The Strogg are amazing game villains

[Unseen]

Whether it was by accident on ID's side, or they just really got shooter villains right, strogg are my fav. Not just in gaming but all of sci fi. Yep, sure there's classic sci fi villains. Darth Vader, Borg, Alien, Terminator. But none of them to me are as nightmarish and demented as the strogg concept. I'm actually kinda new to the strogg, didn't play quake 2 till early 2010 era. Always was aware of the big chunky guys in unreal but I never actually knew the origins of that style. Besides quake1, was always more familiar with q1 than 2, cause I rented q1 a few times on n64. By the time they brought out q2 I'd already moved onto psx. Still played 64 and pc games but just never really looked into q2. So my experience with the concept of, assimilation aliens or ai was limited to xmens phalanax and startreks borg. And neither one were to impressive. Xmens version just basically jump on you and start infecting, borg they gotta catch and reprogram you, and even then its not like the madness strogg do. Hell big angle in star trek is you feel euphoria and pleasure just being a borg so that's completely different from being a hardwired pain slave like strogg.

So when I beat quake1 finally I wanted to play q2 so bought it on steam, but it needed a lot of workarounds, good thing for glquake2. But the strogg were completely different from what im use to. I've actually had nightmares about mass universal assimilation but not because of strogg just the concept. Actually seeing it done in such a bizarre way, well to me Q2 is one of the best shooter games to tap into horror. Real brutal horror, not just the atmosphere quake1 was. The concept of quake2 is extremely nightmarish, fever dream nightmarish and if anyone doesn't take strogg seriously they are just not using their imagination. Q2 was at a rough time for game storytelling. This is why I love Q4 so much we got to see a more realistic vision of quake2 and it was a great game. Far better than I expected, would love to see more quake games expanding on the strogg lore. In some ways as much as I love q1 and I actually like it more than q2. Q2 is the one that, least imo took the quake franchise and really kept it for themselves. Its just a genius enemy, one that was imo way more frightening than demons or cthulu guys. I mean being forced into slavery and mutilation that's some wicked stuff. Incredibly gripping nightmare fuel. I love it from a horror/shooter perspective probably the best. Love fear too, but I think stroggs way more creepy.

[Delabane]

Originally posted by Unseen:

Quake1 is my fav quake. Amazing atmosphere, altho for me at least strogg are way more original enemies than Lovecraft again. Hell Lovecraft was ripping off the Bible, and pretty much every other early myth story. Strogg did rip off Borg in a way, but they made it much more horrifying and industrial. Quake2 was actually going to be its own game, the quake title is very loose with q2 as quake or any sorcerer is not a factor. Not until call of the machine anyway. Which was built up in dimensions.

I like the connection, it still roots strogg as evil, but gives them an ancient source. Also a reason to hate humanity as ranger messed them up.

Plus who the hell were those gagging soldiers? I think they were clinging to life, through machines, or dark gods. Once ranger killed the dark gods they must of turned to technology and hatred for humanity. Just my theory.

I think id left the story till the end and did not put to much time into it at all. No one cared it was a masterpiece of a game (the fact some of us are still here 29 years ago says this). It's only in the last decade or so people want stories and Quake/Quake II were from an era before this. Same with Duke Nukem 3D, aliens invade earth, save the babes and kill them. That was it and it was fine. Now everyone wants to theorise everything.

[Unseen]

But you could see a narration in quake2, it was a rough narration but you could see the stroggs motives were entirely sadistic.

I also don't get what the angle is of, no lore, no storyline, no events? Why not just have pacman ghosts then? There is obviously a lore and storyline in Q2 and ID set it up many times. Soldiers being tortured and turned into machines.

I mean that's what makes a game for me having compelling villains to fight. Otherwise its just pinballs, or pacman ghosts, or jackks, or some other game object. Devoid of any kind of direction or soul they only exist to serve functions. Is that what ID games are to you? I mean I didn't hate Q4 like everyone else...

I played a really well made game with a lot of nightmare sci fi... Dunno what everyone else played. Thought the shadow warrior remake was far worse, for having generic blood stained skeletons over and over again, and an annoying demon pal. And I never said you had to theorize anything, but dimensions of the machine was even telling a story.

So because I played the game in the last 10 years I should ignore the strogg and just shoot? I shouldn't think about them as sinister nightmare villains but big robot guys like transformers? Because I didn't play quake4 first... It was quake2 that made me think about them like this, quake 2 way before the machine games.

