End of an Era 1: Evolution of an Arsenal

I'm going to work with the theory that Quake 2 is that last game in the "classic id" lineage. I'm not entirely sure how I'm defining that (and I usually whine when people clump Doom and Quake together as "boomer shooters" or whatever), but I think you can trace a line backwards from Q2, through Quake 1, and at least back to Doom (but probably not Wolf 3d) in a lot of ways. Today, I'm going to look at the guns. Back in the 90s, your guns were a big way you differntiated your FPS from others. Look at something like Duke 3D with it's goofy shrink rays and stuff, vs Outlaws with more grounded "wild west" weapons. I'd argue, if anything, Quake 2 is a return to form, with a more evolved version of the Doom weapons, after the weirdness of Quake 1. Regardless, the relatively large and varied arsenal, is a key tenant of this era of id shooters, and of any modern game trying to ape them. (And you have to be able to carry them all at once. Halo's two weapon system is interesting, and over-hated, but it's definitely different.) I think Half-Life is the first game that officially created weapon "slots" with all guns in a certain category going on one key. id had been doing so unofficially since Doom, and I think that's the most practical way to compare across titles. No expansions packs for now. id shooter expos never attained the "mandatory" status that something like Brood War would.

1. Last resort/melee:

Doom pulls out early with... I'll say 2.5 weapons here compared to Quake and Quake 2s' singles. Basic fist, chainsaw, and berserk fist. Notably, only the base fist is really a challenge/last resort weapon. Berserk is highly effective against the more basic enemies, and often used to conserve ammo (or just kill quicker than the pistol). The chainsaw gives ready access to rapid-fire that can effectively lock down certain demons. I give Doom really high marks here, as the other two games just get more and more boring/weak.

Quake sticks with melee and gives you an axe. It's not very good, but its marginally redeemed by how fun it is to gib zombies with a quad damage.

Quake 2 adopts the popular at the time (see Unreal) option of an unlimited ammo pea shooter. As established previously, I'm against these. Melee is fun, and this is around the time we started getting cooler melee options like Heretic 2's staff or Jedi Knight's lightsaber. The blaster is one of the weakest ranged weapons in gaming (worse than Doom's pistol?), and I think I mostly used it as a flashlight (also odd that Q2 has no flashlight. They'd been popping up in FPS games with less robust inventory systems for years). I read one review that jokingly referred to it as "lighting effects tech demo, the gun" and that's not really off.

Slot 1 is pretty much all downhill, and one of the few that's more different from Doom in Q2.

2. Basic Ranged

Doom puts a pistol here (after flirting with a rifle in the beta). It makes sense, and cleanly establishes this as the "bad gun" zone. In Doom it shared ammo with the chaingun, and is basically obsoleted as soon as you pick it up. Since getting better guns is the main source of player progression, I don't mind putting one or two stinkers early in the lineup.

Quake "upgrades" to a shotgun here. It's not a good shotgun (it's the worst in the three games), but Quake's monsters are stronger than Doom's, so you need a bit of a step up. Functionally, it's a smidge more effective than the pistol, but that's not saying much. Even a quad only steps it up to adequete against all but the weakest enemies. For a shotgun, it's awful. Not enough power, nor the spread to deal with multiple enemies effectively. (Or even ineffectively...)

Quake 2 puts its first shotgun here, and is the first game to not start you with a slot 2. It's the best single barrel of the three, and remains useful throughout most of the game if you need to engage weaker targets at longer ranges. In this way, it's a clear successor to Doom's shotgun, which remains useful throughout the game for ranges where the super shotty spreads too much. The damage (relative to Q2's tougher monsters) isn't quite as impressive, but it's spread is tighter and its good enough. With a quad, it can be an amo efficient way of eliminating many of the mid tier Strogg in one hit.

3. Shotgun (primary weapon)

The mainstay guns across the games all live here. Making a shotgun the primary is a key to the feel of Doom, and Doom 2 adds a second (bigger) shotgun to the same slot. The Quakes split them back over 3 and 4, so they both land their double barrels here.

Doom's basic shotgun has enough power to one shot most basic enemies, a modest rate of fire, and fairly tight spread. The double barrel triples the damage, increases the spread, and slows the fire rate. Both can pick off a couple small demons at once, but the double barrel fairs much better against mid sized groups that spread out a bit (as shown in its intro room).  It also remains effective up to the mid tier demons with a little circle-strafe/shoot-and-scoot.

Like the basic shotty, Q1's is the least impressive of the three. With the single barrel taking the "pistol" role, the double barrel is only a bit more impressive than the other two basic shotguns, while maintaining the expected wide spread. It's good enough, but never exciting.

Quake 2's, again, returns to the Doom roots. Basic enemies are oneshotted, possibly even gibbed. Mid tiers can be reliably stunned, and finished off in 2-4 blasts. Even a few of the heavies are susceptible, if you can catch them unawares or in a bad position. With a quad, just about anything is fair game. The Doom 2 super shotgun is legendary (with good reason) and this is one of the few weapons in any FPS that are even in the same leauge.

