Doom is one of those games that everyone has played at least once, it's on a similar level of historical significance to something like Super Mario Bros. But while I have played it in passing several times, I also never really "got into Doom". Meanwhile, Quake is a game I knew next to nothing about, and it only ever struck my interest when I stumbled upon its technically impressive Saturn port. Both are series that I've been curious about trying out especially with the recent Nightdive remasters of both the Doom and Quake duologies. And with the Lunar New Year sale, I decided to get both the Doom & Doom II collection and the Quake 1 & 2 Enhanced Bundle for my Switch and really delve into what Id Software's work has to offer, once and for all.
First off, I just wanted to say that I think Nightdive's collections are all pretty great ways to play through some of Id's classic FPSs, and tend to offer a ton of content for how much it costs, each containing a bunch of expansions, robust multiplayer, tons of customization options, achievements, gyro support, and a bunch of featured mods you can download onto your Switch. The one major downside, though, is the Bethesda.net support. You can't play online or download mods without connecting to Bethesda.net, but if you do, the game gets a lot more crash-prone since it'll boot you out if anything breaks the connection, even going into the home menu. I made the mistake of connecting to Bethesda.net for the mods, but the crashing got so bad that I had to spend a whole day contacting Bethesda to get it disconnected. If you're using Switch at least, please don't connect to Bethesda's servers if you don't absolutely need to, the mods aren't worth it. This is actually inexcusable stuff and it kills me that Nightdive's otherwise masterful porting work is being held back by Bethesda's bullshit.
Now that that's out of the way, let's actually talk about the games themselves:
Doom: The first Doom is obviously the game I've had the most experience with it, and it's as solid as ever. With its smooth movement, basic premise, and easy-to-understand roster of weapons and enemies, it's so easy for anyone to just jump into and start blasting demons. There are a few control quirks that I had to adjust to a bit like not being able to jump (instead you have to run really fast to sorta float across gaps) or aim up (just fire in an enemy's general direction and you'll likely hit them), but the game is designed around these limitations really well and I can't exactly say Doom would be better with these more modern features. Even if it's personally not my favorite FPS or even really close, Doom is so solid mechanically that I can totally see why it still has such a massive community behind it after all these years. If I did have a real gripe though, it's the way navigation plays out as getting lost was pretty much a constant for me across all of these classic Doom games. There are so many cases where I wasted time aimlessly running around looking for a tiny switch that I could barely see, and in some of the other games in the collection, the progression was so cryptic and obscure that I had to resort to relentlessly pressing B by every wall I saw in the hopes of stumbling upon the exit. Thankfully, Doom 1 doesn't suffer from this as much which is why it's still one of my personal favorite games in the collection, but it gets so much worse.
Doom is divided up into four chapters, the last of which being added as an expansion two years later. The first chapter, Knee Deep In The Dead is the iconic shareware chapter designed primarily by John Romero, is pretty widely beloved and for good reason. It's intuitive in its design, polished in its presentation, and has a stellar difficulty curve... but it is also arguably consistent to a fault. The levels in KDitD don't really have much in the way of striking or memorable setpieces to set them apart, they're all great, but they do blend together quite a bit. Chapter 2 was primarily designed by Tom Hall (who left mid-development but whose stages still remained) and I honestly really like his work. Each stage felt memorable, from the introduction of the teleporters in Deimos Anomoly, the container maze in Containment Area, the trippy moving platforms and caged enemies in The Refinery, and the complex hub-and-spokes design of Halls Of The Damned, but most of them were still really fun and satisfying to unravel. Chapter 3, Inferno, is primarily designed by the infamously inconsistent Sandy Petersen and as such is the most all-over-the-place chapter of the game. It certainly fits hell, but the level quality rockets between peak (Pandemonium, Mt Erebus) and weak (Unholy Cathedral, Limbo) at a frenetic pace. Thankfully, base Doom is brisk enough that even as it ends fairly weak, it doesn't feel like it overstayed its welcome.
