Ground Zero was an expansion

 Unlike The Reckoning we did have Ground Zero when I was a kid. Looking back, I think a fair number of my Quake 2 annoyances were mostly from it. This is a very traditional expansions, bigger, harder, slightly more technically developed than the base game. Rogue software's stuff is kind of hit and miss, but I don't think they have anything actually bad. They worked closely with id (literally closely, same building), and I'll be looking at more of there stuff as this series of posts continues.

Big picture, this is a decent expansion. They looked at Quake 2 found some areas that were lacking and polished them, moved the difficulty up in a mostly appropriate way, and put together a couple cute set pieces. The overall design doesn't quite align as nicely as Quake 2 did, but it's better than Reckoning, Evilution, etc.

I will note that the remaster team made some substantial changes to this. I think they mostly got it right, and so I can see how the original release was pretty panned. This is a "you want more Quake 2?" expansion, not a "better Quake 2" the way something like Brood War or Frozen Throne (Blizzard was just good at expansions...)

Level-wise, it's a lot of meh-filler (as always, "more bad guys" is a staple of id expansions), punctuated by a couple cool ideas. I loved the reactor sequence where you turn it on and have to run before the section becomes toxic. You can get a Strogg disguise to sneak through part of a level (marking the first appearance of a mechanic id had been talking about since Wolf 3d), and the final boss (sort of) solves the "turn on all the powerups and hold fire" issue that all plagued the base game and first expansion. Things are a bit too mazey, and the objectives aren't as  effective at guiding you as they are in the original. "Kill everything" is a filler objective, and gets used way too much. There's also a lot of "return to X", but without a map or anything that's not really helpful (especially if you take a day or two away). The original included maps/signs much more frequently, and generally did a better job of "steering" you with the invisible hand of level design.

There's 6ish new enemies:

1. Turrets (with various weapons): These got the biggest rework in the remaster by adding a targeting laser and delay. They would be atrocious without it, and they're annoying with it. I'll be honest, by 1998, they should've known that turrets are hard to implement and usually annoying in this kind of shooter. They're one of the stock things to complain about across the genre, and had been for years. And by the end of the game I think you start to average about 1.5 per room.

2. Stalker: Ground Zero has a bit of an arachnid theme going on. Stalkers are quadruped, but I'm pretty sure spider is the intended vibe. It can jump up and down from the ceiling, crawl on walls, solid (just the right amount of occasionally annoying) ninja thing. The green blaster is a good call (we'll get to that), but it's stats are skewed. It's got a pile o' HP (more than a Berserker, which is the mid-tank default) and pretty low damage (nerfed in the remaster, boo). Should've given it more damage or a better fire rate, and then knocked HP to Gunner level or so. Maybe put a "venom" DoT effect? 

3. Daedalus: Mostly replaces the Icarus. Almost double HP, and a Power Screen. Again, cool idea, missed the numbers. Should've given them low HP and a lot of screen so you could try to get good angles (especially since they can fly).

4. Medic Commander: Medics with double health (more than a Gladiator, less than a Tank), a marginally better gun, and the ability to spawn in new enemies instead of just reviving them. I'm generally not a fan of spawning enemies in FPS games, but the fact that you can (possibly with a power up) go right for the Commander instead of having to do some "kill 12 waves and color in the jabberjaddle" bullshit makes these actually kind of fun.

5. Carrier: Buffed up version of the Hornet boss that can also spawn Flyers. Normal boss tactics (pop a powerup or two, unload w/ weapon of choice) apply.

6. Black Widow: Like the Makron, the final boss has two stages. Spawns Stalkers, and has the new expansion guns. The headline here is her ability to negate power ups in two ways. First, for most power ups, she toggles on her own version (and/or a shield boost). This is fine for a Quad (you can chew through the shield with yours and shouldn't be getting hit much anyway), but it completely negates Invulnerability on Hard or above. There's also a long (close to 30 seconds) pause between the forms where she retreats off screen, which means any extra power up time will expire. It does provide an easy opportunity to set up mines near her respawn point.

