Quake II Remastered

[BGreener]

@Rudolph Quake 2 doesn’t make it too easy, unfortunately. If anything (and this is hard, pure, 110% ‘out me bum’ speculation) I could see there being a chance at supporting a few select vanilla-compatible maps - all of which should be playable as-is through Nightdive’s new port (I think water and translucent textures might render weirdly on occasion).

 

You may sadly be SOL if you want to play custom maps on a console; I have no experience in that field and couldn’t help ya.

[Lila Feuer]

That's one particularly bad thing about Q2 is it isn't anywhere near the modularity of the first game. For example I can just drop the PAK files into a source port folder for Q1 and be done with it, but Q2 requires numerous dll files and often the exe itself is patched or replaced.

[Rudolph]

26 minutes ago, BGreener said:

@Rudolph Quake 2 doesn’t make it too easy, unfortunately. If anything (and this is hard, pure, 110% ‘out me bum’ speculation) I could see there being a chance at supporting a few select vanilla-compatible maps - all of which should be playable as-is through Nightdive’s new port (I think water and translucent textures might render weirdly on occasion).

 

You may sadly be SOL if you want to play custom maps on a console; I have no experience in that field and couldn’t help ya.

So it is sort of a miracle that we were able to get Call of the Machine in the first place?

 

I was considering checking out Zaero, since I hear it is the best unofficial expansion pack.

[BGreener]

18 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

So it is sort of a miracle that we were able to get Call of the Machine in the first place?

 

I was considering checking out Zaero, since I hear it is the best unofficial expansion pack.

Modding and configuring it isn’t impossible, it’s just rigid and not very accessible. You have to be comfortable with C if you just want to edit something like the Q2 shotgun real quick. If you want to do the same thing for Doom 3, just grab a text editor and your preferred unpacker and just start messing with stuff.

 

Zaero’s nice but I think most of the enemies use the initial AI. The new enemies aren’t too shabby.

[Koko Ricky]

9 hours ago, Individualised said:

Saturn Quake does not use the Quake engine, and its custom engine does not re-implement Quake so it doesn't use actual Quake maps. All of the maps in Saturn Quake have been recreated from the ground up.

I've watched a couple reviews of Saturn Quake, though none have gone into technical details. I'm curious as to its development, not only because Lobotomy Software powered all their ports with the SlaveDriver engine, but also because the Saturn used quads instead of tris.  This fundamentally changes how 3D models are constructed, and I'd love to hear more about how this affected development.

[Captain Toenail]

I 100% this a few weeks ago. Just wanted to say really I loved this. Quake II is one of my favourite games and it was so good to play through all of it again. Loved the new maps. Never played Quake2 64 before so that was very interesting. I agree the tie in with the first Quake felt a bit contrived and disappointing (2 Shamblers in a closet, really?) Otherwise very happy with this. The Berserkers with spring boots didn't really bother me at all to be honest. They were not much of a threat before and the new ability adds all sorts of hilarious scenarios (jumping into lava lol).

[Rudolph]

5 minutes ago, Captain Toenail said:

The Berserkers with spring boots didn't really bother me at all to be honest. They were not much of a threat before and the new ability adds all sorts of hilarious scenarios (jumping into lava lol).

I too like that they are able to reach quickly, I just wish the ground stomp would not launch me into the air; I fell into many inescapable death pits because of it.

[Kinsie]

13 hours ago, Rudolph said:

Crap. Well, that is a shame. Those Quake 1 addons sure look impressive and it would have been cool to get some for Quake II too. Oh well.

There aren't really a lot of modern Quake 2 mapsets to mine for Official Addons in the first place, sadly. Hopefully the new tools and remaster improve the situation.

[Rudolph]

Was the Medic enemy always this lackluster? This is the first time I play Quake II in ages, so I cannot quite remember their vanilla behavior, yet I cannot help but be disappointed: they are not very effective at resurrecting fellow Stroggs and their attack is kind of laughable. I am not necessarily expecting them to be on par with Doom's Arch-Vile, but even the Parasite is deadlier and more panic-inducing than it.

[BGreener]

They haven’t been boosted a whole lot for the remaster from what I understand, just a small boost against the railgun.

 

And honestly, eh…That’s fine with me. Have a couple patrol out to a place where everyone got wrecked and they can still cause some trouble; it’s fun when you can hear them resurrecting baddies off in the distance. For some real fire-starting, there’s the medic commandos.

