are very similar to some of those found in Quake. Enemies now demonstrate visible wounds after they have taken damage.
. It can also be played in Capture the Flag
Mode (CTF).
The deathmatch game benefited from the release of eight specifically designed maps that Id Software added after the game's initial release. They were introduced to the game via one of the early patches, that were released free of charge. Prior to the release of these maps, players were limited to playing multiplayer games on the single-player levels, which, while functional as multiplayer levels, were not designed with deathmatch gameplay specifically in mind.
As in Quake, it is possible to customize the way in which the player appears to other people in multiplayer games. However, whereas in Quake, the only option was to change the color of the player's uniform unless third party modifications were used, now the game comes with a selection of three different player models: a male marine, a female marine, and a male cyborg; choice of player model also affects the speech effects the player's character will make, such as exhaling in effort while jumping or groaning when injured. Each model can be customized from in the in-game menu via the selection of pre-drawn skins, which differ in many ways; for example, camouflage style, skin color and application of facepaint.
Unlike Quake, where hardware accelerated graphics controllers were supported only with later patches
, Quake II came with OpenGL
support out of the box. Later downloads from Id Software added support for AMD's 3DNow!
instruction set for improved performance on their K6-2 processors, and Rendition
released a native renderer for their V1000 graphics chip. The latest version is 3.21. This update includes numerous bug fixes and new maps designed for multiple players deathmatch
. Version 3.21, available as source code on Id Software
's FTP
server, has no improved functionality over version 3.20 and is simply a slight modification to make compiling for Linux
easier.
Quake II uses an improved client–server network model introduced in Quake. The game code of Quake II, which defines all the functionality for weapons, entities and game mechanics, can be changed in any way because Id Software published the source code
of their own implementation that shipped with the game. Quake II uses the shared library functionality of the operating system
to load the game library at run-time—this is how mod authors are able to alter the game and provide different gameplay mechanics, new weapons and much more. The full source code to Quake II version 3.19 was released under the terms of the GPL
on December 21, 2001. Version 3.21 followed later. A LCC-friendly version was released on January 1, 2002 by a modder going by the name of Major Bitch.
Since the release of the Quake II source code
, several third-party update projects to the game engine
have been created; the most prominent of these are projects focused on graphical enhancements to the game such as Quake2maX, EGL and Quake II Evolved. The source release also revealed numerous critical security flaws which can result in remote compromise of both the Quake II client and server. As Id Software
no longer maintains Quake II, most 3rd party engines include fixes for these bugs. The most popular server-side engine modification, R1Q2, is generally recommended as a replacement for the 3.20 release for both clients and servers. The most widely used engine modifications as of 2006 appear to be R1Q2, AprQ2 and EGL, with a large majority of users still using the original 3.20 release. In July 2003, Vertigo Software released a port of Quake II for the Microsoft .NET
platform, using Managed C++
, called Quake II .NET. It became a poster application for the language, showcasing the powerful interoperability between .NET and standard C++ code. It remains one of the top downloads on the Visual C++
website. In May 2004, Bytonic Software released a port of Quake II (called Jake2
) written in Java
using JOGL
. In 2010 Google ported Jake2 to HTML5, running in Safari
and Chrome.
Quake II's game engine
was a popular license, and formed the basis for several commercial and free games, such as CodeRED: Alien Arena
, War§ow, SiN, Anachronox
, Heretic II
, Daikatana
, Soldier of Fortune, Kingpin: Life of Crime
and UFO: Alien Invasion
. Valve Software's 1998 Half-Life, which went on to sell over eight million copies, was originally going to use the Quake II engine during early development stages. However, the final version runs on a heavily modified version of the Quake engine
, GoldSrc
, with a small amount of the Quake II code.
Special Edition for the PC, with both expansion packs. This version also lacks the soundtrack.
(ported by Raster Productions) and PlayStation (ported by HammerHead) video game console
s. In both cases, the core gameplay was largely identical; however, changes were made to the game sequence and split-screen
multiplayer replaced network or internet play. A Macintosh port was developed by Logicware and released in 1999. Quake II: Colossus (Quake II with both official addons) was ported to Linux
by Id Software and published by Macmillan Digital Publishing
in 1999. Be Inc.
officially ported Quake II: Colossus to the BeOS
to test their OpenGL acceleration in 1999, and provided the game files for free download at a later date—a Windows, Macintosh or Linux install CD was required to install the game, with the official addons being optional.
