Archiving the history of the video game Quake 2: created by id Software; customized by the Quake 2 community.
"'We've built an entire world. It's not like Quake — four episodes of unrelated crap — we've built a planet and a race of aliens. We have areas in the game that people can identify with — bunkers, hangars, warehouses, power stations and stuff. And then we've established missions and goals for each area. We wanted people to believe they were in a real place.' This is Tim Willits talking. He's lead level designer on Quake II."
"The release of Doom II in 1994 was one of the most unnoticed letdowns of the gaming world. The sprinkling of a few new enemies and one new weapon were enough to give Doom junkies their fix, but the game was a mere baby step forward in every way. Now, Quake 2 appears to have finally broken id's sophomore jinx, with so many improvements over the original that, for once, the two games look markedly different."
"The Big One: Id Strikes Back With What Could Be Its Best Game Yet, by Elliott Chin and V. Long — This year, we scoured the E3 show floors with a mission: to strip away the chaft and find the best upcoming games to feed your gaming hunger for fall. What we found was a bevy of fantastic looking games spread throughout the genres, but the game we kept coming back to — the PC game with the biggest crowds of the show — was id's Quake II. Without a doubt, it was the Game of the Show."
"As predicted by industry insiders (as in 'inside various important people's colons'), Activision have signed worldwide rights to Quake II. This completes their royal flush of Quake-powered 3D shooters which started with both official id mission packs, then Hexen II, and Sin, the new title from Scourge of Armagon designers, Hipnotic. Few new details about the game were forthcoming, bar a reiteration that Quake II is a complete redesign with nothing carried over from the original game concept except for the Quake Unified Engine (a new version which integrates 3D accelerator support, Windows 95/NT and Internet gameplay all in one bite-sized EXE). So total is the redesign, in fact, that the name 'Quake' may even be dropped. According to the rather flowery press blurb: 'Gamers encounter an entirely new breed of intelligent and aggressive enemies which inhabit a complex matrix of interrelated, non-linear worlds, as players seek to avoid becoming a fine mist of blood and bone.' PC Zone spies, however, report that Quake II levels will be two to three times bigger than the original's maps, and that more diverse weapons will be on hand for less rocket-launcher oriented gameplay. Also, coloured lighting and real-time shadows will only be available in the 3D accelerated version."
"Enhanced graphics. Hexen-style hub levels. New lighting FX. And things to blow up! Sketched in for release in December 1997, Quake II looks like it may yet steal the thunder of this year's flotilla of 3D action games, including Jedi Knight, Daikaitana, Unreal, and Hexen II. Featuring a raft of new graphical enhancements, new monsters, new weapons and new environments, id Software are claiming, somewhat confusingly, that Quake II 'will be more of a sequel to Quake than Doom II was to Doom.' Despite losing several core members such as John 'Doom' Romero, Michael 'Network Code' Abrash, and Jay 'Biz Guy' Wilbur, id have been beavering away for over seven months on the game. As a policy, id have claimed that 'nothing' from Quake will be carried over to its sequel — bar the engine. CodeSmith John Carmack has substantially souped it up, adding real-time shadows and exotic lighting effects which are said to rival Unreal's PUV (Pulsating-Undulating-Vomiting) technology."