Though of course, there's also Thy Flesh Consumed, the expansion that was assembled by a mixture of Id level designers after the development of Doom II. This seems to be the most polarizing episode for its brutal spike in difficulty compared to the first three episodes, but I actually thought it was quite fun. At its best, it's easily the most visually-polished episode alongside Knee Deep while still having a stronger sense of variety, and it manages to mine the Doom engine for interesting stage designs like with the platforming-heavy Perfect Hatred, the wide open Sever The Wicked, or the ornate shortcut-prone They Will Repent. The obvious issue with Thy Flesh Consumed is its reverse difficulty curve, peaking with its first two stages (the ammo starvation in Hell Beneath and the platforming in Perfect Hatred) before slowly getting much easier as it goes on, but beyond that, I think this was my favorite chapter in the first Doom and it made for a strong conclusion overall. And with how good the level design got here, I was really excited to see what Doom II had to offer...
Doom II: Well... I'll admit I was a bit letdown. Doom II is more of a mission pack sequel to the first game as while it does add a few notable mechanics, the vast majority of it is really just the first game with more levels. That being said, those new additions are quite big. The enemy count has been practically doubled which does wonders to increasing enemy variety. The bosses have easier variants and the fodder enemies have harder variants, and most of the new additions are welcome (except the archvile, fuck them). The other major addition is of course the powerful Super Shotgun which can take out more enemies faster at the cost of double the ammo consumption and reload time. The Super Shotgun is a great weapon, super powerful and satisfying to use, though it almost feels like a Purple Pikmin situation in that it's so overpowered that it pretty much eclipses all of the original weapons. That being said, I still like its inclusion a lot and it allows for larger-scale battles with larger enemy counts which Doom II has in spades.
Sadly, the place where Doom II really drops the ball is with the level design. This game was developed in just a few months with Petersen doing a lot of the stages and it kinda shows because it is just all over the place. Doom II starts reasonable enough, but it quickly devolves into really gimmicky stages of varying quality, from genuinely fun additions like the proto-slaughter stage Dead Simple and the wonderfully chaotic mess that is Barrels O Fun, to some complete messes like the pure trial-and-error Tricks & Traps, the platforming hell that is The Chasm, and... sigh... the city levels. So, about a third in the game, hell takes over Earth and you have to fight demos in a bunch of wrecked cities for a few stages. Cool concept in theory, but in execution, these stages are massive slogs. They're incredibly open but lack direction as it's rarely ever made clear which buildings you should go into in which order (one stage draws a giant arrow on the ground but not even that really helps much), and it makes for a truly painful midgame. And frankly, this isn't just an issue with the city levels as Doom II as a whole suffers from cryptic navigation that takes the kind of obscure tricks that would usually hide a secret but makes them mandatory to progress.
In the grand scheme of things, Doom II is still a Doom game, and I can't understate how important its mechanical improvements are. There's a reason damn near every Doom mod is based on II and not the original game. However, when it comes to its campaign, the level design is a stark downgrade from the first game and it made for a much less enjoyable experience for me.
Doom's Expansions: Doom & Doom II came with a whopping six different expansions, all of which I've played to varying degrees so I'll try to run through them quickly.
Doom 2: The Master Levels: The Master Levels is a disjointed collection of random fan levels. While Nightdive did their best to try and organize them by difficulty, I'd recommend pacing yourself and not playing them all back-to-back since they're very hard and very long. Personally, I actually had a decent amount of fun just randomly picking stages because I didn't really know what I was going to get. There were some genuinely cool concepts here like the Black Tower, but other stages were admittedly really messily designed and overlong. You can definitely tell that this was very early on in the Doom modding scene where people were still figuring out what made a good Doom stage, and while that does give the Master Levels a bit of a scrappy charm, I can't imagine it would be very fun to play through back-to-back like any other Doom campaign.
TNT Evilution: Compared to The Master Levels, I put my standards a bit higher with this one as it was released as part of the purchasable Final Doom and was developed by a dedicated fangroup called TeamTNT, but it's really bad. I swear I tried a solid amount of TNT Evilution's stages, but I didn't
enjoy a single one. They were all dreadfully boring, empty, and ugly,
mostly due to their massive size and the abundance of dull brown
textures everywhere. Definitely not worth a full playthrough.
The Plutonia Experiment: This was the other campaign that came with Final Doom and it fared a bit better? Being developed by a much smaller team of two brothers, Plutonia had much tighter-designed stages, but they're also brutally hard right from the get-go and I really don't think I'm equipped to take it on yet. I appreciate that Plutonia builds its difficulty off of placing a few enemies in the most dickish places possible though, rather than aimlessly flooding you with high level threats (Go 2 It excluded, of course). Either way though, between the utter slog that were the TNT Evilution stages I played and the sheer brutality of Plutonia's stages, I did not have any interest in sinking so many hours into either of these campaigns, especially when I had much better things to get to.
