Quake 4 Review

By Kristan Reed Published 21 October, 2005

Earth shattering?

Version tested: PC

Alien menaces never die, they just return in time to show off new gaming technology. That's definitely the case with Quake 4, with Earth's great foe, The Strogg, undeterred by the loss of their leader, the Makron. Far from being thrown into disarray, the cybernetic warriors regroup and rebuild a new, more powerful Makron. Sigh. Best take that one out as well then, eh?

Alternatively, the opening paragraph could have just as easily have gone like this:

Old franchises never die, they just return in time to show off new gaming technology. That's definitely the case with Quake 4, with Valve's great foe, id, undeterred by being too busy working on other stuff to get around to making another game in the Quake series. Far from being thrown into disarray, the Carmack, Willits and co regroup and build the new, more powerful Doom III game engine and commission long-term cohorts Raven to churn out a game that picks up where Quake II left off. Sigh. Best dust off the Alienware mouse and stick it to The Strogg one more time, eh?

Whichever opening salvo you prefer, the general message appears to be one of 'don't be surprised'. Because everything about Quake 4 is in its right place. No alarms, no surprises. But so much so that most of the veteran shooters among us will be rueing Raven's overly formulaic approach to something that we were all hoping would amaze us. It doesn't. In summary, Quake 4 is a textbook example of 'how to make a highly competent first-person shooter using someone else's new engine'.

Tick, tick, tick

It ticks all the right boxes: decent, chatty buddy AI, a semblance of a storyline, 'thrilling' on-rails sections, a fine selection of (upgradeable) weapons, an interesting plot twist, some 'intense action', mech combat, tank combat and all wrapped up in the most powerful graphics engine the world has ever seen. How could it fail?

Well, it doesn't exactly fail at anything it does, except perhaps do the things that you'd expect a next generation shooter to do, to do something, anything, that a bunch of other games haven't done to death already. This is the crucial point, because in a genre as saturated as the FPS there needs to be some element of surprise, some sense of the unknown to drag you through, or else you end up feeling like you could be playing any number of other shooters. It needs its own stamp, its own personality, and that's most crucially where Quake 4 lacks. But enough of that for the moment; let's start at the beginning.

You're thrown into the fray as Rhino squad's new recruit Matthew Kane, and the game kicks off in typically macho big-space-marines-with-even-bigger-guns-and-we're gonna-kick-ass sci-fi style with your ship heading for a final assault on the pesky Strogg. But things don't get off to the best of starts when Rhino squad are shot out of the sky and most of the team perish in the ensuing crash. With typically spectacular Doom III-powered aplomb, the scene's set. The dust, the noise, the confusion. Am I alive? Where am I? "Get over here marine!"

Lazy line painter Jane

'Quake 4' Screenshot 5

Strange things, these Strogg.

One thing is clear: brown is back, and it's browner than ever, and as we quickly descend through the linear path of rubble into the linear bowels of the linear Strogg base, Quake 4 starts as it means to go on: by ordering you around like the underling you are, in formulaic, linear fashion. With the game kicking-off on Kane's first day of frontline duty, you're forever being told what to do, where to go, and to be quick about it. No-one really expects this freshman to see out the day, but how can the Strogg menace stand in the way of one man and his trusty quick-save key?

From the very beginning, right to the end of the game, Raven is more than happy to design a pretty, linear and by-the-numbers shooter that has you plodding hither and thither down dark and eery metallic (brown) corridors, replete with flashing consoles on a series of 'flick this switch' quests for the next ten or so hours. Of course, along the way you're expected to duke it out with thousands of lurking Strogg, but that's all in the line of duty.

To break up the action a little, occasionally you'll hop aboard a giant Walker mech and stomp around for a bit causing maximum destruction (but never actually die because you've got a rechargeable shied), or glide around in a SMC Hovertank shooting equally gigantic (and admittedly spectacular) targets (and rarely die for the same reasons), or engage in some on-rails shooting against a band of relentless pursuers (and never die, because, well, it's a piece of piss). Now and then there's even the odd visually magnificent boss section to get the pulse racing (where you probably won't die). And a gigantic great plot twist (that id completely ruined for us back at E3 - thanks guys) to get excited about, only to realise it doesn't change anything. There's no doubt about it: Raven tries its best to throw in the right ingredients, but any vaguely experienced FPS player can tell it's suspiciously under-cooked. Numb yourself to the sense of familiarity, blur your eyes and convince yourself you haven't seen it all before and better and you could quite easily convince yourself that this was the best shooter you'd played since Half-Life 2. But this, of course, would be a dirty, filthy lie. It's a world away from that.

Eye Eye, cap'n

'Quake 4' Screenshot 1

Vossy dishes out another briefing.

But break it down to its parts, and things don't sound nearly as negative. On a technical level, for one thing, it's incredible at times. Outstanding. Hook it up to a big widescreen monitor (preferably a plasma), and it's a tour-de-force action spectacular where every corner of every level is (often literally) dripping with such a stupefying amount of incidental detail you could spend ages just gawping at walls just to take in the majesty of it all.

Cunningly, Raven has even included a widescreen mode - making the effect even more cinematic if you've got the kit. Curiously no widescreen resolutions are supported, but it doesn't matter at all, so even playing at 800x600 on a 1360x768 screen looks breathtaking, allowing us to enjoy the full spectacle without having to endure too many performance hits on our 6800GT-powered 3.2GHz system. There are times when it really does look like the Hollywood blockbuster of videogames, but we're talking Independence Day crowd-pleasing cheese here, as opposed to, say, the dark malevolence of Aliens.

As much as we love the intensely beautiful texture and lighting effects, and admire the almost unbelievably-detailed and wondrously animated character models, the spectre of Doom III hangs heavy over the whole thing. The environments still rely on dark shadowy corners, and are rigidly, frustratingly non-interactive, with even your most overwhelmingly powerful weaponry barely scratching the surface. And enemy corpses still disappear, albeit this time in a green frazzle. And what happened to using clever physics to enhance the first-person shooter experience? Aside from being able to knock over a few barrels, that's literally the extent of Raven's ambitions here.

The shot remains the same

'Quake 4' Screenshot 2

The Strogg - doing a nice line in '70s retro chic.

Weapons-wise, all the standards are present and (somewhat predictably) correct, and, yes, you can still carry all ten of them, even though some of them look as big as you do when you're wielding them. The initial Blaster gun wins the award for the least-used game weapon of all-time, but from the Machine Gun onwards, things rapidly improve with the usual array of old favourites (Lightning gun, Nail gun, Grenade launcher, Rocket launcher, and the BFG-esque Dark Matter gun etc, etc) making an appearance at gradual intervals throughout the game.

Amazingly, all bar the initial Blaster come in useful at some point or other, largely thanks to Raven's decision to allow technicians to apply upgrades to them as you go along. Nice touch. By the end, you'll be using pretty much every weapon in different tactical circumstances - Raven gets things spot-on in terms of giving you an array of long, short and medium range weapons that all get their fair-share of use during the campaign. And as a concession to the deluge of complaints about Doom III's torch/gun debate, the first two weapons now come with a mounted light - making it necessary to occasionally switch back to the machine gun when you're alone in the dark.

