"one of the biggest releases of the year"
Game Play
Quake 4 is a very exciting prospect. At last single player Quake and multiplayer Quake in the same game once again. Coupled with an enhanced and upgraded version of the Doom 3 engine Quake 4 is essentially a sequel for Quake 2 with the best multiplayer action from Quake 3 added on. Following on from Quake 2, in single player form you play a space marine assigned to Rhino squad with the intent of taking the Strogg home planet and wiping them out for good. Obviously not everything goes to plan and your drop ship crashes and kills some squad members. Crashed, shocked and disorientated its now up to you and the marines left to wipe out the Strogg. As story lines go Quake 4 isn’t imaginative enough to really make you care. Its just another poor FPS story which only detracts from what this game is really about. Full and utter carnage!"essentially a sequel "
While Doom 3 was more about sneaking around, hiding in dark corners and being scared of the dark, Quake 4 is more about steaming into the heat of the battle and wiping out everything that moves. Essentially the game has the feel and play of the original Quake 2 with some added poor team play with your squad members. Essentially throughout the majority of the game you are taking orders from higher ranked squad members. These orders consist of blowing things up, finding people, and overall mutilating the enemy.
The squad based tactics are limited and to be honest the game would have been much better played without your squad. The medic in your squad can be called upon to heal you thus putting you back up to full health. Another squad member can be called upon to provide full armour. With loads of ammo, full health, full amour on tap it makes single player a bit of a joke, it’s far too easy unless the harder of the difficulty settings are chosen.
"wiping out everything that moves"
The weapons in the game are pretty much exactly the same as in Quake 2. No idea why the developers couldn’t have been a little more imaginative. All the weapons in the game are useful except for the initial blaster you are issued with. The weapons are satisfying to use and require little thought. Point and shoot is it, really. The weapons have no alternate fire but the right mouse button allows you to zoom in to your target if necessary. Weapon upgrades are new though. During the game you will be presented with weapon upgrades. These can breath new life into your old weapons thus making them useful again. Nice feature but highly underused.
"Point and shoot"
The level design is bizarre to say the least. While the Doom 3 engine has been extended to support huge open outside areas which is great, the levels are as linear as linear can be. While you are presented with a load of corridors and paths to follow, most of the doors are locked until you complete a particular part of the objective. Either than or your squad members block the way until they want you to continue. This makes the levels essentially pointless and unimaginative. The one good thing that comes from the levels is the attention to detail. Each corridor looks nothing like the last. Objects are scatter and placed so well the rooms and areas look more realistic than with some first person games such as Halo. Quake 4 suffers from the same problems as Doom 3. Most of the objects aren’t interactive. Hardly any items can be moved, destroyed or even look slightly charred after being blasted which seems like a step backward to us.
While this all sounds very disappointing for what was supposed to be one of the biggest releases of the year Quake 4 still packs a punch. The game plays like you would expect from Quake. It’s very fast paced and action packed throughout. While the story doesn’t drive the action the action definitely drives the story. It’s still a game that can be picked up for 10 minutes and played for enjoyment.
"very fast paced and
action packed "
action packed "
It’s a shame the single player game only lasts for around 10 hours but with multiplayer included then there’s still hours of fun to be had online via the internet or LAN. The games maps only support a maximum of 16 players but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. We’ve all wanted huge 64 player maps but servers often can’t cope especially when theirs always some people with slow connections. Multiplayer is the usual game modes such as deathmatch, ctf etc. The number of maps is a bit limiting, but I’m sure more will be available. The multiplayer part of Quake 4 plays much like Quake 3 which is essentially a good thing. Fast paced and a complete adrenaline rush.
"single player game only
lasts for around 10 hours "
lasts for around 10 hours "
Graphics
Probably one of the redeeming features of Quake 4 is the graphics. Unfortunately while beautifully detailed in every way, the game often feels like Doom 3 rather than being different enough to be Quake 4. The outside spaces are superbly detailed but spoilt by a rather poor sky texture. Credit where credit is due the engine is superb especially where lighting is concerned. The effect of walking into a dark room and your squad shining their torches around the room is stunning to say the least."beautifully detailed in every way"
The enemies look amazing and highly detailed, possible even looking more detailed and scary than those from Doom 3. For those with widescreen monitors Quake 4 has support built in which is nice to see at last.
Sound
Nothing to fault in the sound department. Quake 4 has it covered. The voiceovers are excellent, as is the lip sync. The musical score is substantial enough to draw you into the game but not so much as to be a distraction."Quake 2 with Quake 3 built in"
Overall
Essentially this game should fail. So many things just aren’t right or different enough to warrant the purchase cost and so many fans will be highly disappointed. However Quake 4 is still an enjoyable and often action pack game and it has some of the most highly detailed graphics of any FPS to date including Doom 3. Quake 2 with Quake 3 built in and better than Doom 3 graphics. Sound good to you?