In 2002, Hyperion Entertainment
used the GPL sources to port the game to the Amiga
68k and PowerPC
platforms. Jake2 is a Quake II port shown by the JOGL team for JavaOne 2004, to present an example of Java-OpenGL interoperability. Jake2 has since been used by Sun as an example of Java Web Start capabilities for games distribution over the internet. In 2009, Tectoy Digital ported Quake II to the Brazilian gaming console Zeebo
. The game is available for free, but does not feature CG movies nor multiplayer support of any kind.
For the PlayStation version, several of the original levels, including several complete sections and units were removed. Some enemy types were removed, as well as some scenery objects. A new enemy type - Arachnid, a human-spider cyborg
with twin railgun
arms, was added, and many short airlock
-like corridors were added to maps to provide loading pauses inside what were contiguous areas in the PC version. Saving the game is only possible between units and at mid-level checkpoints, the majority of which lie in the aforementioned airlock-like corridors, while in the PC version the game could be saved and loaded anywhere. The game supports the PlayStation Mouse
, to provide a greater parity with the PC version's gameplay. The music of this port is a combination of the Quake II original music score and some tracks from the PC version's mission packs.
The PlayStation version is limited to a far lower resolution than the PC original, giving it a grainier look. Colored lights for levels and enemies, and yellow highlights for gunfire and explosions, are carried across from the PC version, with the addition of lens flare
effects located around the light sources on the original lightmaps. There is no skybox
; instead a flat Gouraud
-textured purple sky is drawn around the top of the level. The PC version's software renderer originally used particles
to render blood, debris and rail gun beams as trails of large, opaque coloured pixels. In the PlayStation version, the particles are circular and translucent, similar to the OpenGL driver given with the PC version. There is also a split-screen multiplayer mode for 2-4 players. The only available player avatar is a modified version of the male player avatar from the PC version, the most noticeable difference being the addition of a helmet. Players can only customise the colour of their avatar's armour, and change their name. The multiplayer levels are unique to the PlayStation version, and none of the PC multiplayer maps are carried over.
The Nintendo 64 version had completely different levels, music and multiplayer maps. It featured multiplayer for up to 4 players. This version also had new lighting effects, mostly seen in gunfire, and also used the Expansion Pak for extra graphical detail. A port of Quake II was included in the box of Quake 4
for the Xbox 360
, on a bonus disc. This is a direct port of the original game, and does not feature any graphical improvements. However it allows for System Link play for up to sixteen players, split-screen for four, and cooperative play in single-player for up to sixteen players or four with split-screen alone.
As with Quake, the game was designed to allow players to easily create custom content. A large number of mods, maps, player models, skins and sound effects were created and distributed to others free of charge via the Internet. Popular sites such as PlanetQuake or Telefragged allowed players to gain access to this custom content. Another improvement over Quake is that it is now much easier to select custom player models, skins and sound effects because they can be selected from the in-game menu. Juggernaut – released in 1998, developed by Canopy Games and published by HeadGames., and Zaero – released in 1998, developed by Team Evolve and published by Macmillan Digital Publishing. Other notable mods include Action Quake 2
, Rocket Arena
, Weapons Factory
and Loki's Minions Capture the Flag
.
First-person shooter
First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...
computer game
Personal computer game
A PC game, also known as a computer game, is a video game played on a personal computer, rather than on a video game console or arcade machine...
developed by Id Software
Id Software
Id Software is an American video game development company with its headquarters in Richardson, Texas. The company was founded in 1991 by four members of the computer company Softdisk: programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall, and artist Adrian Carmack...
and distributed by Activision
Activision
Activision is an American publisher, majority owned by French conglomerate Vivendi SA. Its current CEO is Robert Kotick. It was founded on October 1, 1979 and was the world's first independent developer and distributor of video games for gaming consoles...
