Quake II is a 1997 first-person shooter game developed by id Software and published by Activision. The player takes the role of a space marine as he crash-lands on the planet and, being the last survivor of his squad, is tasked with completing a series of missions to cripple the Strogg and end their plans to conquer Earth.

The Story Behind Quake II

Unlike Quake, where hardware-accelerated graphics controllers were supported only with later patches, Quake II came with OpenGL support out of the box. The game has been included the compilations Quake II: Quad Damage (contains Quake II and all three official expansion packs), Quake II: Colossus (a compilation for Linux that contains Quake II and both mission packs) and Ultimate Quake (a compilation including the original Quake trilogy). 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.

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. Quake II released on December 9, 1997, in the United States and on December 12 in Europe. The game was developed with a 13-person team.

How Quake II Plays

Another addition is the inclusion of a non-hostile character type: the player character's captured comrades. It can also be played in Capture the Flag mode (CTF). The game features much larger levels than Quake, with many more wide open areas.

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. As in Quake, it is possible to customize the way in which the player appears to other people in multiplayer games. Enemies demonstrate visible wounds after they have taken damage.

Why Players Still Load It Up

It remains one of the top downloads on the Visual C++ website. A port of Quake II was included with Quake 4 for the Xbox 360 on a bonus disc. It includes the original game and its two expansion packs, an episode consisting of the levels from the Nintendo 64 version of the game, and a brand new episode designed by MachineGames.

For example, many short airlock-like corridors were added to maps to provide loading pauses inside what were contiguous areas in the PC version. The PlayStation version contains abridged versions of Units 1, 3, 6, 7, 8, and 10 of the PC version, redesigned to meet the console's technical limitations. PC Gaming Worlds Simon Quirk wrote of the game, "The Action Quake team fancied a multiplayer-only total conversion of Quake II where strategy, accuracy, and cool-looking fights would dominate."

Quake II — Frequently Asked Questions