Quake II: Lost Marine Released

Doom, Gaming

Quake II: Lost Marine screenshotAs production for Doom 3 was well underway, someone asked the id Software mastermind John Carmack what directions they were hoping to take their newly-developed gaming engine. Carmack mentioned that he would very much like to revisit some of id’s earlier games, such as Quake II, and give them a full makeover with the modern engine and everything. But, he conceded, it would be too large an investment in time and resources for a company that has always had to rely on pushing forward.

That is where the story of Quake II: Lost Marine begins. Heading up a team of several talented people, Thearrel “Kiltron” McKinney, who is by far one of the community’s most talented level designers, set out to flesh out the idea of what Quake II might look in the Doom 3 engine.

Today, August 10, 2005, is when the community has a first glance at the fruit of their efforts. Releasing a special Quakecon 2005 version of the mod to the public, gamers get a small glimpse at what is an impressive attempt at recreating one of the genre’s key games.

So how does it play? I decided to take it for a little spin.

The mod weighs in at a healthy 265 megabytes, which is becoming less and less surprising as games these days make increasing use of high resolution textures, bump and specular maps, and high quality audio. Two full maps are included in this Quakecon preview release.

I was extremely impressed with the overall quality of the maps. The textures are of a professional quality, and very close to the source material. The maps, while closely resembling their Q2 ancestors, were updated much in the same way as everything else to make it new and exciting. Details like switches and turret guns that did not appear in the original game work well here and present a new experience.

There were only two minor issues I had with the mod. The first was the overall difficulty. On the medium skill setting, I found it impossible to complete even the first level. Enemies were much too quick to the draw and annoyingly accurate. This will hopefully be addressed by the time the mod comes to completion.

The second issue, which is admittedly more technical, is the poor enemy animations. These were somewhat distracting. However, it is explained in no uncertain terms that the mod is not finished, so it can be excused. I will say, though, that the new enemies look awesome, the new weapons are great, and the sounds and music are excellent.

This mod is of obvious professional quality, and it would be a shame to let this one slip by. Dust off the old Doom 3 discs and give this one a spin if you enjoyed hunting Strogg in the original game.

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