Action Quake 2

Last updated
Action Quake 2
Action Quake 2 logo.jpg
Developer(s) The A-Team
Engine id Tech 2
Platform(s) BeOS, Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
ReleaseNovember 12, 1998
Genre(s) First-person shooter
Mode(s) Multiplayer

Action Quake 2 is a mod for the video game Quake II created by The A-Team. [1] Action Quake 2 was developed to recreate the look and feel of an action movie, having a fast pace and a semi-realistic damage system. It features many maps recreating realistic settings, such as city streets and office buildings, with a balanced range of weapons and equipment inspired by action movies.

Contents

Action Quake 2 is essentially a version of deathmatch and team deathmatch in which most of the classic elements have been modified to some degree. Damage to extremities such as a shot to the leg with any weapon will cause damage and bleeding, along with crippling the player's movement until they bandage themselves. Originally released in 1998, there is still an active community of players as of 2024.

Overview

In-game screenshot Aq2a.jpg
In-game screenshot

With a then unique style of play, realistic weapons and fast pace, Action Quake 2 became one of the most popular Quake II mods. The mod caught the attention of id Software in June 1998, who wished to include it in their upcoming Quake II: Internet Pack No. 1 (Netpack 1): Extremities, a commercial add-on product for Quake II. This expansion CD was released in the U.S. on November 26, 1998, included was the final version 1.0c of Action Quake, along with 11 other publicly available mods, a collection of Quake 2 deathmatch maps, and player skins. Members of the development team would later go on to work on titles such as Action Half-Life and Counter-Strike . [2]

Gameplay

There are six main modes of gameplay in Action Quake 2: Deathmatch (Free For All) and Teamplay. In Deathmatch, spawn points are distributed over most of the map, and players battle out in a free-for-all fashion in an attempt to get the most kills possible. The map changes when one of two conditions is met: either the timelimit is reached (and whoever has the most frags "wins"), or the fraglimit is reached (and whoever reaches it "wins"). By default, each player spawns with only pistol, and a combat knife. Additional equipment can be picked up throughout the map, but in Action Quake 2 DM all weapons other than pistols, knives, and grenades are "unique", meaning that only one exists on that map at any time. Other modes are variations on these themes including Capture The Flag, team Deathmatch, Espionage and Offline play.

In Teamplay, players are split into two teams and play is round based. Players select one primary weapon and one item to use, in addition to the default pistol and knife. The teams spawn on opposite sides of the map and are then let loose to kill each other. If one team eliminates the other, they win the round.

Legacy

Decades after the release, the game still had an active community in Finland. [3] It sparked a remake using Id Tech 3 called Reaction. [4] An updated standalone version based on the Open-Source release of Quake II called AQtion was re-released on Steam in 2022. [5]

Related Research Articles

<i>Counter-Strike</i> (video game) 2000 first-person shooter video game

Counter-Strike is a tactical first-person shooter game developed by Valve. It was initially developed and released as a Half-Life modification by Minh "Gooseman" Le and Jess Cliffe in 1999, before Le and Cliffe were hired and the game's intellectual property acquired. Counter-Strike was released by Valve for Microsoft Windows in November 2000, and is the first installment in the Counter-Strike series. Several remakes and ports were released on Xbox, as well as OS X and Linux.

<i>Quake III Arena</i> 1999 video game

Quake III Arena is a 1999 multiplayer-focused first-person shooter developed by id Software. The third installment of the Quake series, Arena differs from previous games by excluding a story-based single-player mode and focusing primarily on multiplayer gameplay. The single-player mode is played against computer-controlled bots. It features music composed by Sonic Mayhem and Front Line Assembly founder Bill Leeb.

<i>Quake II</i> 1997 video game

Quake II is a 1997 first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Activision. It is the second installment of the Quake series, following Quake.

<i>Quake</i> (video game) 1996 video game

Quake is a first-person shooter game developed by id Software and published by GT Interactive. The first game in the Quake series, it was originally released for MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows, and Linux in 1996, followed by Mac OS and Sega Saturn in 1997 and Nintendo 64 in 1998.

Urban Terror is a freeware multiplayer first-person shooter video game developed by FrozenSand. Originally a total conversion of id Software's Quake III Arena, FrozenSand released Urban Terror as a free standalone game in 2007 utilizing ioquake3 as the game engine. While the game engine is licensed under the open-source GPL, Urban Terror's game code is closed source and its assets are freeware but not open content.

<i>Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory</i> 2003 video game

Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory is a free and open-source multiplayer first-person shooter video game within the Wolfenstein series. It was originally planned to be released as a commercial expansion pack to Return to Castle Wolfenstein and later as a standalone game. However, due to problems with the single-player aspect, the multiplayer portion was released on 29 May 2003 as a freeware standalone game. In January 2004, the source code for the game logic was released to the benefit of its modding community.

<i>Action Half-Life</i> 1999 video game

Action Half-Life is a mod for the first-person shooter video game Half-Life. It strives to simulate action movies, especially those directed by John Woo.