[Tetzlaff]

2 hours ago, Rudolph said:

Was the Medic enemy always this lackluster? ... I am not necessarily expecting them to be on par with Doom's Arch-Vile, but even the Parasite is deadlier and more panic-inducing than it.

 

He is not supposed to be the Strogg Arch-Vile or something similar. He's a tactical enemy to be combined with other enemies. Best used when he's just one room ahead and starts resurrecting, when you are to re-enter a room or just left and he comes in through a hidden closet or something similar.

[Devalaous]

5 hours ago, Rudolph said:

Was the Medic enemy always this lackluster?

 

They used to have issues with actually reviving enemies, now they actually make a beeline for a corpse and revive it. At least, for me they do.

[Murdoch]

Bit confused by the comments about Quake 2 addons. Why would there be an issue with just maps? They don't require custom dlls.

[Rudolph]

So what is the most effective weapon against shielded enemies now? I gathered that the Hyperblaster works wonders in that regard, but since they share the same ammo pool as the Power Shield, I am reluctant to use it. Are there other worthwhile options?

[Dark Pulse]

On 9/21/2023 at 6:46 AM, mhmh said:

 

My memory from the time is that the claim was that geometry was simplified and texture resolution reduced in order to fit on the limited storage available to the N64.  Some of the best maps in the base game were also removed, which was a bigger shame.  PC Quake 1 consisted of pak0.pak and pak1.pak, which totalled about 50mb.  N64 cartridges could hold up to 64mb of data, and there is of course some content in the game that didn't go into the PAK files, including the music, and the addition of coloured light to the maps would have made them somewhat larger, so it seems it would have been right on the limit whichever way you cut it.  Personally I would have preferred no coloured light and better texture or geometry detail, but I'd guess the developers wanted to add something that wasn't in the PC version instead.

To be very clear here, while games DID reach 64 MB on the N64, very, very few games ever were that big. In fact, only five were - Conker's Bad Fur Day (most of the speech is MP3s!), Pokemon Stadium 2, Resident Evil 2, Sim City 64, and Majora's Mask. Apparently the PAL version of Paper Mario is also 64 MB, to accommodate the multiple languages. (The NTSC releases are about 40 MB.)

 

The vast majority of N64 games (~80% of the library) were around 8-16 MB. If you'd like a proper breakdown:

• 32 Mb/4 MB: 8
• 64 Mb/8 MB: 89
• 96 Mb/12 MB: 116 (Quake and Quake II are in this category)
• 128 Mb/16 MB: 119
• 160 Mb/20 MB: 1
• 192 Mb/24 MB: 3
• 224 Mb/28 MB: 4
• 256 Mb/32 MB: 49
• 320 Mb/40 MB: 2
• 512 Mb/64 MB: 5

Fun fact: You could fit the entire collection of ROMs from every single region onto a single 32 GB Nintendo Switch gamecard with ease and still have plenty of GB to spare. Crazy times we live in.

 

On 9/21/2023 at 6:46 AM, mhmh said:

The bigger limit of the N64 was 4mb of memory.  PC software Quake was designed around a MS-DOS machine with a minimum of 8mb of memory. so something would have had to be cut to fit, and again it seems that reducing texture resolution and geometry detail was what was chosen.  The N64 did have an expansion pack which increased it's memory to 8mb, but there may have been unwillingness to make it mandatory.  It was a mandatory requirement for some later games, but I can't remember if Q2 64 required it or not.

Q2 did not require it, but IIRC, having it rendered the game with better color depth and either resolution or framerate than if you did not have it.

 

5 hours ago, Rudolph said:

So what is the most effective weapon against shielded enemies now? I gathered that the Hyperblaster works wonders in that regard, but since they share the same ammo pool as the Power Shield, I am reluctant to use it. Are there other worthwhile options?

Super Shotgun will still do just fine overall. If you can sneak attack them, that does even more damage - especially since shields are really only from the front.

[Lila Feuer]

Power Shield barely uses cells, it is a very powerful armor item, then again there is little armor pickups in Q2 compared to its predecessor, I've done power armor-less playthroughs, including on hard+ and it is not that fun mostly just eating damage due to poorly maintained armor. The shielded enemies are more susceptible to energy damage eating through in the remaster, whereas before in the original it nullified all damage. If it's just a power screen however you should use explosives and detonate around and behind them as it negates the power screen entirely.

