This on the other hand?

I really badly wanted to enjoy this, but this is just so dull, The hallways. the long backtracking, the weapons, even the Quad Damage felt so bland here.

TBH, I actually was getting tired when trying to complete this, I thought I was going through some sort of game burnout, but then I turn Quake 1 on? I immediately was hooked again there.

The worst part of all of this? This remaster is apparently superior to the original Q2, I could only imagine how it felt there.

I expected great things from Quake, but even then I was blown away by the enjoyment I received from it. This game is really damn good, full of iconic map designs and the way it plays around with the environment is actually genius. I love satisfyingly using the guns against the grouping hordes of enemies, and using the environment to my advantage or to my challenge. The map design works as one full level has a bunch of sections separated by two doors, each with a loading screen, and it expects you to backtrack while mostly feeling natural in doing so. However, by the later levels backtracking started taking a while and I found myself getting lost more than once. This is because the levels are increasing in size and getting more convoluted, so this is normal. I have found secrets without even trying to find secrets, as it just felt natural to see them there, and in my eyes that's positive for well made map design by clear veterans in the industry. The guns are all satisfying, but as old boomer shooters did there were a bunch I ended up avoiding using which is the Blaster, the Shotgun, and the Machine Gun. There was more than enough ammo for defeating every enemy, as there are a ton of guns to choose from each using differing ammo that appears quite literally everywhere. I found myself slowly liking the Grenade Launcher despite it needing a bit of getting used to, since ammo was everywhere and I never ran out of it every time I wanted to use it. The rest of the guns were used as much as possible, as more enemies were getting introduced. In later stages, there starts to be more and more tankier enemies to the point it would feel a little bit tedious to fight them at times as there would be too many of them, but that feeling only happened twice and right after I dealt with them it went away. This is easily my favorite boomer shooter that came before 2000, play it no matter who you are!

NOTE THIS IS A REVIEW OF THE REMASTER AND ALL ITS CAMPAIGNS NOT JUST BASE QUAKE 2

Honestly, the only thing in here truly worth your time is Call of the Machine. Quake 2 itself just kinda completely took out everything I loved about Quake 1 to become a purely scifi shooter with bad enemy design and level design, the reckoning turns this all up to 11, ground zeroes is goodish but its still got a lot of issues present, Quake 2 N64 is fascinating but is still pretty bland, but Call of the Machine is marvelous. Legitimately one of the best FPS campaigns i've played and I'm amazed they managed to squeeze that much blood out of the stone that is Quake 2. Would highly recommend just for Call of the machine. Otherwise, not really my thing and its frustrating to say that considering how I now know how good it could have been.

5/10