Just finished Quake II. I don't like the slow movement and weapon switching. The character feels floaty and slides around too much, even down stairs. It's hard to control precisely. The weapons don't feel punchy, most of all the explosives.
The big mechs are annoying bullet sponges. The two melee bots are a joke. One gives you so much time to take a step back when they reach you that there's never danger unless you get stuck in corner. The other one that comes with a shield - I don't even know why it's there, as slow and non-threatening as it is. The life-leeching dog-like creatures were the ones that got me good, apart from anything hit-scanning, and weirdly enough those weren't used in the latter part of the game.
The game lacks situations where you're locked into an arena and have to stay on your toes. Quake I did all of that better.
I got lost a few times navigating between the connected levels, but it's a refreshing design when you're used to linear stages. And there was no much backtracking needed due looping paths.
The setting and enemy designs are great. Gore and sci-fi
There's permanent upgrades to max health and max ammo. That fact made secret hunting feel really good. Every game with hidey-holes should have something like this. Reminds me of F.E.A.R with the hidden bullet time upgrades, or Cultic with its weapon parts.
Played it on normal, which was way too easy. I reached the end with the first invulnerability and quad damage items I had collected and never used all game long, activated both of those and just emptied the BFG into the final boss. All in all a fun journey.
