Guardian | |
Health |
2,500 |
Attack Damage |
|
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, also known as the Strider, is a powerful Strogg enemy found 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 maneuverability 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.
Combat Analysis[]
Hyperblaster: The Guardian launches four-round bursts of hyperblaster fire in the player's direction. These shots are incredibly well-aimed, meaning a stationary or slow-moving player can easily be hit by each of them.
Laser: The Guardian's laser mounted on its left shoulder is a hitscan weapon firing in bursts of two shots each, and as a hitscan weapon cannot be easily dodged. Cover is a better defense against it.
Melee: If the player gets too close to the Guardian it will attempt to kick or stamp them, dealing massive amounts of damage. One or two attacks can easily kill even a fully armored player, so getting into close proximity with the Guardian should be avoided at all costs.
Strategies[]
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.
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 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.