The infamous Ground Zero turrets are significantly nerfed in the NightDive Quake II remaster, however Ground Zero still remains a notch more frustrating than the rest of the expansions. Chiefly due to some particularly cruel encounter design. Still worth engaging with so long as you know what you're getting into. I'd probably have liked it much less were it not for the new compass feature always providing a clear route to the next encounter. Without it I imagine the lack of an ingame map would make figuring out where to actually go with no more than a text blurb commanding you to "Return to the [INDISTINCT TECH BASE #X]" a somewhat directionless and frustrating task.

DOOMATHON entry #11/20
List: https://www.backloggd.com/u/Mariofan717/list/doom--quake-campaigns-ranked/

Fittingly developed by the same team as the previous game's second mission pack, Ground Zero is to The Reckoning more or less what Dissolution of Eternity is to Scourge of Armagon; the new ideas on offer here are generally more distinctive, and not necessarily for good reason. This is still at its core more Quake 2, but this time it's more Quake 2 with like 25% more backtracking and quite possibly the single most obnoxious enemy in this entire marathon, which is really saying something.

Given that I take no shame in save scumming, I was almost able to admire just how distinctively obnoxious some of the design choices here - by the time Ground Zero was over, I was a certified expert at checking every corner for a deviously placed turret, and I was going out of my way to put an extra super shotgun blast or rocket in corpses of higher tier enemies in the presence of the godforsaken medic commanders. A tanky enemy type that revives fallen enemies as well as summons other tanky enemies makes it more intimidating than any iteration of Doom's Archvile that has ever existed - and there are even a few battles in which they're given the opportunity to revive each other! That's honestly hilarious.

Just as with the previous mission pack, Nightdive has extensively tweaked the balance of these added elements in the remaster to make them much more bearable, and I was actually able to tell this time because I correctly remembered the turrets being a lot harder to destroy in the original release. They even gave them armor to make the otherwise unremarkable armor-penetrating ETF rifle extra effective!

Despite its many quirks, Ground Zeroes is at the end of the day, as I said, more Quake 2. It's the weaker of the two mission packs for sure, but it's still a really solid solid shooter at its core, one that you'll get an extra kick out of if you can appreciate its more sadistic design choices.

Cross-posted on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mariofan717/status/1755443725961146831

Hey what did the universe mean by releasing a mission pack that opens with flying vehicles crashing called Ground Zero on the 11th of September 1998?

More good old school shooter goodness. I feel like all the extra mission packs for Quake 2 have definitely been much funner than the main game. Like I'm having so much fun with these. Also unlike The Reckoning where I felt some missions went on a bit too long at points Ground Zero seems to have much shorter ones that fit better into the fast paced action of Quake 2. Very pick up and go experience that I'm always down for when it comes to games. Hilariously easy final boss though.

With that I finish all the original Quake 2 content. I guess next up is Call of the Machine and then at last Quake 2 64 to close it all up.

Massive downgrade from the main game, the level design sticks largely to big brown interconnected rooms that feel nebulous to explore (thank god for the compass), the new weapons are not much to write home about, the little black hole launcher was fun to use but the rest felt completely inconsequential. Add onto that the enemy placement being hellish, just spamming flying enemies and turrets in almost every room as well as those bullet sponge medics being all over the place towards the end make for an incredibly frustrating experience. I'd also like to mention that the final boss, although I'm grateful it was a new design was incredibly easy in comparison to the rest of the expansion, I beat it super quick without dying and I died a lot with this thing.

I only finished it to get the achievement

Ehhh, not sure about this one.
To start with the positives, I think the new weapons are generally fun. I especially like the Tesla traps that electrocute enemies, even if they are hard to place since they take a lot of times to start.
Also, the final boss is a completely new enemy, which is always cooler than the Reckoning which recycled the boss from Quake II.

But I don't really like the level design of this expansion. First, I don't know why they thought it was a good idea to put turrets on the walls and ceilings of every room! It got really annoying towards the end.
New enemies often have too many health, and they have a nasty tendency to spawn right behind you.
Also the secondary objectives have way too much steps in general. Every levels are like "You have to power up the nuclear reactor, but first you have to cut the power of the lasers, but for that you have to empty the gas tank, but for that you have to find a keycard so you can..." ENOUGH ALREADY!! Is this Quake II or Dead Space?

Apart from the mine levels in the beginning, every levels are basically more of the same brown industrial environments we already saw in Quake II. It's not a terrible expansion but it's kinda dispensable imo.

"A Lackluster Expansion That Provides Little To The Quake II Experience"

I was fairly disappointed with this expansion. I had already found Quake II: The Reckoning to be disappointing, yet playable, but with Quake II: Ground Zero , Rogue Entertainment managed to ruin the flow of gameplay Quake II had established. With some lackluster added weapons, continuing to add bullet-sponge enemies while increasing the overall enemy count, and designing complex levels with little direction, this expansion failed in my eyes.

The new weapons are pretty boring a weak to me. The new EMT rifle barely does any damage to anything, the mine launcher essentially performs a similar function to the grenade launcher (but worse), and the chainsaw and plasma beam cannon are either ripped from another game ( Quake ) or not enough to stand as its own weapon. Its shame, since the last expansion had already disappointed by introducing a very weak rocket launcher and a fairly cool, but limited type of "black hole" grenade. More could have been done in designing some actually useful weapons for the player to use!

