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Review: Quake 2 Test #1 -- Part 2© Dan Finkelstein
Nov 4, 1997
But let's talk about the aspect in which Quake 2 really shines. The graphics. They are simply amazing. Not only is the level architecture great (and very colorful), but it's the little touches that do it for me. Sparks fly off the walls from electrical cables. Glass shatters. Barrels can be pushed and exploded. Even the animations when your character changes or reloads the weapons is amazing. For instance, when you fire a grenade, the barrel of the gun rotates, throwing out the old shell, and then flips around, loading a new one. The hand that clutches the laser rifle will periodically stretch its fingers. Oh yeah, cool thing #3214 about Quake 2: the way the sky is handled is greatly improved. Taking a nod from Duke 3D, the sky is actually a huge image which is wrapped around the level. That means that looking out a window in Quake 2, you could see mountains, or space, or anything else. And yes, they've fixed that dumb limitation from Quake 1 where rockets would explode when they hit the sky. No more — now they simply vanish into the distance.
The enemies in Quake 2 are also very well done. While the AI is not complete in the test, I did freak out the first time I saw a baddy duck (yes, I did say duck), under my incoming missile. When this AI is done, aiming at their feet is going to be common practice. The enemies themselves are a mixture of cybernetically changed people, as well as other creatures such as dogs and weird fish. They are animated very nicely. As in all of id's games, they way the bad guys die is very entertaining. One enemy gets its head blown off . . . dazed, his arm-gun goes off, sending bullets everywhere as he tips over.
Levels are now organized somewhat like Hexen, in that you can travel back and forth between them. Indeed, some of the "puzzles" in the game require you to do so. Yes, amazingly enough, like the recent Jedi Knight, Quake 2 will contain set goals and puzzles. A personal computer (accessible by pushing F1) tells you your current task (like "disable radio beacon"). Levels will contain multiple tasks, which might require moving between different sub-levels to complete.
For those of you with a 3DFX or PowerVR graphics card, I think you are in for a treat. After seeing GLQuake 2 on a computer upstairs, I am going to run out and buy one of these 3D graphics card thingies ASAP. Not only do you get performance improvements like MIP mapping and anti-aliasing, but also neat special effects like colored lighting and shadows. Very, very, very cool.
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