. It is not a sequel to Quake; it merely uses the name of the former game due to Id's difficulties in coming up with alternative names.
The soundtrack for Quake II was mainly provided by Sonic Mayhem
Sonic Mayhem
Sonic Mayhem is the professional name used by German born game music producer and professional sound designer Sascha "Buzzfunk" Dikiciyan and associates...
, with some additional tracks by Bill Brown
Bill Brown (composer)
Bill Brown IV is an American composer.-Video games:*Jurassic Park: Trespasser *Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six *Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear *Michael Crichton's Timeline...
. The game was made available on Steam on August 3, 2007.
The next game released with the title Quake III Arena
Quake III Arena
Quake III Arena , is a multiplayer first-person shooter video game released on December 2, 1999. The game was developed by id Software and featured music composed by Sonic Mayhem and Front Line Assembly...
, is not considered to be related to Quake or Quake II as it is multiplayer focused, and has a dissimilar storyline. A direct sequel, titled Quake 4
Quake 4
Quake 4 is the fourth title in the series of Quake first-person shooter computer games. The game was developed by Raven Software and published by Activision. Raven Software has collaborated with id Software, the creators and historical developers of preceding Quake games...
, was released in October 2005 for the PC
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
(Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
and GNU/Linux), and later for the Xbox 360
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
and the Macintosh
Macintosh
The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
. A prequel to Quake II, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is a first-person shooter video game, and is the follow-up to the 2005 title Quake 4. It is also the first game in the series to be rated T by the ESRB...
, has been produced by Splash Damage
Splash Damage
Splash Damage is an independently-owned British game development company that specializes in multiplayer first-person shooter games. The studio is best known as the creator of the Enemy Territory franchise for id Software.-History:...
.
Plot
Quake II takes place in a science fictionScience fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
environment. In the single-player game, the player assumes the role of a Marine named Bitterman taking part in "Operation Alien Overlord", a desperate attempt to protect Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
from alien
Extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
invasion by launching a counter-attack on the home planet of the hostile cybernetic
Cyborg
A cyborg is a being with both biological and artificial parts. The term was coined in 1960 when Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline used it in an article about the advantages of self-regulating human-machine systems in outer space. D. S...
Strogg civilization. Most of the other soldiers are captured or killed almost as soon as they enter the planet's atmosphere, so it falls upon Bitterman to penetrate the Strogg capital city alone and ultimately to assassinate the Strogg leader, Makron.
Gameplay
First-person shooter
First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...
paradigms, in which the player shoots enemies from the perspective of the main character. The gameplay is very similar to that featured in Quake, in terms of movement and controls, although the player has been slowed down, and now has the ability to crouch. The game retains four of the original Quakes weapons (shotgun, super-shotgun, grenade-launcher and rocket launcher), although they were all redesigned and made to function in slightly different ways. The remainder of Quakes eight weapons (axe, nail-gun, super-nailgun and Thunderbolt) are gone. Newly introduced weapons are the blaster, machinegun, chaingun, hyperblaster, railgun and BFG10K. Some power-ups from Quake are still present, including quad damage.
The single player game features a number of changes from Quake. First, the player is given mission-based objectives that correspond to the storyline, including stealing a Tank Commander's head to open a door and calling down an air-strike on a bunker. CGI cutscene
Cutscene
A cutscene is a sequence in a video game over which the player has no or only limited control, breaking up the gameplay and used to advance the plot, strengthen the main character's development, introduces enemy characters, and provide background information, atmosphere, dialogue, and clues...
s are used to illustrate progress through the main objectives, although they are all essentially the same short piece of video, showing a computerised image of the player character as he moves through game's levels. Another addition is the inclusion of a non-hostile character type — the player's character's captured comrades. However, it is impossible to interact with such characters, because they have all been driven insane by their Strogg captors.
The game features much larger levels than Quake, with many more wide-open areas. There is also a hub system that allows the player to travel back and forth between levels, which is necessary to complete certain objectives. Some of the textures and symbols that appear in the game are very similar to some of those found in Quake. Enemies now demonstrate visible wounds after they have taken damage.