No Rest For The Living: This campaign developed for the XBOX 360 port of Doom back in 2010 was a massive step-up from the last few, impeccably designed on nearly every level. You can tell the designers here really took John Romero's design tricks to heart, as despite the sizes of each stage, I never got lost once because everything was so clearly laid-out. NRftL's biggest quirk is that it loves to flood you with fodder enemies more than any other expansion I've played. By the time you finish a stage, it's just littered with the 100+ corpses you just mowed down and it feels kinda badass. And yet, NRftL doesn't feel too excessively hard either as it mostly sticks with pretty weak enemies and only tosses out a boss when it feels like they'll make a big impact. My one gripe is that I did feel a bit starved on ammo in the last few stages, but that's really it, No Rest For The Living was awesome.
Sigil: John Romero's Sigil was pitched as a "fifth episode" for Doom and I'd say it does that job. Despite being built off the base Doom 1 engine, it manages to really make the most of its limitations with its striking crimson visual style, the fun central mechanic based around shooting eyes, and a wide variety of intricately-detailed stage that span pretty much every Doom trope you can think of. It's not quite as masterful as NRftL, but it's overall a really well-designed campaign that definitely stacks up to the original Doom in my eyes. That being said, it once again suffers from ammo starvation issues, particularly with its half-hour gauntlet of a penultimate level that left me utterly exhausted by the end. Still, overall, I thought Sigil was quite good. A solid third place behind Doom and NRftL.
Legacy Of Rust: Legacy Of Rust is Nightdive's own original campaign and it is certainly a technical achievement, boasting some of the most detailed visuals I've seen in a Doom mod. Hell, it even manages to finally introduce some new weapons and enemies, with the highlight being a flamethrower weapon that just fits right in. Sadly, Legacy Of Rust suffers from a similar issue to Doom II where despite the mechanical improvements, the level design just isn't up to snuff. With how intuitive both NRftL and Sigil felt to navigate, it was really hard going back to humping every wall, dealing with cheap traps and messy layouts that feel like something Petersen would've made. Legacy Of Rust isn't a bad campaign by any means, but it's definitely the most disappointing of the bunch.
Quake: Quake was one of the big 3D juggernauts of 1996
that stands up alongside games like Super Mario 64 and Tomb Raider. It
was designed primarily to show off the capabilities of what a full 3D
first-person shooter could do, but thanks to some stellar game design, I
think it still holds up remarkably well. Even more, I'd say I flat-out
prefer Quake over Doom. Being able to jump and look around freely speeds
up the pace of combat even more than in Doom, as you can now hop across
the arenas while cleverly sniping enemies with precise angled shots,
made even easier thanks to the smooth framerate and gryo features of the
Nightdive port. The level design has far more verticality, and the
encounters often take place in multi-tiered arenas with enemies placed
above and below the player. There's also a more physics-y, emergent feel
to Quake compared to Doom that I truly adore, there's more room for
experimentation and the stellar weapons lineup does so much to
facilitate this. The grenade launcher is a perfect example of this as
you can use it to pull off all sorts of clever trick shots, but in your
enemy's hands, it's an unpredictable ball of pure destruction. But
there's also the rocket jump, the way enemies stagger in different ways
depending on where you shoot them, the fact that using the thunderbolt
in water zaps everything in it including yourself, so many cool
possibilities that you just couldn't pull off in something like Doom.
On top of that, the level design in Quake is a vast improvement over Doom's stages in my opinion. Despite each of the four episodes being designed primarily by a different developer from Id, they're remarkably consistent in quality. Most stages in Quake don't last for more than a few minutes so the pace never slows to a drag, and despite their labyrinthine nature, they cleverly wrap around themselves so that the player is never confused as to where they need to go next. The level design in Quake is remarkably intuitive, silently showing the player how its mechanics work in clever ahead-of-its-time ways, and not having an interact button means Doom's "wallhumping" issues are pretty much non-existent here. I also love how enemy encounters are executed here. Quake stages are far less densely-packed with enemies than Doom stages. Of course, there's a bit more platforming and puzzle-solving here, but also the enemy encounters themselves would rather contain a smaller amount of tankier enemies than a horde of weak fodder, using the design of the arena itself to create variety and challenge. It's a different rhythm from Doom, more strategic and deliberate, and I like that a lot. From what I've read, Quake had a very troubled development and ultimately ended up being the game that fractured Id Software as we knew it, but if I hadn't known that, I probably wouldn't have even noticed. It's a true wonder that this game manages to feel as cohesive and masterfully designed as it is, and it also helps that the atmosphere and art direction is just incredible. Quake goes for a much darker and more gothic tone than Doom, and there's a surreal, mystical aura to the environments that's equal parts engrossing and terrifying. The ambient score by Nine Inch Nails also suits the vibe perfectly, even if it's not something I'd personally listen to outside of the game.
