Again, id Software shows how to develop a simple but outstanding game.
Although Quake II is only a sequel because of its name, it's better than its antecessor in almost every aspect. To be honest, the only thing I preferred in the original Quake was the dark fantasy setting, since Quake II features the depleted subject "human vs. aliens" (in this case, Human vs. Stroggs). But even by using that common sci-fi concept, Quake II shows how a game can be awesome just because of its visceral gameplay.
I'll not say here that this game has an intriguing story or amazing graphics and sounds, because that would be a horrible lie, considering the high-tech and more elaborated games we have now. The appeal of Quake II is the gameplay, which I'm afraid I'll never experience something so frenetic again, at least in any of the newer id Software games.
Why is gibbing your opponents with overpowered weapons so great? I mean, using a double-barreled shotgun against a grunt and watch his pieces flying is extremely fun! Better than this, firing with the same weapon against a player in multiplayer mode is even better. Those little things are what make Quake II so superb. Everything works mutually to build a unique experience: the character movement speed, damage dealt by your weapons, design of the maps, amount of enemies and items per level, balanced difficult... and the list goes on.
In Quake II, you play with a soldier that must break in an alien facility, while accomplishing missions and dealing with the Stroggs, an evil alien race. The character receives his objectives via a PDA, and this greatly helps you to go to the right place, since most levels in Quake II are filled with straight corridors and a lot of similar rooms. But the levels aren't too linear, since you have a lot of secrets passages and maps to go through, which extends the single player campaign.
Your weapons are very strong, but balanced enough to make the use of all weapons equally useful. You start with an unlimited and weak pistol, but you'll occasionally find the shotgun and the machine gun pretty fast; and, later on, the heavy double-barreled shotgun. Those are your standard arsenal, but eventually you'll get the real powerful stuff, such as the chain-gun, the rocket launcher and the rail-gun.
The enemies are variety and get stronger over the time, as you progress deeper into the Strogg facilities. Some of them are very resistant, but they either attacks only at melee range or move very slowly; while others are flying mechanical things or mutated soldiers.
The levels are usually big, and sometimes you have to go back to an already visited place to finish an objective. Since the campaign has a lot of those big levels, you can bet that the standard player will spent more than 10 hours to finish it. And, although the levels become a little repetitive, they don't bore the player because there're a lot of targets to shoot at, as well a variety of missions.
However, it's the multiplayer that really shines in Quake II. The deathmatch mode, no matter if there are only two or 32 players, it's highly addictive. You'll usually get low ping on every server you join, even with low-speed internet connections. The Cooperative mode is also available after the official point release, and it is cool beating the single player levels with some friends.
Quake II is a simple game at heart, but all its featured qualities are so well-done that makes it one of the best games of all time.