Скачать или смотреть Quake II: Call of the Void | Rest in Pixels / Nightdive Studios | Windows | 2025

(NB - this is uploaded the day after my play-through. In the weeks and months prior, I had streamed both Quake and Quake II and their respective expansions, so this is very much out of order)

After streaming Quake II's excellent remake from ‪@Nightdivestudios‬, and all of the expansions / mission packs / whatever you want to call them, I still hadn't had enough. So when I saw that there was a fan mod continuing the story of Machine Games excellent Call of the Machine pack, I figured I'd be an idiot to not check it out.

This is a challenging set of maps, with some questionable enemy placement at times. But, I really enjoyed my time with this. The monsters were really well thought through and imaginatively used; I really could believe this is what the Strogg would do with Quake monsters, and the environmental storytelling in the maps really helped with that.

I did find myself missing the Quake II monsters though - it wouldn't have been weird for standard Quake II enemies to coexist in these maps with the Stroggified Quake fodder. But that's me nitpicking slightly.

The maps all look great; the juxtaposition of Lovecraftian Quake and Stroggian Quake II in the environments was handled with aplomb. However, as far as the campaign went, I really was at a loss as to what was actually happening. It's not a massive issue, given how threadbare Quake stories are, but I really didn't feel the end approaching when it did.

Speaking of which... At the end, my brain short-circuited, thinking that the obviously-intended route was a side quest, with the BFG secret being the main one. I felt like the enemy emerging from the BFG area was enticing me over there, so my instinct was to resist. but I should have stuck with it. I suspect the final boss fight would be easier with the BFG available to dispatch the other enemies in the final map, making arming and firing the gun to kill Cthon more straightforward. But save-scumming is a 100% legit tactic anyway.......... right????!

But all of that nonsense was my fault, not the map makers'.

All in all, this is a fun romp that was crafted by people with an obvious love for Quake. I have heard calls for ‪@bethesda‬ to integrate this into the Quake II remaster, which wouldn't be unprecedented for fan-made mods (e.g. SIGIL in DOOM+DOOM II). But then I think this would need money throwing at it to be fleshed out and polished into a commercial product, with some sort of unit structure to really help section off the objectives and give the player more structure. But that's all hypotheticals anyway.

In conclusion, consider my hat doffed.

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