[TasAcri]

35 minutes ago, Dark Pulse said:

Fun fact: You could fit the entire collection of ROMs from every single region onto a single 32 GB Nintendo Switch gamecard with ease and still have plenty of GB to spare. Crazy times we live in.

 

The whole library is around 4GB archived. You could fit the whole thing in a PS2 DVD, in 2001.

 

Also, ever since the N64 was released, there were always hard disks available that could fit it's entire released library at any given moment. And you didn't even need to get the biggest ones in the market.

 

Anyway, i don't think Sim City 64 counts since it's a 64DD game and not a cartridge.

 

Edited September 24, 2023 by TasAcri

[Dark Pulse]

1 hour ago, TasAcri said:

The whole library is around 4GB archived. You could fit the whole thing in a PS2 DVD, in 2001.

 

Also, ever since the N64 was released, there were always hard disks available that could fit it's entire released library at any given moment. And you didn't even need to get the biggest ones in the market.

 

Anyway, i don't think Sim City 64 counts since it's a 64DD game and not a cartridge.

Whoops, SimCity 64 slipped by me. Yeah, 64DD games don't count since all those games are 64 MB disks. The point was still to impress that 64 MB carts were pretty friggin' rare though - really only EOL on the system.

 

And I'm quite aware that you could fit all those games on a hard disk, though it sure as shit ain't 4 GB for a collection. A No-Intro set from 2014 is about 11 GB. Maybe it's 4 GB if you get just one region, but that doesn't count as a full collection for the system.

 

I just find it amusing that technology has now advanced to the point you could do it on a chip the size of your fingernail. :P

[TasAcri]

2 hours ago, Dark Pulse said:

And I'm quite aware that you could fit all those games on a hard disk, though it sure as shit ain't 4 GB for a collection. A No-Intro set from 2014 is about 11 GB. Maybe it's 4 GB if you get just one region, but that doesn't count as a full collection for the system.

 

Yeah, if you keep only the US roms you need less than 4GB.

 

No-Intro has each region/version of a game as a separate file. This wastes space though. The Goodmerged set, however, has a single archive per game and inside that archive there are all known versions of each game, which compresses better. That includes regions, hacks, different dumps, bad dumps, prototypes, older released versions, etc. The set is still 6GB so it won't fit in a single layer DVD, unless you just delete all the junk and keep the good roms or use a dual layer DVD :P

 

Anyway, sorry for the off-topic talk.

 

Getting back on-topic, is there's any info about a patch releasing soon? I'd like to play the game but not if a patch is released while being in the middle of my playthrough...

[Dark Pulse]

2 hours ago, TasAcri said:

Yeah, if you keep only the US roms you need less than 4GB.

 

No-Intro has each region/version of a game as a separate file. This wastes space though. The Goodmerged set, however, has a single archive per game and inside that archive there are all known versions of each game, which compresses better. That includes regions, hacks, different dumps, bad dumps, prototypes, older released versions, etc. The set is still 6GB so it won't fit in a single layer DVD, unless you just delete all the junk and keep the good roms or use a dual layer DVD :P

 

Anyway, sorry for the off-topic talk.

 

Getting back on-topic, is there's any info about a patch releasing soon? I'd like to play the game but not if a patch is released while being in the middle of my playthrough...

Problem with Goodmerge is that while it's great for saving space, it's atrocious for actually playing the games. I've never liked Goodmerged sets for exactly that reason - rather than just throwing your file at it and go, you have to unzip all the damn files anyway, because virtually no emulator (if any?) out there will actually be able to read multiple files from a single zip file and let you pick which one out of it you want to load.

 

Split sets might consume more space, but they sure as hell are basically just "ready to go." And with the advent of stuff like 7Zip being supported in more and more emulators, there's at least some space savings (since they never mass-adopted RAR due to it being a closed format, even though unRARing files was always public knowledge - only creating them is a secret).