-1. There are less than a half dozen Tanks and Tank Commanders. So. Many. Gladiators.

The new generics are pretty solid, and the power-up boss was a cool idea. Turrets suck.

New Guns!:

1. ETF Rifle: It's the Nail Gun from Quake 1. Even the sound was the same, until they ruined it in the remaster. Originally it did double damage to shields, but this was moved to the energy weapons for the remaster. It does extra damage to armor (just turrets) in both versions.

It's a solid workhorse, even with the nerfs. It doesn't have any spin up/down like the Chaingun and Hyperblaster, or kickback like the (original) machine gun. Either way the damage falls right between the bullet and cell weapons. I think swapping the shield breaker to energy makes sense, but I wish they'd given more enemies the "armor" stat to compensate. Anybody who looks at least 2/3 mechanical counts? I dunno, feels like they took something interesting and made it more generic.

2. Plasma Beam: Hyper Blaster alternative. Worse in almost all situations. Waste of a slot.

3. Proximity Launcher: Like turrets, this is something that everybody tried to put in FPS games in the mid 90s, and eventually realized they aren't really that fun. The damage is too low (lower than grenades, despite being less versatile) and large enemies (basically just Gladiators since we have no Tanks) have too much trouble pathing. Next.

4. Tesla Mine: Of the 3 "trap" weapons between the two X-packs, this is the best one. More a turret, they have a longish set up delay, then zap enemies and pull aggro. A little extra DPS, a little distraction, all around a good thing. Remaster makes them stronger, but gives you fewer. I think it's a slight downgrade overall, but mostly a wash.

5. Chainfist: It's a chainsaw. Buffed in the remaster, but still not great. Good for gibbing corpses since there are so many more Medics. Compare to other games released around this time with lightsabers and acrobatics staves and stuff, kind of boring, but any melee is better than no melee.

6. Disruptor: Higher damage and fire rate than the rocket launcher, but no splash. Cut from the original game, ammo is rare. This is your boss-buster.

New Items:

1. Double Damage: Less interesting than the Quad or Dual Fire. Does stack with Quad in the Remaster. Kind of underwhelming.

2. IR Goggles: I found these counter productive. Enemies glow, but everything else is harder to see. Not worth it.

3. Defender Sphere: Reduces incoming damage by half, and has a week attack. Annoying because it sits in your inventory until it expires instead of when activated like the other items. Sometimes found right at the end of levels, and active ones don't carry over. But, for all that, doesn't trigger a clone effect from the Black Widow, so your ace in the hole for her.

4. Hunter/Vengeance Spheres: MP only. Tries to revenge kill whoever kills you.

5. Antimatter Bomb: Key item in SP. Usable in MP.

-1. Power Shield: id does armor in a kind of convoluted way in most of their games. In short, any armor will absorb a percentage of damage (varies between different armors and games) and takes that amount off your armor instead of health. The Power Shield effectively adds a second armor layer that absorbs 33% and drains it from your cells instead. This does have the slight disadvantage of making firing the BFG "cost" 50 "HP". But, it also just poofs away another third. That means that a player with a power shield and plenty of cells is borderline invincible, with 2/3 of any damage being negated or redirected (and then armor absorbs 1/3 or more of whatever is left before anything gets to health). There is a slight caveat (in the remaster) that energy weapons do deal the "missing" third to your power shield, which means you might want to toggle it off depending on what you're fighting, which is nice.

In the base game and The Reckoning you get your first one around 1/3 of the way through (64 holds off to just over half way). Ground Zero holds out until Unit 3. There are 5 total, so that sounds like about half, but units 4 and 5 are both very short, and 2 is very long, so it's probably about 2/3rds.

I'm not saying this is entirely wrong. A 2/3 damage cut is a huge boost, but it does really change the game when you're so much less durable. On the plus side, I used the BFG a lot more.

Overall, I think more blaster enemies (more effective Stalker?) would've been a more interesting choice than just borderline removing the item, but cool to see them recognizing a design issue and trying to rectify it.

Next up, the Remaster expansion: Call of The Machine