15 Years of Quake 2 - Happy Birthday to Quake 2

[Shawn Zipay]

Bethesda notes that today marks the 15th anniversary since Quake 2 was released on the PC. To mark the occasion, Tim Willits from id Software shared some interesting tidbits that you may not have known about the classic.

• Only three artists made all the 2D and 3D art for the entire game.
• One of the original suggested names for QUAKE II was WOR, but the game’s fast-paced, tactile feel felt closer to a QUAKE game than a new franchise.
• ‘The Edge’ (Tim’s favorite deathmatch level in QUAKE II or any other game), has over 50 trick jumps possible in the map. Tim only designed two of them, and the rest were discovered by the QUAKE II community.

Happy birthday to Quake 2!

(via Bethesda Blog)

[K-16]

I believe this was also one of the earlier First-Person Shooters that has objective-based gameplay before it became somewhat of a standard. Also this has my favorite version of the BFG, as well as my favorite portrayal of its blasts (ironically weaker than the BFG 9000's projectiles despite it being called the BFG 10K). I just loved how it charges up and then blasts a ball of death that branches out into mini rays of death; always wondered if I could boost my jump with that thing (all attempts failed and I kept suiciding).

I hated the blaster though and missed the axe, or even melee with bare hands would've made my marine look tougher, but no! I got to go pewpewpew with a frickin' blaster that showed off its particle system and dynamic lighting... Whoopdee doo... Oh well, at least it's one of the very few games to allow dead bodies to attract flies (given enough time) and gib with any weapon on-demand. Damn... I loved the on-demand gibbing, especially with the beastly-sized Super Shotgun.