Quake II

"Not bad but not great"

Quake 2 is one of the better first person shooters out on the big N64 and for good reason.

The graphics are above average, and the monsters are clear and distinguishable. The enemies in this game look incredibly evil, but not quite as good as the ones in the original Quake. The enemies needed more variety because almost all of them are some kind of warped half human half robots. The ending bosses are quite cool and I nearly crapped myself the first time they started shooting at me. One very good thing about the stronger enemies is that they shoot very quick and are very powerful which raises your heart beat when they start firing at you. The enemies aren't very smart and can be blown away by sidestepping out from cover to take a couple shots and then going back. But this takes practice to aim correctly otherwise they'll bust a cap in yo ass.

The atmosphere of the game is noticeably disturbing with the sounds of monsters grunting and fellow soldiers dying. However most of the levels look somewhat similar which gets tiring when you expect to see something new after the next level. However some of the levels are quite memorable like the Prison level which is quite warped and twisted.

The weapons in the game are cool, ranging from a shotgun to a rocket launcher to my favorite the rail gun. Theres nothing as heart pumping as having a railgun fight with a couple of pissed Gladiators I wish there was a hand weapon like the axe from the original Quake but it isn't that big of a deal.

The music isn't much to talk but it adds to the evil atmosphere of the game.

Multiplayer isn't anything special when comparing it to GoldenEye but I still had some fun blowing my friends away, at least for a little while.

Sadly once you beat the game there really isn't much of a reason to play it again so Quake 2 loses a bit of points for replayability. Of course theres the multiplayer experience but like I said I'd rather spend my time playing GoldenEye's multiplayer.

Don't let little kids play this game, there is extreme violence of guys getting blown in pieces, and people being tortured.

The bottom line is I bought this game used and I got my money's worth. Give it a try if you like your action pumped up and violent.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/21/02, Updated 04/21/02