I just played Quake 2

[DraQ]

draq, I only skimmed your post (mostly focused on the regaynaming of the gaynemies) and I have to say I vaguely recall quake 2 being piss easy. If I remember correctly the worst was the tank (the big guy) who was pathetically ineffective.

Indeed. You could easily mow down two tanks at once with CG, often without taking any damage at all. Yes, it nomed all your bullets, but was perfectly doable, we're talking about miniboss level enemy and, it's not like ammo was difficult to restock - shells, bullets and cells, nearly rained from the sky, slugs were plentiful and the only semirare ammo was rockets, but RL sucked in Q2, being only good against tight clusters of weak fuckers and against brains with their pointless energy shields (pointless, because it's not like they give them any more chance to shuffle up to you and violate you with tentacles).

Quake 1 had way more aggressive and dangerous enemies. You had the lovecraftian dudes shooting fast, auto targeting bombs, the other lovecraftian guy with the auotaim lightining bolt, and that other lovecraftian thing that jumped on you.

Well, yeah. Q1 enemies were dumb, but at least they reacted fast and could attack swiftly, causing a lot of damage.

Blood was a good example of a shitty difficulty curve. Those sniping monks pretty much broke the game.

Beats completely flat difficulty curve of Q2.

Sure, you meet more powerful and more numerous enemies later in game, but apart from statwise advantage they can still be whittled down with impunity and later in game you also have better hardware allowing you to mow them down with frightening efficiency (BFG, HB, RG, CG) and protect yourself from nearly all combat damage (body armor+energy shield).

If you're far more likely to take damage from lowliest 1hit mooks (SG and MG guards), than from fucking miniboss (tank) then something is wrong with your difficulty curve.

Shit, the only way I can see Q2 as being slightly challenging is modding player's max health and armour levels to 0.1 of original values (not kidding). And introducing some drastic cell drain on energy armour. THEN you'd probably have to put some nominal effort into not dying, although it still wouldn't be a particularly hard game.

Hell, Q2 manual openly advocates popamole, anyone bemoaning the decline and influx of popamoles, while also looking fondly at Q2 is a fucking hypocrite:

Enemy Profile: Tank
Description: Tanks have three weapons they use at random: an arm-mounted machine gun, an arm-mounted laser blaster, and a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher.
Defense/Weapon Analysis: Hard
Comments: Get in, take your shot, and get out…repeat as often as necessary. These metallic beasts can endure massive gunfire.

What is it but fucking mother of all popamoles?

jesus christ you're so edgy you break euclidian geometry

I'm fucking round, man.

 

[shihonage]

Shit, the only way I can see Q2 as being slightly challenging is modding player's max health and armour levels to 0.1 of original values (not kidding). And introducing some drastic cell drain on energy armour. THEN you'd probably have to put some nominal effort into not dying, although it still wouldn't be a particularly hard game.

As someone making these very unusual claims, you should make a Youtube video where you run Quake 2 on Normal difficulty with 0 armor, and never go below 90 health for, let's say... erm... 2 hours?

Note, however, that your gameplay style should look as intended, i.e. of a normal person enjoying the game and wishing to progress, and just being a really good/quick/precise FPS player as they do, instead of exploiting bugs in geometry or turtling forward millimeter by millimeter.

 

[shihonage]

If you do this successfully, I will Paypal you 50 bucks, and my opinion of Quake 2 shall be changed. No joke, I keep my word.

Oh, and of course, no video montage tricks and no saving/loading from you.

 

[DraQ]

You know, that's worth considering if I find some time, what are the limitations of free version of FRAPS?

 

[shihonage]

Possibly a "this was made by fraps" overlay, and it might cut off sound after 30 seconds. It's been a while since I checked.

 

[CorpseZeb]

* readies popcorn *

Ps. I wonder, DraQ, where you drawn a line between a game play and a game design?

 

[Twinkle]

I can vouch for MSI Afterburner for all your capture needs. It's a dumbed down simplified derivative of RivaTuner still supported by Unwinder with nice functionality. It's completely free and you don't have to own an MSI videocard to use it, though advanced tweaking is available only to MSI owners for obvious reasons. As far as performance goes it's slightly faster than FRAPS on my system, but YMMV.

http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm (you need the latest beta)

 

[Clockwork Knight]

PAYPAL DONATIONS, BITCH!!!

