Quake 4 - Review
Added November 26th, 2005 by Colin
Introduction:
You don't have to reinvent the wheel. It spins, it moves cars, it does its job. However, it does rust over time, and you'll need to lube it up every few years. Unfortunately, no one remembered to inform Raven that first person shooters have already been metaphorically lubed up more than a few times since the 1996 release of the original Quake. Quake 4 is rusty as hell, and at times it will feel almost as if Raven is trying to piss you off. Quake 4 epitomizes the phrase 'resting your laurels'. In fact, Quake 4 is probably sound asleep on its laurels. Is there any redeeming quality in this title? Well, it depends on if you like your graphics washed out and your gameplay stale. Read on.
Gameplay:
Quake 4 opens up well enough. In fact, you'll probably feel pretty secure in your purchase immediately after the beginning sequence. The game opens up with a scene of utter destruction in space, with the corpses of marines and the husks of once great spaceships floating around in a cold, hard vacuum. As you watch, an armada teleports in, ready to kick some Strogg ass. The scene then shifts to USS Patton, a starship involved in the invasion of the planet Stroggos. The leader of your elite team, Rhino Squad, let's you know that a lone marine has killed the Strogg leader and has destroyed the air defense gun. It's a great nod to the original Quake, and honestly, at this point you're probably expecting great things from this game. At that moment, your ship is hit by an enemy fighter, and you crash land onto the planet. Hey, it worked for Halo!
You don't have to reinvent the wheel. It spins, it moves cars, it does its job. However, it does rust over time, and you'll need to lube it up every few years. Unfortunately, no one remembered to inform Raven that first person shooters have already been metaphorically lubed up more than a few times since the 1996 release of the original Quake. Quake 4 is rusty as hell, and at times it will feel almost as if Raven is trying to piss you off. Quake 4 epitomizes the phrase 'resting your laurels'. In fact, Quake 4 is probably sound asleep on its laurels. Is there any redeeming quality in this title? Well, it depends on if you like your graphics washed out and your gameplay stale. Read on.
Gameplay:
Quake 4 opens up well enough. In fact, you'll probably feel pretty secure in your purchase immediately after the beginning sequence. The game opens up with a scene of utter destruction in space, with the corpses of marines and the husks of once great spaceships floating around in a cold, hard vacuum. As you watch, an armada teleports in, ready to kick some Strogg ass. The scene then shifts to USS Patton, a starship involved in the invasion of the planet Stroggos. The leader of your elite team, Rhino Squad, let's you know that a lone marine has killed the Strogg leader and has destroyed the air defense gun. It's a great nod to the original Quake, and honestly, at this point you're probably expecting great things from this game. At that moment, your ship is hit by an enemy fighter, and you crash land onto the planet. Hey, it worked for Halo!
You slowly awaken through a set of short scenes showing soldiers being brutally murdered in the distance and enemy walkers crashing about the battlefield. Then you come fully awake, and speak to your captain. He tells you to go inside the building and meet up with the rest of your squad. Alright, a bit cliché, but honestly what game isn't at times? You enter the halls and things become dark. Very dark. Fortunately, you are able to turn on a flashlight with your starter pistol. Yay for ducktape! Then you see some enemies, which begin to fire and savagely attack you. They are good at closing the gap to get to you, so you'll probably tap the B button to hit them with a melee attack. After all, most all great FPS games since Halo have featured melee attacks. Well, not Quake 4. As it turns out, there is no melee move with any weapon aside from a melee only weapon in multiplayer. Well, not all games have melee. Look at Unreal Tournament 2004! That game was great, no melee attack there! This game could still be alright.
So you see if there's anything interesting about your pistol. Maybe an alternate fire mode or something. You try the left and right shoulder buttons. No dice, they just switch weapons. You try it with the machine gun you just obtained. Nothing. Left trigger zooms on the machine gun, and when zoomed it fires single shots. So, nothing interesting in the weapons so far. Maybe something good will come up in a bit. Maybe even something original! So you press on. Then you finally reach a group of marines. Good, you say to yourself. Time to kill some Strogg in style, squad in tow. But, no, the leader of that squad is talking... he's ordering you back to recover a medic…all the way back from where you started. Great, backtracking and we aren't even ten minutes into the game yet. Well, maybe the first level just isn't that good.
So, following orders, you run back to the start, kill a couple Strogg, get the medic, and run back. He's actually pretty good in battle, he takes cover when needed, and is a good shot. Who knows, maybe this game isn't half bad after all. So, when you return to the soldiers, you are in need of a medic. You look at the medic and press B for the hell of it. What do you know, he heals you to full health! Holy design flaw batman! Yes, whenever you are in a squad setting, you can have the medic heal you to full health, rendering any challenge in gameplay mute. You know the drill. You just dropped 60 bones for this game, so you might as well see it to the end.