Firearms is a first-person shooter mod for Half-Life which originated from a Quake modification. Initially developed in 1998, Firearms was created as a quasi-realistic team-based FPS. The mod's main feature is the large amount of usable weapons in the game.

Soldat is a 2D multiplayer video game for Microsoft Windows. It is a run and gun game influenced by Liero and Scorched Earth, combined with elements from Counter-Strike and Worms.

<i>Movie Battles</i> 2003 video game

Movie Battles II (MBII) is a team-based multiplayer mod for the 2003 third and first-person shooter game Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy. It is a successor of the Movie Battles mod for Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast. The primary purpose of the mod is to allow players to experience setpiece battle scenes from the Star Wars films and the Star Wars expanded universe. The gameplay is similar to that of the base game, but builds upon it with several new elements. The mod has been lauded for providing one of the best lightsaber combat experiences out of any Star Wars game.

GoldenEye: Source is an unlicensed total conversion mod developed using Valve's Source engine. GoldenEye: Source is a multiplayer remake of the 1997 Nintendo 64 video game GoldenEye 007, itself based on the James Bond film GoldenEye. The mod's development began in 2005, and remains in active development as of 2024.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black Widow Games</span> Video game developer

Black Widow Games was a video game developer specializing in promotional mods for Quake and Half-Life 3D engines. They are best known for their They Hunger series. Prominent members included Neil Manke, Einar Saukas, and Magnus Jansén. The company business model is based on developing contract-work mods for the marketing campaigns of customer companies and products, freely distributed for promotion.

<i>Counter-Strike Online</i> 2008 video game

Counter-Strike Online (CSO) is a tactical first-person shooter video game, targeted towards Asia's gaming market released in 2008. It is based on Counter-Strike and was developed by Nexon with oversight from license-holder Valve. It uses a micropayment model that is managed by a custom version of Steam.

<i>Challenge ProMode Arena</i> 2000 video game

Challenge ProMode Arena is a freeware modification for id Software's first-person shooter computer game Quake III Arena (Q3A). CPMA includes modified gameplays that feature air-control, rebalanced weapons, instant weapon switching and additional jumping techniques. It also supports the unmodified vanilla Quake III (VQ3) physics, multi-view GameTV and demos, enhanced bots artificial intelligence, new maps, highly customisable HUD and many other features.

<i>Smokin Guns</i> 2012 video game

Smokin' Guns is a 2012 first-person shooter video game. It is intended to be a semi-realistic simulation of the American Old West's atmosphere. Gameplay as well as locations are inspired by Western movies, particularly those from the Spaghetti Western genre.

<i>Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad</i> 2011 video game

Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad and Rising Storm GOTY, now known as Rising Storm/Red Orchestra 2 GOTY on Steam, is a multiplayer tactical first-person shooter video game set during World War II, developed and published by Tripwire Interactive. Released in September 2011, it is a sequel to Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41–45. The title focuses heavily on the Battle of Stalingrad and the Pacific Theater.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GoldSrc</span> Video game engine

GoldSrc, sometimes called the Half-Lifeengine, is a proprietary game engine developed by Valve. At its core, GoldSrc is a heavily modified version of id Software's Quake engine. It made its debut in 1998 with Half-Life and powered future games developed by or with oversight from Valve, including Half-Life's expansions, Day of Defeat and games in the Counter-Strike series.

Based on id Software's open stance towards game modifications, their Quake series became a popular subject for player mods beginning with Quake in 1996. Spurred by user-created hacked content on their previous games and the company's desire to encourage the hacker ethic, Id included dedicated modification tools into Quake, including the QuakeC programming language and a level editor. As a game that popularized online first-person shooter multiplayer, early games were team- and strategy-based and led to prominent mods like Team Fortress, whose developers were later hired by Valve to create a dedicated version for the company. Id's openness and modding tools led to a "Quake movie" community, which altered gameplay data to add camera angles in post-production, a practice that became known as machinima.

References

  1. ↑ Caryn "Hellchick" Law. "Urban Terror! Realistic weaponry comes to Quake3:Arena". GameSpy. Archived from the original on 2012-03-16. Retrieved 2016-10-30.
  2. ↑ Bye, John (2000-03-10). "Minh Le of Counter Strike team: Half-Life mod's designer interviewed". EuroGamer. Retrieved 2016-10-30.
  3. ↑ Donnelly, Joe (2015-11-27). "Meet The Community Still Playing Action Quake 2". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Retrieved 2025-01-19.
  4. ↑ Peel, Jeremy (2015-10-01). "Reaction is an Action Quake 2 remake gunning for votes on Steam Greenlight". PCGamesN. Retrieved 2025-01-19.
  5. ↑ Dawe, Liam (2022-06-06). "Action Quake 2 (AQtion), considered the 'precursor' to Counter-Strike now on Steam". GamingOnLinux. Retrieved 2025-01-19.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.