Ah, I remember some of those maps :) Brendon Chung's ones were amongst the most original, especially Gravity Bone. Weird in a good way. That's prompted me to go and download them for playing again... found them here.

If anyone is interested, KyperTrast has uploaded a video of his run through SMD here. Good shooting and movement skills. 

All around solid architecture - every single map here has a monolithic quality (which fits the base game perfectly) and shows great attention to detail. Various Lazarus features are implemented very well and add to the adventurous vibe of the unit.

Although I used to play custom Q2 levels on Hard, SMD proved too difficult for me due to the modified enemies. I was already having a hard time by the midst of the second map, thus I restarted on Medium. It turned to a smooth and enjoyable ride then.

However, I encountered the same bug that Kona has mentioned - that is, after overloading the core and escaping the facility, the Hub level wouldn't load and crashed the game instead. Loading the last save on that map and trying to load up a different level just froze it up. So I had to manually load the cutscene and the last map. (Unofficial 3.24)

Nevertheless, the unit was highly enjoyable. It was a great experience to return to the sequel and have a blast with such a great pack. Thanks Musashi. 

Thanks erc.

Sounds like the crash might be due to the new countdown clock entity having issues with the v3.24 client - I'll have to do some further testing with it. 

Nice to see new maps for Q2.

I like the wide level, nice architecture, beautiful texture, new animations, modified monsters, hologram, camera, new sounds...

I played it on Hard, it's really hard now, but i really like this kind of challenge.

Unfortunately, I encountered the same bug that Kona and erc, the countdown crashed the game when i go back (when the Q2 3.24 engine load the level, then i try with my savegames with the 3.20 version and same problem)

Thanks Musashi for your work 

...I just finished the first level, got a load of bullets and shells but no Machinegun or Shotgun. Playing on Mac Os Yamagi, I suppose the weapons were meant to be dropped by some Gunner and Grunt along the way and Yamagi is not handling matters the way it should, right? 

from memory. 

Here I got Hyperblaster+Blaster+100 cells.

That's all.

Manage to get to the beginning of level 2, but something must definitely be broken, I can't seem to lower the elevator past the first sealed door, and it looks transparent...

Thanks anyway... 

the lazarus mod isnt compatible with Yamagi. 

...oh, well, tomorrow I'll try it in parallels win2k, let's see what happens. 

Playing in KMQ2, the game crashes whenever I try to load a save in the third map.

I haven't played the game in a long time so maybe it's just me, or is the mouse a bit awkward in this game? 

Amazing.
Nice combat, also, if a little linear...

Got to the power cube in the power core section, as soon as I touch it Knightmare (on win2k, Parallels) freezes hopelessly.

I'd hate to cheat. Any workarounds? 

Not really, unfortunately. There's a triggger around the cube that links to a whole bunch of entities (some custom), so it must be one of those not liking the KMQ2/Q2K combo.

I'd be interested to know if it crashes on vanilla Q2 v3.20 since that's the most tested one, which hasn't had any (reported) problems yet. 

"I'll have to figure out how to install my Q2 disc on my disc-less machine and play it."

Install Daemon tools lite on any pc with a disc drive to read it, make an image of Q2. Install Daemon tools lite on the disc-less machine, copy over the Q2 image and mount it. Install Q2 as usual.

This method works for almost everything out there (especially older software). 

Don't do that, daemon tools is full of spyware and shit nowadays. If you need a disc emulator then use http://wincdemu.sysprogs.org/

You don't need to install Q2 anyways, just copy the baseq2 directory instead. 

I haven't had any problems (but you do need to pay attention to the options during installation for you will indeed get some stuff that is unwanted). Oldapps.com has previous versions without all of the nags if that's an issue.

That being said the WinCDEmu looks pretty good as well. The main thing is to get software that can make and read an ISO a just like a real disc. The fairly recent practice of not including an optical drive to keep the price down has made for a lot of pretty good software to remedy the issue. 

just buy it on steam, the quake collection is always dropped in price on every sale anyway :P 

then you'll miss the soundtrack 

Surely Quake 2 has a source port which supports external music?! 

sure, but you would have to rip it anyways, right? 

...Musashi.

I tried it in vanilla Quake on parallels. Definitely the way to go. Lots of features not apparent in KMquake pop up.

But, after the power core overload, game crahed in the level change.

Wil I ever be able to finish this one?? :( 

...at least I made it through the bridge.

Had a quick run this morning use Quake 2 Evolved which, even though breaking up the action with load screens, worked just fine.

I quit at the start of smd6 because I wanted to play the whole pack on a beefier difficulty level. 

I've been playing Quake 2 for many many years now, off and on, usually at work(!). Never really had the time or inclination to start playing other games, which i know is a bit different. But i am a complete Quake 2 devotee and i have probably played every level that anyone has ever made, at one time or another. sadly most of those links are dead now, but i do still manage to find quite a few that i have loaded on my new computer. Anyway, that preamble is just leading up to my thanking you for making a new mission pack. I love your work. I always play every game at hard level, no matter how frustrating--and your maps are REALLY hard. I still have not figured out how to get out during the five minutes while the power is overloading, and i still have not found all the secrets. Still going through the second time. I will have more to report, but suffice to say that your mission pack is beautiful,
challenging, smart, and harrowing. 

Thanks billychuck, glad you liked it. 

I've been in contact with Musashi, and he said he didn't mind my posting the port I've been working on even though it's only mostly finished. I was able to get the Lazarus_SMD game code to compile using GCC, so that means it's playable in YamagiQ2 on non-Windows platforms. The save-file system is buggy starting with the 3rd map, and I'm afraid it's beyond my ability to diagnose the issue, unfortunately.

If anyone has the chops to try to fix that, or if you just want the opportunity to play the last all-new Q2 release on macOS or Linux (one map at a time) the source can be downloaded below.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/z4zx3d7ryz2u72p/smd-yamagi-src.zip