Cara Ellison (born 28 September 1985) is a Scottish video game writer and critic.
81-521: Ellison made regular contributions to publications PC Gamer , Unwinnable and Rock Paper Shotgun beginning in 2012. She has also written gaming related articles for New Statesman , Paste , Edge magazine and Kotaku and is a regular contributor to The Guardian games blog. From 2014 to 2015, Ellison wrote a bi-weekly column called S.EXE for Rock Paper Shotgun about the depiction of sex and romance in video games. She also contributed video game related articles to VICE UK in 2014. In 2013, Ellison won
162-503: A modder going by the name of Major Bitch. Quake II ' s game engine was a popular license and formed the basis for several commercial and free games, such as CodeRED: Alien Arena , War§ow , SiN , Anachronox , Heretic II , Daikatana , Soldier of Fortune , Kingpin: Life of Crime , and UFO: Alien Invasion . Valve 's 1998 video game Half-Life used the Quake II engine during early development stages. However,
243-527: A podcast dedicated to reading, reviewing, and discussing Keith R. A. DeCandido 's 2006 novel StarCraft: Ghost: Nova . Ellison worked for Rockstar North as a QA tester on Grand Theft Auto IV until 2008. In 2013, Ellison wrote the text-based interactive fiction game Sacrilege , which The New York Times described as a "raw exploration of female sexuality that also includes some astute observations about male desire". Ellison also has collaborated with artist Howard Hardiman on Badger's Day Out , funded by
324-452: A 512x240 resolution at 30 frames per second. The developer was keen to retain a visual parity with the PC version and avoid tricks such as the use of environmental fog. Colored lights for levels and enemies, and yellow highlights for gunfire and explosions, are carried across from the PC version, with the addition of lens flare effects located around the light sources on the original lightmaps. There
405-437: A Tank Commander's head to open a door and calling down an air-strike on a bunker. CGI cutscenes are used to illustrate the player's progress through the main objectives, although they are all essentially the same short piece of video, showing a computerized image of the player character as he moves through game's levels. Another addition is the inclusion of a non-hostile character type: the player character's captured comrades. It
486-464: A client/server network system similar to that of Quake for multiplayer. Unlike Quake , where hardware acceleration was only implemented through later patches, Quake II was released with native OpenGL support. Quake II was also the first id Software game not to be released for the then-deprecated MS-DOS operating system, rather running natively on Windows 95 , with several ports to other systems following afterwards. The source code for Quake II
567-491: A combination of a successful Kickstarter , with backing from the Arts Council England . She was contracted by Arkane Studios as an external narrative consultant for the 2016 title Dishonored 2 . In August 2015, she gave a keynote at Dare to Be Digital . Ellison provided voice acting for the character of 'Peanut' in the 2015 game Assault Android Cactus . She worked as the writer of Void Bastards . She
648-447: A heavier paper stock. The usual demo disk content would be made available online. Quake II Quake II is a 1997 first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Activision . It is the second installment of the Quake series , following Quake . Developed over the course of a year, Quake II was released on December 9, 1997. In contrast to
729-462: A power-up, two enemies, seven modified versions of existing enemies, and five music tracks. The storyline follows Joker, a member of an elite squad of marines on a mission to infiltrate a Strogg base on one of Stroggos' moons and destroy the Strogg fleet, which is preparing to attack. Joker crash lands in the swamps outside of the compound where his squad is waiting. He travels through the swamps and bypasses
810-458: A rating higher than 98% ( Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri , Half-Life 2 , and Crysis ). In the UK edition, the lowest numerical score was 2%, awarded to The 4th Golden Satellite Awards for Interactive Media Winner Big Brother 1 . The sequel, Big Brother 2 , was given an even lower score of N/A %, the review explaining that "[ PC Gamer ] put as much effort into reviewing it as they did in making
