Quake II: Quad Damage - PC Games

Unless you've been living in a separatist compound in Idaho you've heard of Quake 2. As a lone Space Marine, you're called upon to save the Earth from the vicious Stroggs, a nasty bunch of biomechanical aliens from the planet Stroggos who want nothing more than to destroy this wonderful world of ours. With a plethora of single-player levels, you'll while away many a frightful hour as you gib and frag your way to victory. While Quake 2's single-player story line has been impugned for being less than interesting, there's no debating the fact that the game's multiplayer capabilities are topnotch. With eight "official" multiplayer levels and a gang of user-created maps available on the Internet you'll no doubt put your marriage in jeopardy.

The Reckoning is the first Mission Pack to be released for Quake 2 and picks up where the original game left off. While gamers looking for something new will be disappointed with the Reckoning, anyone who loved Quake 2 will undoubtedly be into it. The Reckoning boasts 18 new single-player levels and seven new deathmatch levels. Among the Reckoning's new enemies, the Repair Bots are easily the most annoying as they have the ability to resurrect dead bad guys who that haven't been gibbed. But don't worry--your improved arsenal features some excellent tools for dismembering your enemies, like the Phalanx Particle Canon, the Trap, and the Ion Ripper. Reckoning's levels are little longer than those in the original game, so expect to invest some serious time.

The second mission pack, Ground Zero, sends you back to battle yet another Strogg device of mass destruction. In Quake 2 it was The Big Gun; this time around it's the Gravity Well. Like the Reckoning, Ground Zero sports new levels: 14 single-player and 10 deathmatch, as well as weapons and enemies. Easily the raddest power-ups in Ground Zero are the deathmatch-only Vengeance and Hunter Spheres which attack enemies that have killed you and the preeminent room-clearing device the anti-matter bomb.

Lastly, Quad Damage includes the Extremities netpack, a collection of 11 of the most popular Quake 2 modifications (mods) and a bevy of deathmatch maps and skins. From the Action Quake mod, which aims to give players the feeling that they're in a John Woo-style action movie, to the wildly popular Eraser Bot, which gives single gamers a deathmatch-style experience, the netpack is an essential Quake 2 component. Gamers with fast Internet connections should know that all of the skins, mods, and maps on the netpack can be downloaded for free off the Internet.