Description
A sequel in name only, this follow up to id’s 1996
Quake, is a first-person shooter revolving around the Earth-Strogg war. The Strogg alien race threatens the Earth, but Earth has launched a counter-offensive, Operation Alien Overlord. Overlord takes the battle to the Strogg homeworld with the ultimate objective of securing their capital city and killing their ruler.
As a FPS,
Quake II contains a variety of weapons including the fall back Blaster, the Railgun, and the secret BFG10K. Health, armor, and ammunition pick-ups can be found during levels, as can the classic
Quake’s Quad Damage power-up. Game play involves mowing down alien opponents as the player progresses through levels, completing in-game objectives.
Quake II also comes with multiplayer support for Deathmatches.
Alternate Titles
- "雷神之锤II" -- Chinese spelling (simplified)
- "Q2" -- Common abbreviation
Part of the Following Groups
User Reviews
The Press Says
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Trivia
Action figures
In 1998,
Quake II action figures were released to stores by ReSaurus. There was only one series of figures. The series was composed of: Marine (& Barracuda Shark), Jungle Marine (& Strogg Parasite), Iron Maiden (& Strogg Technician), Tank, and a limited edition Psycho Marine.
European version
The UK Windows Version
Quake II CD has the following printed on it:
This product is intended for sale outside North America only and will not function on North American operating systems.
Upon testing this seems to be untrue, it works on every North American version of Windows tested.
Assumedly this was to prevent people importing the CDs from the EU and selling them in the US.
German index
On December 20, 1997, the PC version of
Quake II was put on the infamous German index by the BPjS. The Nintendo 64 version followed August 31, 1999.
For more information about what this means and to see a list of games sharing the same fate, take a look here:
BPjS/BPjM indexed games.
Language
This is the second time id Software has invented an alien language for use in their games (the first was in
Commander Keen). Like Keen's Simplified Galactian Alphabet, the Strogg language in Quake II is a simple letter-by-letter cipher. Although no-one has ever made a Strogg font pack, you can decipher signs and messages in the game using the Strogg translator at id's
Quake 4 site.
Release
The game was rushed to be ready for the very lucrative Christmas 1997.
It shipped with a lot of bugs, missing features (no multiplayer maps) and multiplayer was almost unplayable on the net at first, but id fixed all these issues with numerous patches.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack, composed by Sonic Mayhem, features a total of ten tracks in CD-Audio quality. If you listen to the CD be sure to skip the first track, which is the data information.
The rest of the tracks are:
1. Operation Overlord
2. Rage
3. Kill Ratio
4. March of the Stroggs
5. The Underworld
6. Quad Machine
7. Big Gun
8. Descent Into Cerberon
9. Climb
10. Showdown
Source code release
On 22 December 2001, the full source code was released. It can be downloaded from the
ID software website.
Zeebo version
On June 15, 2010, both
Quake and
Quake II were removed from Zeebo's wireless network, the Brazilian Zeebonet. Both games were offered for 10 Z-credits and each Brazilian Zeebo came with 35 Z-credits, so the games were sold virtually for free. They were replaced for
Zeebo Extreme Rolimã and
Zeebo Extreme Jetboard as free downloads.
Awards
- Computer Gaming World
- March 1998 (Issue #164) – Action Game of the Year
- PC Gamer
- April 2000 - #8 overall in the "All-Time Top 50 Games" poll
Information also contributed by
Apogee IV,
chirinea,
Maw,
Mike Quigley,
PCGamer77,
Sciere,
Xoleras and
Zovni
