The Reckoning is the first expansion pack released for Quake 2 and takes place during the same time that the human’s launched an invasion on the Strogg. We play as an entirely new character named Joker and minus the change of name, plays exactly like our former protagonist Bitterman. His efforts throughout the war are very different however, and the journey he will take is far more difficult than anything we’ve experienced yet. It won’t take long after our crash landing that we’ll encounter one of the nine new enemies to be found and is the coolest of the lot of them. They are called the Gekk and are part of the very few natural inhabitants left on that planet. And boy, are they not happy to see you waltzing into what few safe havens they have left from the Strogg industry machine.
For quite a large part of the expansion, things play out as they’ve always had as you run around at breakneck speeds and introduce your Super Shotgun to anything that gets in your way. The main differences here will be both the enemy placement and the amount to be found in a level. It fully expects you to have played through the original and to be on your game right from the get-go, as they will not hesitate to challenge you at every turn. Most of the new foes are returning enemies that have either picked up new, more powerful guns to shoot you with, have more health allowing them to remain in the fight longer, or both. Nothing really worth writing home about but the way they handle these new variations is what makes it feel so fresh. They really nailed the challenge to fun ratio here and one can still very easily come out of seemingly impossible situations unscathed if you have the skill.
One of the complaints I had with Quake 2 was its uninspired weapons with most of the guns feeling straight out of Doom. The three new additions to your arsenal help greatly with that and can be invaluable assets to face some of the tougher foes. First off, you have what is called ‘The Trap’ which is a mine that sucks in enemies and turns their bloody remains into a health pickup. You then have the Phalanx that is pretty much just a rocket launcher that fires two projectiles at once. It’s as devastating as you’d imagine and better yet uses its own unique ammo type. Finally, you have the Ion Ripper which is as badass as it sounds and will be your go-to weapon for the toughest of fights. Its projectile moves incredibly slowly making it hard to use on faster foes, but not only do shots rebound off surfaces, the ammo consumption for each shot is low, and the damage it dishes out is nothing to scoff at.
You also have one new powerup called Dual Fire Damage which doubles the firing rate of any weapons you use for a limited time. As you can tell from this weapon lineup, you will be doing a lot of killing and they more than even the playing field for this more challenging romp against the Strogg. Level design did not take a back seat to all of this nonstop action, it’s back and I’d argue better than ever before. The developer Xatrix Entertainment who have only worked on Redneck Rampage previously have really nailed it out of the park here. Maps are far more complex than before, often requiring various steps to get through them, be they simply finding keycards or other integrate series of events to progress. Despite that, they do a great job guiding you, and you’ll rarely find yourself lost, even without looking at what your current mission is. There is less backtracking too which is nice.
The setpieces are more memorable as well with the standout ones being a race against time to recover a structure’s power before it self-destructs. It is awesome that we got a full space section this time around as the low gravity really changes up the flow and how you approach things. Quake 2 had a secret level that did just this, and I’m really glad they expanded on that concept here. Unfortunately, the final maps starts to up the challenge in cheap or lazy ways. They introduce a soldier wielding a laser that has pinpoint accuracy from a mile away. Simple enough to deal with them using a Railgun and they don’t cause much damage if you stop them quickly, though this next one was just a bad idea to include. The friggin’ upgraded Gladiator. This time around they fire two rockets instead of a Railgun, so it is much easier to avoid and deal with, but they contain over four times to amount of health. They are the definition of bullet sponge and will needlessly drain you of your ammo.
In fact, it is a stark difference between the previous four chapters and the underwhelming final one that’s over before you know it. It nearly felt like they were rushed to finish it and considering the final boss fight is the same as the base game, that wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest. If you’ve played any of the older Quake games recently or read my reviews, you’ll know that the soundtrack has been ripped out of them and the player must go out of their way to patch it back in. It is simple enough to do so and does serve a gameplay purpose of letting you know there is nothing more to be done in an area when it stops. With that being said, it is still overall one heck of a campaign and one I personally enjoyed more than the original made by ID which is saying a lot. The people behind it clearly knew what made Quake 2 so good and expanded on that with a six or so hour expansion featuring more challenge, more enemies, and more firepower to stop them right in their tracks. The Reckoning is definitely one that should be in your collection.
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