It was nearly 10 years ago when Jon Jackson came to a LAN party at my house with a new game that none of us had played. He said, “This is the coolest first person shooter ever. The graphics are outstanding!” Or at least that’s how I remember it.

He was right.

This was also probably the first video game to drive us all to upgrade our video cards. At the time a Diamond Viper 330 touted a 4MB Nvidia chipset that could handle OpenGL. The other 3D chipset supported at the time was VooDoo2. If you could get your hands on one of these bad boys you could use it conjunction with a less powerful graphics card. In fact, I think you could daisy chain two VooDoo 2s to gain a few more frames per second. That was back when I thought 35fps was great.

Last week I fired up Quake 2 to finish a game I started last year. The funny thing about this Q2 install is it is the same as one I had on my machine in 1999. I’ve ported it from machine to machine without changing it. It still contains all of the mods. It’s sweet to be able to fire up Reckoning, LMCTF, CTF, Abandon, Devastator or Capture the Chicken when ever you want.

Tonight I beat the last level. I even found the easter egg room at the end with all of the game designers. At the end of the hall of game designers there is a ladder leading to a hidden room with throbbing music, moaning female voices and some of the characters in lascivious poses.

Ultimately I had a great time. I was startled many times and found myself getting that same old game anxiety I got 9+ years ago. I had forgotten completely about many items and discovered many new ones–and I still didn’t find all of the secrets. The cinematics were fun to watch though they seem very dated now. However, I would guess that the source files for these wonderful scenes exist somewhere and could be ported in much higher quality. I think there is potential to release a 10 year anniversary edition with pumped up graphics and a new graphics engine. I also think there is huge film potential for this game though games turned into movies rarely produce anything good in the box office (Alien Vs. Predator, Doom). I never saw Doom but I think Quake II has potential if you get a good screenplay and a director like Ridley Scott behind it.

So if you’ve been itchin’ for some free online deathmatch… I’m your man. If not, give Quake II another shot this year before it really does grow old.

Click here or on the photo above for a full screenshot.