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This is Id Software's second entry in the Quake series. The connections with the first Quake are extremely loose. Quake 2 is set in the same universe technically, but you'll be fighting a much different enemy. In this game, Earth has been decimated by an invading alien cyborg race, the Strogg. They have come for Earth's resources, and not just metal or rock, but flesh and bone as well. They are turning humanity into cyborgs and raw organic material to feed their ever expanding war machine. Now its your chance to strike back.
The game begins as your carrier ship enters orbit above the Strogg homeworld, but things soon go wrong and your drop pod crashes to the surface. You are alone behind enemy lines. Can you survive? What's more, can you complete your mission or is humanity doomed?
Quake 2's gameplay is largely similar to Id's other previous titles - find weapons and ammo, kill monsters, find key, open door, profit. Where Quake 2 differs is primarily the engine and level progression. Quake 2 introduced colored lighting and hardware acceleration, interpolated model animation (smooth model motion as opposed to Quake's at the time choppy animation), and a hub-style level system where the game is divided into large units, with each unit having several interconnected levels. In addition, you are provided with mission objectives by your computer uplink. Completing one objective may open up a second objective, and so on. Once a unit's primary objective is complete and you exit the unit a cut scene is played with a status update and new orders regarding the primary objective for the new unit. While you are isolated you are still part of an overall military campaign. There are no NPC's to help you, though you can play in Coop mode with friends to bring additional firepower to the fight.
Weapon-wise you start out with a blaster pistol that has unlimited ammunition but a slow fire rate and inflicts minimal damage. You'll want something better. Fortunately the only way to go from there is up. You'll soon find a shotgun and throwable hand grenades. There's a super-shotgun that deals twice the damage at the cost of twice the shells, a lightweight machinegun that tends to be a little hard to control, a massive enemy-shredding chaingun, a launcher for those grenades, a rocket launcher, a hyperblaster that fires bolts like your blaster pistol but uses energy cells to shred through enemy armor, a railgun that liquefies all but the strongest enemies in its path, and the mighty BFG10K which provides an enemy filled room with a new red paint job. In addition to weapons you'll find several items and powerups such as health packs, armor, adrenaline that instantly heals you and increases your max health, and a powerful energy shield that significantly reduces incoming damage at the cost of energy cells. You'll have to choose between firing that BFG or taking hits. The epic Quad Damage powerup returns, along with an invulnerability artifact, as well as a weapon silencer, a rebreather to keep you from drowning, and an envirosuit for surviving toxic conditions. What's more is you can carry these items in your inventory instead of having to use them right away as in the original Quake. Just be sure to use them at some point as you can only carry one of each item.
Your enemies range from easy to kill guards with built-in prosthetic guns up to lumbering tanks that can withstand a beating, railgun-equipped gladiators that will punch a hole clean through you at a moment's notice, fliers that strafe you with blaster weapons, gunners that either lob rapid-fire grenades at you or fill you full of lead, and berserkers that like to get in close and smack you with arm-mounted spikes and hammers, among others. You will need your full arsenal to effectively deal with them. You will also encounter some boss enemies guarding specific areas. You'll know them when you see them as they will be large, imposing, and rain heavy firepower down on you.
For gameplay modes there's the default single player campaign, a cooperative mode, and a free-for-all deathmatch mode. Beyond the standard modes, Quake 2 supports a large number of third-party mods available for the game. These can transform Quake 2 into a completely different experience. Most are available through moddb.com. Some popular multiplayer mods include bots such as the Gladiator or Eraser bots which allow deathmatch practice, and capture the flag. Quake 2 has a heavy metal soundtrack by Sonic Mayhem - a must have if you are playing single player.
The downsides? The Steam version does not include the soundtrack, and the included Quake2 executable does not behave well with newer OS's such as Windows 10. You will be wanting to use a sourceport like Yamagi to get the best experience on a modern machine. Since it is a 1990's era game the graphics are very dated by today's standards, though there is an RTX port that adds ray-tracing on graphics cards that support it, bringing a completely different look and feel, and various mods to improve the visual quality of the existing graphics. The overall pacing in Quake 2 is much slower than Quake 1, so if you prefer the fast adrenaline rush of the original Quake it may feel a little absent.
If you are into so-called "boomer shooters" or just a fan of FPS games in general this is a must for your library. The Strogg are waiting. Let the gibbing begin!