Together Retro: The Quake Series / Quake Live -WHEN TO PLAY?

[Ack]

You kids, I swear.

[ExedExes]

First episode completed. All enemies and secrets found.

The method of defeating the lava boss took me back to when I first played it. Pretty revolutionary stuff here.

On to Episode 2.

[MrPopo]

I just finished Dissolution of Eternity. I feel like it's a solid addition to what was done in the first mission pack but it suffers a bit from some "fuck you" level design choices.

The pack includes a couple of new enemies, although they are all variations on enemies we've already seen. There's the multi-grenade Ogres which just have a different weapon, the Wraiths which are basically floating Vores that explode when they die, and the Guardians, which are basically Enforcers that fire a three shot spread.

However, there are a ton of boss enemies in this pack. While the original Quake just had the two bosses this pack has one boss at the end of the first episode and five bosses and a pack of minibosses in the second episode. But in terms of uniqueness in how you combat them there are three new bosses. One is a huge version of the Wraith, one is a huge version of the Guardian (the aforementioned two both spawn their smaller copies throughout the fights), and the final boss is a flying dragon who's unfortunately fairly easy to beat if you take your time. Since he has to keep flying in a circle and can't attack behind him you can take potshots when his back is turned and hide when he's active.

The real nice stuff comes in the level designs and the weapons. The first set of levels is nothing too special, but the second act consists of you jumping through time, so you experience a Greco-Roman level, an Egyptian level, an Aztec level, and a Medieval Castle which has a distinct feel from the standard Quake castle. The levels themselves have a nice feel to them, besides a tendency to use monster closets and spawning monsters right behind you/along a path you already cleared.

The new weapons consist of alternate ammo for existing weapons. There are the fire nails, which do 30% more damage and ignore armor (for multiplayer and traps that fire them), the multi grenades, which are a grenade that splits into several a fixed amount of time after launch, the multi rockets, which fires four half-power rockets, and the plasma, which fires a ball of energy that has approximately rocket-style splash damage on impact and also shoots out lightning bolts. It's sort of a poor-man's version of Q2's BFG10k.

This pack was tough, but it does ramp the difficulty up and feels fairer than my current experiences with Q2: Ground Zero.

[Ack]

Speaking of which, we want an update on Ground Zero! And by we, I mean me!

[MrPopo]

Well, I'll put some effort into it today and come back with an update for you.

[dsheinem]

so....when do y'all want to play Quake Live next?

[noiseredux]

not sure if I'll be around tonight or not, but if I am I'll keep an eye on it.

Anyway, I just beat Episode II of Quake.

[dsheinem]

Anyway, I just beat Episode II of Quake.

Nice. Did you try those "tricks" I suggested?

I am moving well through Quake 2, myself, I just took out the second boss (the hornet dude) and blew up the big gun. IIRC that puts me only an hour or so away from the ending...

[noiseredux]

yeah your reminder to save throughout stages has made my progress a lot smoother. I hated restarting levels I was pretty far in. Also tweaked mouse sensitivity and upped the brightness a bit which has helped as well. And have been trying to be mindful of Ack's suggestion on circle-strafing as best I can w/ keyboard and mouse. I still think this game is pretty damn fantastic.

[dsheinem]

it makes me happy when I look at my Steam friends list and see plenty of folks playing Quake games