Multiplayer
The multiplayer game is similar to that in Quake. It can be played as a free-for-all deathmatch game, a cooperative version of the single-player game, or as a 1 vs 1 match that is used in official tournaments, like the Cyberathlete Professional LeagueCyberathlete Professional League
The Cyberathlete Professional League , founded on June 27, 1997 by gaming entrepreneur Angel Munoz, is a professional sports tournament organization specializing in computer and console video game competitions....
. It can also be played in Capture the Flag
Capture the flag
Capture the Flag is a traditional outdoor sport generally played by children, where two teams each have a flag and the objective is to capture the other team's flag, located at the team's "base," and bring it safely back to their own base...
Mode (CTF).
The deathmatch game benefited from the release of eight specifically designed maps that Id Software added after the game's initial release. They were introduced to the game via one of the early patches, that were released free of charge. Prior to the release of these maps, players were limited to playing multiplayer games on the single-player levels, which, while functional as multiplayer levels, were not designed with deathmatch gameplay specifically in mind.
As in Quake, it is possible to customize the way in which the player appears to other people in multiplayer games. However, whereas in Quake, the only option was to change the color of the player's uniform unless third party modifications were used, now the game comes with a selection of three different player models: a male marine, a female marine, and a male cyborg; choice of player model also affects the speech effects the player's character will make, such as exhaling in effort while jumping or groaning when injured. Each model can be customized from in the in-game menu via the selection of pre-drawn skins, which differ in many ways; for example, camouflage style, skin color and application of facepaint.
Development
Patch (computing)
A patch is a piece of software designed to fix problems with, or update a computer program or its supporting data. This includes fixing security vulnerabilities and other bugs, and improving the usability or performance...
, Quake II came with OpenGL
OpenGL
OpenGL is a standard specification defining a cross-language, cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 2D and 3D computer graphics. The interface consists of over 250 different function calls which can be used to draw complex three-dimensional scenes from simple primitives. OpenGL...
support out of the box. Later downloads from Id Software added support for AMD's 3DNow!
3DNow!
3DNow! is an extension to the x86 instruction set developed by Advanced Micro Devices . It adds single instruction multiple data instructions to the base x86 instruction set, enabling it to perform simple vector processing, which improves the performance of many graphic-intensive applications...
instruction set for improved performance on their K6-2 processors, and Rendition
Rendition (company)
Rendition was a maker of 3D graphics chipsets in the mid- to late-90's. They were known for products such as the Vérité 1000 and Vérité 2x00 and for being one of the first 3D chipset makers to directly work with Quake developer John Carmack to make a hardware-accelerated version of the game ....
released a native renderer for their V1000 graphics chip. The latest version is 3.21. This update includes numerous bug fixes and new maps designed for multiple players deathmatch
Deathmatch (gaming)
Deathmatch or Player vs All is a widely-used gameplay mode integrated into many shooter and real-time strategy computer games...
. Version 3.21, available as source code on Id Software
Id Software
Id Software is an American video game development company with its headquarters in Richardson, Texas. The company was founded in 1991 by four members of the computer company Softdisk: programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall, and artist Adrian Carmack...
's FTP
File Transfer Protocol
File Transfer Protocol is a standard network protocol used to transfer files from one host to another host over a TCP-based network, such as the Internet. FTP is built on a client-server architecture and utilizes separate control and data connections between the client and server...
server, has no improved functionality over version 3.20 and is simply a slight modification to make compiling for Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
easier.
Quake II uses an improved client–server network model introduced in Quake. The game code of Quake II, which defines all the functionality for weapons, entities and game mechanics, can be changed in any way because Id Software published the source code
Source code
In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...
of their own implementation that shipped with the game. Quake II uses the shared library functionality of the operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
to load the game library at run-time—this is how mod authors are able to alter the game and provide different gameplay mechanics, new weapons and much more. The full source code to Quake II version 3.19 was released under the terms of the GPL
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
on December 21, 2001. Version 3.21 followed later. A LCC-friendly version was released on January 1, 2002 by a modder going by the name of Major Bitch.
Since the release of the Quake II source code
Source code
In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...
