Action Quake 2: how to setup and start playing

​Action Quake 2 is predecessor for a popular game "Counter Strike" made by ​the same developer. It is fully free software now, so it is a good game to play if you prefer using mostly free software. Gameplay is something in between Counter Strike and Quake 2, I would describe it as "It is CS, but fun and it is arena shooter".

How to setup

There are two ways to play the game. Easy and proprietary one and mostly free, but a bit harsh (not so harsh, but it might require a compiling software depending on distribution you are using).

q2pro + aq2-tng + baseq2 + @zevlg config

​@zevlg is Emacs package developer who plays action quake for 20+ years. His config is good for competitive playing. If you are not comfortable with playing quake, it might feel awkward.

Download links:

• Minimal aq2-tng: ​https://disk.yandex.ru/d/7UUEX2ic2i7Bvg
• Minimal aq2-tng + maps: ​https://disk.yandex.ru/d/W-7ixUGT-aVzlQ
• Full set with all textures and maps: ​https://disk.yandex.ru/d/HtmBA8CEcWDRaA (Download this)
• @zevlg config: ​https://github.com/zevlg/dot.q2pro (Download this)

Compiling q2pro

Q2PRO (​Source Code) is enhanced client for quake 2. It might be not packaged or outdated for your linux distribution, so you need to compile it yourself. It is easy and done using several commands as ​q2pro documentation states it:

git clone https://github.com/skullernet/q2pro.git

sudo apt install meson gcc libc6-dev libsdl2-dev libopenal-dev \
                 libpng-dev libjpeg-dev zlib1g-dev mesa-common-dev \
                 libcurl4-gnutls-dev libx11-dev libxi-dev \
                 libwayland-dev wayland-protocols libdecor-0-dev \
                 libavcodec-dev libavformat-dev libavutil-dev \
                 libswresample-dev libswscale-dev

meson setup builddir
meson configure builddir
meson compile -C builddir

sudo ninja -C builddir install

It should work for Debian-based systems (Debian, Ubuntu, Linux-Mint and so on). If you have different system only part with apt install (dependencies) should change. After running this command you should be able to call q2pro binary in your terminal. For example: q2pro --version.

Starting the game

You need to do some change

aQtion using Steam

The most easiest way, but semi-proprietary since it uses Steam. You can install it in Steam, it is completely free and user friendly: ​https://store.steampowered.com/app/1978800/AQtion/

Also it provides its own packages, that can be run without Steam: ​https://github.com/actionquake/distrib (check Releases). Just install package on your system and play.