A review of Quake 4

[AlexMax]

So I bought a copy of Quake 4 DVD edition last night. I must say that I am pleasently surprised.

If you liked Quake 3's multiplayer, you will like this game. It's essentially Quake 3 + shiny stuff, so although it's nothing too new, it's not garbage either. It also has a few maps from older Quakes, which is a nice touch.

If you were entertained by Doom 3 or Quake 2's single player, first of all I'm going to ask what the fuck is wrong with you and then tell you that you will be blown away by Quake 4's single player. If you are like me and hated Doom 3 and Quake 2's single player, then you will be pleasently surprised. It's hokey, but the set pieces are really awesomely set up so you actually feel like you are in the middle of something huge. The gameplay isn't changed that much from the two games mentioned above, but the way it's presented is much much better. The enemy A.I. does not seem to be very intelligent, but it is random and unpredictable at times, which actually made things more difficult in places then say Half Life 2's A.I. which tries to be intelligent and fails. It also runs surprisingly well on my few-years-old system.

And thankfully, it has a DVD version, so you don't have to put up with a four-cd install.

Some of the reviews of this game have been really terribly written (complaining about something as mundane as the lack of bots in multiplayer), and almost every single one gave Doom 3 a higher rating than Quake 4, so their credability is pretty much non-existant at that point. Which is why I wrote this review, because I'm right and they're wrong.

I give it an 8 out of 10.

[vegeta1215]

The Quake series is one of my favorites. The original Quake and Quake III Arena have no equals in my opinion. Quake II was fun, but the atmosphere definitely gave it a different feel from the other. (also, I never played Quake II multiplayer)

Even though Quake IV picks up where II left off, I still want to play it. Hopefully I won't have to wait too long to try it out - the most powerful computer we have is a Power Mac G4 with a 64 MB video card though :shrug:

UPDATE: Seems like the game is only for Windows so far (and probably X-Box or X-Box 360 in the future), and it looks like it uses Direct X instead of OpenGL. I may not get to play it afterall. Oh well.

[Grasshopper]

I happen to like Doom 3 for what it was. Never outdoing the original, but in it's respect, an awesome game imho. So I guess something's wrong with me then, eh? :tongue:

I never played any Quake game, so I was looking forward to this one. I wanted to get the CE so I could get Quake II + exp. with it too. You know, since I've never played any.

As far as giving Doom 3 a higher rating, its only by a few percent. And besides, most Quake 4 reviews gave it the same rating you just did. Some reviews are ever higher than yours. Come on, what's wrong with you. ;)

[AlexMax]

UPDATE: Seems like the game is only for Windows so far (and probably X-Box or X-Box 360 in the future), and it looks like it uses DIrect X instead of OpenGL. I may not get to play it afterall. Oh well.

You mean Direct3D. And no, it's still OpenGL, just like Doom 3 was. And it's confirmed only for Xbox 360.


As far as giving Doom 3 a higher rating, its only by a few percent. And besides, most Quake 4 reviews gave it the same rating you just did. Some reviews are ever higher than yours. Come on, what's wrong with you. ;)

I was refering to the PC Gamer review of 70%. I wanted to prove you wrong about Doom 3 being much higher, but GameRankings (which averages scores from all publications) only gives an average of 4 points difference between them. Wonder where I was getting these extremes from...

[AlexMax]

Quote != Edit

[vegeta1215]

They just released a Linux client/server online today :D

You still have to buy the Windows version and use the pak files that comes with it but that's ok. There's hope for me yet! Still, it will be a few years before I have a computer capable of playing it. I'm keeping my Pentium III 450 MHz box with 640 MB of PC100 SDRAM and a 16 MB Riva TNT video card as long as I can.

[DarkDragoonX]

MEh. Quake 4 is good, I'll grant you, but it's crap compared to F.E.A.R.

[Grasshopper]

F.E.A.R? What's to fear? Unless the whole game gets much better than the demo. The demo was too military for me, that I lost interesting in hoping for the scary bits. (Of course...Doom 3 was a bit like that, so I should watch what I say. ;))

Still yet, I'm willing to give the whole game a whirl later when I have time.

[AlexMax]

MEh. Quake 4 is good, I'll grant you, but it's crap compared to F.E.A.R.

I played the FEAR demo, and it did look pretty neat, but it ran much poorer on my system than Quake 4 did. Plus the multiplayer is nothing special.

[Ares[K!]]

I'll reserve judgement till one of my favorite mods for Q4 comes out. Right now it's a n00b fest, which is fun for a while in it self, specially when you have guys crying, "BS", "Cheater" and "owned" when they finally get that kill agianst you.

Alex, the multiplayer is more like Quake2 along w. Quake1 Guns, Q3 weapon physics, and the Quake2 rocket launcher along with a blend of Q2/Q3 Physics. I love being able to do the ramp jumps that I used to do in Q2dm8. Also the railgun doesnt seem to be the Pixel hit weapon, it seems like its got like a 3-5 pixel hit.

I dislike the q2dm1 remake, maps should be as close to the original as possible, which makes the q3dm17 remake one of the better maps (for me, I'm a rail whore as it is).

The real test for me tho, will be waiting and trying out Q4 Rocket Arena. I can't wait to see what MAHQ has in store with RA4 maps. I'm especially looking foward to what g1zm0 is going to do with is Quake4 maps.

On another note; does anyone still play the older quakes?

Quake1 I've been playing CA with my old Q2RA2 Clan from time to time. (Ares)
Quake2 I play KoTS2000 every once in a while. (Keiko/Yusuke) KoTS is a RPG like mod.
Quake3 I play Rocket Arena 3 ALOT. (Rezz')
Quake4 I usually play some DM or CTF for an hour a day, just cause it messes w. me too much when I go back to play Q3 RA3. (Rezz')