891-511: A single double-sided DVD. In August 2011, the UK magazine announced it was to be discontinuing the disk as of issue 232, and replacing it with more pages of content within the magazine and exclusive free gifts. The magazine has many regular features which make up each edition of the magazine. These include sections called ´ Eyewitness ´, ´ Previews ´, ´ Send ´, where letters from the readers are spread over 2 two-page spreads, at least one special feature, which reports on gaming related issues such as
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#1733115937114972-512: A version of Dalí's The Persistence of Memory featuring items from Portal . For a time, one of the magazine's features, ´ Gamer Snap ´, where amusing pictures sent in by readers were printed in the magazine, however the feature was discontinued and replaced with a Guess the Game where readers sent in drawings of memorable scenes in video games drawn in Microsoft Paint . The PC Gamer blog
1053-457: Is a must-have." It also won Computer Gaming World ' s 1997 "Action Game of the Year" award. The editors wrote that "for pure adrenaline-pumping, visceral, instantly gratifying action, Quake II is the hands-down winner. No game gave us the rush that Quake II did". In 1998, PC Gamer declared it the 3rd-best computer game ever released, and the editors called it "id's gun-happy masterpiece
1134-458: Is generally recommended as a replacement for the 3.20 release for both clients and servers. In July 2003, Vertigo Software released a source port of Quake II for the Microsoft .NET platform, using Managed C++ , called Quake II .NET. It became a poster application for the language, showcasing the powerful interoperability between .NET and standard C++ code. It remains one of the top downloads on
1215-470: Is no skybox ; instead, a flat Gouraud -textured purple "sky" is drawn across the ceiling. The game uses particles to render blood, debris, and rail gun beams analogously to the PC version. There is a split-screen multiplayer mode for two to four players (a four player game is possible using the PlayStation's Multi-tap). The only available player avatar is a modified version of the male player avatar from
1296-462: Is not in the single-player game, it's in the multi-player feature." GameSpot editor Vince Broady described Quake II as "the only first-person shooter to render the original Quake entirely obsolete." Daniel Erickson reviewed the N64 version of the game for Next Generation , and stated that "a good first-person shooter with a great multiplayer mode; GoldenEye is no longer the only game in town." At
1377-570: Is not possible to interact with these characters, however, as they have all been driven insane by their Strogg captors. The game features much larger levels than Quake , with many more wide open areas. A hub system allows the player to travel back and forth between levels, which is necessary to complete certain objectives. Some of the textures and symbols that appear in the game are similar to some of those found in Quake . Enemies demonstrate visible wounds after they have taken damage. The multiplayer portion
1458-580: Is similar to that of Quake . It can be played as a free-for-all deathmatch game mode, a cooperative version of the single-player game, or as a 1 vs 1 match that is used in official tournaments, like the Cyberathlete Professional League . It can also be played in Capture the Flag mode (CTF). The deathmatch game benefited from the release of eight specifically designed levels that id Software added after
1539-436: Is simply a slight modification to make compiling for Linux easier. Quake II uses an improved client–server model introduced in Quake . The game code of Quake II , which defines all the functionality for weapons, entities, and game mechanics, can be changed in any way because id Software published the source code of their own implementation that shipped with the game. Quake II uses the shared library functionality of
1620-529: Is the most sensational and subtle shooter ever, and one of the best games of any type ever created." In 1999, Next Generation listed Quake 2 as number 5 on their "Top 50 Games of All Time", commenting that, " Quake 2 is the standard for multiplayer shooting, and we've yet to see a " Quake killer" that can keep us from returning to multiplayer Quake for longer than a month or so." Quake II entered PC Data 's monthly computer game sales rankings at #2 for December 1997, behind Riven . The game's sales in
1701-535: The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences ' inaugural Interactive Achievement Awards , Quake II was awarded " PC Action Game of the Year "; it also received nominations for "Computer Entertainment Title of the Year" and " Interactive Title of the Year ". Quake II won Macworld ' s 1999 "Best Shoot-'Em-Up" award, and the magazine's Christopher Breen wrote: "In either single-player or multiplayer mode, for careening-through-corridor-carnage satisfaction, Quake II
