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A Nobody

What Do You Think Of Quake's Expansions?

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Quake has two mission packs. Mission Pack 1 is Scourge of Armagon, and that is my favorite. Mission Pack 2 is Dissolution of Eternity. Scourge is more on the tech side of things. It's more sci-fi, while Dissolution is more medieval. Scourge reminds me of Quake 2 in some ways.

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The bouncing blob monster was annoying af, but otherwise the mission packs were very good.  I bought Quake in the big purple box which came with Quake and the two mission packs (way back in time when people bought games from shops, heh).  As I recall, some levels were better than the original game, and they had better finales, plus the new scorpion-like monster was a nice addition.

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Both were much better than Quake, except for the music, which is painfully repetitive and doesn't seem to differ between the two packs. Fortunately I played all of Quake 1 and 2 without music when they came out (the CD player just wouldn't work). Anyway, I consider the level design of both superior to Quake's basic and monotonous style.

 

Scourge of Armagon has a more visible progression in its structure, starting with a full techbase (richer in features than the base game's) and then going into Quake's world.

 

Dissolution of Eternity is the more "evil" pack, which throws you directly into Quake. I think it was made by the same studio who made Strife, and quite indeed, after playing Strife, the missions tend to look similarly designed. It's more homogeneous than Scourge, and has a much more powerful boss. It also makes liberal use of the Spawn, unlike Scourge which was too shy about it.

 

Both mission packs have quakes. I found it baffling that Quake, Quake III Arena and Quake 4 had no actual earthquakes. Misleading names. It would have worked, because earthquakes are always sources of distress.

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I liked the laser cannon and lava nails. Don't remember much about the levels. The enemies that stole weapons from player were kinda funny.

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I loved Scourge of Armagon when I played it many years ago. Really cool map designs.

 

The new hammer weapon was a bit disappointing though. I remember it wasting a lot of ammo for its attack and not being very devastating. Maybe I have to play it again.

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Loved Scourge of Armagon for its theming and new weapons.  Dissolution of Eternity, not as much, but still enjoyable.  Bonus points for the Egyptian motif in the latter expansion, as I've got a weakness to that kind of thing.

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Both are enjoyable. Especially Scourge of Armagon (which I vastly prefer over vanilla Quake campaign).

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They're okay and good.

 

DoE was mostly just more of the same, but SoA brought some new things to the table and that made it quite fun.

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Just now, seed said:

DoE was mostly just more of the same, but SoA brought some new things to the table and that made it quite fun.

Personally I found DoE is harder due to the level designs and that god dang Hell Spawn... Overall, SoA is more enjoyable to me as you said.

 

On topic, they are pretty good.

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the hammer didn'T do much. iirc it was inspired by romero's comments during the development of quake that the player would wield a warhammer.

 

the gremlins were fun though, and the map design nice and creative. iirc a lighter take on the quake theme. i preferred it over dissolution. all i remember was how it had enemies that ate my ammo like popcorn, and lots of buzzsaws and other pointy things. hm, i should give them a try after so many years, especially armagon. and that armagon chicken was fun because he could lead his rockets. 

 

and there was a third mission pack, abyss of pandemonium

 

https://www.moddb.com/mods/abyss-of-pandemonium/downloads/aop-the-final-mission-v20

 

 

 

Edited by Pirx

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I remember Scourge of Armagon being good, and Dissolution of Eternity less so. But for the latter, I did love that map with the buzzsaws on the floors and ceilings in corridors, gibbing Ogres and dogs alike! Hilarious!

 

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I thought the mission packs were pretty cool. I bought them back when they first released. I haven't played them in a long time. I do remember liking the multi-grenades and the ogres that used them, the map with the buzzsaw traps and yeah, now I want to play through them again. Hmmm what was that map with the air duct tubes that sucked you into other rooms and shit, that was fun.

 

1 hour ago, Pirx said:

and there was a third mission pack, abyss of pandemonium

 

Wait what?? I didn't know about that...

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The weapons in Dissolution of Eternity always felt rather cheesy, more like a modder's first steps in QuakeC. And what's up with the modified super nail gun sprite with the arrow that looks like someone did the texture in 2 minutes in MS Paint.

 

1 hour ago, Pirx said:

and there was a third mission pack, abyss of pandemonium

 

That wasn't official, though. I.e. just one more set of maps in the sea of maps.

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I own the Quake 1 and 2 games and expansions on GOG but have yet to give them a shot, is Quake 2's addons as awful as they're made out to be? Something about ceiling turrets?

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@mrthejoshmon Q2's first expansion isn't bad, the new weapons aren't too exciting IMO and the gorilla-bear things you fight at the start look pretty goofy, but the level design is decent overall. Worth playing if you like the main campaign.

 

The 2nd expansion does have annoying turrets, as well as some new bullet-sponge enemies. It's not outright terrible but it is frustrating.

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I played them recently in my Quake fest, and I remember being relatively unimpressed. Scourge of Armagon has some good moments, but there's also signs the designers didn't understand Quake too well. Rocket launcher in the first level? Really? Speedrunner's wet dream, at least... (To be fair on this point, you do lose it a few levels down the line, the game incorporates some inventory resets) Megahealth secret right at the end of a level? I guess they didn't realize megahealth doesn't carry over across levels... The new monsters did their job and felt interesting enough, new weapons were kinda interesting, if not the most effective.

