Games PC QUAKE II User Manual

www.idsoftware.com

THE MANUAL

Q U A K E I I

™

1

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Story

Installation

Setup

GamePlay

Multiplayer Games

TCM Intel Brief: Classified

Customer Support / Credits

Software License Agreement

2

7

8

15

17

18

33

36

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2

THE STORY

“Yo, soldier, 3585.” The medtech’s voice startles you.
“You in or out?”

Competent hands guide you into the coffin-like
opening of your Mark 9A drop pod: sleek, dark, and
invisible to the Stroggos defence systems. One of the
techs begins to drop the reinforced pod door. “Sleep
tight, soldier. You’ll see sunlight in less than six and a
half hours. Not our sun, mind you…” <SLAM>

Pitch black except for the mild glow of your video
readout system in front of you. You’ve done this a dozen
times in the sim classes. No sweat. Just a few short
hours to sleep, recharge, and then… the moment of
glory. But this time it’s for real.

It’s also time to think. You recall your first official day of
training, your unit commander discussing how these
damn parasites made it to Earth and other nearby colonies
in the first place. By employing our best satellites and
long-range scanners, we learned how they travelled light
years so quickly – the Strogg used these black hole-like
gateways as their highway to heaven. We still don’t know
if they created these rips in the fabric of space and time,
or if they simply discovered them by accident. Either
way… it’s just like opening the door to an all-you-can-eat
restaurant for these bastards. In about two hours, we’ll
be entering the same interstellar portals, to hit ‘em where
it hurts… on their own turf.

You close your eyes and relish this thought. Eventually,
you nod off to the low hypnotic hum of the troop carrier.

3

THE STORY

Long shadows claw desperately away from your dusty combat boots, fuelled
by the relentless sun of a late Texas afternoon. Shading your eyes against the
glare, you squint for the thousandth time at the line of soldiers ahead of you.
It stretches on endlessly across the rubble, disappearing at last into the cool
shadows of a troop carrier. Soon you’ll walk up the ramp into the ship, climb
into your one-man cocoon, tear through the interplanetary gateway, and smash
down light-years away from the blowing sand and blasted ruins that surround
the Dallas-Metro crater.

“What the hell is taking so long?!” you snarl, slamming the battered barrel of
your side arm, the blaster, against your scarred palm. “I’ve waited long enough.
Time to kick some Strogg ass…”

Slightly rocking back and forth under the sweltering August sun, you spit out
of the side of your mouth, rub your eyes, and think back to the day when the
wretched creatures first attacked. Like flaming meteors, their crafts pounded
into the Earth and unbelievably, these bio-mechanical aliens… these hideous
cyborgs… swarmed out while their ships still sizzled with reentry heat. They
killed or captured anything that lived. We figured that the Strogg were after our
planet’s resources: minerals, metals, and water: things like that. But their
onboard storage facilities did little to disguise what they considered to be
resources: fleshy limbs and organs for new cyborgs, and of course, food.

The line moves. And moves again. Into the cool shadows at last. The assembled
armies branch off into new lines divided by corps and unit.

“I can’t deal with this shit – what’s the friggin’ hold-up?”

“Cool your jets, marine,” Tokay mutters and smiles over his shoulder.

“We’ll all get a few Strogg heads to take home as souvenirs. I promise you that.”

*Crackle* ... *fzzzz* ... “Greetings to the
people of the Coalition. This is Flag Admiral
Crockett, speaking to you from the bridge
deck of Phobos. We are entering the outer
orbits of Stroggos, the alien’s home system.
As we had postulated, Stroggos’ atmosphere
is harsh but breathable. We expect to make planetfall soon. Now is the time to
switch on your debriefing panel if ya need it.”

“Boomer?” the voice crackles through every soldier’s headset. “Drop X-ray squad
in 30 on my mark. You copy?”

“Roger that!” In another pod, your sergeant snaps back. “OK boys and girls,
you see the clock on your heads-up. Two demerits for anyone who up-chucks
during bounce and roll!”

*Shthunk!!* Your drop pod is shot from the
side of the carrier and hurtles downward.
*Wheee-oooooo!* Incendiary atmosphere
howls past the pod’s rapidly heating shell.
*Ka-WHUMP! * The pod wall suddenly
buckles to your right, but stays intact.

4

THE STORY

Another pod must have clipped yours on its way in. ECM didn't indicate enemy
fire. Shit. Thrusters and stabilising gyros are fading. Based on the pings, the
other pods are pulling away. Below you, the large alien city roars into focus on
the screen. But where are the other pods? They were there a minute ago.

Suddenly, distorted radio chatter lights up, “Mayday! Mayday! Lost all power...
shielding failed... missed dz... some kind of EMP is... kzzzt... us out. We're dropping
like fli... zzzzkkkzzzt”. Silence. Damn! If the
Strogg have electromagnetic pulse defenses
and we failed to detect them… all of us are
in the shitter. That HUGE blip has to be the
Big Gun. You do a slow dogleg left as your
navcomp finds a place to land when all of a
sudden retros kick in and propel you south.

5

THE STORY

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“What the...?” Before you know it you skip across the lip of a crater and slam
into a structure, a good distance away from your target.

Dazed and bleeding from a head cut you toggle open the labelled arsenal bins
and reach for where your gear ought to be stowed. Damn. Nothing but your
sidearm.

Damn again.

You leap out the crushed pod door, alone, with blaster in hand, and tear off into
the room with the bittersweet stench of vengeance coarsing through your
veins…

6

THE STORY

7

INSTALLATION

INSTALLING QUAKE II

To install Quake II on your system, insert the game CD into
your CD-ROM drive and:

1. Double-click on Setup.exe at the root level of the CD, or

2. Go to Run... in your Start Menu and type d:\Setup.exe

(substitute your CD-ROM's drive letter if different from "d:")
Follow the on-screen instructions as they guide you through
the installation process.