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#17331159371141782-697: The Expansion Pak for extra graphical detail. This port features a new soundtrack, consisting mostly of dark ambient pieces, composed by Aubrey Hodges . A port of Quake II was included with Quake 4 for the Xbox 360 on a bonus disc. This is a direct port of the original game, with some graphical improvements. The port allows for System Link play for up to sixteen players, split-screen for four players, and cooperative play in single-player for up to sixteen players or four players with split-screen alone. An "enhanced" version of Quake II developed by Nightdive Studios
1863-545: The PlayStation Mouse peripheral to provide a greater parity with the PC version's gameplay. The music used in this port is a combination of the Quake II original music score and tracks from the PC version's mission packs, while the opening and closing cut-scenes are taken from the Ground Zero expansion pack. The PlayStation version uses an engine developed by HammerHead for their future PlayStation projects and runs at
1944-401: The Quake II client and server. As id Software no longer maintains Quake II , most third-party engines include fixes for these bugs. The unofficial patch 3.24 that fixes bugs and adds only meager tweaks is recommended for Quake II purists, as it is not intended to add new features or be an engine mod in its own right. The most popular server-side engine modification for multiplayer, R1Q2 ,
2025-627: The Visual C++ website. In May 2004, Bytonic Software released a source port of Quake II (called Jake2 ) written in Java using JOGL . In 2010 Google ported Jake2 to HTML5 , running in Safari and Chrome . In December 2018, Polish programmer Krzysztof Kondrak released the original Quake II v3.21 source code with Vulkan support added. The port, called vkQuake2, is available under the GPLv2 . A new source port of
2106-451: The operating system to load the game library at run-time—this is how mod authors are able to alter the game and provide different gameplay mechanics, new weapons, and much more. The full source code to Quake II version 3.19 was released under the terms of the GNU GPL-2.0-or-later on December 22, 2001. Version 3.21 followed later. An LCC -friendly version was released on January 1, 2002, by
2187-566: The Blaster, Machine Gun, Chain Gun, Hyperblaster, Railgun, and BFG 10K. The Quad Damage power up from Quake is present in Quake II , and new power-ups include the Ammo Pack, Invulnerability, Bandolier, Enviro-Suit, Rebreather, and Silencer. The single-player game features a number of changes from Quake . First, the player is given mission-based objectives that correspond to the storyline, including stealing
2268-609: The Games Media Award 'Rising Star' for her work writing about games, and The Guardian placed her number ten in the 'Top 30 Young People in Digital Media' list 2014. In 2014, Ellison successfully sought funding on Patreon for her "Embed with" series, in which she became an itinerant games journalist, travelling the world and writing about the lives and processes of games developers. From February 2021 to June 2022, Ellison co-hosted The Inspirational Quarterly with Davey Wreden ,
2349-628: The July 1998 issue of the Slovenian, Swedish, and UK editions of PC Gamer were infected with the Marburg virus, which CNN Money stated caused the malware to become a "widespread threat". In the September 2011 edition of PC Gamer , it was announced that they would be dropping the demo disk altogether and concentrating on improving the quality of the magazine instead with a promise of a larger magazine printed on
2430-578: The Moon Base has low gravity, something that was previously used on one secret level of the original Quake . The Reckoning received mixed reviews. It holds 69.50% from Gamerankings and GameSpot given a score of 7.4/10. Quake II Mission Pack: Ground Zero is the second expansion pack, released on September 11, 1998. It was developed by Rogue Entertainment . It comes with fourteen single-player levels, ten multiplayer maps, five additional music tracks, five enemies, seven power-ups, and five weapons. In
2511-458: The PC version of the game and stated that "all in all, id should be commended for the advancement of its technology and improvement in its single-player level design, but it's going to be up to mod designers to provide the necessary additions to the multiplayer game in order to make it stand out from Quake ." GamePro said the game "lives up to its impossibly high hype." Praising its interconnected levels, new weapons, enemy design, soundtrack, and