, several third-party update projects to the game engine
Game engine
A game engine is a system designed for the creation and development of video games. There are many game engines that are designed to work on video game consoles and personal computers...
have been created; the most prominent of these are projects focused on graphical enhancements to the game such as Quake2maX, EGL and Quake II Evolved. The source release also revealed numerous critical security flaws which can result in remote compromise of both the Quake II client and server. As Id Software
Id Software
Id Software is an American video game development company with its headquarters in Richardson, Texas. The company was founded in 1991 by four members of the computer company Softdisk: programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall, and artist Adrian Carmack...
no longer maintains Quake II, most 3rd party engines include fixes for these bugs. The most popular server-side engine modification, R1Q2, is generally recommended as a replacement for the 3.20 release for both clients and servers. The most widely used engine modifications as of 2006 appear to be R1Q2, AprQ2 and EGL, with a large majority of users still using the original 3.20 release. In July 2003, Vertigo Software released a port of Quake II for the Microsoft .NET
.NET Framework
The .NET Framework is a software framework that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It includes a large library and supports several programming languages which allows language interoperability...
platform, using Managed C++
Managed Extensions for C++
Managed Extensions for C++ or just Managed C++ is a now deprecated Microsoft set of deviations from C++, including grammatical and syntactic extensions, keywords and attributes, to bring the C++ syntax and language to the .NET Framework...
, called Quake II .NET. It became a poster application for the language, showcasing the powerful interoperability between .NET and standard C++ code. It remains one of the top downloads on the Visual C++
Visual C++
Microsoft Visual C++ is a commercial , integrated development environment product from Microsoft for the C, C++, and C++/CLI programming languages...
website. In May 2004, Bytonic Software released a port of Quake II (called Jake2
Jake2
Jake2 is a Java port of the GPL release of the Quake II game engine.-History:The 0.9.1 version of Jake2 was shown by the JOGL team for JavaOne 2004, to present an example of Java-OpenGL interoperability...
) written in Java
Java (programming language)
Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...
using JOGL
Java OpenGL
Java OpenGL is a wrapper library that allows OpenGL to be used in the Java programming language. It was originally developed by Kenneth Bradley Russell and Christopher John Kline, and was further developed by the Sun Microsystems Game Technology Group. Since 2010, it has been an independent open...
. In 2010 Google ported Jake2 to HTML5, running in Safari
Safari (web browser)
Safari is a web browser developed by Apple Inc. and included with the Mac OS X and iOS operating systems. First released as a public beta on January 7, 2003 on the company's Mac OS X operating system, it became Apple's default browser beginning with Mac OS X v10.3 "Panther". Safari is also the...
and Chrome.
Quake II's game engine
Game engine
A game engine is a system designed for the creation and development of video games. There are many game engines that are designed to work on video game consoles and personal computers...
was a popular license, and formed the basis for several commercial and free games, such as CodeRED: Alien Arena
CodeRED: Alien Arena
Alien Arena is a free, stand-alone first-person shooter computer game based on source code released by id Software. Begun by COR Entertainment in 2004, the game combines a 1950s-era sci-fi atmosphere with gameplay similar to the Quake, Doom, and Unreal Tournament series...
, War§ow, SiN, Anachronox
Anachronox
Anachronox is a 2001 third-person computer role-playing game produced by Tom Hall and the Dallas Ion Storm games studio. It offers gameplay in the style of console RPGs, such as Chrono Trigger and the Final Fantasy series...
, Heretic II
Heretic II
Heretic II is a fantasy action-adventure game developed by Raven Software and published by Activision in 1998 continuing the story of Corvus, the main character from its predecessor, Heretic....
, Daikatana
Daikatana
John Romero's Daikatana, or simply Daikatana, is a first-person shooter computer game developed by Ion Storm and published by Eidos Interactive. Released on May 23, 2000 for Windows, it was led by John Romero. The game is known as one of the major commercial failures of the computer game industry....