Though the weapons are well-balanced in terms of their effectiveness and usefulness, they're possibly a little too powerful for their own good, allowing you to charge into most situations suicidally and yet come out on top. The proliferation of accompanying buddy AI team-mates makes things easier to start with - and not just in terms of their extra firepower. Quake 4's team-mates even help top up health and armour, making it practically impossible to die in the first half of the game. And if that wasn't enough help, the dizzying amount of health and armour pick-ups makes much of the game a procession.

F5/F9 to infinity

'Quake 4' Screenshot 3

None more brown - just as well it's my favourite colour,

The latter half of the game is much more of a lonely experience, meaning you'll begin to studiously rely on the F5 key in order to make consistent progress. A word of warning, though: try to resist the temptation to play the game on the first two difficulty settings; the first is just insultingly easy, while the second is just plain, old fashioned easy. We wished developers could just pitch Easy/Normal/Hard and leave it at that, instead of muddying the waters with four or more levels of difficulty. It's too easy to assume the second rung up is 'normal', when it's evidently not.

Even taking all of that into account, it's the AI that's ultimately to blame for the game's inability to challenge and involve. Quake 4 doesn't really do enough to make the core of the game all that exciting or different. This might sound like an insult, but essentially, the firefights feel more or less the same as Doom III, just without the old-school respawning out of a gap in the wall nonsense. They're largely tight encounters, four-on-one shootouts where they all rush at you suicidally, and it's a case of the bravest one wins. There's no Halo-esque ducking and diving, no running around cover points and playing hide and seek, just plenty of wham, blam, but no 'thank you ma'am'. After a while you realise it's neither especially challenging or that exciting. Even the boss encounters are unbelievably easy - some going down on our first attempt by merely unloading our fully stocked big guns and circle strafing. Compare this to, say, Metroid Prime 2's innovative and infinitely challenging bosses and weep.

Perhaps if the game's story was a real gripping sci-fi yarn of epic intrigue you could forgive the game's tendency to follow the FPS rules to the letter. But it isn't. Apart from the game's one moment of intrigue where it seems destined to follow a Doom-III's-journey-into-Hell-style sea change (but then doesn't) it's so deeply uninvolving you won't believe your eyes.

A pressing matter

'Quake 4' Screenshot 4

Whatever's strapped to his hands, it must make going to the loo a real 'mare.

All you're literally doing throughout the entire game - and this won't come as a spoiler - is charging after the next switch and taking down the next cluster of dim-witted Strogg. Powering down the next generator, turning off the security, meeting so-and-so, escorting so-and-so to such-and-such. And then there are the 'characters', which we use in the loosest sense of the word; a bunch of generic droids so devoid of personality, witty lines or any point to their existence at all that the fact that you can't gun them down yourself is the central low point of the game. At least their lip-synching is spot-on, eh? But what, exactly, is the point of constructing a story-driven game and then giving players the most tediously uninvolving tasks there have ever been? Aren't we beyond that now? Is this not 2005? The start of the next generation? At least Doom III had the little emails and audio logs to deliver something of a back-story. Quake 4's setting is an empty, soulless base, with radio chatter that (more often than not) gets completely buried in the audio mix. We know nothing of The Strogg's back-story, nothing of its prime movers and their plans. It's all just as simple as Earth against the aliens. KILL THEM ALL! WOOOOAAAARGH! HURRY UP KANE!

And then there's the multiplayer. The oh-my-god-is-that-it? multiplayer. The oh-my-god-I've-woken-up-from-a-six-year-Cryogenic-stasis-only-to-discover-it's-still-1999 type multiplayer. Actually, if the year was still 1999, the 16-player (only 16? 'Fraid so) thrills on offer would be considered very special indeed. Offering up standard Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Tournament (one-on-one), Capture the Flag and Team Capture the Flag, you can tell right there and then that daring innovation and effort was off the menu.

The fact that it's all good, old-fashioned fragging fun is maybe the point (particularly Deathmatch, as it happens), but it's hardly going to reinvigorate the passion for shooting other people in the head that 40 other games have managed during the six years that have elapsed since Quake III Arena showed up. Yes, you can play some of the old maps that you knew and loved in this glorious new engine, but the novelty nostalgia value will probably wear off sooner than you think. Complete with Q3 jump pads and that commentator; it's essentially more of the same old same old, which for some of you may be good enough, but not for us. Bah. Back to Battlefield 2, then. Maybe Quake Wars will get it right?

Rumble

That Quake 4 has arrived with such a muted fanfare is maybe telling. We all predicted in one of our more glib moments of cynicism that it would essentially be a brown Doom III, and that's not a million miles away from the truth. But you know what? Unlike a lot of people, I really dug Doom III - particularly the latter third that few people got to see - but Quake 4 feels like an uninspired, by-the-numbers sci-fi B-movie of a game with high production values. It's 'fun', for the nine, ten hours it lasts, but only in the same brainless sense that allows us to enjoy dumb popcorn action movies. It's only when you sit back and run through what's there you actually realise that there's not a lot of substance to Quake 4, beyond being very pretty indeed. We were hoping for rather more than a 'competent', 'fun' shooter out of Raven. Those words just sound insulting when you sit them next to the words 'Quake' and '4', and perhaps that sums up just why we think it only deserves a 7, and a low one at that. Shame.

7 / 10

Read the Eurogamer.net scoring policy
Picture of Kristan.

About Kristan Reed

Kristan is a former editor of Eurogamer, dad, Stone Roses bore and Norwich City supporter who sometimes mutters optimistically about Team Silent getting back together.

Read more articles from Kristan by visiting the Kristan Reed archive page.

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Comments (106) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Lost_in_Darkness #1 6 years ago

    man, iD have really fucked up.

  • Derblington #2 6 years ago

    Because they didn't make the game?

  • UncleLou #3 6 years ago

    Good review.

    The graphics whore in me is of cause terribly tempted. :/

  • nomaad #4 6 years ago

    Definitely read more like a 6 review. Basically it looks good, plays samey and the MP is same old same old. Sounds like the sort of game Eurogamer would really, really hate :/

    *pours one out for the Quakes of old*

  • Teeth #5 6 years ago

    Blimey, Belle and Sebastian and Radiohead references eh? Nice job.

  • Stickman #6 6 years ago

    I'll stick to replaying Half Life 2 then.

  • krudster #7 6 years ago

    Well, all things considered, it's a 6/10 game in 10/10 clothing, so you kind of have to give it its dues because it does satisfy the graphics whore in all of us.

  • Blerk #8 6 years ago

    Quake was always over-rated. Now it isn't! :-)

  • marilena #9 6 years ago

    I agree with Blerk! Hold on to something, the world is ending!
    Edited by 1 at 21/10/05 @ 13:28

  • Kalinin #10 6 years ago

    "Far from being thrown into disarray, the cybernetic warriors regroup and rebuild a new, more powerful Makron. Sigh. Best take that one out as well then, eh?"

