An official two-map add-on for Quake by the senior level designer at MachineGames brings a ton of cute little surprises that feel like they shouldn't have been allowed to squeeze through the corporate release pipeline. When the Ranger said stuff like "oopsie" and "take that u evil zombie" via the on-screen message prompt I kinda rolled my eyes, but the gimmick eventually becomes a dependable in-game hint system that improves Quake's accessibility for new and rusty returning players by imitating decino's iconic tone of voice. "What did that button do?" has been a constant headache for me in id Software's early games, and the usual sound effects tells aren't particularly reliable when you have tin-shit hearing and are playing on a handheld that only puts out baby decibels. It may seem condescending at first to be told (roughly) where to go next, but I grew to appreciate the Ranger's internal monologue advising me that a door wouldn't open until later later in the level or that he could hear bars moving below us when I flipped a switch. (Of course, a cursory glance across the web shows me that certain hardcore Quake fans are affronted that anyone would dare to make their game anything other than dark, dismal and depressing at all times.)

As with all Quake add-ons that don't modify the core gameplay, the main problem here is that you have to deal with the base weapons, monsters and damage outputs. Maybe I'm just forever knee-deep in DOOM's gamefeel, but regular zombiemen taking multiple super shotgun blasts to the face will simply never feel right to me. Spongey enemies may have made sense in 1996 when game designers had to find longevity in small enemy counts in order to guarantee solid performance, but these days I'd take the Arcane Dimensions balance-sheet any day of the week - it's hard to go back to ol' chunk & thunk when you've tasted the triple-barrel... I know it's technically possible to have AD in the official source port (hell, the modding gods got it working on day 1 lol), and I'd simply love to see it accessible to the non-technical masses - this heavily-customised add-on looks like a step in that direction. Good on id Software and MachineGames for giving a shit about the classics.