The new enemies are either frustrating to deal with (turrets and Stalkers) or fairly similar redesigns of old enemies (Daedelus and Medic Commander). The Turrets have way too much health, the Stalkers jump speed makes targeting them a complete chore, and the redesigns are uninteresting since they share so many common traits with their original versions. It sucks having to face a new wave of poorly designed enemies, let alone lazily designed ones.

Lastly, the level variety, direction, simplicity - all thrown out the window. Instead, you will find yourself running through caves and factories yet again, only this time without a clue of where to go. The maps are much more open this time around, yet the mission log is consistently vague on telling the player where to go. This led to periods of nearly 30 minutes trying to find the correct item or door to open, and I had to result to a guide to figure out what was even going on. If your expansion requires a guide for simply opening a door, it is a flop in proper design.

Overall, I couldn't go further than the final stage of Act II. The game felt like it was dragging on at that point, and I didn't want to continue playing something that felt like a needless chore. I would Not Recommend this expansion to any fan of the game, even diehard ones - you could get a lot more value and enjoyment from countless mods that have been released for the game. At least those wouldn't feel lazy, rushed, and incomplete.

Final Verdict: 3/10 (Poor)

The last of the original Quake 1/2 expansions. This one was made by Rogue Entertainment, the same developer who made the original Quake's 2nd expansion "Dissolution of Eternity", and this one is similarly not good. An overabundance of new weapons (most of them completely useless), some new enemies that are not fun to fight at all, and a lot of maps that feel like leftover unused Quake 1 maps recreated in Quake 2's map editor. So many labyrinthine levels where everything looks the same and there are no navigational landmarks, totally at odds with Quake 2's design philosophy of tighter interconnected levels with a sense of verisimilitude. Would be totally unplayable without the remaster's compass feature which basically tells you exactly where to go if you're stuck. I barely used that at all in the base game or the first expansion, but I used it a lot here.

Turns out none of the original Quake 1/2 expansions were all that great. I hear the 20th and 25th anniversary expansions that MachineGames made are much better, I'm looking forward to those.

Ground Zero is better than its preceding mission pack, The Reckoning, but not by much. Rogue Entertainment's pack has a leg up thanks to interesting enemy types—like the Stalkers and the wall turrets—and a more varied arsenal of weapons. The more straightforward level design and more engaging scenarios also distinguish Ground Zero from its predecessor.

Unfortunately, there are still some lame enemies, like the upgraded Icarus and Medic, and there are some peashooter weapons like the ETF Rifle and Plasma Beam. Also, not a fan of the persistent sci-fi military base theming that all these Quake II units are stuffed with; levels blend together, and they're only distinguishable by their unique objectives.

But overall, I'd recommend playing Ground Zero over The Reckoning. It even includes double the number of deathmatch maps, raising the bar to fourteen maps over The Reckoning's seven. And if you were wondering, yes, the Nightdive port unsurprisingly runs as smooth as butter. I played mostly on PlayStation 5, and it was a seamless experience.

MUCH better then The Reckoning, although I hear a lot of that is definitely due to how the remaster changes some of the new enemies (turrets in particular). Most of the new weapons are actually useful too, only ones I didn't feel that for was the ETF rifle and the chainfist (mostly because the latter comes in too late during the campaign to have any combat utility).

In general the new enemies (save for the turrets) make combat much more interesting, as they change how you deal with prioritizing certain strogg. Medic and spiders were my favorite, they always had a good challenge to fighting them.

If you hated this at first try again through the remaster. It's really good, probably the best of the Quake SP expansions I find.

A solid expansion for Quake 2! Played this as part of the new Quake 2 remaster and like I said in my review of The Reckoning expansion, I only ever played the base game before in the past, so this was new content for me. And I'm surprised to see quite a few negative reviews for this one?

As a story expansion this was longer then Reckoning, and I think much better paced. They also doll out ammo at a much more fair rate, so you don't feel outmatched constantly. In terms of the new weapons added I found the weapon line up much better and more useful then Reckoning. They even give you the BFG in this which was a god sent and again something you didn't get in Reckoning. New enemy types includes these cybernetic spiders that can crawl on walls and spit at you, as well as turrets that appear out of the walls. There annoying at first but once you get used to fighting them, there not so bad. The final boss was something new too and not just a repeat of the one in the base game which I appreciated a lot.

Overall, I loved this one and it will probably be my go to expansion whenever I replay Quake 2.

All DLC I have Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-dlcs-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/

I know that Final Doom is hated because of its difficulty, but this doesn't compare to Quake II: Ground Zero.

The enemy placement in this expansion is abysmal; at least you can see there was some thought in the enemy placement in Plutonia, but here, good fucking lord. It is just a swarm of Gladiators and Flying Icarus with hundreds of rocket turrets everywhere.

You can't jump and avoid enemies like in Quake 1 because you get your shit blown off by hit-scanners. This sucks massive ass. 1.5/5 only for the level design but that's just it.

Fuck this expansion.