Cara Ellison - Misplaced Pages Continue
2592-509: The PC version, the most noticeable difference being the addition of a helmet. Players can only customize the color of their avatar's armor and change their name. The twelve multiplayer levels featured are unique to the PlayStation version, with none of the PC multiplayer maps being carried over. The Nintendo 64 version has different single-player levels and multiplayer maps, and features multiplayer support for up to four players. This version has new lighting effects, mostly seen in gunfire, and uses
2673-547: The PC version. In addition, part of the first mission of the N64 port is used as a prologue. Some enemy types were removed and two new enemies was added: the Arachnid, a human-spider cyborg with twin railgun arms, and the Guardian, a bipedal boss enemy. Saving the game is only possible between levels and at mid-level checkpoints where the game loads, while in the PC version the game could be saved and loaded at any time. The game supports
2754-695: The US and UK magazines, all hosted at the new website along with the forums for both magazines. The PC Gamer UK podcast started on 4 May 2007 and ran 93 episodes until its final episode, which was released on 5 July 2013. It had a rotating cast made up of members of the staff including Chris Thursten, Tom Senior, Graham Smith, Tom Francis, and Marsh Davies. The podcast was formerly hosted by Ross Atherton until his departure in June 2009 and then by Tim Edwards until his departure in 2012. The host position varied between Chris Thursten and Graham Smith from week to week. Previously monthly,
2835-766: The United Kingdom in November 1993 , the American sister version was launched a few months later in June 1994 . There are also numerous local editions that mainly use the materials of one of the two editions, typically the British one, including a Malaysian (discontinued in December 2011) and Russian edition (discontinued in December 2008). The Swedish edition, though rooted in its UK counterpart, has grown to be more independent, largely due to
2916-589: The United Kingdom in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future plc . The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games magazines in their respective countries. The magazine features news on developments in the video game industry , previews of new games, and reviews of the latest popular PC games, along with other features relating to hardware, mods , "classic" games and various other topics. PC Gamer and parent Future began digital PC Gaming Show at E3 2015 . PC Gamer reviews are written by
2997-754: The United States alone reached 240,913 copies by the end of 1997, after its release on December 9. According to PC Data, it was the country's 22nd-best-selling computer game of 1997. The following year, Quake II secured fifth place on PC Data's charts for January and February 1998, then dropped to #8 in March and #9 in April. It remained in PC Data's top 20 for another two months, before exiting in July 1998. Quake II surpassed 850,000 units shipped to retailers by April 1998, and 900,000 by June. According to PC Data, Quake II
3078-497: The ability to play as a female character in multiplayer mode (which they called "an overdue nod to the growing number of QuakeGrrls "), they gave it a perfect 5.0 out of 5 in all four categories (graphics, sound, control, and funfactor). On aggregating review website GameRankings , the PC version held 87%, the Nintendo 64 version 81%, and the PlayStation version 80%. AllGame editor Michael L. House stated, "the beauty of Quake II
3159-461: The box. Later downloads from id Software added support for AMD's 3DNow! instruction set for improved performance on their K6-2 processors, and Rendition released a native renderer for their V1000 graphics chip. The latest version is 3.21. This update includes numerous bug fixes and new levels designed for multiplayer deathmatch . Version 3.21, available as source code on id Software's FTP server, has no improved functionality over version 3.20 and
3240-466: The compounds outer defenses and enters through the main gate, finding his squad just in time to watch them get executed by Strogg forces. Next, Joker escapes on his own to the fuel refinery where he helps the Air Force destroy all fuel production, then infiltrates the Strogg spaceport, boards a cargo ship and reaches the Moon Base, destroying it and the Strogg fleet. The section of the game that takes place on
