| |
| Guardian | |
| Health |
2,500 |
| Attack Damage |
Hyperblaster: 25 per bolt |
| Found in | |
| [Source] | |
| “ | It appears to have been constructed from a Tank Commander's torso, wired into a massive pair of mechanical legs. Two large weapon assemblies extend from its shoulders. Commonly, the Guardian launches continuous four-round bursts of hyperblaster fire in the player's direction from its right weapon mount. The Guardian will also use the laser mounted on its left shoulder against players who are a greater distance away. If the player gets too close to the Guardian it will attempt to kick or stamp them, dealing massive amounts of damage. | ” |
—iD Vault (itself quoting this article) | ||
The Guardian is a powerful Strogg enemy introduced in the Playstation port of Quake II. It is assigned to defend the Gravity Booster and must be destroyed so the player can retrieve its Antimatter Core and use it to destroy the Gravity Booster. Aside from the Makron and the Jorg it is the hardiest foe in the game, with a set of powerful weapons and extremely high health. However, it is a very large target, has limited manoeuvrability and is not particularly fast.
The Guardian and the Arachnid are the only Strogg that were exclusive to the Playstation version and did not appear in the PC release of Quake II originally. With the release of the 2023 remaster, an Arachnid now makes an appearance in Call of the Machine, but the Guardian does not - however, it is found in the iD Vault and game files nonetheless.
In October 2024, the unofficial community project Quake II PSX was released, which recreates the Playstation port and brings it to the remastered PC version. As part of this release, the Guardian received a new model (including pain skins for when it is down to less than half health) and a complete rework of its combat characteristics and behaviour.
Behaviour and attacks (Playstation version)[]
Hyperblaster: The Guardian launches four-round bursts in the player's direction, each bolt dealing 25 damage if it connects. These bolts are quick to fire, but can be dodged by strafing.
Laser: The Guardian's laser mounted on its left shoulder is a hitscan weapon firing in bursts of two shots each. However, in the original Playstation version, the laser is very rarely used.
Melee: In close range, the Guardian will kick the player, dealing heavy damage if it connects.
Strategies (Playstation version)[]
There are two main strategies that can be easily employed against the Guardian; circle-strafing at close range allows the player to deal near-continuous damage with non-splash-damage weapons such as the Super Shotgun, chaingun, hyperblaster and railgun, while ducking in and out of cover behind the room's pillars allows them to use heavier weapons while minimizing exposure to its powerful weaponry. The room's size allows the player to keep the Guardian at a distance, with each pillar far enough from the last that several hits can be landed with the Grenade Launcher and Rocket Launcher before moving is necessary again.
In theory the Guardian can be danced with in the same manner as the Gladiator and other enemies with melee attacks, but this is inadvisable simply due to the massive damage dealt by its melee attack.
Quake II PSX[]
Quake II PSX completely overhauls the Guardian's combat characteristics, as follows:
- gains a health boost on the harder difficulty settings and in co-operative play. Its base health remains 2500, but on Hard this is increased to 3750, or 5000 on Nightmare. In co-operative play its health is 5000.
- hyperblaster now fires a volley of at least eight bolts, each dealing 3 damage. The bolts have the ability to predict the player's movement, making them more difficult to dodge
- laser is much more likely to be used, and now deals four hits at 15 damage apiece. They can be dodged by strafing. On Hard and Nightmare difficulty, the pre-fire animation is considerably quicker.
- kick damage increased to 80, is more accurate and has a greater range
- new attack behaviour: the Guardian launches a volley of four heat-seeking rockets. These can be fired around cover, even if the Guardian cannot see the player. The rockets deal 20 damage on a direct hit, and they can be destroyed by the player's gunfire.
- on all difficulty settings except Easy, the Guardian can scan for power-ups used by the player, and if certain power-ups are detected (including Invulnerability and Quad Damage) the Guardian will activate a power shield in response.
Furthermore, the Gravity Booster level contains several waves of reinforcements to assist the Guardian which were not present in the original Playstation campaign.
Appearance statistics[]
| Campaign | Any difficulty |
|---|---|
| Quake II | - |
| The Reckoning | - |
| Ground Zero | - |
| Quake II 64 | - |
| Quake II PSX | 1 |
| Call of the Machine | - |
Trivia[]
- The Guardian is called Strider in the PSX game code.
- The Guardian is one of very few enemies that is encountered only once in any official Quake II single-player campaign, a distinction it shares with the two forms of the Black Widow Guardian and the Machine Gun variety of the Turret.
Gallery[]