For updates to Quake II, please refer to www.idsoftware.com.

9

SETUP

8

SETUP

GOAL OF
THE GAME

GAME
STRUCTURE

MAIN MENU

The goals of Quake II are divided into a series of complex missions
or objectives. During the game your field computer provides you with
each new objective. It is important to regularly review this information.

The Intel Brief section of this manual describes general information
on your missions, environment, weapons, special items, and alien
profiles.

Quake II contains eight large units, each with a number of levels to
complete in order to proceed to the next unit. It is likely you will have
to go between levels several times to accomplish a particular goal.
Remember that once you leave a unit you cannot return unless you
reload a saved game from that unit. Therefore it is important to
review your field computer to be sure you accomplished all of your
goals for that unit.

When you start Quake II, a demo sequence of the game will begin.
At any time, press the Escape key to pull up the Main menu. Use the
up and down arrow keys to navigate, and press the Enter key to
select. Each Main menu function brings up a list of secondary menu
items. If you have problems using the secondary menu selections,
please refer to the message banner at the bottom of the screen or the
online manual for technical details.

GAME: Start a new game with a specific skill level, load, or save a game.
MULTIPLAYER: Start a network server, join a network server, or

change your character information.
VIDEO: Select either Software only or one of several OpenGL modes,
and adjust screen modes and settings.
OPTIONS: Customise your keyboard, mouse, or joystick controls, adjust
your audio, and change your game play control options.
QUIT: Exit the game from here.

Under Game, you can select a variety of skill settings that range from
really easy to nearly unbeatable. Each skill setting adjusts reaction,
health, power, and number of the monsters you’ll face.

Easy: This is meant for kids and grandmas.

Medium: Most people should start Quake II at Medium skill.

Hard: Here at id, we play Hard skill, and we think you should too,

once you’re ready.

Load Game: Select Load Game to pull up the load game menu.
The first name on the list is an auto-saved game. Selecting this puts
you back at the start of the last level you entered. Use the arrow keys
to move down to the game you wish to load and press the Enter key.

Save Game: Select Save Game to access the save game menu.
Using the arrow keys, move down to an empty slot, or one you
don’t mind writing over and press the Enter key to save. Quake II
will generate a name for you with title of the level and the current
time.

There are two main ways to play Quake II with other people: LAN or
TCP/IP over the Internet. This menu provides three options: Join
Network Server, Start Network Server, or Network Server Player
Setup. Please see the readme.txt for details on multiplayer game play.

GAME

MULTIPLAYER
MENU
SELECTION

11

SETUP

10

SETUP

VIDEO MENU
SELECTION

Here are controls for changing your video driver, screen resolution
or video mode, brightness, screen size, window or full screen mode,
texture quality, and translucent settings.

Depending on the selected video driver, some video settings will not
take effect until you choose the Apply option from the menu.

When changing video settings, Quake II may blink from the screen,
or the game console may appear. This isn’t unusual. After a moment
of this, the game should resume normally.

Video Driver: You have four choices under Video Driver. These are
Software, 3Dfx OpenGL, PowerVR, OpenGL, Verite OpenGL, and
System OpenGL. As you can see, generally this breaks down into
two choices: Software or some form of OpenGL.

***IMPORTANT: Your system may not support many of the video
driver options provided by Quake II. If a selected video driver is
unavailable Quake II will return to your previous selection or to a safe
software mode.

Software: If you are running under Windows 95, and do not have
OpenGL supported hardware acceleration, Quake II will use this setting.

OpenGL: With the assistance of OpenGL drivers, Quake II runs in 16
or 24 bit colour, with coloured lighting effects, cleaner graphics, and
improved translucency.

3Dfx OpenGL: Use the 3Dfx OpenGL driver on systems that possess
a 3Dfx Voodoo and Voodoo Rush accelerator.

PowerVR OpenGL: Use the PowerVR OpenGL driver on systems running
Windows 95 with a PowerVR PCX2 board installed.

Verite OpenGL: Use the Rendition Verite OpenGL on systems running
Win95, with a Rendition V1000/V2x00 board installed.

VIDEO MENU
SELECTION
(continued)

System OpenGL: The System OpenGL driver allows Quake II to render
using the default OpenGL driver installed in the system. Select this if
running under Windows NT when using a 2D/3D accelerator other
than those specifically supported in this menu.

IMPORTANT: We do not recommend using OpenGL on systems that
do not have hardware acceleration of OpenGL installed.

This information is subject to change with different revisions of the
game. Please see the readme.txt file for further details.

Video Mode: Many video modes are available to you through this menu.
Your system may not support many of the video modes provided by
Quake II.

Screen Size: The screen size slider controls the size of the game area
on the screen. Reducing the screen size will usually result in higher
performance.

Brightness: The brightness slider controls the brightness of the
screen. Its effects are immediate under software. When using
OpenGL, select Apply after modifying the brightness.

Fullscreen: This selects fullscreen or windowed rendering. Fullscreen
mode availability is dependent upon the type of graphics adaptor
installed. Fullscreen software rendering requires the presence of
Microsoft DirectX. Under OpenGL, fullscreen rendering uses the current
colour depth of the desktop.

Texture Quality (OpenGL only): The texture quality slider determines
the overall crispness of textures with OpenGL renderers. Better quality
often results in lower performance.

8-Bit Textures (OpenGL only): 8-bit texture support is available on
some graphics chipsets such as the 3Dfx Voodoo. Enabling 8-bit
textures reduces visual quality in exchange for better overall
performance. IMPORTANT: We recommend you use this setting
if you have the appropriate hardware and want to increase the
performance of Quake II.