That being said, despite all of my praise, I do have one notable issue with Quake and it's that it peaks pretty early. The first episode, Dimension Of The Damned, is an incredible sample plate of everything that Quake has to offer, which makes sense since it was offered as shareware. It's not only an incredibly well-designed tutorial, but it makes each level feel distinct by constantly introducing new environments and biomes. However, I also can't help but feel like Quake blew its load too early as Chapter 1 introduces damn near every major mechanic, biome, enemy type, and weapon in the game. It also has the only boss out of any of the chapters. This is probably where that troubled development I mentioned is most noticeable. Episodes 2 & 3 are still really fun and well-designed but they don't feel quite as fresh, and Episode 4 is... well... interesting. Episode 4, The Elder World, is the Petersen chapter and to give him credit, it has much stronger art direction than his work in Doom. The Elder World is easily the most moody chapter in Quake, from the harsh reds of the church setting to the unnerving blues of Azure Agony. It's probably the best encapsulation of what makes this game so visually fascinating. But design-wise, Petersen's levels are also the least intuitive, devolving back into the more mazelike design of Doom while also introducing the worst enemy of the game, the infamous Spawn. These were the only stages I got lost in and as such they were also the only stages that truly frustrated me
That being said, even if it ended on probably its weakest note, I adored Quake. From the smooth and fluid gameplay, to the more vertical and consistently intuitive level design, to the more strategic and emergent combat encounters, to the stellar sense of atmosphere, it easily stands out as my favorite of Id's games so far. And hey, I even hear the multiplayer is really good as well. I can see why Doom has arguably had more of a legacy, but Quake is the one I vibed with the most.
Quake Expansions:
The Scourge Of Armagon: The Scourge Of Armagon is the first official Quake expansion, and it is strange. Compared to the stuff that came with the Doom collection, this adds a lot more new features, attempting to transform the esoteric adventure of base Quake into a more streamlined action game with more involved stages and more connective tissue between them. It's not nearly as atmospheric as the base game, with a more action-y score and far more enemies in each stage, but that's not inherently a bad thing. Overall, I still found Scourge to be pretty fun thanks to its dynamic and varied level design, the pace at which it doles out new settings and ideas, and its mostly fair difficulty, at least for the first two acts. The final act does get a bit too ridiculous with the enemy spam, though, once again ending things on a weaker note. Besides that, my other big gripe is that a lot of the new additions lack in polish. The new enemies are unrefined at best (Gremlins) and actively detrimental at worst (spike mines), the new weapons all have some sort of blatant flaw that made me want to stick with the original game's kit instead, and while I adore the new Horn Of Conjuring upgrade, the ally AI just isn't that great. Still, overall, I had a good time with Scourge. It's not as good as the base campaign, but it's a brisk and consistently fun thrill ride and that's all I can really ask for from an expansion.
Dissolution Of Eternity: Dissolution Of Eternity is the second expansion and it's also pretty solid. The level design isn't quite as dynamic as it was in Scourge, but I think its new additions feel a lot more polished and fun to mess around with. The addition of a second ammo type for every major weapon combined with the increased amount of ammo allows for more chaotic combat that helps set this expansion apart from pretty much everything else, and the new anti-grav upgrade is not only a great concept but well-executed as well. I think DoE mostly suffers from a pretty dull first half which primarily takes place in a samey medieval castle, but when the second episode kicks in with its far more ambitious globe-trotting premise, wide array of unique bosses, and quite possibly the best finale in Quake 1, the expansion really comes to life. The whole expansion was also more consistently challenging rather than having the spare difficulty spikes Scourge had on occasion. I'd say I still barely prefer Scourge at the end of the day, but just a smidge, they're otherwise really close together for me.
