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What’s better: Quake 2’s railgun or the currency ‘Gold’?Vote now!
Vote now!
Last time, you decided thatelaborate corridor architecture is better than funicular fights. I wholeheartedly agree with you, but needed to check because the number of video game funicular fights compared to real-world funicular fights did suggest they might be wildly popular. Now we know. As we continue the mission, this week I ask you to choose between the evils of violence and money. What’s better:Quake2’s railgun or the currency ‘Gold’?
Quake 2’s railgun
I gasped the first time I fired Quake 2’s railgun, laughed the second, and still feel warm every time since. It’s a simple sci-fi design, a tube with a bit of bendy pipe and a exposed tech panel which glows red with painted-on light. Chunky yet elegant. Then you click and PIOHW! The railgun spits a spiral of blue particles with a white trail running through the middle, and whatever stood in its way has likely now been replaced with a bloody shower gibs. That rail spiral is still maybe my favourite video game weapon special effect.
Quake 2’s railgun occupies that pleasant spot on the risk/reward spectrum with great power but a notable pause between shots. Hit, and anything that doesn’t burst will be mighty wounded. Miss, and you’ll need to dodge until it’s ready to go again. It’s not a huge cooldown, mind. It has a speed and efficiency which feels so powerful. Point, click, delete. Point, click, delete. And the slug pierces every enemy in its path. Wonderful.
It felt even better to master the railgun in online multiplayer. Sure, other players make deadly foes than AI, but the real enemy was lag. Without dialup connections and no modern lag-compensating technologies, you needed to predict your enemy’s movement and aim where they would be in 100-200 milliseconds. To nail them with a weapon which had neither splash damage nor spread was skill (or luck, but no, it always skill for me).
Other Quakes have railguns but none is nearly as magical. The modern Dooms channelled the railgun’s spirit into their Gauss Cannon and Ballista but no, they’re not what I want either. Hoping back into Quake 2 this morning to capture a wee video for this post, I then spent another 20 minutes running around going PIOHW! PIOHW!
Quake 2 singleplayer railgun gameplay
The currency ‘Gold’
Forget your Florins, Orens, Crowns, Sovereigns, Guilder, Gil, Gilberts, Dollars, Dinars, and Daves. In this fantasy video game, our currency is Gold. Gold what? Just Gold, don’t worry about it. You get an object shaped like a coin and it’s called 1 Gold and you should be happy with that.
I like how brazenly video game-y it is, too. Gold. Just Gold. Maybe Gold Pieces, if we’re feeling extravagant. But mostly just Gold. One standard unit of gold.
