It's pretty cool the included the N64 levels. Those slipped through the cracks for most quakers but from what i understand they were actually pretty decent. It was a good idea to do their own thing around the abilities of the platform rather than try to make a gimped port of the PC version.

This is absolutely banging.

The presence of the N64 campaign and the extra enemies from the Playstation conversion shows just how far above and beyond the Nightdive boys have gone in bringing this oft-maligned game bang up to date.

Also the weapon scroll ISN'T crap anymore

I've seen some posts that existing gamex86.dll's aren't compatible with the new engine.  Since the source was released, as long as someone has the original mod source I'm sure there's a way to port existing mods to work with the new engine.

I do have some nitpicks.  I like playing with the improved enemy AI, however I do think a vanilla option should have been in place to turn off some of the enhancements if someone wants.  Biggest gripe I have is pretty much the same one everyone has had so far.  I get that the Berserker needed some love to make him more dangerous, but that leap attack is just absurd.  His jump speed would make a Quake Fiend jealous, and he can leap pretty much across a map to knock you flying.  It needs some tweaking I think.  It's nothing game-breaking, just a petty nitpick.

There's a lot good though.  The gibs.  Oh the gibs are just glorious.  Every enemy has its own gibs now.  What they did for exploding Fliers and Icarus is just fantastic.

And can we just take credit here for the Adrenaline becoming a holdable item?  Just a little?  We did that first. 

I'm currently  halfway through Ground Zero, and looking forward to seeing the brand new episode soon! I've played a lot more Q1 than Q2, so it's been fun to go back through it start-to-finish. I still think that Q2 probably has the most fun movement physics of the series! And those weapon designs? Perfection!

There are some things that feel off to me though. Without loading up an old copy of the game, I'm going to chalk them up to a faulty memory, but though I'd put it out there anyway. The aforementioned Berserker jump is obviously new, as is the way a lot of enemies react. But beyond that, it feels like some weapons have been nerfed — especially in regards to the railgun's damage output and the way grenades interact with the environment. While others were made "simpler" to use, by making the chaingun spin-up and down quicker, or removing the machinegun's climb. It also seems like exploding barrels have a delay, which often makes them kind of pointless in setups.

I also have to ask... did the stealth mechanic exist before, or is it a wholly new invention? I like it, especially when paired with the previously underwhelming silencer item, but it doesn't feel as though many levels are set up to really make use of it beyond one or two enemies. And speaking of the silencer — adding power-ups to the inventory is neat, but being able to spawn invulnerability and quad damage whenever I want (and at the same time) has made a lot of areas completely trivial, while also removing the fun of areas designed around quad runs.

Some of these things seem like oversights (especially the grenade behavior) and if they're reported, there's a good chance that Nightdive will fix them; Doom 64 and Quake both received patches to fix things that weren't quite right with the engine changes they made, or at least they got "close enough."

Stuff like the chaingun windup/down, machinegun not pushing your aim upwards, and railgun damage were definitely intentional. I personally don't think the chaingun needed a buff, but I never understood the need for that bit on the machinegun. The railgun change seems like someone went "I don't understand why the damage values are different in multiplayer" and figured they were making enough other changes to single player things that they'd just wrap that in, as well; I wonder if that's a change Id intended to make at some point and just never did.

Intentional or not, I definitely echo Pho's want of a way to toggle things back to their original behaviors. Q2R is a large departure from how Nightdive handled D64 and Q1, and while there's clearly a lot of love for the game that went into it, the omission of a full "classic" gameplay option is definitely a thing to be addressed.

Either way, the reception to Quake 2 Remastered has been extremely positive, from what I've been seeing, and I think that's great. The game has been derided by a lot of the talking heads on the internet as slow and mediocre for much of the last 20 years, and it's nice that it's getting its day in the sun again.

That would certainly be nice! 

There was a tweet going around from someone a few days ago stating that multiple studios approached Epic about remastering Unreal back in 2017, and the response they all got was that they had no interest in re-releasing old games because nobody wants to play them. That tweet seems to have been deleted because I can't find it now, but whether or not anyone actually tried to do a remaster, it's currently impossible to purchase any part of the Unreal franchise anymore, so the "no interest in re-releasing old games" part certainly tracks.

I do agree, though, but given part of Nightdive's whole deal is a form of preservation by making these old games as widely available and easily playable as possible (because the average person doesn't want to deal with making source ports work, no matter how simple that process is, if they even know what a source port is in the first place), the inevitable demand of EGS exclusivity would likely be a dealbreaker for them.

Christ I'm good at writing long sentences that somehow aren't actually run-ons.

To be clear, the tweet was claiming that Epic thinks nobody wants to play old games; that wasn't any more true coming from them in 2017 than it was it was when Sony said it in 2013 when people asked if the Playstation 4 would be able to play older Playstation systems' discs.

It is very likely a poorly thought out cover for only wanting the newest UE games to be on the market, though, you're correct about that. At this point I'd settle for a course change and them making the titles as-were available again, because while I'm an admitted supporter of various methods of circumventing a lack of availability 🏴‍☠️ especially when the corporate suits decide not to play ball 🏴‍☠️ that shouldn't be a thing people are required to engage in to play older games.

I think if Epic thought they could make a few bucks they wouldn't oppose the unreal remaster, but honestly i think when it comes to the unreal IP itself i think the slight is deliberate. They couldn't have thought shutting down the unreal servers would be taken as anything but an insult to the fans. I can only guess but i think they probably have a lot of younger hiper people working there now who might see the unreal series as a symbol of "toxic gamer bro culture" because of the inherent competitive nature of arena shooters and were pleased to bite their thumbs at "boomers" like us.