    This is another fine example of people not learning to fear escolation theory!!!

    The only true way to defeat the Strogg is to sit on your hands and try not to make any threatening movements. Non-interferance, yes, just the ticket!

  • martyngates #11 6 years ago

    im really hoping this does well, doom3 bored me to death and i never really got into hl1/hl2, but like the review says all the right boxes on what to included are ticked, and the weapons and speed of gamplay just feel right

    if you liked Q2 and want it in a flashy new set of clothes then this is for you

  • Dizzy #12 6 years ago

    Old Skool multiplayer might not be a bad thing. True a lot of new games have offered something new (Halo vehicles, BF mass battles, TF classes....) but few new games have offered solid, quick to learn, stable, enjoyable online fragging. So maybe Q4 will be fun to play? How is the net code?

  • Tomo #13 6 years ago

    Oh my...

    how disheartening. I'm installing as we speak. All I care about is that the multiplayer is back to Q2 standards. Best game ever.

  • statix101 #14 6 years ago

    LOL...one of the key selling points of the Xbox 360 is its ability to play Pc games at a better frame rate and be better looking than any current Pc can manage....

    Unfortunately people forgot to ask wether those games would actually be any good.....

    How many Quake 4 preorders will cancelled for December 2nd once the word gets round?......

  • knif3r #15 6 years ago

    don't think there were many in the first place

    Quake is soooo 1990's - much better FPS's out there

  • skillian #16 6 years ago

    Wow, that's the least favourable review I've read of Quake 4. Indeed, the 7 it scores seems mighty generous given the text that preceeds it.

    Apart from the graphics, not a single positive point is mentioned in the whole review - that is a little hard to understand, as the game is not completely without merit, as the score suggests.

    Personally the game seems a lot of fun - not much in the way of innovation, but I wasn't expecting that. I was expecting some old school style blasting fun, and in that sense at least, it delivers.

    To my eyes, the score is fair but the review is far too negative.
    Edited by 1 at 21/10/05 @ 13:58

  • Psi #17 6 years ago

    single player games fun, multiplayers not very impressive.

  • kewny #18 6 years ago

    That time of the month eh lads ? I can see your point with the review but seriously what did you really expect ?? I never expected anything mindblowingly original and that never stopped you giving doom 3 a high score even though the majority of negatives raised in this review could quite easily have been superimposed onto the doom 3 review. That said you have been playing fear this week so that can sway your thoughts. I think you have to look at this game as an extremely impressive looking and fun but shallow game. If that appeals to you then you will enjoy the experience. As for my x360 version preorder, its only in pencil ;)

  • Lost_in_Darkness #19 6 years ago

    did i say they made the game?

    they have fucked up in general.

  • Dr_Fripp #20 6 years ago

    But if the feel is still topnotch in multiplay, how can you then totally dismiss deathmatch? NO game up until today has done deathmatch better than Quake3, the Unreal Tourney games' feel was utterly crap (guys, WHERE the hell is my acceleration, the basics of physics!) and other games just went off into other directions (RTCW, etc.).

    It's like bashing tetris for being tetris. Maybe it's fair to not give it the highest mark because it's just the old experience in a new jacket, but do you really have to comment on the fact that it's no Battlefield 3? I think that's way off-base. I expected to hear if the multiplayer still had that special feel of old days, but instead I read what I also get from the box: it doesn't support 128 players. I guess I have to find it out by myself then.

  • Genji #21 6 years ago

    I seem to recall that HL2 was pretty linear, too. Painfully so. Looks like I'll be giving this one a miss, too. Pity.

  • PearOfAnguish #22 6 years ago

    Quake was always over-rated. Now it isn't! :-)

    Not really. When Quake first came out there wasn't anything like the flood of FPS titles we have now, it was something different. It's moved on now and you can't get away with a standard blast-everything FPS unless you do something new or gimmicky, like FEAR's slo-mo or Serious Sam's tongue-in-cheek humour and masses of enemies.

    I seem to recall that HL2 was pretty linear, too. Painfully so. Looks like I'll be giving this one a miss, too. Pity.

    Yes, but it told a good story and they did a solid job of making it seem far more epic and open than it actually was.
    Edited by 2 at 21/10/05 @ 14:16

  • Tomo #23 6 years ago

    I've just played the first 15 minutes of it. It seems lovely to me so far. Looks gorgeous, runs smoothly and has a real atmosphere to it. Just have to see if it lasts really. Then onto multiplayer. Feels like a cross between Doom 3 and Quake 2... which is pretty wicked if you ask me.

    Time will tell.

  • AtomicBanana #24 6 years ago

    'Quake was always over-rated. Now it isn't! :-)'

    No, it was not. Seeing as it's pretty obvious from your comments around here you're not a twitch FPS/Deathmatch fan I can see why you'd say that. The earlier quakes earned thier reputation.

  • Eighthours #25 6 years ago

    How many Quake 4 preorders will cancelled for December 2nd once the word gets round?......

    People are preordering Quake 4 for the 360? That's news to me, it was way way down the list as far as I'm concerned, even before this review.

  • Kostabi #26 6 years ago

    Gutted.

    I was hoping for a happy marriage of Quake 2's singleplayer with the online carnage of Q3, I guess it's my own fault for having high expectations.

    Ho hum.
    Edited by 1 at 21/10/05 @ 14:24

  • BradlayLaw #27 6 years ago

    For proper widescreen, chuck this into an autoexec.cfg in the baseq4 folder :

    seta r_customHeight "1050"
    seta r_customWidth "1680"
    seta r_fullscreen "1"
    seta r_mode "-1"
    seta r_aspectRatio "2"

    aspect ratio 2 is 16:10 which is what most widescreen monitors are but you can't select it from the ingame options.

    Guns feel satisfying.

  • Darren #28 6 years ago

    "Cunningly, Raven has even included a widescreen mode - making the effect even more cinematic if you've got the kit. Curiously no widescreen resolutions are supported, but it doesn't matter at all, so even playing at 800x600 on a 1360x768 screen looks breathtaking..."

    That doesn't make sense at all. Raven have included widescreen modes except... erm... they haven't. Eh?

    Does he means is that the widescreen HDTV he was playing on scaled the 800x600 to fit 1366x768 but the game is still running in 4:3 ratio, just stretched so it isn't widescreen at all? All PC games without widescreen support with be stretched to widescreen on widescreen TVs so it seemed completely pointless mentioning it.

    Now if the game HAD supported 16:9 then it would have been worth including in the review... lol

    Or does he mean the game runs in letterbox mode on 4:3 PC monitors?
    Edited by 1 at 21/10/05 @ 14:27

  • kewny #29 6 years ago

    @ eighthours.

    /Looks at play quake 4 preorder - hides....

    I agree its not a must have but it sure looks pretty ;). I preordered it along with a number of other x360 games, but I will probably chop and change nearer the time, depending on cashflow and positive/negative reviews.