[UmbralPenumbra]

What helped Q2 was the relative lack of dialogue meant you had to be shown the story, rather than told it, which IMO works best
I think the "stroggification" scene in Q4 did a good job of capturing the "processing" areas from Q2
Though generally, if I want "Q2 with dynamic shadows" I'll just play a Q2 sourceport
I don't hate Q4, I definitely like it, it just doesn't hit for me like Q2 does

My interest in the Shadow Warrior remake pretty much ended on announcement. My aversion seems to have been well justified in retrospect

[Valden21]

What makes the Strogg such good video-game villains isn't the perceived supernatural aspect of them so much as they're dark mirrors of us. According to the game's lore, Stroggos used tp be a thriving, Earth-like democracy. But sometime in the planet's past, an authoritarian, militaristic faction seized absolute control and turned the Strogg into what we see in the games. There were specific periods in Earth's history where we got uncomfortably close to a similar outcome, and we're still dealing with the events of one of those periods. So on some level, the Strogg remind us of how close we got to the authoritarian, war-worshiping, militaristic society that Stroggos is.

[Cat]

Originally posted by Unseen:

But you could see a narration in quake2, it was a rough narration but you could see the stroggs motives were entirely sadistic.

I also don't get what the angle is of, no lore, no storyline, no events? Why not just have pacman ghosts then? There is obviously a lore and storyline in Q2 and ID set it up many times. Soldiers being tortured and turned into machines.

I mean that's what makes a game for me having compelling villains to fight. Otherwise its just pinballs, or pacman ghosts, or jackks, or some other game object. Devoid of any kind of direction or soul they only exist to serve functions. Is that what ID games are to you? I mean I didn't hate Q4 like everyone else...

I played a really well made game with a lot of nightmare sci fi... Dunno what everyone else played. Thought the shadow warrior remake was far worse, for having generic blood stained skeletons over and over again, and an annoying demon pal. And I never said you had to theorize anything, but dimensions of the machine was even telling a story.

So because I played the game in the last 10 years I should ignore the strogg and just shoot? I shouldn't think about them as sinister nightmare villains but big robot guys like transformers? Because I didn't play quake4 first... It was quake2 that made me think about them like this, quake 2 way before the machine games.

Not every game needs to have a complicated elaborated story behind it. Some aspects are best left as mysteries instead of this "everything must have an origin story" mindset.

[Valden21]

Originally posted by Cat:

Not every game needs to have a complicated elaborated story behind it. Some aspects are best left as mysteries instead of this "everything must have an origin story" mindset.

But it DOES have a story; it's a bare-bones story, but it's there. Simply put, the Strogg invade Earth, we drive them off, we learn the location of Stroggos, and we launch a counter-invasion.

[Unseen]

Originally posted by Valden21:

Originally posted by Cat:

Not every game needs to have a complicated elaborated story behind it. Some aspects are best left as mysteries instead of this "everything must have an origin story" mindset.

But it DOES have a story; it's a bare-bones story, but it's there. Simply put, the Strogg invade Earth, we drive them off, we learn the location of Stroggos, and we launch a counter-invasion.

Doom also had a loose narration so did heretic, but those were based on texts, and not an actual coherent story path. Which quake2 did well, others like half life, sin and system shock also did this to great effect. But least imo q2 had the advantage in villains. HL for example, fun game with a good progression but I didn't like the alien enemies as much as q2. Same with sin which was good for the buddy cop humor. But the villain was just a bond rip off with boobs. Turok, just mercs and aliens, even marathon which gets close to q2 in narration, still doesn't match q2. Q2 just had the best most original game villains.

[Miraihi]

Originally posted by Valden21:

What makes the Strogg such good video-game villains isn't the perceived supernatural aspect of them so much as they're dark mirrors of us. According to the game's lore, Stroggos used tp be a thriving, Earth-like democracy. But sometime in the planet's past, an authoritarian, militaristic faction seized absolute control and turned the Strogg into what we see in the games. There were specific periods in Earth's history where we got uncomfortably close to a similar outcome, and we're still dealing with the events of one of those periods. So on some level, the Strogg remind us of how close we got to the authoritarian, war-worshiping, militaristic society that Stroggos is.

Couldn't spell it better. Strogg are practically the alien version of nazis, but brought to the absolute extreme. Literally nothing sacred and humane remained in their society. Expansion and war, war and expansion - that's the only aim.
I'm usually very conscious about enemies I kill in the videogames, but killing strogg feels like an act of mercy. They are not even brainwashed by propaganda - there's no human, no beast, no even demon inside the shell of flesh and steel. Just a walking weapon and nothing more, the insult to the life itself.

[Unseen]

Yep its all a mercy killing with strogg, its even worse when you consider lot of your marine bodies could be in there.