, Soldier of Fortune, Kingpin: Life of Crime
Kingpin: Life of Crime
Kingpin: Life of Crime is a first-person shooter developed by Xatrix Entertainment and published by Interplay Entertainment in June 1999. The game begins with the player character wounded and beaten up by the Kingpin's henchmen, and the story follows his thirst for revenge...
and UFO: Alien Invasion
UFO: Alien Invasion
UFO: Alien Invasion is an open source strategy video game in which the player fights aliens that are trying to take control of the Earth. The game is heavily influenced by the X-COM series . It is based on a modified id Tech 2 engine, and runs on Linux, Microsoft Windows, AmigaOS 4, and Mac OS X...
. Valve Software's 1998 Half-Life, which went on to sell over eight million copies, was originally going to use the Quake II engine during early development stages. However, the final version runs on a heavily modified version of the Quake engine
Quake engine
The Quake engine is the game engine that was written to power 1996's Quake, written by id Software. It featured true 3D real-time rendering and is now licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License ....
, GoldSrc
GoldSrc
GoldSrc, or Goldsource, is the retronym used internally by Valve Software to refer to the heavily modified Quake engine that powers their science fiction first-person shooter Half-Life ....
, with a small amount of the Quake II code.
Release
Despite the title, Quake II is a sequel to the original Quake in name only. The scenario, enemies and theme are entirely separate and do not fall into the same continuity as Quake. Id initially wanted to set it separately from Quake, but due to legal reasons (most of their suggested names were already taken), they decided to use the working title. Quake II was also adopted as a name to leverage the popularity of Quake. Quake II has been released on Steam, but this version does not include the soundtrack. It was also released on the bonus disc included with Quake 4Quake 4
Quake 4 is the fourth title in the series of Quake first-person shooter computer games. The game was developed by Raven Software and published by Activision. Raven Software has collaborated with id Software, the creators and historical developers of preceding Quake games...
Special Edition for the PC, with both expansion packs. This version also lacks the soundtrack.
Ports
Ports of Quake II were released in 1999 on the Nintendo 64Nintendo 64
The , often referred to as N64, was Nintendo′s third home video game console for the international market. Named for its 64-bit CPU, it was released in June 1996 in Japan, September 1996 in North America, March 1997 in Europe and Australia, September 1997 in France and December 1997 in Brazil...
(ported by Raster Productions) and PlayStation (ported by HammerHead) video game console
Video game console
A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or customized computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...
s. In both cases, the core gameplay was largely identical; however, changes were made to the game sequence and split-screen
Split screen (computer graphics)
Split screen is a display technique in computer graphics that consists of dividing graphics and/or text into non-movable adjacent parts, typically two or four rectangular areas. This is done in order to allow the simultaneous presentation of related graphical and textual information on a computer...
multiplayer replaced network or internet play. A Macintosh port was developed by Logicware and released in 1999. Quake II: Colossus (Quake II with both official addons) was ported to Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
by Id Software and published by Macmillan Digital Publishing
Macmillan Publishers
Macmillan Publishers Ltd, also known as The Macmillan Group, is a privately held international publishing company owned by Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. It has offices in 41 countries worldwide and operates in more than thirty others.-History:...
in 1999. Be Inc.
Be Inc.
Be Incorporated was an American computer company founded in 1990, best known for the Be Operating System and BeBox personal computer. Be was founded by former Apple Computer executive Jean-Louis Gassée with capital from Seymour Cray....
officially ported Quake II: Colossus to the BeOS
BeOS
BeOS is an operating system for personal computers which began development by Be Inc. in 1991. It was first written to run on BeBox hardware. BeOS was optimized for digital media work and was written to take advantage of modern hardware facilities such as symmetric multiprocessing by utilizing...
to test their OpenGL acceleration in 1999, and provided the game files for free download at a later date—a Windows, Macintosh or Linux install CD was required to install the game, with the official addons being optional.