3321-485: The core gameplay was largely identical; however, changes were made to the game sequence and split-screen multiplayer replaced network or Internet play. A Macintosh port was developed by Logicware and released in July 1999. Quake II: Colossus ( Quake II with both official add-ons) was ported to Linux by id Software and published by Macmillan Digital Publishing in 1999. Be Inc. ported Quake II: Colossus to BeOS to test their OpenGL acceleration in 1999, and provided
Cara Ellison - Misplaced Pages Continue
3402-476: The effect of PC gaming on the environment, a review section which reviews the latest released PC games and re-reviews titles that have been released on budget and ´ Extra Life ´ which reports on modding games and gaming culture and revisiting old games. There is also a ´ Systems ´ section, which reviews and recommends hardware such as video cards and monitors. The back page of the magazine is entitled ´ It's All Over ´ and usually consists of game related artwork such as
3483-458: The eighth-generation platforms, while the PlayStation 5, Xbox One X, Xbox Series X/S and Windows releases are able to support native 4K (3840x2160) resolution and up to 120FPS with compatible displays. The Xbox Series X/S and Windows releases also support 8-player splitscreen. This version of the game also introduces a new single-player expansion, Call of the Machine , which was designed exclusively for
3564-626: The enhanced version by Bethesda studio MachineGames , comprising 28 additional levels and a new Deathmatch map. The Nintendo 64 version of Quake II is also bundled with the enhanced version as a bonus. Quake II Mission Pack: The Reckoning is the first expansion pack , released on May 27, 1998. It was developed by Xatrix Entertainment . First announced in January 1998, it features eighteen single player levels, six deathmatch levels, three weapons (the Ion Ripper, Phalanx Particle Cannon, and Trap),
3645-406: The expansion 7.5/10, describing it as similar to the original, but noting occasionally confusing map design. Elliott Chin of GameSpot gave the game 7.9/10, citing it as decent for an expansion and praising the monsters and enhanced AI. Johnny B. of Game Revolution rated the expansion D+, citing bad level design and few additions to the original game, and noted the multiplayer power-up gameplay as
3726-511: The expansion's story the Gravity Well has trapped the Earth Fleet in orbit above the planet Stroggos. One of the marines who managed to land, Stepchild, must now make his way to the Gravity Well to destroy it and free the fleet above and disable the entire defenses of the planet. Ground Zero received average to mixed reviews. It holds 65.40% from Gamerankings . Patrick Baggatta of IGN gave
3807-532: The features of the CD, including the demos, patches and reviews, the user had to navigate a 'basement', which played very much like classic PC games such as Myst . It was in this game sequence that the magazine's mascot, Coconut Monkey, was introduced just as the editor was leaving the magazine, marking the transition from the FMV demo CDs to the more contemporary menu driven demo CDs that were subsequently used. The cover disc of
3888-451: The final version runs on a heavily modified version of the Quake engine , GoldSrc , with a small amount of the Quake II code. The soundtrack for Quake II was mainly provided by Sonic Mayhem , with some additional tracks by Bill Brown ; the main theme was also composed by Bill Brown and Rob Zombie , and one track by Jer Sypult. The soundtrack for the Nintendo 64 version of the game
3969-417: The first game, which featured a combination of science fiction and fantasy elements, Quake II entirely drops the latter elements and is set during humankind's war against a rogue alien race known as the Strogg, half-mutant half-machine creatures whose homeplanet, Stroggos, is the target of the humans' invasion force. The player takes the role of a space marine (referred to as Bitterman) as he crash-lands on
4050-449: The game files for free download at a later date—a Windows, Macintosh, or Linux install CD was required to install the game, with the add-ons being optional. The PlayStation version contains abridged versions of Units 1, 3, 6, 7, 8, and 10 of the PC version, redesigned to meet the console's technical limitations. For example, many short airlock -like corridors were added to maps to provide loading pauses inside what were contiguous areas in
