Ranking the expansions of the game.

[Macario]

1- Call of the Machine. definitely the most polished of the expansions on my opinion, it has a high number of enemies but the game gives you enough resources to deal with them, the secret trials are fun, using the rail gun in waves of low tier enemies is very satisfying, the levels look, play and plays very good, some times the bosses suck, but overall i think its greeat, I think they use the content of the expansions in a good way and in a moderate way. I don't know if I like it more than Dimension of the Machine from Quake 1, but I think I like them at the same level, I do think that Call of the Machine ends better.

2- Quake 2 64.
I'm not sure if adding this here is appropriate, as it's not really an expansion, but ♥♥♥♥ it, Quake 64 has a small but fun level set, the color palette of the levels is quite vivid and it's surprising that there's so much character on this, lol. A pity that the music is non-existent, also its very short, so, its a very short but sweet experience.

3- The Reckoning
It has a very bad start with the cave full of those alien enemies, I don't hate them per se, but I hate that they make you fight hundreds of them at the very beginning of the campaign with the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ shotgun, after that it's not so bad, It's a fun challenge I don't mind the new enemies too much, but the level design is easily the most confusing, if it wasn't for the compaz I wouldn't play this at all, or at least not as often, this expansion takes the bizarre decision of making you wait a long time to give you the new weapons, which I find bizarre since many expansions of old FPS tend to give you the "new toys" relatively early, the new weapons are decent, they are not VERY strong but they give you a lot of ammo to use them. In general it is good, but it tends to have very low points, also it seems very BS to me how easy it is to skip the super shotgun in the first level, if you don't get it you are at a serious disadvantage for the next level where the game throws you Gunners without stall.

4- Ground Zero
Definitely my least favorite of all, it has elements that could do better than The Reckoning, in fact it starts better than the Reckoning, but seriously it's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ annoying to play, the game adds new enemies and LOVES to throw them at you non-stop to the point of overwhelming, it use them way too much, the turrets become very annoying and to some extent they start to appear in every possible corridor, in fact I heard that these were even worse in the original Quake 2, because they had more health, which, just thinking about it, makes my head hurt, but the worst example of "over using the new enemies" are the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Medics Commanders, as soon as they are introduced the rest of the level throws them at you non-stop, there are even occasions where the game hides them from you and spawns enemies out of your vision and even the RNG is so BS they spawn ANOTHER medic, and make a horrible chain of revives and spawn enemies, it's just BS, plus the weapons in this expansion just feel very unpractical, the ETF Rifle is just the Machine Gun but as a projectile and it becomes super obsolete very fast as soon as you get the Hyperblaster, The Plasma Beam could be good but the game gives it to you very late, it is completely overshadowed in functionality by the Hyperblaster and the BFG, the only one I think is useful is the Disruptor, it has very little ammunition but it is powerful and somewhat unique. So yeah i not crazy about Ground Zero. At leat has a unique final boss.

[Unseen]

Good thing I picked call of the machine to play first, since I don't look at quake1/2 as an actual ongoing story and more as gameplay I just play them in any order. But Quake1, yea dimensions of the machine was pretty solid and felt very ambitious. I'm not sure if they added new assets to that one, but a lot of stuff in it didn't seem familiar to me. But even with a new expansion I still liked scourge a lot more. Only downside to scourge was it was to short.

Which one of these would you compare more to scourge? Just a fast paced expansion with a lot of new and fun additions. Machine in quake1 was pretty epic and seemed to be the longest expansion for me. I think it was a lot longer than quake1 even if quake 1 had so many episodes. The levels in machine just felt bigger with more complexities which made it go on for a while. Not a bad thing, but I still think scourge is a more fun campaign to blast through with a friend if you just wanna show them an awesome quake experience that you can complete in no time. With a fun but kinda pathetic last boss.

