With the exception of the lowly guard types, the enemies in Quake II redefine the term “bullet sponge”, with most taking a ridiculous amount of shots to defeat. However, what really slows down the pace of the game is the actual gun combat itself.
Without it, however, the game appears blurry and feels quite sluggish in places, especially when there’s more than a few enemies on screen at the same time. Moreover, Quake II is one of the few N64 games that seems to actually run at a higher frame rate when using the RAM add-on. Set in a sci-fi universe, the varied alien environments are fully realised in 3D, and sport plenty of detail when the game is played using the Nintendo 64 Expansion Pak. Stages are filled with a smorgasbord of deadly enemies, ranging from standard Strogg guards to mechanised hybrids that pack quite a wallop. That’s because the key focus in Quake II is fast-paced combat, or rather surviving it.
In this regard, it’s similar to id’s earlier first-person shooter masterpiece, DOOM, in that mission objectives amount to little more than pressing a button here and picking up an item there. While GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark’s mission objectives often required you to explore an open environment and work out what to do, Quake II is much more linear.
QUAKE II N64 SERIES
Across a number of stages, you must complete a series of objectives while fending off numerous alien enemies with whatever weapons you can find. Therefore, it’s up to you to single-handedly take on the Strogg and put an end to their insidious plans. It’s a risky, yet daringly brilliant plan the only problem is that every single soldier sent on this exceedingly dangerous operation either gets captured or killed pretty much as soon as they arrive – well, that is except for you. In a desperate bid to save humanity, Earth sends hundreds of soldiers behind enemy lines to hit the Strogg where it hurts the most – their homeworld. Earth is under attack from an evil alien race known as the Strogg and there appears to be little hope of stopping them. Quake II’s single-player premise seems a little far-fetched, even by video game standards. The end result is a port that’s entertaining, well optimised for the system in terms of performance, but also has some issues which ultimately impact the enjoyment which can be had from it today.
QUAKE II N64 FULL
With it came finally the opportunity for four-player Quake on a home console in addition to a full single-player campaign, the latter of which is completely different from the original PC version. However, when it eventually arrived on N64 in 1998, it proved underwhelming, with one of its most notable shortcomings being that its multiplayer mode only allowed for a maximum of two players.Ī year later, its sequel Quake II (which by this point had already been available on PC for two years) was also ported to home systems courtesy of Raster Productions. One of its most famous titles, Quake, was released on the PC in 1996 and caused a huge stir with its full real-time rendered visuals and online multiplayer. Because of this, it can be easy to forget that there were in fact quite a few other first-person shooters on the system, including some that originated from the pioneer of the genre, id Software. It cannot be understated: GoldenEye 007 was a landmark home console game, and one which held many N64 owners’ attention for months, if not years. Perhaps more importantly though, it proved that the first-person shooter genre – which up until that point in time had more or less been reserved for the realm of PC gaming – could be done well on home consoles with the right approach. During the late 1990s, Rare’s Bond-themed masterpiece provided gamers with countless hours of single- and multiplayer fun, and because of this it is still fondly remembered by many to this day. When it comes to first-person shooter games on the Nintendo 64, there’s one title which stands out above all the rest: GoldenEye 007.
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