4131-466: The game". In issue 255, August 2013, the score of 2% was matched by the review of the re-released Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude , originally given 3% when it first launched. In the US edition, the lowest score awarded was 4%, given to Mad Dog McCree , unseating the previously lowest-rated game, Skydive! , given 5%. There are two main editions of PC Gamer , a British version and an American version, both are published by Future plc . Founded in
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#17331159371144212-414: The game's initial release. They were introduced to the game via one of the early patches, that were released free of charge. Prior to the release of these maps, players were limited to playing multiplayer games on the single-player levels, which, while functional as multiplayer levels, were not designed with deathmatch gameplay specifically in mind. As in Quake , it is possible to customize the way in which
4293-427: The game, titled Quake II RTX, was announced by Nvidia in March 2019 and was released on June 6 for Windows and Linux on Steam . This source port requires either a Nvidia RTX or an AMD Radeon RX 6000 series GPU or higher to utilize these cards' hardware ray tracing functionality, but a software fallback is available for graphics cards that are fast enough. The source port, provided free of charge, includes
4374-755: The immense popularity of PC games compared to console games in Sweden, and now produces most of its own material. An Australian edition was published monthly by Perth-based Conspiracy Publishing since August 1998 , but it appears to have been discontinued in mid-late 2004. A Spanish edition titled " PC Juegos y Jugadores " also existed, but closed in 2007. Both American and British magazines are published thirteen times per year (twice in December), although there are sometimes variations. In 2018, Future purchased Australian video game magazine and website PC PowerPlay from nextmedia , incorporating PC PowerPlay articles into
4455-470: The in-game menu via the selection of pre-drawn skins, which differ in many ways; for example, skin color, camouflage style, and application of facepaint. Quake II takes place in a science fiction environment set against the backdrop of a war between humanity and an alien race known as the Strogg , who capture and convert organic creatures into horrific cyborgs for their war machine. In the single-player game,
4536-485: The landing zone. Bitterman fights his way through the highly industrial Strogg city, destroying strategic objectives along the way, and finally kills the Strogg leader, the Makron, in his orbital asteroid base. Originally, Quake II was supposed to be a new game and intellectual property ; titles like "Strogg", "Lock and Load", and just "Load" were toyed with in the early days of development. But after numerous failed attempts,
4617-424: The magazine's editors and freelance writers, and rate games on a percent scale. In August 2023, Baldur's Gate 3 became the first game to receive a rating of 97% in the UK edition. Prior to this, no game was awarded more than 96% by the UK edition ( Kerbal Space Program , Civilization II , Half-Life , Half-Life 2 , Minecraft , Spelunky and Quake II ). In the US edition, no game has yet received
4698-405: The magazine. Similarly to the British edition, the magazine shipped with a demo disk , though diskless versions were available. The CDs were replaced by DVDs in the American edition on a month-to-month basis. When PC games with full motion video (FMV) sequences were popular in the mid-to-late 1990s, PC Gamer's CD-ROM included elaborate FMV sequences featuring one of their editors. To access
4779-569: The mission packs has been released at GOG.com, but unlike the previous releases, this one contains a new customizable launcher and the official soundtrack in OGG format which was made possible to play in-game, making it the only digital release at the time to include music. The game has been included in the following official compilations: Ports of Quake II were released in 1999 on the Nintendo 64 (ported by Raster Productions) and PlayStation (ported by HammerHead ) video game consoles. In both cases,
4860-482: The online version of PC Gamer . The British edition of PC Gamer has been in constant monthly publication since 1993. Subscribers get a special edition of the magazine with no headlines on the front cover (only the masthead and BBFC rating). Almost exclusively devoted to PC games, the magazine has a reputation for giving in-depth reviews. The magazine originally shipped with an accompanying 3.5-inch (89 mm) floppy disc. A CD demo disc (labelled CD Gamer )