  • krudster #30 6 years ago

    I don't think anyone who merely wants Quake in a shiny new jacket will have any problems with Quake 4. But surely we should expect more than just that? If that's all your expectations of a next gen shooter are, then step right up, you'll love it.

    Me? I'm sick of cookie cutter FPSs that are content to rehash the same old formula to death.

  • Darren #31 6 years ago

    I have it pre-ordered for the Xbox 360 too.

    I wasn't expecting a revelation but I absolutely loved Doom 3 on the Xbox so more of the same (but different!) suits me just fine! :D

  • Gurgeh #32 6 years ago

    Strictly speaking Quake 4 uses a modified and improved version of the Doom 3 engine - it runs faster and displays more. Raven did the modifications AFAIK.

    You can hardly overrate Quake. As a single player game it arguably left a lot to be desired (though remember Quake done Quick?) but as a multiplayer game it was gigantic. Client - server architecture, console commands, client-side prediction, 64 player maps, league tables (remember original Quakeworld) and masses of mods. And remember, no Quake, no Half-Life, no Counter Strike. Half Life 2 still has parts of the original Quake code in it.

  • krudster #33 6 years ago

    Basically, the widescreen check box is there, but no acutal widescreen resoltions are supported. I think what Raven has done here is basically 'squish' the game to 16:9, so that when it's stretched out on your widescreen monitor it still looks the right aspect ratio. See those screen shots? We had to stretch them out as the screenshot capture programme built into Quake 4 still captures them in 4:3...

    It's a first, from what I've seen.

  • space_ace #34 6 years ago

    no alarms and no surprises please

  • kewny #35 6 years ago

    @krudster

    Dont call me shirley.........;)

    I am not expecting it to break the mould in terms of this or next gen, but that doesnt mean we cant fancy playing a shallow, albeit enjoyable game and have to go back through our classics to do it. Not all next gen games should necessarily be original in their content (although that isnt a bad thing), but sometimes people just want to play an old game remade with new bells and whistles. There's nothing wrong with that.
    Edited by 1 at 21/10/05 @ 14:38

  • jiveguy #36 6 years ago

    When is the next Jedi Knight game coming out?

  • MyWifeNowDave #37 6 years ago

    "Because everything about Quake 4 is in its right place. No alarms, no surprises."

    Does this strike anyone else as a reference to something in particular?

    EDIT: You beat me Space Ace :p
    Edited by 1 at 21/10/05 @ 14:40

  • Darren #38 6 years ago

    Thanks for the reply, Krudster, even though I'm not sure why Raven have chosen to implement widescreen that way.

    Hopefully the Xbox 360 version supports true 720p in widescreen (1280x720) and not stretched (or rather decompressed) 800x600! lol
    Edited by 1 at 21/10/05 @ 14:42

  • Danj #39 6 years ago

    Grumble. Why is it that nobody ever seems to do co-op multiplayer any more? Does multiplayer always have to be PVP or team vs team? Have there even been any good games since, say, System Shock 2 with co-op multiplayer?

  • Kostabi #40 6 years ago

    Doesn't Serious Sam have co-op? I can't remember.

  • Feanor #41 6 years ago

    "And as a concession to the deluge of complaints about Doom III's torch/gun debate, the first two weapons now come with a mounted light - making it necessary to occasionally switch back to the machine gun when you're alone in the dark."

    Y'know, Carmack actually admitted on the G4 channel this week that not allowing players to carry a gun and a torch at the same time was a mistake.

  • UncleLou #42 6 years ago

    SWAT 4, Splinter Cell:CT, Serious Sam 2. If anything, we recently had a revival of coop mp games! :)

  • kewny #43 6 years ago

    @Darren - X360 version will support widescreen and 720p (as well as all other games) according to reports. Apparently its a requirement for all developers making games for the x360. Which is nice.

    /keeps preorder as it was.

  • zErOb_cOOl #44 6 years ago

    Meh.

  • Darren #45 6 years ago

    Thanks Kewny!

    Kostabi - The first Serious Sam had splitscreen co-op on both the Xbox and, surprisingly, the PC although it runs in a small window. The sequel, however, forgoes that in favour of online co-op modes for upto 4 players on the Xbox and 16 on the PC.

  • deepmenace #46 6 years ago

    the new brother in arms is a helluva laff in co-op. needs voice really tho.

    /impatiently awaits hl2 svencoop
    Edited by 1 at 21/10/05 @ 15:04

  • Genji #47 6 years ago

    "Yes, but it (HL2) told a good story and they did a solid job of making it seem far more epic and open than it actually was."

    Well, we're going to have to agree to disagree on that one :)

    I give HL2 credit for at least trying some originality with the physics thing. As superficial at it turned out to be, I'm of the opinion that some originality is always better than no originality.

    But linearity? That belongs in the past. I don't care how you dress it up.

  • UncleLou #48 6 years ago

    No. Non-linearity isn't a bad thing per se. I couldn't care less if an FPS is linear if it's good otherwise. Most non-linear games suffer from terribly short-comings in other areas, caused by the (mostly even only pseudo-)non-linearity.

  • OllyJ #49 6 years ago

    No bots in multiplayer, lame!

  • Genji #50 6 years ago

    I mean that mostly in terms of having a variety of ways that you can approach a level, not in terms of story or branching missions as such. Like Deus Ex, but Farcry will do in a pinch. I guess it's a matter of taste, really.

    Linearity won't ruin a game for me, but it goes a long way. HL2 had other problems (it was oh so boring in many places), but linearity was what irked me the most.
    Edited by 1 at 21/10/05 @ 15:15

  • Xerx3s #51 6 years ago

    "I'll stick to replaying Half Life 2 then. " - Talk about your overrated, overhyped game. HL was ace. HL2 was only avarage....

    Anyway, looking forward to this, no real bs, just dumb shooting & such:) When its released in the bargain bin:)

  • Dizzy #52 6 years ago

    >no bots

    Bots are so 1990s dude.. people are now actually *gasp* connected to the internet ;)
    Edited by 1 at 21/10/05 @ 15:14

  • krudster #53 6 years ago

    Linearity isn't a bad thing if it's a thrilling ride. But when you realise that 90% of Quake 4 amounts to "flick that switch will over in the other side of this complex, ole buddy" you kind of get jarred off.

  • StratoDriver #54 6 years ago

    Just been looking through the manual for Quake 4 and under the ID software section of the credits there is one for QUAKE II Xbox programming.

    Now correct me if I'm wrong but Quake II is not out for the Xbox.

    So does this mean that Quake II is either comming out for the XBox (I think very unlikley) or that it will be included with the XBox 360 version of Quake 4 as a bonus or possibly downloadable content??

    Anyway just thought i would point this out.

    Ross

  • Darren #55 6 years ago

    Quake II as an unlockable in the Xbox 360 version of Quake IV would be just mint!

    Apparently FIFA 06: Road to World Cup on Xbox 360 has FIFA 98: RtWC as a bonus unlockable.