Dimension Of The Past: Dimension Of The Past was designed as a theoretical "Quake Episode 5", almost like how Sigil was for Doom. Sadly, unlike Sigil, this expansion kinda blows. The level design is composed almost entirely of dull repetitive straightaways with very little in the way of verticality (aka the thing that makes Quake level design so good to begin with), and it does practically nothing to add to the original game. Not mechanically, not in terms of atmosphere, not in terms of how the gameplay is utilized, it's all just base Quake but worse. I've criticized certain expansions for starving the player of ammo but DotP easily has this the worst, it floods you with tanky enemies like Shamblers and Vores while giving you barely enough to fend for yourself. Just an absolute slog all around.
Dimension Of The Machine: Dimension Of The Machine is Nightdive's campaign for the recent Quake remaster and as per the usual, it's an absolute visual marvel. Just the first screen had me blown away with the sheer amount of detail compared to anything else I've seen from Quake, and each and every environment just blew me away more. Unlike Legacy Of Rust, this campaign doesn't add any new mechanics, weapons, or enemies, it's the level design that's the star of the show. And what levels they are, they are impressively well-designed in how they seamlessly carry you between memorable setpiece to memorable setpiece. From decrepit cities to astral planes to upside down churches, damn near every area is unique and memorable in their own way. The levels being more realistic and intricate does so much to give DotM a more modern feel than what you'd expect to see from Quake, but not too modern, more early 2000s than mid 90s. And the difficulty balancing is spot-on, you always have just enough ammo and the encounters never feel too unfair or cheap. If I had any gripe, it's that the final boss once again sucked ass. Seriously, what is with these games and awful final bosses? While I'd still single out the main Quake campaign as my personal favorite, DotM is easily the best of Quake 1's expansions.
Quake II: Quake II is arguably the most polarizing game Id has ever made. While the moment-to-moment gameplay is absolutely an expansion of what Quake laid out, the framing has shifted from an eerie Lovecraftian adventure to a space marines metroidvania. As someone who loved the atmosphere of the original Quake, I went in pretty skeptical, but to my surprise, I found so much to love about Quake II. As a matter of fact, it might be the Quake game that hooked me the most.
As I mentioned, Quake II was a huge shift in tone for the series. Instead of being about a lone ranger exploring interdimensional worlds for runes, it's about a space marines launching an assault on an alien race called the Strogg that has been kidnapping humans. I loved the creepy, mystical, uncanny atmosphere of the original Quake, it's a huge part of what made that game so engrossing for me. However, on its own merits, I will admit that Quake II does actually execute its premise really well. Outside of the occasional briefings, Quake II remains fairly light on story that could otherwise bog down the action. Instead, you get to learn about the Strogg first-hand through pure visual-storytelling. From coming across jailed and tortured humans in the Jail, to seeing how the Strogg makes their food in the Factory unit, to seeing the experiments in the Research Lab, you can tell a lot of thought was put into explaining the Strogg and it helps to raise the stakes and make them feel like more of a threat. I've seen a lot of people complain that Quake II looks too gray and samey, but I'd say the environments and overall set-dressing do a lot to keep each major location feel distinct while allowing them to feel like a cohesive world. Besides, Quake 1 also looks super brown and samey but it helps for that game's vibe as well. If I did have any major gripes with the framing of Quake II, it would probably just be that the Strogg can kind of blend together as their more humanoid designs lack the sheer variety of Quake 1's enemy roster. But overall, I think Quake II really runs with its sci-fi alien invasion premise even if it's not my preferred vision for the series. I also adore the death metal soundtrack by Sonic Mayhem, it goes insanely hard. Even with how much I liked Reznor's more ambient score for the first game, this more energetic score fits Quake II a lot better
But where Quake II really shines is with the gameplay. Quake II almost feels like a perfect middle-ground between Doom and Quake mechanically, keeping most of Quake's best additions like the freer movement, vertical
level design, and more emergent weapon design, while also bringing over
some of Doom's mechanics like health and armor boosts, several
returning weapons, and being able to increase weapon ammo. On top of that, there's a whole bunch of very welcome new features like being able to save power-ups for whenever you want (thank god), the
ability to crouch (thank god), keeping your weapons between units (thank
god), and even more environmental interactivity like blowing up walls
with explosive barrels and shooting out glass. The overall game feel did feel a tad different than I was used to at first, with its slower weapon switching and heavier recoil reducing the razor sharp level of precision I'd have in Doom or Quake, but I eventually adjusted to the weighter controls and it still ultimately has the same fast, snappy, and free-flowing feel that you'd want from a Quake game. Aside from that, I do really think Quake II is a big step up mechanically from its predecessor, and the new engine made for it looks fantastic. Also I need to shout-out the multiplayer in Quake II specifically because it has a grappling hook, and it feels awesome.