4941-515: The only fun feature. Quake II Netpack I: Extremities contains, among other features, 11 game mods and 12 deathmatch maps. The fourth mission pack, Call of the Machine , was released as part of the enhanced version of Quake II released on August 10, 2023. Two unofficial expansions were released on CDs in 1998: Zaero , developed by Team Evolve and published by Macmillan Digital Publishing, and Juggernaut: The New Story , developed by Canopy Games and published by HeadGames Publishing. As with
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#17331159371145022-459: The original Quake , Quake II was designed to allow players to easily create custom content. A large number of mods, maps, graphics such as player models and skins, and sound effects were created and distributed to others free of charge via the Internet. Popular websites such as PlanetQuake and Telefragged allowed players to gain access to custom content. Another improvement over Quake was that it
5103-402: The original game and its two expansion packs, an episode consisting of the levels from the Nintendo 64 version of the game, and a brand new episode designed by MachineGames . Quake II is a first-person shooter , in which the player shoots enemies from the perspective of the main character. The gameplay is very similar to that featured in Quake , in terms of movement and controls, although
5184-414: The planet and, being the last survivor of his squad, is tasked with completing a series of missions to cripple the Strogg and end their plans to conquer Earth. The game's storyline is continued in its expansions, including one tying in Quake II and the first game, and Quake 4 . The game's heavy metal soundtrack was provided by Sascha Dikiciyan . Besides its single player component, Quake II also uses
5265-507: The player appears to other people in multiplayer games. However, whereas in Quake , the only option was to change the color of the player's uniform unless third party modifications were used, now the game comes with a selection of three different player models: a male marine, a female marine, and a male cyborg; choice of player model also affects the speech effects the player's character will make, such as exhaling in effort while jumping or groaning when injured. Each model can be customized from in
5346-427: The player assumes the role of a Marine named Bitterman taking part in "Operation Alien Overlord", a desperate attempt to end the war by launching a counter-offensive on alien home planet of Stroggos. Most of the other soldiers are captured or killed as soon as they approach the planned landing zone. Bitterman survives because another Marine's personal capsule collided with his upon launch, causing him to crash far short of
5427-562: The player's movement speed has been slowed down, and the player now has the ability to crouch. The game retains four of the eight weapons from Quake (the Shotgun, Super Shotgun, Grenade Launcher, and Rocket Launcher), although they have been redesigned visually and made to function in slightly different ways. The remainder of Quake ' s eight weapons (the Axe, Nailgun, Super Nailgun, and Thunderbolt) are not present in Quake II . The six new weapons are
5508-430: The podcast was recorded every fortnight . Participants discussed the games they had been playing and news from the industry, and answered questions submitted via Twitter . The podcast began again in March 2016 with a new episode being released weekly. The American edition of PC Gamer launched in 1994. In 1999, Future US, then known as Imagine Media, purchased the rival magazine PC Games and merged its staff into
5589-465: The soundtrack. The game was released on a bonus disc included with Quake 4 Special Edition for the PC, along with both expansion packs. This version lacks the soundtrack. Quake II is available on a bonus disc with the Xbox 360 version of Quake 4 . This version is a direct port featuring the original soundtrack and multiplayer maps. In 2015, Quake II: Quad Damage , a bundle containing the original game with
5670-492: The switch. The blog has since been regularly updated with contributions from many of the magazine's staff. The topics discussed range from the controversy over violent video games, to the benefits of buying a PC over a console. In 2010, PC Gamer re-launched their website and blog by bringing together the online communities of both the US and UK magazines into one website. As a result, the PC Gamer blog now has contributions from both
5751-568: The team at id decided to stick with Quake II and forgo the Gothic Lovecraftian horror theme from the original in favor of a more sci-fi aesthetic. It was a conscious decision [to change Quake II ' s direction] and controversial inside the company. We weren't happy with the [original] Quake story. [John] Romero was gone, so there was no one left to defend it. Kevin Cloud headed up Quake II and he wanted to make it story-driven. The game
