My Top Ten Favorite PC Games - Number 10

~Intro~

            Unlike my top ten favorite Nintendo games list, this list of my top ten favorite PC games is in order. This doesn’t mean it was easier to choose ten PC games, as it was actually more difficult, but it was easier to order the ten I chose.

           

~10.) Quake II~

            When I first started Quake II, I was playing the demo of it on an old laptop. I fell in love with it as soon as I had started walking forward and fired my laser pistol at the first baddy. I can go for first-person shooters that feel powerful, and everything in Quake II exudes a sense of power.

            There’s the explosive arsenal of weaponry, with gun models much bigger than in any of id’s games prior to Quake II. There’s the dirty, dusty, sunbaked ‘foundry-and-factory’ sci-fi atmosphere. There’s the metal music, optional, but if turned on drives the gameplay with its surge. There’s the sense of being a hardened marine, taking it to a twisted cyborg enemy in a desperate, heavy-duty war.

            Quake II is a first-person shooter dripping with power. It’s an addictive game with great weapons, shooting, and replay value. The soundtrack is great, though overpowering, and if you turn it off, you can discover some well-done atmospheric sounds. I love all the noises the baddies make as they idle.

            Unlike Quake, a game divided into four episodes, and unlike Quake III, a game centered on deathmatch, Quake II is a standard single-player campaign and multiplayer mode. The single-player’s not too short or long, and the missions offer enough variety. They evolve well too, as more powerful and varied baddies start coming in with the mid-range and late-game missions. At the same time, the arsenal of weapons gradually builds up. I’ve played Quake II through plenty of times, and it remains one of my ‘go to’ pop-in-and-play games.

            This is why I list Quake II here at number ten. I replay it all the time, and consider it one of the top pre-Half-Life FPS games.

            Of course, in addition to the single-player, there’s the multiplayer, and the large number of mods for the game. I haven’t done these as much, but suffice it to say they are there, and another part of Quake II’s greatness.