While Quake and Doom was mostly just level-based, Quake II splits itself up into ten units, each with a number of interconnected levels. You'll be running back and forth between the stages doing various objectives to complete each unit, which often takes around 15-30 minutes a pop. This had me skeptical at first because I liked the shorter levels of Doom and Quake, but I really warmed up to it. Each unit feels almost like a puzzle-box that you need to unravel, and it's cool to see how all the subareas link together. I also like how each unit is able to dedicate itself to fully exploring a single idea, from shifting around containers and platforms in the Warehouse unit, to hopping across lava in the Mines, to fighting off the royal guard in the Palace unit. It felt like each unit was able to cover more ground than any of the longer stages in Id's earlier games, and the more detailed and intricate environments helped to give each unit a more cinematic flair. Even the bosses were way better than in any prior game in the series. The units in Quake II feel like a unique middleground between the bitesized missions of a Doom-esque game and the larger but fewer missions we'd see in FPSes since.
And that's really what makes Quake II so cool for me, it's like a strange transition between the Doom era of the genre and the genre post-Half Life. It uncannily toes the line between feeling cinematic and having that classic arcadey feel. I also can't go without shouting out Nightdive's porting efforts for Quake II, because this is easily the best of their remasters. On top of massively improving the visuals, this port of Quake II improves upon the original in a ton of ways, from bringing back cut content, to making the enemies more aggressive and reactive, to adding more dynamic lighting and shadows, to giving the player an optional compass for if they get lost. The UI is cleaner than ever, you get access to multiple E3 demos which is nuts, and best of all, this is the only port of the three where Bethesda.net is just flat-out not required. Doom 1 & 2 and Quake had good remasters that mostly embellished already great games, but Quake 2's remaster is just flat-out the better experience in pretty much every way.
The first Quake is still a one of a kind game. It's weird, kinda fucked up, and it goes for a tone that I just haven't seen from many other shooters. Quake II is a lot more conventional but where it lacks in weirdness, it makes up for in refinement. This is a game that does so much to advance and polish the Quake formula on a mechanical level, with expanded gameplay, tight level design, and a more cinematic presentation that still leaves everything to the player. It's an important stepping stone towards the more modern shooter formula that Half Life would really kick off, and while I still prefer its predecessor overall, Quake II absolutely deserves respect. I'd also say it solidifes the fact that I simply just prefer Quake to Doom.
Quake II Expansions:
Quake II 64: Quake II's Nintendo 64 port is a fascinating beast as it's an entirely unique entry designed by the team behind Doom 64. Of course, Nightdive had to go the extra mile and not only include it bundled in, but used the Kex Engine to give it a full-on remaster, so I knew I had to give it a shot. To my surprise, it's quite a fun time. Quake II 64 eschews the hub system for a more linear, Doom-esque flow that makes for a really breezy experience as no level goes on too long, especially with the compass as an option. And even more, Quake II 64 still manages to squeeze in a whole bunch of entirely unique level gimmicks like explosive crates, ice physics, and low gravity. It's a weird fusion between Quake 1 and 2 in a way which really helps it stand out too, especially with Aubrey Hodges' more ambient score. That being said, I think this breeziness is also to this version's detriment. It's incredibly short and since the original version likely had to compensate for the N64's controller, this remaster ends up being pretty easy since it uses Nightdive's engine. The only frustration was with the occasional ammo starvation but that's really it. Still, for what it is, it's a fun time and I think it was for the best that we got an entirely original game out of the deal rather than a bungled port of the original like with the PS1 version.
The Reckoning: The Reckoning is an absolute mess. People seem a bit mixed on this expansion, the common consensus generally being "well at least it's better than Ground Zero". But honestly, I think this is worse. The Reckoning is an expansion with occasional moments of brilliance, a few cool new enemies and weapons, a few memorable setpieces like the Strogg Freighter sequence, some stellar Sonic Mayhem tracks, but the whole experience is a disaster of poor balancing and excess. The early parts of the expansion already toss some lategame foes at you while holding off on giving you the weapons designed to deal with them, while the latter parts of the game surround you with dozens of hit-scanners, bomb-tossers, and tanky minibosses with barely enough ammo to deal with all of them. No matter where I was in the campaign, I never felt like I was properly equipped to take on any of the challenges The Reckoning offered me and it made for an experience so tedious I just flat-out couldn't beat it without skipping forward in the level select. Easily the weakest out of all the official Quake expansions.