5832-456: The three levels present in the original Quake II demo, but can be used to play the full game if its data files are available. Unlike in most games, ray tracing is used extensively here for lighting, reflections, etc. This is only possible because of the otherwise low hardware demands of Quake II . Quake II released on December 9, 1997, in the United States and on December 12 in Europe. Despite
5913-517: The title, Quake II is a sequel to the original Quake in name only. The scenario, enemies, and theme are separate and do not fall into the same continuity as Quake . id initially wanted to set it separately from Quake , but for legal reasons (most of their suggested names were already taken), they decided to use the working title. Quake II was adopted as a name to leverage the popularity of Quake according to Jennell Jaquays . Quake II has been released on Steam , but this version does not include
5994-463: Was a senior narrative designer for the Hardsuit Labs project Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 until she left the project following the departure of Brian Mitsoda and Ka'ai Cluney. In June 2021, it was announced that she, alongside Brian Mitsoda, had joined The Fermi Paradox development team at Anomaly Games. PC Gamer PC Gamer is a magazine and website founded in
6075-492: Was composed by Aubrey Hodges , credited as Ken "Razor" Richmond. Since the release of the Quake II engine's source code , several updates from third-party projects to the game engine have been created; the most prominent of these are projects focused on graphical enhancements to the game such as most notable Yamagi Quake II, Quake2maX, EGL, Quake II Evolved, and KMQuake II. The source release also revealed numerous security flaws which can result in remote compromise of both
6156-572: Was developed with a 13-person team. Activision obtained the worldwide distribution rights to the game in May 1997. Artist and co-owner Adrian Carmack had said that Quake II is his favorite game in the series because "it was different and a cohesive project". This is the last id Software game to feature American McGee as he was fired shortly after its release. Unlike Quake , where hardware-accelerated graphics controllers were supported only with later patches , Quake II came with OpenGL support out of
6237-482: Was easier to select custom player models, skins, and sound effects because they could be selected from an in-game menu. Mods for the game include Action Quake from 1999. PC Gaming World ' s Simon Quirk wrote of the game, "The Action Quake team fancied a multiplayer-only total conversion of Quake II where strategy, accuracy, and cool-looking fights would dominate." Quake II received very positive reviews across all platforms. Next Generation reviewed
6318-462: Was released alongside the floppy disk edition from issue 11 onwards with the first CD Gamer containing all the content from the previous 10 issues' floppy discs. The single CD was later expanded to two CDs. An edition with a 9 GB DVD known as DVD Gamer ran alongside the 2CD edition for a couple of years, until production of the CD Gamer edition ceased as of issue 162. The UK Edition then only came with
6399-503: Was released by id Software under the GPL license on December 21, 2001. Quake II received critical acclaim on its release, and similarly to its predecessor is generally considered to be one of the best video games ever made. An "enhanced" version of Quake II developed by Nightdive Studios was released for Nintendo Switch , PlayStation 4 , PlayStation 5 , Microsoft Windows , Xbox One , Xbox Series X/S on August 10, 2023. It includes
6480-425: Was released for Nintendo Switch , PlayStation 4 , PlayStation 5 , Microsoft Windows , Xbox One , Xbox Series X/S on August 10, 2023, during QuakeCon . It collects the full single-player campaign alongside all previously released official expansions and multiplayer maps. It is the first console version of the game to be presented in native widescreen at a resolution of 1080p and 60 frames-per-second performance on
6561-519: Was started to coincide with the transfer of the PC Gamer UK site to become part of the Computer and Video Games network which incorporates all of Future plc's gaming magazines. The move brought some controversy, with many long-standing members of the forum leaving due to the new forum's cramped spacing, advertising and slow loading times. The introduction of a blog was seen as one of the redeeming features of
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