 

Dissolution of Eternity... levels were okay I guess, but the weapons were kinda abysmal in my eyes, given that the majority of them were just tweaked versions of the base weapons. Quake itself had that problem (the super nailgun is exactly the same as the nailgun, but it uses 2x ammo and does 2x damage per shot), but now in addition to having the nailgun and super nailgun, we now have the super nailgun but it's lava themed and the super super nailgun. Very creative...

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43 minutes ago, SaladBadger said:

Quake itself had that problem (the super nailgun is exactly the same as the nailgun, but it uses 2x ammo and does 2x damage per shot), but now in addition to having the nailgun and super nailgun, we now have the super nailgun but it's lava themed and the super super nailgun. Very creative...

Let's all agree that the super nailgun is not creative and is merely an upgrade rather than its own thing. id Software could have made it fire explosives and give it its own ammo pool. Something like the devastator from Duke Nukem 3D, but sadly that wasn't the case. Weapons should not be upgrades of each other, id Software. Remember Classic Doom with the pistol and gatling gun? Yeah. I think they still carried this over with Doom 4 and Eternal. Culprits in that game? The shotgun and combat shotgun (double-barreled).

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1 hour ago, mrthejoshmon said:

I love Quake 2 and didn't want to sully it, I think I'll give them a whirl.

 

I think the Quake 2 expansions are well worth playing through.

 

There was also this Zaero expansion thing that was sold commercially at some point. I never did play it, despite having downloaded it a couple years ago.

 

The one to avoid is Juggernaut. That was also sold commercially and I bought it way back when. The textures alone are fugly as hell and the end was never finished. The mutant monkeys look stupid and the bird bat things shooting lazers.... lol.

 

 

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Since people are including Quake 2's expansions as well, I'll mention something:

 

In the main Quake 2 game, I always thought the Brains (the walking robot-like Strogg with binocular eyes and the chest that opens up filled with tentacles and their long spindly arms that reach up when they die, also with their green shields) were practically BROKEN in that form, and one of the Q2 mission packs beefed them up tremendously, where they were now a very real threat to the player. Good move on whoever did that!

 

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1 hour ago, Doom_Dude said:

 

I think the Quake 2 expansions are well worth playing through.

 

There was also this Zaero expansion thing that was sold commercially at some point. I never did play it, despite having downloaded it a couple years ago.

 

The one to avoid is Juggernaut. That was also sold commercially and I bought it way back when. The textures alone are fugly as hell and the end was never finished. The mutant monkeys look stupid and the bird bat things shooting lazers.... lol.

 

 

Jesus, you trying to tell me Head Games made a Quake 2 expansion and it is just as awful as everything else they made?

 

This I absolutely must play.

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Has anyone fond memories of two of the unofficial quake commercial mods, shrak and malice?

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25 minutes ago, Jon said:

Has anyone fond memories of two of the unofficial quake commercial mods, shrak and malice?

 

Never heard of 'em. And that shows how unofficial they were.

 

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I definitely prefer Scourge of Armagon before Dissolution. SoA has much better level design, the maps are much more atmospheric and fun to me. My favorite maps include The Crypt, The Black Cathedral, Limbo and The Gauntlet. All great and very memorable maps.

 

DoE is still pretty good though.

 

Since we're mentioning Q2's expansions, I don't think Ground Zero deserve the hate it gets. I think the maps are generally well done and there's some really great stuff in it like Tectonic Stabilizer, Munitions Plant, Research Hangar and some more. The turrets, especially the rocket one, is very challenging though and requires careful play which I guess drags down the pace a bit from that of the original game and the first expansion. I do think Ground Zero offers slightly more beautiful and detailed maps than those from The Reckoning.

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I've played Shrak and Malice.  I still have the Malice CD, not sure what happened to Shrak.  I don't remember what they were like aside from small details, but I don't think the level design was on par with Quake or the mission packs.  I did win a contest involving Shrak though - I believe it was by the creators and they asked for proof from players that had found the secret level, which entered you into a drawing for various prizes.  I won a sound card.  Admittedly I was hoping for a graphics card since OpenGL was a big deal around that time but I can't complain. :P

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21 minutes ago, Vile said:

I've played Shrak and Malice.  I still have the Malice CD, not sure what happened to Shrak.  I don't remember what they were like aside from small details, but I don't think the level design was on par with Quake or the mission packs.  I did win a contest involving Shrak though - I believe it was by the creators and they asked for proof from players that had found the secret level, which entered you into a drawing for various prizes.  I won a sound card.  Admittedly I was hoping for a graphics card since OpenGL was a big deal around that time but I can't complain. :P

Congratulations. :)

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6 hours ago, mrthejoshmon said:

Jesus, you trying to tell me Head Games made a Quake 2 expansion and it is just as awful as everything else they made?

 

This I absolutely must play.

 

Haha, yes it's pretty awful. I look forward to your review. ;)

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