    Nice! :D

  • drumbaby #56 6 years ago

    I seem to recall that HL2 was pretty linear, too. Painfully so.

    Indeed. One of the most unashamedly linear games I've ever had the misfortune of playing. I'm so at odds with EG's 3 x 10/10 opinion of Valve's physics fest' that I don't quite know what to make of their Q4 review.

    Thinking about it, 7/10 probably means I'll love it.

  • Kami #57 6 years ago

    It's a damn shame because Quake 4 could so easily have been awe-inspiringly, earth-shatteringly, god-forsakenly great. The premise is there, the fanbase was there, and the engine was there.

    So why, oh why, oh WHY has it turned out so "Meh"? It's stuck in this odd time warp, like they didn't quite know how to move the series on. There's plenty to like about the game, sure, but plenty to dislike.

    It's just a pity though that I'm still playing FEAR over Quake 4. FEAR is just, hands down, a much better, much more balanced, refined and gripping game than Quake 4 is. I remember the old days of Quake - MPlayer was my friend as I often logged on to multiplayer bouts - I still have plenty of buddies from my MPlayer days. Truth is though, we've grown up, Quake 4 hasn't... aside the pretty visuals and some nice-if-a-little-cliche scriptwork, at heart it feels like it's not gone anywhere...

    As I said, we old Quake players have grown up and played so much better since. Quake 4 is just a bitter disappointment for me - it feels as though they wasted a great oppertunity to really push the boat out and show off a great engine. It's still fun, but I'd suggest waiting a couple of months, wait for it to dip in price. I couldn't recommend it to anyone at the near-£30 asking price.

  • OllyJ #58 6 years ago

    >no bots

    Bots are so 1990s dude.. people are now actually *gasp* connected to the internet ;)

    What if I "gasp" just want to practice and not be called a n00b by Americans! ;]

    Seriously though, with something like Quake bots are useful to practice against especially if like me you can play it at lunch at work but is not connected to the net.

  • Genji #59 6 years ago

    "Indeed. One of the most unashamedly linear games I've ever had the misfortune of playing. I'm so at odds with EG's 3 x 10/10 opinion of Valve's physics fest' that I don't quite know what to make of their Q4 review. "

    I was waiting for you to come along! There aren't too many people that agree with me when it comes to HL2.

  • bivith #60 6 years ago

    Well, I for one enjoyed Q3 arena, so I'll be happy with that.

    And if the XBox 360 version includes Quake II as a bonus, then that would be, as someone else commented, mint!

  • Kalinin #61 6 years ago

    For the record, I agree that HL2 was uneventful. A great example of a game well made but ultimately nothing special :(

  • krudster #62 6 years ago

    Or, you know, you could just (gasp) load up Quake II on your PC!

  • space_ace #63 6 years ago

    at this id-entifiable pace, will we play castle wolfenstein next year?!

  • krudster #64 6 years ago

    Quite probably. Let's hope it's not 'Doom III with Nazis', he said glibly.
    Edited by 1 at 21/10/05 @ 16:14

  • space_ace #65 6 years ago

    no. it's going to be fun. (like old lawrence of arabia used to say.)

  • OllyJ #66 6 years ago

    I want to play the new one though :[

    I'm sure in a few months ther'll improve it with patches, it's always the way with Quake.

    I'll stick with Q3 for a bit.

  • kangarootoo #67 6 years ago

    It seems the linearity angle is partly down to semantics, in that one persons idea of linear is not quite the same as anothers.

    I have an ever growing mental list og little design bugbears, stuff that should be avoided in game design, and so on. Alongside this I have a list of stuff that people say they want, when I don't think they really mean it. Right at the top of the list are "realistic AI" and "open ended gameplay".

    Again, this is partly an issue of semantics, so I'll clarify what I mean by those two things.

    Realistic AI is AI that is built to operate in the way real people do. I think that what people want is challenging and entertaining AI. That may not necessarily make it realistic (look at the guards in Beyond Good and Evil for a great example of wholly unreslistic but very entertaining AI).

    Anwway, onto the relevant point at hand, linearity. I would suggest that a linear game is one that follows a set path and clearly definined goals at all times. And that an open ended game is one in which the player has several options for progress open to them at any time (perhaps involving varied paths also). Now I'm not saying open endedness is bad, it is just one way of doing things.

    In the cases mentioned, I would suggest that is being observed is repetativeness. In my little world of semantic definitions, I don't tag that as being the same thing as linearity. Linearity is great in a lot of cases, and in fact most games are made that. The ones that stand out as being "linear and boring" are usually the ones that are in fact repetative. Linear progression CAN take place without the same gameplay hook being used more than once.

    My two pence.

    EDIT: Too many typos to bother correcting. I hope it still makes sense.
    Edited by 1 at 21/10/05 @ 17:10

  • krudster #68 6 years ago

    The "problem" in Q4 is not its linearity, I'll qualify that. It's definitely more along the lines of linear and samey and boringly unchallenging when all you're asked to do is literally click on a big panel that even screams "Interact" at you, as if there was any sodding doubt.

    It's so patronisingly simplistic. You don't even have to fetch the couplet to fix the widget and turn the wheel and that sort of stuff. It's literally press A, go to B, press C to the end of the damned game.

    It's insulting, frankly. A six year old could work this stuff out, and yet it's rated (ooooh!) 18.

  • kangarootoo #69 6 years ago

    @ManicMinerUK

    Thats an interesting point, and I agree is probaly the truer definition of open ended. Games such as GTA and Morrowind are both generally considered to be open ended, yet each of their challenges has limited (or singular) solutions. Does that mean they aren't open ended? The term sandbox springs to mind, not sure what people consider the definition of that to actually be?

    @krudster

    Right, I see. So the main issue is that the game progress is over simple. I don't know if you have heard the term "fedex mission". It essentially means a player challenge which takes the form of "go get the key, bring it back". The key could equally be a switch to be thrown, or an NPC to talk to etc, but the basic premise is that you simply go somewhere and then return. If this is the main mechanic of the game (besides the shooting of course) then that is pretty disappointing. But I guess it depends on how the game is pitched. Far Cry (to take an example) was never really pitched as a puzzler, Half Life 2 on the other hand pushed the fact that it used detailed and full environments to present a variety of puzzles. I hadn't really followed Quake 4 (having jumped ship from PC gaming a couple of years ago).

    I guess a reeeaally good shooting game can survive on action alone, but if Quake 4 left you wanting more variety, does that perhaps suggest that the shooting aspect of the game simply wasn't up to the job? In any case Raven have a pretty reasonable record, so its a pity to see them produce a title that, for those that have played it, feels a little too basic.