Ground Zero: The original version of Ground Zero is often regarded as the worst Quake expansion for its labyrinthine level design and the abundance of the new turret enemies who are tanky and ultra-precise. However, both of these issues were fixed with Nightdive's rerelease since we now have a compass and the turrets were severely nerfed (honestly I thought they were pretty fun to fight in this version), which leaves Ground Zero as an expansion that I actually enjoyed more than The Reckoning. Being made by the Dissolution Of Eternity devs, it has a similar level of chaos in how it overwhelms you with weapons and ammo but also overwhelms you with enemies. It starts and ends strong with a memorable first stage and a fun final boss, though the midsection can suffer quite a bit from the aforementioned confusing level design and some frustrating encounters. Both of the expansions feel pretty sloppy, but I do think where Ground Zero really wins out is with the theming. This entire game is based around the mines setting from base Quake 2 and that helps it stand out as you're constantly platforming across molten lava, manipulating machinery to get around, and just blowing shit up. While The Reckoning just felt like more Quake 2 but done worse, Ground Zero at least took some fun swings in comparison.
Call Of The Machine: Call Of The Machine is Quake II's original campaign and it shares a lot of similarities to Dimension Of The Machine. More detailed visuals, a segmented level-based structure, and generally more complex level design. Unlike Dimension, I like that Call actually includes additions from the expansion and even introduces some new features like a boss health bar. That being said, I also found Call to be a lot more disjointed than its predecessor in terms of level quality. Pretty much every stage in Dimension was solid at worst and fantastic at best, while Call has much higher highs and much lower lows. For example, Operation: Corpse Run is one of my new favorite stages in all of Quake. It's a level designed around the BFG, giving you a ton of ammo and options to deal with hordes of fodder enemies. It's not all mindless action though because if you can land that one perfect BFG shot, you can erase everything with one satisfying crackle. Operation: Wastelands, on the other hand, is one of my new least favorite stages in all of Quake, pretty much taking everything I didn't like about The Reckoning (tanky enemies, minimal ammo, obnoxious sewer sections) and amplifies it tenfold. Call Of The Machine seems to run by the philosophy of "more is better". More enemies, more ammo, more setpieces, more guns, more difficulty! At its best, this is the closest a classic Doom or Quake game has come to capturing the sheer spectacle and chaos of something like Doom Eternal. At its worst, it makes for some of the most frustrating moments in Quake 2. That being said, I appreciate CotM for swinging for the fences and its high points generally outweighed the low points.
Overall, Doom 1/2 and Quake 1/2 are obviously incredibly influential and important games, but I'm pleased to say that they're still very fun to this day. I'll be honest and say I did get pretty burned out on both Doom and Quake at certain points, especially since it hit me pretty hard that I'm just not particularly great at these games? Like with all the times I was griping about ammo starvation and overwhelming enemy encounters, I began to wonder if it wasn't an issue with the game and more an issue with me. I just can't see myself casually hopping into one of these games like some of the more diehard fans really, it's just too stressful.
That being said, I still enjoyed my time with Doom and Quake. I'm glad that I finally got a chance to play Doom once and for all, and I'm especially glad that I found myself absolutely loving the Quake games. I definitely feel comfortable calling Quake one of my new favorite FPSes of all time. It feels like a whole new world of games has just opened up for me, like I finally unlocked the appeal behind the "boomer shooter" genre, even if it's not a genre I intend to delving more into at the moment. Now, to end things off, here's my ranking of all the campaigns I played across the Doom 1/2 and Quake 1/2 collections.
- Quake
- Quake II
- Dimension Of The Machine
- No Rest For The Living
- Doom
- Call Of The Machine
- Sigil
- Scourge Of Armagon
- Dissolution Of Eternity
- Quake II 64
- Doom II
- Ground Zero
- Legacy Of Rust
- The Reckoning
- The Plutonia Experiment
- Dimension Of The Past
- The Master Levels
- TNT Evilution
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