It would be churlish to blame Quake II for the dreary era of FPSes it heralded (or, more specifically, for the way its narrative and gameplay innovations paved the way for the most tedious instalment in the series), but I think anyone who loves the dance-like rhythms of Doom and Quake can see it marks an inflection away from their ethos and towards a slightly more plodding and cinematic vision of the genre. It's still very, very good, fast and fun, though!

Coming off of Quake, I thought I'd love this, but the way the dogs yelped when you killed them was too much for me. They should have growled or something else

For a long time, the very best the FPS genre had to give. What a soundtrack.