[Mr. No_Effs_Given]

Ground Zero stinks😂😂😂. Agree with your rank, although I yet have to play Quake 2 64. But since there's a lot of praise around it, I expect a great game.

[AerinSwift]

Operation: Corpse Run in the Call of the Machine is frickin nuts, it's so good.

[Unseen]

So call of the machine is the fan fav xp atm?

[Macario]

Originally posted by Unseen:

Good thing I picked call of the machine to play first, since I don't look at quake1/2 as an actual ongoing story and more as gameplay I just play them in any order. But Quake1, yea dimensions of the machine was pretty solid and felt very ambitious. I'm not sure if they added new assets to that one, but a lot of stuff in it didn't seem familiar to me. But even with a new expansion I still liked scourge a lot more. Only downside to scourge was it was to short.

Which one of these would you compare more to scourge? Just a fast paced expansion with a lot of new and fun additions. Machine in quake1 was pretty epic and seemed to be the longest expansion for me. I think it was a lot longer than quake1 even if quake 1 had so many episodes. The levels in machine just felt bigger with more complexities which made it go on for a while. Not a bad thing, but I still think scourge is a more fun campaign to blast through with a friend if you just wanna show them an awesome quake experience that you can complete in no time. With a fun but kinda pathetic last boss.

Originally posted by Unseen:

Good thing I picked call of the machine to play first, since I don't look at quake1/2 as an actual ongoing story and more as gameplay I just play them in any order. But Quake1, yea dimensions of the machine was pretty solid and felt very ambitious. I'm not sure if they added new assets to that one, but a lot of stuff in it didn't seem familiar to me. But even with a new expansion I still liked scourge a lot more. Only downside to scourge was it was to short.

Which one of these would you compare more to scourge? Just a fast paced expansion with a lot of new and fun additions. Machine in quake1 was pretty epic and seemed to be the longest expansion for me. I think it was a lot longer than quake1 even if quake 1 had so many episodes. The levels in machine just felt bigger with more complexities which made it go on for a while. Not a bad thing, but I still think scourge is a more fun campaign to blast through with a friend if you just wanna show them an awesome quake experience that you can complete in no time. With a fun but kinda pathetic last boss.

I guess I would compare Scourge with The Reckoning, I think they are at the same level of quality, expansions that are just a fun set of levels (even if The Reckoning has a very confusing level dising, but the compass helps a lot), I have the same problem with Dissolution of Eternity as with Ground Zero, it has elements that make it sound more interesting than the expansion previous but the execution is horrible, DOE has a very clastophobic level design, and some with just horrible gimmicks like that level where it always has this horrible earthquake effect, and that level where you're getting lost in portals.

[Macario]

Originally posted by Mr. No_Effs_Given:

Ground Zero stinks😂😂😂. Agree with your rank, although I yet have to play Quake 2 64. But since there's a lot of praise around it, I expect a great game.

It's not "amazing" but it's just a fast and fun campaign, with a very different color palette to what Quake 2 is but that makes it appealing.

[Salander]

I personally loved Ground Zero. The turrets were an interesting addition (only in the remaster), the new enemies were likeable, it has the best boss (that is actually competent) and that really fun part where you can gain a Strogg's disguise to walk freely among them. This last one is my favourite tiny detail of Quake II.

I truly don't understand the criticism about the Medic Commanders in GZ because Call of the Machine is filled with them in worst situations. Although in both instances can become pretty annoying.

[Mr. No_Effs_Given]

Originally posted by Macario:

Originally posted by Mr. No_Effs_Given:

Ground Zero stinks😂😂😂. Agree with your rank, although I yet have to play Quake 2 64. But since there's a lot of praise around it, I expect a great game.

It's not "amazing" but it's just a fast and fun campaign, with a very different color palette to what Quake 2 is but that makes it appealing.

Interesting, being better than Bore Zero is enough for me.

[Cr0m]

N64- first time for me playing those levels. I enjoyed it.

