Call of the Machine

Call of the Machine is MachineGames' expansion for the Remaster. It reuses a bunch of expansion content (monsters more than the guns, because fuck you), a little Quake 1 content (because every id universe needs to be forced into being a linear series now), and one or two original enemies. Also one from the Playstation port (but they still left one out?)

A common critique of Quake 2 is that it's sort of stuck between two generations of shooters. Quake is a clear evolution of Doom. Weird maps that exist to be levels, piles o' monsters, blast everything. Half-Life and Unreal at least sort of try to be realistic, and bring the crazy factor down considerably. Quake 2 kind of splits the difference, in a way that doesn't satisfy most people.

Call of the Machine gives a kind of "what if..." approach, with 6 mini-episodes (your guns reset, it counts) hitting at different places on that spectrum.

You start out on a not-quite-as-cool-as-Quake-1 hub map with 6 buttons. Each one launches a pod with a marine in it (they bounce out on impact and it's very silly). 

Episodes 1 and 2 are more Quake 2 following from the other two expansions, the levels are bigger, more complicated, and harder. They've had 25 years to advance tech and play with the engine, so there are some cute little physics puzzles (frozen half pipes, low grav, trickier laser traps), more complicated level design, etc. Overall, these are decent (but not amazing) "I want more Quake 2" levels. Much better than Reckoning about on par w/ Ground Zero.

Episodes 3 and 4 are bad Doom in the Quake 2 engine. These are embarrassing mid 90s slaughter maps. They weren't fun in Doom, and they're not fun here. These kinds of things were common 20 or so years ago, but really shouldn't have made it into a flagship remake.

Episodes 5 and 6 go the other way. Instead of being "retro" and taking Quake 2 back towards Doom, they jump another year or so ahead in FPS development. Levels are largely coherent and realistic, there's (kind of) a story, etc. These could've released alongside Half-Life or Unreal and would've fit in well.

Then there's an incredibly lazy boss episode that would've been bad for Doom, uncreative for Quake, and WTF this doesn't fit at all in Quake 2. No powerups? No rail gun? What game are we playing? (I think it's supposed to be Quake 1, since you get all the repeat Quake 1 guns except the grenade launcher, and the plasma beam is kind of the thunderbolt.)

There's a lot of water and platforming through the whole thing. Because we can't learn that lesson apparently. Similary, monster closets, oh boy. There's some arena levels, so we can tack the worst gameplay theme of the last decade into a 25 year old game. There are a couple good "bait" enemies that you shoot to trigger ambushes, something Doom does, but Quake 2 mostly skips. Also, the devs have no idea how health/armor work in Quake 2. Enjoy getting megahealths every 30 seconds, but not finding armor in secret levels. The flashlight from Reckoning comes back at random? Weird.

I kind of skipped over this in my initial review, but mutants jump a lot less in the remaster (berserkers get a jump to kind of balance things). That's because Machinegames wanted to use more in their expansion than in the 4 other campaigns combined. By the end, it feels like they should've just used fiends as a Quake 1 cameo instead of breaking a Quake 2 monster to use a ton.

You get the machine gun before the shotgun in about half the levels (and the BFG first once!) It's kind of cool to see the evolution of the shell and bullet lines from Doom to Quake 2 they're kind of even now with one "basic" and one "power" weapon each.

I think Episodes 5 and 6 are pretty easy recommends for most shooter fans. 1 and 2 are decent. 3 and 4 for completionists only. 7 (boss) for masochists only.

So, Quake 2 overall:

Definitely play the base game. The remaster version is fun, and it's a historic piece.

Probably play the N64 campaign. It's quick and fun.

Play at least part of Call of the Machine. There are some real good parts mixed in with the rest.

Reckoning and Ground Zero are skippable, unless you just really like Quake 2.