The most 3 star game in history, perhaps.

Quake 2 is weird, as it had an extremely focused development where they knew exactly what the game was going to be, and yet it will NEVER be as good as Quake: a game thrown together of disparate ideas, those tonal clashes turning out to be some kind of magic that is often duplicated hit never replicated.

Conversely, Quake 2 is almost defined by its workmanlike competency. The sign posting in levels is stellar, it gives you enough hints at secrets to find them but doesn't spoil the fun for you, ways forward are always clearly telegraphed to further show just how Id had level design down to an exact science.

Guns sound and feel good to shoot, enemies bloody and gib satisfyingly, the act of playing Quake 2 is by every metric exactly what it should be.

What's missing though? Why did Unreal, a game with less refined encounter design and a way too long runtime, eat Quake 2's lunch so significantly? The two answers I've formulated range from nebulous and vague, to more concrete and defined. Let's start there.

These enemies are weaksauce, dude. The Night Dive remaster reintroduces more complex behaviors to them, and the game actually feels genuinely challenging now, but even with Quake 2's superior challenge escalation, a fight with a single Skarrj blows this shit out of the water. Especially the Tanks, who the game seems to think are equal to Shamblers as far as danger goes, but they are basically ammo dumps and nothing more. (when I was a little kid though, they scared the HELL out of me, and was always terrified of seeing one IRL. Now as an adult I know how to circle strafe, though.)

My more nebulous reason is the same reason Prey (2017) isn't a beloved classic despite being a competently built game: it's not weird enough.

Think about some really beloved games: Final Fantasy 7, Deus Ex, Killer7, NieR, and of course, Quake 1. These games are weird as hell. Idiosyncratic, oftentimes obtuse, but dripping with personality and character. In Yahtzee's review of Quake, he mentions that the lightning gun exploding you in water has John Romero written all over it. That's why it's so good! Romero has a wonderful developer penchant for catching you on your backfoot, waiting for you to get sloppy. This doesn't even get into Sandy Peterson's maddeningly difficult labyrinths in Episode 4. The game just OOZES style and personality. It may have become an FPS late in development, but goddamn if it wasn't going to be an esoteric one.

Quake 2's science fiction corridors just can't ever hope to match that. Which is a shame because the body horror angle they take here is very cool, and was very effectively spooky when I was a kid. It wouldn't be until Quake 4 in 2005 that this idea would get the pizzaz it so needed in 1997.

So, while Quake 2 is an extremely competent FPS campaign with great level design, a solid core of enemies and weaponry, and effective visual design, it just lacks that "what the hell just happened??" moment that defines REAL classics of the medium. The part you reload a save and bring everyone to the computer because they HAVE to see this weirdo shit, a la Cloudman in Killer7. You try and make anyone watch Quake 2 you are going to be bored to tears, it just is what it is.

How about the remaster though? It honestly is so good I wish I could have a seperate star system just for "Presentation." This is 5 fucking stars. Night Dive have updated the visuals without fucking with the artstyle, so weapons no longer do that insane bubbling thing, and the guns have MUZZLE FLASH NOW. Honest to god they didn't used to have that. An insane thing to not have, so thank GOD it's here. Included a new campaign by MachineGames, who are so good at making these it's stupefying. The two quake 2 expansion packs, which, you know, are.

And QUAKE 2 N64!!!! My favorite game as a kid, I played the SHIT out of it and to this day know it like I used to live there. Absolutely play this, the level design is really fun and it has much more colors than base Quake 2.

So, that is Quake 2. Better than average, but never amazing enough to surpass it. The soundtrack is godly though, blows Doom 2016 the fuck out. Industrial metal forever.