4. Rapid fire

All three games put their basic rapid fire weapon here. This is one of the slots most effected by the addition of the super shotgun. In Doom the chaingun sort of straddles your basic shotgun, and your power weapons (rockets and plasma). It's a good choice for larger crowds of weak demons, or one or two storng ones. In Doom 2 it takes a more specialist role, decent DPS, but a strong stunlock, useful for Cacos and Pain Elementals.

Quake runs the nailgun here. I'm biased, I think it's freaking cool. Two barrels? That awesome sound effect? The face that they're giant spikes and not bullets? Fucking metal. It's appropriately effective. Kills weak monsters quick enough, some ability to stun lock. It can't be too good, since the super nailgun has to be better, and it's harder to give it a niche than the shotgun to super shotty line.

Quake 2 nails the line split in a way that none of the other games manage, at least in the 2023 remake. In original machine gun is too weak to justify the goofy muzzle climb gimmick. It's a shame, because it's cool, but it's like giving an extra nerf to the basic shotty (oh wait, Quake did that and it was lame). In the remaster, it's a solid choice for dealing with groups of weak enemies. The super shotty hits harder, but sometimes you want to put a half dozen rounds each into a whole room full of guys. The usual stunlock on mediums also applies.

5. Now you're playing with power.

This is where the big guns start, though in different ways in each game.

Doom puts a rocket launcher here. By DPS, it's actually the best of the three. It ably dispatches groups of weak demons, or all but the toughest bosses. It's not as famous as the Quake one, but it's more than good enough.

Quake puts the super nailgun in the slot, though it really plays closer to the plasma gun from Doom. It's the long range DPS option, and probably the best "all around" weapon. Accurate, good damage, no splash. It's never a bad choice, even if it's not the best.

Quake 2 follows on the heels of the machine gun with a chain gun. Like its little brother, it has a downside, the classic (though this may be the first appearance) minigun "spin" system, where it shoots slower at first and wastes bullets at the end. On paper, it's the highest DPS in the game, but it empties a full load of ammo (assuming you grabbed a backpack) in about 12 seconds. Due to some weirdness with the higher tier weapons, this was actually my first choice for bosses and tough rooms in my playthrough.

Having both the shell and bullet families include one "basic" and one "power" weapon, both of which are functional through most of the game, is probably the best improvement Quake 2.

6. Grenades. Mostly.

Doom's slot 6 is the plama rifle. It's really more along the lines of the 5s in the other games. Modest single  round damage, high rate of fire, high accuracy. This is what you bust out for rough rooms most of the time in Doom, with BFGs being both scarce and ammo hungry.

Quake puts the grenade launcher here. This is the showcase weapon for a lot of the fancy new physics, and I think id really intended it to be the star of the show. It's great and bouncing around corners, dealing with zombies, and it hits hard enough to put down the mid tiers pretty quickly. And grenade jumping is kind of a thing.

Quake 2 adds a hand thrown grenade. They're not very good, and other games had been doing hand grenades for years at this point. It's clunky, hard to aim, and you only get one throw strength, unlike say Dark Forces. The grenade launcher also goes in this slot, and is a slightly weaker version of the Q1 one. Unlike Q1 it doesn't share ammo with rockets, which helps a lot. Combined with the slower/bulkier enemies like Tanks and Gladiators, it gets a lot of use. 

7. Big badaboom hardware

Doom closes things out here with the BFG 9000. Big primary fire, plus extra "invisible" damage that shoots out from the player half a second later. It's vaguely complicated. Kills anything except bosses in one hit, and will kill most of the room at once. (Bosses can take up to 3.)

Quake and Quake 2 put their rocket launcher here. The Q1 version shoots faster, and looks cooler. It's the gold standard by which all other rocket launchers are judged (and usually fail). Honestly, it's better in multiplayer, especially since the Shambler (the toughest monster in the game) has resistance to rockets. It's really fun though.

8. Tech gimmicks

Quake 1's last slot goes to the lightning gun (AKA thunderbolt). Compared to the BFGs, I've always found it kind of underwhelming. Besides the slot 1 melees, it's the only weapon with a range limit. Not, "less effective" at long range like a shotgun, it just... stops after like 50 feet. That's not terrible (a lot of the game is in pretty tight rooms and corridors), but it's weird for an "ultimate weapon" to be so limited. Chews ammo really quickly too. It's certainly effective, but more limited than a BFG. The gimmick is that it blasts out if you fire it in liquid, killing you and anything else. That's cool, but only practical in death match, or with invincibility. 

Quake 2 runs the railgun, which is sort of a first go at a sniper rifle. Super powerful, super accurate, and with a double damage "sneak attack" gimmick (that was later expanded to most of the arsenal). It can shoot through multiple enemies, which is cool. It's the trademark weapon for the game, and would go on to be featured in the rest of the series.

9. Just Quake 2

Quake 2 brings back the BFG, but now it's the 10K. It works a bit differently. But, again, it brings back a Doom staple that was completely skipped over in Quake 1.

 

People often point to Quake 2 as a departure from id's norms, but in some ways that's really Quake 1 (which, again, is a fantastic game).