    EDIT: Just to clarify my "I guess a reeeaally good shooting game can survive on action alone" comment a little more. When I played Far Cry on PC, I felt there was really not that much variety in the gameplay as the game moved along, but I didn't mind because the basic shooting enemy troops gameplay was just so much fun. Swinging about the city in Spiderman 2 is antoher example I guess. In fact in the case of Far Cry, when they started trying to add variety (monsters and indoors areas) it all went downhill. If the raw combat in Quake 4 had been on a par with Far Cry or Halo, would you have minded about the door switch progress?
    Edited by 1 at 21/10/05 @ 18:26

  • krudster #70 6 years ago

    I didn't expect Q4 to be a puzzler, and am certainly not knocking it for being a balls-out shooter. I like these games too. But, yes, the combat isn't up to much either, with simple charge-happy enemies that don't remotely try to think for themselves or work as a team. It makes Halo look like the pinnacle of sophistication.

    And, yep, it's Fed-Ex mission a go-go, except that it mainly doesn't even bother to go beyond 'head here', 'press this big button when you get there', and 'regroup'.

    Sigh.

  • cov #71 6 years ago

    out of curiosity what difficulty level did you play on? Am playing on general and its fairly tough and challenging, which may make a difference. On any other level I'd probably breeze through and then I'd probably find the combat simplistic, as it is, I'm feeling the old charge again ... play a lot of fps and if you're an old online hand you have to play this on the hardest level, hell if you go back to doom that is a lot of fps experience, so on a lower setting, it can't have the same impact or tension (e.g. trying to get to the exit on 10 health and a swarm of baddies in the way.

    just wondering as it seems to me this affected some reviews of doom3 as well, skilled fps hands breezing through and not getting a rush.

  • Cheezit #72 6 years ago

    Been playing it this evening. SP is...Doom III basically (so far anyway), and I thought Doom III was shit (a very polished turd but a turd nonetheless). MP is...OK, but I just think DM run 'n gun fragging doesn't do it for me anymore (UT2K3 should have warned me). *Sigh*, back to BF2 for me.

  • dryden555 #73 6 years ago

    Really disagree.

    The game is fun old school FPS and MUCH better than Doom3 while using Doom's amazing graphical engine. The later levels look better than any of FEARS supposedly "creepy" levels (Yawn).

    You have to play on "difficult" or you will breeze thru the single-player game. Duh.

  • Kronos #74 6 years ago

    Im thoroughly enjoying it so far. Good atmosphere. ooh grafix, yes the stroggs dont have much in the way of ai but it doesnt really matter. 8/10 in my book

  • cov #75 6 years ago

    okay big girl moment but yeah it gets very creepy ("they are in the ceiling" *creak*) and you get very jumpy, and yeah play it on max difficulty, you can't blame a game for not being challenging and just being a walkthrough if you play it on normal after fpsing for years on and off line :)

    8/10 for me too, would be higher but it is limited in ambition, for what it attempts, 9/10, classic vanilla old school fps

    and boy does it make me recall q2 (in a very good way)
    Edited by 1 at 21/10/05 @ 23:50

  • trudgian #76 6 years ago

    Been playing quake 4 all day and I have to disagree with the review. So far it has blown my socks off. Admittedly it's nothing altogether new, but what it is is a game that is extremely polished. Quake 4 to me feels like halo with balls, gone are the campest fps cannon fodder ever (covenant) and back are some proper foes. I find it hard to see so many reviews bemoaning the game's dumbness. The intensity of the action is what made Quake 2 a great game and what makes Quake 4 a great game. The truth of it is that most FPS's are dumb. HL2 is dumb, with patronising puzzles that just show off the great physics.

    As I see it Quake 4 is thouroughly entertaining, very absorbing, has a very solid multiplayer mode and happens to look incredible at the same time.

  • Jmog #77 6 years ago

    "I'm not sure why Raven have chosen to implement widescreen that way."

    It's not that bad an idea. 1024*768 is less stressing to run than 1280*720. Basically it's a widescreen option which is easier to run. Still, they could just as easily have included the normal widescreen resolutions too and let people choose for themselves.

    As for it being a novelty: Well, only on PC. On consoles, this is the way every widescreen game works. Except for the few Xbox HD titles.

  • Talha #78 6 years ago

    Is it just me, or are ID really taking the FPS genre five years back with every release? Oh, don't give me that they-didn't-make-the-game BS. If so, why? What were they doing?

    The review is spot on and echos the rest of the world's opinion on this ho-hum shooter. Great graphics alone do not a game make, and it is really a cause for shame and misery if all those spectacular graphics boil down to the same brown, non-interactive corridors. The whole is LESS than the sum of its parts.

    It is time John Carmack stopped thinking of himself as a deity and concentrate on really designing a game for teh 21st century.

    And sorry I can't resist this: each of the criticism levelled at this game also applied to Doom III, the latter levels excepted. Perhaps a case of more of the same has forced EG to take a more objective view?
    Edited by 1 at 22/10/05 @ 03:40

  • Genji #79 6 years ago

    What exactly do you mean by 'objective'?

  • Talha #80 6 years ago

    I was referring to their Doom 3 score. Although that's just me - they are expert gamers after all and know their stuff better than me, but I just couldn't swallow a 9 for Doom3.

    This review addresses the weaknesses instead of being in awe of the dark corridors, and is better for it.
    Edited by 1 at 22/10/05 @ 08:12

  • MikeD #81 6 years ago

    I think the multiplayer criticism is a bit out of place. Just because there are big sprawling multiplayer games with vehicles doesn't mean every games' multiplayer has to have that kind of bore-fest.

  • dryden555 #82 6 years ago

    Quake 4 and Doom 3 are NOT the same. Folks claiming this clearly haven't played Quake4 to the end. Doom3 was an overhyped stinker. Quake4 is not.

  • GitSomE_UK #83 6 years ago

    Ahem, have to interject here... Doom 3 went from being hum drum to a seriously good game as soon as you reached the teleporter, the story changed quite dramatically.

    From what it sounds like Q4 has nowhere near what Doom 3 had in terms of background story. I was hoping Q4 would tell me more about the Strogg and why I had to kick their arse in Q2 the first time BTW I still love the opening scenes in Q2 with the pods and the music and the radio chatter... first game to do the radio chatter if I recall.

    Saying that I think I'll still buy Q4 cos I am a graphics slut :)
    Edited by 1 at 22/10/05 @ 16:02

  • penfold #84 6 years ago

    Getting average reviews on websites around the globe. Pity :/

  • GitSomE_UK #85 6 years ago

    Oh yeah as for FPS's that deal with military bases/science complex being all brown... I've been in a few military bunkers and they are all errr brown with a bit of gray and have metal things in them with errr boxes and flashing lights.

    Hmmmm

  • UncleLou #86 6 years ago

    Quake 4 and Doom 3 are NOT the same. Folks claiming this clearly haven't played Quake4 to the end. Doom3 was an overhyped stinker. Quake4 is not.

    Exactly. Quake 4 isn't an overhyped stinker, as we all expected it to be as mediore as it turned out, it's just a stinker. :p

    Doom 3 was a far superior game, but Quake 4 is nice entertainment nonetheless.