[Kinsie]

11 hours ago, Dark Pulse said:

To be very clear here, while games DID reach 64 MB on the N64, very, very few games ever were that big. In fact, only five were - Conker's Bad Fur Day (most of the speech is MP3s!), Pokemon Stadium 2, Resident Evil 2, Sim City 64, and Majora's Mask. Apparently the PAL version of Paper Mario is also 64 MB, to accommodate the multiple languages. (The NTSC releases are about 40 MB.)

sometimes i think i'm talking to myself

 

On 9/21/2023 at 10:24 PM, Kinsie said:

They could, but also Nintendo controlled all cartridge manufacturing (including how much they cost and minimum order amounts) and 64mb carts were crazy bonkers expensive, especially compared to 600+mb CD-ROMs on other platforms.

 

There were only four 64mb games released in the N64's lifetime: Conker's Bad Fur Day, Pokemon Stadium 2, Resident Evil 2 and the European multi-language version of Paper Mario.

(Majora's Mask was 32mb. SimCity 64 was a 64DD game, and 64mb was the only media size available on that system.)

[Beginner]

On 9/23/2023 at 7:18 PM, Rudolph said:

Was the Medic enemy always this lackluster? This is the first time I play Quake II in ages, so I cannot quite remember their vanilla behavior, yet I cannot help but be disappointed: they are not very effective at resurrecting fellow Stroggs and their attack is kind of laughable. I am not necessarily expecting them to be on par with Doom's Arch-Vile, but even the Parasite is deadlier and more panic-inducing than it.

Well, they're slower on resurrecting and gibbed enemies can't be brought back to life at all, so... yeah, they're kind of weak. On the other hand medics from the expansion are absolute pain the ass.

[mhmh]

On 9/21/2023 at 1:24 PM, Kinsie said:

They could, but also Nintendo controlled all cartridge manufacturing (including how much they cost and minimum order amounts) and 64mb carts were crazy bonkers expensive, especially compared to 600+mb CD-ROMs on other platforms. 

 

There were only four 64mb games released in the N64's lifetime: Conker's Bad Fur Day, Pokemon Stadium 2, Resident Evil 2 and the European multi-language version of Paper Mario. 

 

Thanks for comfirming; I wasn't sure what cartridge sizes Q1 and Q2 used and had just assumed they would be on the high side.  There must have been some serious compression going on with them.  I'd also forgotten how expensive memory was for a short while back then.

[Kinsie]

1 hour ago, mhmh said:

There must have been some serious compression going on with them.

I mean, they're one of the few cartridge games out there with actual no-bullshit load times on them!

 

I think Wipeout 64 has them too, but I haven't checked.

[Rudolph]

4 hours ago, Beginner said:

Well, they're slower on resurrecting and gibbed enemies can't be brought back to life at all, so... yeah, they're kind of weak. On the other hand medics from the expansion are absolute pain the ass.

Part of me wishes Night Dive had replaced phased out the Medic in favor of the Medic Commander, like they did with the Brains.

 

At least, on the higher difficulty settings.

[scalliano]

8 hours ago, Kinsie said:

I think Wipeout 64 has them too, but I haven't checked.

Yes.

[BGreener]

8 hours ago, Rudolph said:

Part of me wishes Night Dive had replaced phased out the Medic in favor of the Medic Commander, like they did with the Brains.

 

At least, on the higher difficulty settings.

Part of me is with you right there in wanting a cvar to test it out. The other part of me is keeping things in check because upgrading all medics to medic commanders would SERIOUSLY and SEVERELY overtune them…! I’ve played a few custom maps lately that due a good job utilizing them as-is and turning them into commanders would spike the difficulty like crazy.

 

Does anyone know if there’s an option to place “original brain AI” in custom levels?

[Jayextee]

I swear the latter half of Ground Zero devolved into a combination of turret-removal before most encounters and corpse removal (or gibbification) after the fact for roughly half of my playing time, so no. Absolutely not. Medic Commanders can get fucked.

[Lila Feuer]

They essentially become the goddamn Pain Elemental of Q2. Not the D2 kind; the D64 kind, so I make sure to have a BFG shot or two ready at any given time to delete the monster, otherwise you're overwhelmed in a matter of moments.

[Rudolph]

2 hours ago, BGreener said:

Part of me is with you right there in wanting a cvar to test it out. The other part of me is keeping things in check because upgrading all medics to medic commanders would SERIOUSLY and SEVERELY overtune them…!

Well, I am still early in Ground Zero, so I have to encounter the Medic Commander myself.

 

Maybe I will end up eating those words when I do...