Quake Mission Pack No. 2: Dissolution of Eternity

The Good
Dissolution of Eternity is the second mission pack to Quake, developed by Rogue Entertainment, the guys behind Strife; and I have got to say that I liked this better than the first mission pack. After defeating Armagon, Ranger returns to Earth only to find something wrong. Quake has unleashed another dark plot to alter the course of time, and Ranger must put an end to the evil once and for all. Like Scourge of Armagon, DoE introduces new enemies and lots of booby traps.

One of the new enemies I enjoyed having around are the Wraths. They look like Grim Reapers with glowing red eyes, and fly around, making this awesome noise when they are attacking you. Then, you have these Roman soldiers who appear out of nowhere and come in three flavors. Some of the enemies have been given a fresh coat of paint. The zombies look like mummies in only one level, while both knights are silver.

I like all the power-ups, especially the Anti-Grav belt. With this, you can jump much higher than normal, so you can reach platforms that cannot be reached normally. If you’re lucky, you will be able to get another power-up. There is also the Power Shield, which reverses damage taken by the player; and the Vengeance Spear, which will strike at your opponents in multiplayer games if your health drops below a certain point.

There are no new weapons in DoE, but some existing weapons are modified. You have the lava nails that the nailgun now ejects, capable of dealing about 30% more damage to enemies. The deadliest weapon that you can carry are the multi-rockets. These consists of four smaller rockets that are deadly to everything, and this includes the player itself.

The game introduces many challenging puzzles. In one level, you are supposed to push a series of switches to open a huge door up, but pushing that last switch causes major problems due to the tremors that plaque the whole level. And you are trying to push the switch without falling off the platform the switch is located. In another level, you are inside a maze and you need to do a few things to unlock the exit.

When it comes to the soundtrack, Rogue decided to do away with the type of atmospheric music found in the original game. If you think that DoE uses the same style of music as Source of Armagon, that's because both mission packs were done by Jeehun Hwang. It contains a combination of ambient, metal, and orchestral music; and each piece is three minutes long. I enjoyed listening to the fifth track on the CD. It contains a nice Spanish instrument that I don't know the name off. (It's track five on the CD.)

Nice touches include the aforementioned tremors that occur when you need to do something important, and the statues that come to life when you push a switch, get a key, or turn your back at them. Also, Overlord, one of the bosses you encounter in the game and is the big brother of the Wraths, is capable of teleportation making it difficult to defeat him.

The Bad
Nothing.

The Bottom Line
As a mission pack to Quake, DoE is excellent, even better than the first mission pack. There are new enemies and features that were not present in the original game. The soundtrack and gameplay is excellent as well. If there is one mission pack for the game that you are considering buying, this one is worth a look.

The Good
Quake I mission pack 2: Dissolution of Eternity is rather good add-on but still in my humble opinion a little worse than Scourge of Armagon. Q1mp2 offers us several new weapons and enemies. The new armament is interesting: lava nailgun, cluster bombs, plasma gun etc. They are all far more powerful than their older brothers (I will explain that later). New enemies bigger and stronger, that's a large advantage. We fight then in two new episodes: Hell's Fortress and The Corridors of Time. Although they are not masterpieces we can sometimes see a quite nice architectural achievements such as pharaoh's heads or stone snakes. Difficulty level is moderate, sometimes even a little bit hard. Even quite skilled player will have to load the game several times to defeat the horde lurking in next room.

The Bad
Although new weapons are very efficient, none of them is totally new. Every gun (except axe, shotgun and double barreled shotgun) has its powerful alternative. It is fine but their models are the same, they are only covered with different textures. Many free addons offer dozens of really new guns. The same thing applies to new enemies. Only two or three (apart from bosses) are actually new. The rest differs from their original brothers only with their skins.

The Bottom Line
Dissolution of Eternity will be an interesting product for Quake maniac. People who does not love Quake will sooner or later be bored. Q1mp2 is not bad, it just doesn't bring as many new things as it should. Sometimes we can feel that the producers did not have much time and new texture monsters or weapons are the results.