  • c.lo #87 6 years ago

    Just completed it on the default mode.

    definately 7 out of 10

    Its just a brilliantly satisfying gun game. I played this after completing FEAR and still enjoyed it. Meaty guns and meaty enemies!

  • dryden555 #88 6 years ago

    Doom3 was unloved by many.

  • MikeD #89 6 years ago

    Doom3 was unloved by many.

    It wasn't really given a chance by most.

  • Nillsens #90 6 years ago

    Heeey... just a 7?

    I enjoyed this more than Doom 3... I blasted my way through this in under 10 hours and didn't once feel dissapointed.

  • Mugwump666 #91 6 years ago

    To be honest I had been disappointed by Raven for quite a while.
    There part had always been about innovative gameplay over graphics. They have always been below competition in terms of level blocks and textures If you compare return to Wolfenstein to SOF2 it is evident If you play JediKnight2 the temple levels are as blocky as the hexen2 levels! and I heard their MP maps are like that too Problem is that textures and level architecture have always been ID's forte. This is why I was sure that besides the bells and whistles it was to be expected Q4 woudnt be worthy of its legacy :( I am expecting a lot of innovation for their future title but I am afraid that on the graphic side they are not as creative as Graymatter

  • rauper Verified Managing Director, Eurogamer Network #92 6 years ago

    I think Kristan said at the time, that Doom3 if based on the first sections of the game (i.e. what most people saw!) was a 7 or 8, but once you get past that bit the game improved a huge amount, hence the 9 score. I'm sure thre are a lot of people who didn't play that far through the game, which would explain some of the controversy.

  • ali-uk #93 6 years ago

    I personally think it sounds good. I'm at least gunna run through SP before I say it's shit. I've always liked Quake (not really the MP though), and Doom 3 was great, so I'll give this a shot. Seems like Aliens.

    And before you say Doom 3 wasn't great, realise that people have different opinions.

    Edited by 2 at 23/10/05 @ 16:08

  • psychophat #94 6 years ago

    I personally don't care about the Single Player crap, what is important is the MULTIPLAYER world . . . how is it going to be, now where are the servers !!!

  • kali_mist #95 6 years ago

    Im enjoying the game. Just need to set the difficulty to hard. A fun lively version of Doom3. Half life 2 was a disappointment. Too much arsing about, horrible buggy/boat rides. It only became fun when you reached the prison. Before that it felt like being stuck in Lithuania with no cash/passport. The weapons were unsatisfying and the story just sapped my will to play. By comparison, I thought HL1 was a masterpiece.
    Anyway Quake 4 is a simple yet satisfying shooter. When I want a bit more substance I stick F.E.A.R. on. All in all a good week for PC FPS


  • DNM #96 6 years ago

    Quake is and always has been about fraggin', if you want complex puzzles then go play a 3rd person game like Tomb Raider, or a master of the puzzling arts like Myst V! I've not completed the SP yet, but it's holding my interest a darn sight more than the woeful Half-Life 2 did. Even the vehicle bits in Q4 are good fun, I just found HL2 a very empty experience, it was like running around a giant tech demo. Quite how it got 10/10 across the board here I have no idea.

  • Helios #97 6 years ago

    Firstly, I love HL2. However, I don't find myself going back to it. I also have a LOT of FPS games in my collection. The thing is though, i'll often sit there and think "I just want an FPS that doesn't ask too much of me, where I can just use cool guns, and shoot at stuff, but not in a Painkiller or Serious sam way - in a Quake II way."

    This is the kind of game i've been waiting for. When i'm bored, and I just want to play - not arse about in boats and stuff, this is a game I can see myself coming back to play.

    As it happens, I am playing through now, and I am really enjoying it, much more than I thought that I would.

  • DNM #98 6 years ago

    "I'm sure thre are a lot of people who didn't play that far through the game, which would explain some of the controversy."

    Totally agree with this, the hell levels in particular are friggin' cool!

  • krudster #99 6 years ago

    Wow, FEAR outsold Quake IV in the first week.

  • Dr_Fripp #100 6 years ago

    Kristan, you are completely right. This game is just an elaborate Doom3 mod. The enemies are the same, the weapons feel far worse and the textures (bright green and red mixed with brownish and dark colors) are horrible.

    Furthermore, the game wants to be a B-movie at all costs, just like Unreal 2, to an extent where you just stop and say: "Scotty, please beam me to the next triggerpoint because I can't even decide for myself where to look anymore". Let alone pick your fights the way you want them, like in the old days with the far less complex but massively more intruiging Quake 2 SP game (yes, Q2 SP). The whole "forced semi-tough npc-interaction" style only makes things worse. At least doom3 had a convincing setting, this jsut screams "comic book" all the way to the station.

    Back in the days a game was actually considering itself a game (especially the quake series), nowadays everything needs to be a "movie-like experience" made by artsy "game designer types". It vexes me enormously. And these are the guys who would be the first to attack quake for its lack of originality! Thanks for ruining the game industry!
    Edited by 1 at 25/10/05 @ 23:39

  • UnnamedPlayer #101 6 years ago

    @ Dr_Fripp: I think its wholly appropriate that game designers should try and create an immersive 'movie'like' experience, after all, gamers are paying their money to be entertained. Especially considering the ability of the Doom 3 engine to create realistic and detailed enviroments, it should be a game designer's top priority to use this to add to the experience. In fact, I think its a shame when the hard-to-believe 'game' elements of a game detract from the immersive experience (like for example, why does an alien fortress on an alien planet, millions of light years from earth leave so much body armour lying around (in Large and Extra-large sizes for the buffed up human invader)?

    With regards Quake 4 experience itself, the only reason I'm not disappointed with it (after installing it, completing it, and uninstalling it all within 24 hours) is that I didn't have particularly high hopes for it, especially after playing Doom 3 (which I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with). I think id software have really lost the plot. They have been essentially making the same game for over 10 years now. Yes, they've tweaked them a little with each incarnation, made it look nicer, made it faster, louder etc, but their games are still all about the 'one-man army' mentality, which was dated even 5 years ago.

    I remember reading that there was a serious disagreement among the ranks of ID 5 years ago when Carmack decided to make Doom 3. Todd Hollenshead basically told Carmack et al that it was a sh*t idea, and they all ganged together against Todd to browbeat him into allowing them to make it. Now maybe they realise they should have listened. They could have used the Doom 3 engine to make the finest and scariest survival horror FPS game seen, which Doom 3 promised to be at times, but instead Doom 3 was a last generation game using a next generation engine. Quake 4 is the same thing, a last generation game in a next generation engine. ID (and Raven) should stop insulting our intelligence with the tiresome 'go there, press a button and come back' mode of gameplay. The generation of gamers who cut their teeth on the original Quake, and then progressed onto Quake 2 and Quake 3 (via Quakeworld and the internet) are now no longer teenagers looking for a gorefilled adrenalin bloodbath of a game. We're twenty-somethings going-on thirty-somethings, and we want something that will excite and entertain us and challenge not merely our mousefingers in a game.

    We gamers have grown up, maybe ID should do so too.