Reckoning- i thought the beginning with the... i think they're called Geks? i thought it was pretty cool. swimming around in caves, felt different, and i think those enemies were good and fun to fight. i think limiting the player to just the shotgun was a good idea, it forces a different kind of gameplay than what you do when you have every gun and full ammo. i think every campaign should have done this, maybe not just with the shotgun but maybe one of them should've had you relying on the machinegun for a bit. anyway i thought this campaign was more fun than the main campaign, maybe slightly because i never played the expansions back in the day, so it was new to me, but i think the main campaign is just kind of assy. it's too easy, gives you too much stuff, and becomes a SLOG to get through.

ground zero- again i didn't play this back in the day. i know the turrets were improved with those laser sights, and i could imagine that this would have been a lot more annoying without those. with the sights, i think the turrets were fine and i thought it was fun destroying them. so yet another example of nightdive improving these games. i think the proximity mines were kind of worthless, and i think the final boss had way too much health and could kill you way too quickly. i had to reload about 20 times before i finally just got lucky. i think they should have improved that fight somehow but i think these old games just weren't really built for having good boss fights. besides some minor complaints i think this one was fun too.

i haven't finished the new one yet, only a couple of levels in...

[Mr. No_Effs_Given]

Just finished Turret Simulator, ooops. i mean Ground Zero. Now playing Quake II 64 and enjoying quite a lot, the flow of the levels is amazing, that's more like it.

[Suomipoika11]

Call of the Machine - varying level of polish on the maps . And few spots are easy if you got Quad Damages and Immortalilites from secrets ... god have mercy on you if you didn't .... "Looking at junkyard tank commander boss....".... Final boss battle's just unfairly bad....

Reckoning : No medics (Huge plus) and Phalanax cannon's nice, but otherwise just ok...minus from recycled boss.

GZ: Plus from new boss, minus from lack of real new weapons (Super long minus from worst chainsaw ever) Turrets are annoying , but remake versions are easy to kill , so ....

Q64 : A dissapointlent after Doom64 (Same makers)... I know, different design methods as Doom was 2.5D and Q2 was attempt for real 3D, but .... meh .

[Unseen]

Doom64 was excellent and the nightdive remaster is a hell of a value. I think the quake 64s are bland as hell but hey it was quake on 64. First time I ever played quake1. They had a long time to work on doom 64 and it was near launch. They had to make it good.

I actually like Doom64 more than 1/2 and it made me wanna play those.

[nuffi]

Call of the machine is amazing, had much more fun with it than with the original story and with 9 hours it has a good portion of gameplay. I always thought that Quake 2 was a bit lame with its slow gameplay and bland map design. The guys at Machine Games transformed the game into something that actually brings joy and some heart attacks.
The simple and small maps of Quake2 64 have some charm, but I didn't have the passion to play more than four of them.

[Mr. No_Effs_Given]

Originally posted by nuffi:

Call of the machine is amazing, had much more fun with it than with the original story and with 9 hours it has a good portion of gameplay. I always thought that Quake 2 was a bit lame with its slow gameplay and bland map design. The guys at Machine Games transformed the game into something that actually brings joy and some heart attacks.
The simple and small maps of Quake2 64 have some charm, but I didn't have the passion to play more than four of them.

Quake 2 64 I'm liking just because of that, short and sweet levels, straight to the point. Perfect game to finish the pack, and after Drag Zero, it's a breath of fresh air. Love the aesthetics of it as well, the Stroggs really hired a nice interior decorator.

[Unseen]

I only played quake1 on n64 back in the day, by the time quake2 came out I had a pc so didn't really matter by that point. Was more interested in shadowman on n64. But from what I remember quake1 on n64 was really good. But on the quake expansion it looks extremely muddly and is a huge eye sore. Probably cause of our higher resolutions, I don't remember quake on n64 looking that bad. I think its odd nightdive wanting us to beat quake2 basically twice unless the 64 one is completely different somehow.