Oh shit, it's on now.

That said, a video where you pop in and out of cover for 2 hours isn't gonna be that interesting...

 

[shihonage]

We could probably make it gradual. End $$ = (amount of time you survive in above conditions which is no more than 2 hours) /(2 hours) *50.

So 1 hour would be $25. 30 minutes would be $12.50.

I don't want it to be all or nothing, as you're gonna waste time on this even if you fail.

 

[Reject_666_6]

You could arrange a time and date and have DraQ stream it live from Twtch.tv, with the record option on.

 

[Ulminati]

You could arrange a time and date and have DraQ stream it live from Twtch.tv, with the record option on.

Livestream would indeed be the way to go if his interwebz can handle it. It'd also require less video compressing/cutting/whatever to conform to jewt00b standards. As an added bonus, kkkodexers watching could heckle him in irc whenever he exploits geometry to trap enemies.

 

[shihonage]

It would also make it harder to use time slowdown cheats.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

I got killed on the Lost Station... again. I wonder if Draq was playing the same game.

 

[Kitako]

The map design was one of the main things that made the game scary-scary. All these claustrophobic tunnels and cluttered spaces where something may jump out or walk out and start shooting or start shooting from an upper level. Also, it looks like there are some alternate routes.


Texture blur.

Tunnels in something like, say, Deadspace... "OMG POPAMOLE!"
Tunnels in Quake... "OMG ART!"

Sometimes I don't understand the Codex.
Mind I never tried Q2, only Q1.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

The map design was one of the main things that made the game scary-scary. All these claustrophobic tunnels and cluttered spaces where something may jump out or walk out and start shooting or start shooting from an upper level. Also, it looks like there are some alternate routes.


Texture blur.

Tunnels in something like, say, Deadspace... "OMG POPAMOLE!"
Tunnels in Quake... "OMG ART!"

Sometimes I don't understand the Codex.
Mind I never tried Q2, only Q1.

I don't know what you're talking about. The newest single-player arcade FPS that I have played was Soldier of Fortune (2000). I have never played Deadspace and never said anything about it.

 

[Kitako]

Sorry then, I keep seeing the Codex as the collective hivemind.

 

[Morgoth]

Out of curiosity, I installed Quake 2 and played.

For 60 secs.

Then I uninstalled.


Yup, 'Dex is full of nostalgia shit.

 

[Oriental European]

I got killed on the Lost Station... again. I wonder if Draq was playing the same game.

No, DraQ just thinks that "q2 sucks and easy" is an argument.

Except Doom's levels were much more diverse and memorable.

Doom's battles were divers and memorable, not levels.

If so, sorry, but I don't think I remember any.

Except Doom's levels were much more diverse and memorable.

If so, sorry, but I don't think I remember any.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Out of curiosity, I installed Quake 2 and played.

For 60 secs.

Then I uninstalled.

Why?

 

[Morgoth]

Quake 2 is banal boring shit, that's why.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

I got killed in the Lost Station again. Two minigun guys + one shotgun guy above.

 

[BLOBERT]

BROS TO SUMMARIZE

LOLLOLOL QUAKE 2 IS EASY AND NOT FUN

VERY LOGICAL ARGUEN T

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

I got killed in the Lost Station again. This time in the end. Goddamnit. I ran out of shotgun ammo and these goddamned flyers.

 

[DraQ]

Could you send me your copy of Q2? Mine seems deficient.

(Also, if I do this playthrough, I will probably settle for Q2 built-in demo recording utility)

 

[Taxnomore]

Quake 2 tried to be Half-Life and failed. Although Half-Life was released later. I liked the technology, but Quake 1 had that surreal, crazy, insane atmosphere that Quake 2 hadn't. I wasn't attracted to Q4 for the same reasons : while a decent shooter in its own rights, it shared a generic universe.

I might consider myself playing some SiN or some other Q2 engine games though. Anyone knows of a couple that stood well the test of time ? Or even Q2 Total Conversions.