  • UnnamedPlayer #102 6 years ago

    As for any positives to say about Quake 4, the new homing nailgun is SOOO much fun and FINALLY they've got the shotgun right. It makes the right sound when it fires, it has the right amount of spread when firing, and it makes just the right amount of bloody, pulpy mess when it hits. The only reason I played Quake 4 through to the end was to see if I could go all the way using that shotgun alone. And no I didnt manage to (not with those homing nails being so fun, haha! "Look at me! I'm nailing your stupid strogg ass FROM BEHIND A CORNER! AAAAAAHAHAHAHA!"

  • Dr_Fripp #103 6 years ago

    "gamers are paying their money to be entertained"

    Yes, by a game. Not by a movie. I want to have control over my situation, and not be told by an npc beforehand exactly what I'm going to be doing and what "will be up ahead", for instance. I'll find that out myself! The interactivity is only reduced this way. If you want to make something really "movie-like", look at MGS. It might not have the prettiest gameplay to some, but at least the cutscenes add to the atmosphere and the gameplay lets you do your own thing, instead of trying to nail down beforehand what moves you are going to make and what actions you are going to take while playing the game.

    "In fact, I think its a shame when the hard-to-believe 'game' elements of a game detract from the immersive experience"

    You don't have to add hard-to-believe "game" elements to make a game a game. What I was talking about is how games today try to regulate every moment into the tiniest little detail, without giving *me* the ability to setup my own fights, like checking out when it's the best time to attack a monster or lure/force it into a certain position. It has nothing to do with the elements that consitute the game itself, because there will always be some ratio of realism/fantasy no matter how you look at it. The immersion comes from your own actions, not from orchestrated aspects of a game.

    "I think id software have really lost the plot."

    Well, what does Quake4 have to do with id, apart from using the doom3 engine? Do you also contribute the merits of Painkiller to the Serious Sam developers? I don't understand. While Doom3 was guilty of orchestrating encounters too much as well, at least it does the atmosphere part right (and imo, the texturing is way better too and the weapons don't feel as cheap), just like Kristan mentioned. I don't know why you're throwing these games into the same corner, let alone Quake1/2/3! The "one man army" is still the whole idea of an FPS game, and until someone comes with good NPC AI and does away with cheesy dialogues, I'd rather explore the game myself. Thank you.

  • Carrybagma #104 6 years ago

    Will the 360 version be just the same?

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    Firefox (web browser) has released a new contest in which you can win a IPOD check it out for more details...

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  • Ryuken #106 6 years ago

    It's just a fine sequel for a game like Quake II and it kicks FEAR pretty hard in the balls if you look at the graphics, gore and the level-variety. The only thing I really wished for were more open environments (it really is too secluded, a bit too much in an Aliens-kind-of-way), some kind of other multiplayer idd and a continual industrial/rock soundtrack. There is always a feeling of 'it could have been more' (but I have that with nearly every current game) too of course. The AI also could have been better yes, but then again, the enemies have more 'cool' and are more solid than most shooters released in the past years. Saying that a Reaper on 'Hard' isn't as challenging as some of the geeks in FEAR would be ridiculous. That big-gun-with-shield guy (that one of the first concept art) also has some challenge to him. Aside from those sterile grunt-types most enemies have their charm in Q4. The whole difficulty setting fuzz can easily be found in HL2 too (where even the most difficult setting was way too easy at times). Just play it on 'Hard' idd, isn't that what every 'veteran shooter' does automatically? The 'transformation' sequence is superbly well executed (gotta love some gore), and it did change something in the gameplay experience (you are a lot faster, have more health and you can recharge your health at Strogg flesh-machines). It's not a big plottwist storywise but 'story' is something that has never been the main focus of Quake albeit Raven tried some things which ended up in a fair but cliché background story. It doesn't give much background on the Strogg either, but at least Raven ain't like Valve who laughed with the player from the beginning till the end of HL2 by having no questions answered at all. You might dislike Rhino-squad for giving you the same orders but it's nothing compared to the frustration caused by the inability to question the HL2-npc's, which, in the end, also weren't too afraid of simply directing you to another location.

    In a way, Quake 4's linearity is much more 'acceptable' for me than HL2's. You know it's oldskool and just about shooting so you don't bother, it was announced as a sequel to QII, wasn't it? At least Raven is being honest with you from the start. HL2 however tries to be a bit of everything but the limitations of the leveldesign there are so much more 'gamebreaking' to me as they suddenly pop up. I would rate FEAR higher than Q4 but Q4 never has those dead-still boring office/storage room moments like in FEAR. There is always something to shoot or to gaze upon, not so with FEAR unfortunately.

    Frankly, I don't care much if Doom³ was suddenly so much better in the third part of the game, the first parts ruined it already. Quake 4 succeeds better in delivering true oldskool-style shooting at a great pace. It could be sold in a museum now for that reason but then again I need some diversion between all the self-proclaimed 'next-gen' experiences à la HL2 and FEAR. id and Raven didn't give much reasons in the first place to expect 'non-linear, heavy-physics and brilliant-AI' stuff, also because it wouldn't be Quake anymore if they did implement those things. Just shoot it in a delightful way, with one of the best weaponfeels found in fps's, it's the most important thing I expected from this game, having read most of the previews.

    It's more like an 8/10, solid, without any 'next-gen' features but still worth the money if you loved Quake II.

    Oh, and there is a small typo with 'shied' in the vehicle-part of the review.
    Edited by 1 at 18/11/05 @ 18:30

  • robg #107 4 years ago

    I'm just playing this now, randomly, and I must say this seems quite a negative review. It doesn't seem to really get the idea that this is a brilliant refinement of an fps, with a very wide array of guns (including upgrades that let your gun lock on, then you duck back and shoot the enemy from round a corner...yay), many, many non-brown colours (seriously, being mostly set in industrial complexes, it's generally grey/silver if anything, but with excellent coloured lighting), with some brilliant set-pieces, some teammates that genuinely help you rather than HL2's fairly feeble efforts (although I love HL2) and it's just really good fun.

    FEAR (for example) in comparison is so incredibly repetitive that it beggars belief. I'd actually been strog^Wslogging through FEAR wondering why it was such hard work, and I realised it's because it's just so incredibly dull. Nothing new happens. In Quake 4, you can look forward to reasonably generous ammo/health, some great weapons, inventive enemies, reasonable difficulty (I don't know what difficulty Kristan was playing on, but for comparison I rocketed through HL2 on hard the first time I played it, and Quake 4 seems trickier), and..yeah. It being the 21st century doesn't mean that all games have to fill in a checkbox history of things you don't really care about reading (and have no bearing on the type of game being played). It's great how well HL2 fills in some history, but really even that doesn't do very much. And really, I can't imagine Quake 4 would benefit from it.

    So, a great fun mindless shooter, with some inventive weapons/upgrades, a feeling of being part of a larger war, some cool vehicles sections, some gorgeous graphics, and Stroggification. I say it's a winner, if only for a fun bargain basement run-through.