In 2002, Hyperion Entertainment
Hyperion Entertainment
Hyperion Entertainment CVBA is a Belgian software company which in its early years focused in porting Windows games to Amiga, Linux and Macintosh. Later on, they were contracted by Amiga Incorporated to develop AmigaOS 4 and retired from the gaming business...
used the GPL sources to port the game to the Amiga
Amiga
The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
68k and PowerPC
PowerPC
PowerPC is a RISC architecture created by the 1991 Apple–IBM–Motorola alliance, known as AIM...
platforms. Jake2 is a Quake II port shown by the JOGL team for JavaOne 2004, to present an example of Java-OpenGL interoperability. Jake2 has since been used by Sun as an example of Java Web Start capabilities for games distribution over the internet. In 2009, Tectoy Digital ported Quake II to the Brazilian gaming console Zeebo
Zeebo
Zeebo is a 3G-enabled entertainment and education system from Zeebo Inc. It not only enables users to play video games, but also connect to the Internet, communicate online and run educational applications. The Zeebo is targeted at developing markets such as BRIC and Mexico. Zeebo Inc...
. The game is available for free, but does not feature CG movies nor multiplayer support of any kind.
Cyborg
A cyborg is a being with both biological and artificial parts. The term was coined in 1960 when Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline used it in an article about the advantages of self-regulating human-machine systems in outer space. D. S...
with twin railgun
Railgun
A railgun is an entirely electrical gun that accelerates a conductive projectile along a pair of metal rails using the same principles as the homopolar motor. Railguns use two sliding or rolling contacts that permit a large electric current to pass through the projectile. This current interacts...
arms, was added, and many short airlock
Airlock
An airlock is a device which permits the passage of people and objects between a pressure vessel and its surroundings while minimizing the change of pressure in the vessel and loss of air from it...
-like corridors were added to maps to provide loading pauses inside what were contiguous areas in the PC version. Saving the game is only possible between units and at mid-level checkpoints, the majority of which lie in the aforementioned airlock-like corridors, while in the PC version the game could be saved and loaded anywhere. The game supports the PlayStation Mouse
Playstation Mouse
The PlayStation Mouse is an input device for the PlayStation console that allows the player to use a mouse as a method of control in compatible games...
, to provide a greater parity with the PC version's gameplay. The music of this port is a combination of the Quake II original music score and some tracks from the PC version's mission packs.
The PlayStation version is limited to a far lower resolution than the PC original, giving it a grainier look. Colored lights for levels and enemies, and yellow highlights for gunfire and explosions, are carried across from the PC version, with the addition of lens flare
Lens flare
Lens flare is the light scattered in lens systems through generally unwanted image formation mechanisms, such as internal reflection and scattering from material inhomogeneities in the lens. These mechanisms differ from the intended image formation mechanism that depends on refraction of the image...
effects located around the light sources on the original lightmaps. There is no skybox
Skybox (video games)
A skybox is a method of creating backgrounds to make a computer and video games level look bigger than it really is. When a skybox is used, the level is enclosed in a cuboid; and the sky, distant mountains, distant buildings, and other unreachable objects are projected onto the cube's faces , thus...
; instead a flat Gouraud
Gouraud shading
Gouraud shading, named after Henri Gouraud, is an interpolation method used in computer graphics to produce continuous shading of surfaces represented by polygon meshes...
-textured purple sky is drawn around the top of the level. The PC version's software renderer originally used particles
Particle system
The term particle system refers to a computer graphics technique to simulate certain fuzzy phenomena, which are otherwise very hard to reproduce with conventional rendering techniques...
to render blood, debris and rail gun beams as trails of large, opaque coloured pixels. In the PlayStation version, the particles are circular and translucent, similar to the OpenGL driver given with the PC version. There is also a split-screen multiplayer mode for 2-4 players. The only available player avatar is a modified version of the male player avatar from the PC version, the most noticeable difference being the addition of a helmet. Players can only customise the colour of their avatar's armour, and change their name. The multiplayer levels are unique to the PlayStation version, and none of the PC multiplayer maps are carried over.
The Nintendo 64 version had completely different levels, music and multiplayer maps. It featured multiplayer for up to 4 players. This version also had new lighting effects, mostly seen in gunfire, and also used the Expansion Pak for extra graphical detail. A port of Quake II was included in the box of Quake 4
Quake 4
Quake 4 is the fourth title in the series of Quake first-person shooter computer games. The game was developed by Raven Software and published by Activision. Raven Software has collaborated with id Software, the creators and historical developers of preceding Quake games...
for the Xbox 360
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
, on a bonus disc. This is a direct port of the original game, and does not feature any graphical improvements. However it allows for System Link play for up to sixteen players, split-screen for four, and cooperative play in single-player for up to sixteen players or four with split-screen alone.
Expansions and modifications
There are three official expansions:- The Reckoning – released on May 30, 1998, developed by Xatrix EntertainmentGray Matter InteractiveGray Matter Interactive Studios, Inc. was a computer game developer, which was acquired by Activision in January 2002. Gray Matter was previously known as Xatrix Entertainment, Inc....
and published by ActivisionActivisionActivision is an American publisher, majority owned by French conglomerate Vivendi SA. Its current CEO is Robert Kotick. It was founded on October 1, 1979 and was the world's first independent developer and distributor of video games for gaming consoles...
. - Ground Zero – released on August 31, 1998, developed by Rogue EntertainmentRogue Entertainment-Rogue Entertainment Group, Inc.:Rogue Ent. is a record label group, music distribution company, graphics/web design firm, audio production/engineering firm, and promotion company based out of Richmond, Va...
and published by Activision. - Netpack I: Extremities – released on November 26, 1998 – a collection of some of the best custom maps, models, and modMod (computer gaming)Mod or modification is a term generally applied to personal computer games , especially first-person shooters, role-playing games and real-time strategy games. Mods are made by the general public or a developer, and can be entirely new games in themselves, but mods are not standalone software and...
s developed by the online community, compiled by Id SoftwareId SoftwareId Software is an American video game development company with its headquarters in Richardson, Texas. The company was founded in 1991 by four members of the computer company Softdisk: programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall, and artist Adrian Carmack...
and published by Activision.
As with Quake, the game was designed to allow players to easily create custom content. A large number of mods, maps, player models, skins and sound effects were created and distributed to others free of charge via the Internet. Popular sites such as PlanetQuake or Telefragged allowed players to gain access to this custom content. Another improvement over Quake is that it is now much easier to select custom player models, skins and sound effects because they can be selected from the in-game menu. Juggernaut – released in 1998, developed by Canopy Games and published by HeadGames., and Zaero – released in 1998, developed by Team Evolve and published by Macmillan Digital Publishing. Other notable mods include Action Quake 2
Action Quake 2
Action Quake 2 is a mod for the computer game Quake II created by The A-Team. Although originally released in 1998, it still has a small player base mainly in South America, Scandinavia and especially in Finland, with active servers on several continents as of 2008...
, Rocket Arena
Rocket Arena
Rocket Arena is a free modification for the multiplayer first-person shooter games Quake, Quake II, Quake III Arena and Quake 4. There are also ports for Half-Life and Unreal Tournament...
, Weapons Factory
Weapons Factory
The Weapons Factory is a series of video game capture the flag class-based mods, originally created for Quake II by brothers Tom "Tumorhead" and Gregg "Headache"...
and Loki's Minions Capture the Flag
Loki's Minions Capture the Flag
Loki's Minions Capture the Flag was one of the first Quake II mods and the first ever capture the flag mod released for the game. It was created by Mike "Jormungard" Scandizzo of Clan Loki's Minions. The mod was released the day after the Quake II source code was released and soon became very...
.
Reception
Quake II was extremely well received, by reviewers and gamers alike. It sold over one million copies. Quake II was the most popular online game for all of 1998.See also
- Quake II CTF (mod)Q2CTFQuake II ThreeWave Capture the Flag also known as Zoid's CTF, or Q2CTF, or simply CTF within the Quake II community, is an objective-based teamplay mod for Quake II inspired by the traditional Capture the Flag game. It was released on 19th Feb 1998...
- Jake2Jake2Jake2 is a Java port of the GPL release of the Quake II game engine.-History:The 0.9.1 version of Jake2 was shown by the JOGL team for JavaOne 2004, to present an example of Java-OpenGL interoperability...
, a JavaJava (programming language)Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...
port of the Quake II game engine
External links
- [ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/quake2/ Demo, patches and other resources on Id Software's FTP]
- [ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/source/q2source-3.21.zip Source code of the engine version 3.21]
- Quake II at PlanetQuake