So you see if there's anything interesting about your pistol. Maybe an alternate fire mode or something. You try the left and right shoulder buttons. No dice, they just switch weapons. You try it with the machine gun you just obtained. Nothing. Left trigger zooms on the machine gun, and when zoomed it fires single shots. So, nothing interesting in the weapons so far. Maybe something good will come up in a bit. Maybe even something original! So you press on. Then you finally reach a group of marines. Good, you say to yourself. Time to kill some Strogg in style, squad in tow. But, no, the leader of that squad is talking... he's ordering you back to recover a medic…all the way back from where you started. Great, backtracking and we aren't even ten minutes into the game yet. Well, maybe the first level just isn't that good.
So, following orders, you run back to the start, kill a couple Strogg, get the medic, and run back. He's actually pretty good in battle, he takes cover when needed, and is a good shot. Who knows, maybe this game isn't half bad after all. So, when you return to the soldiers, you are in need of a medic. You look at the medic and press B for the hell of it. What do you know, he heals you to full health! Holy design flaw batman! Yes, whenever you are in a squad setting, you can have the medic heal you to full health, rendering any challenge in gameplay mute. You know the drill. You just dropped 60 bones for this game, so you might as well see it to the end.
You eventually meet up with a larger squad of around four to five people all told, you battle through the enemy ranks. That is, until they decide to send you off on your own. The squad all behaves great, the AI is great fun to be around... but they send you off on your own. Then you finish your assigned task and go back to them. You start to have a good time playing with the squad... then you are forced to go off on your own again. What. The. Hell. Are the developers trying to piss you off? They have a great squad gameplay mechanic going on, aside from the health issue. So what do they do? Take every opportunity to send you off on your own. I can't imagine the meeting between the designers that led to this. Probably something along the lines of:
Designer 1: Hey, those test groups seem to have a great time with the squad sections!
Designer 2: Yeah, they sure do. But maybe they'd have more fun playing on their own!
Designer 1: I'm not so sure, man. Every single trend in game design in the last ten years has shown that people like playing with other people, even if those other people happen to be bots. In fact, the most hated section of any game with squad mechanics is usually when a player is sent off on their own to complete some random goal. It usually comes across as the designers being lazy. Actually, maybe we should add in some online co-op so people can play through the game with a friend! People love online co-op!
Designer 2: Sorry, were you saying something? I was busy sticking my head up my ass. Anyways, I know you're the only person with a clue as to game design, but you're fired, we found a monkey who will work for cheap. Playing alone it is!
Or something like that.
Honestly, the campaign isn't all bad. There isn't a single original thought to be found, but the squad sections are quite fun, even if there aren't enough of them. That is, until they are thrown out completely in favor of having you infiltrate Strogg bases alone. Yikes. I simply cannot fathom why Raven would spend so much time developing great squad AI, then throw it all out towards the end of the game. Well, at least Quake 4 has multiplayer.
Quake 4 is playable over Xbox Live and System Link. The multiplayer mode consists of Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Tournament, and Capture the Flag. In tournament, players fight one on one in a single elimination tournament, with each winner moving on to fight another winner. The rest are pretty self explanatory. The gameplay in multiplayer is a direct copy of Quake 3, except with glammed up graphics. All the best Q3 maps are represented here, including The Edge and The Longest Yard. There are a few new maps as well. Unfortunately, there's nothing new here if you've played Quake 3. The gameplay is exactly the same, except for the addition of the nailgun. One of the returning weapons is, of course, the machine gun, which is still the default starting weapon. This is awful from a balance perspective, as you start with a 'spammy' weapon which people fire wildly into the air hoping for a lucky shot. Blech.
The multiplayer is fun, but is only up to eight players, and there's just nothing new here. If you're getting Q4 for the multiplayer, you are paying $60 for a six year old game with fewer maps than the original. But, if you missed the original, or have a hankering for some old-school deathmatch, this might be a good bet for you, at least until Unreal Tournament 2007 releases.
Graphics:
There is no reason why Quake 4 could not have been developed on the Xbox. It is based on the Doom 3 engine, and does nothing much more advanced graphically than that title, outside of having a few more people onscreen and more outdoor environments. If Doom 3 could run on the Xbox without fault, it seems as if Quake 4 could as well. But, with that said, Quake 4 does look decent.
Designer 1: Hey, those test groups seem to have a great time with the squad sections!
Designer 2: Yeah, they sure do. But maybe they'd have more fun playing on their own!
Designer 1: I'm not so sure, man. Every single trend in game design in the last ten years has shown that people like playing with other people, even if those other people happen to be bots. In fact, the most hated section of any game with squad mechanics is usually when a player is sent off on their own to complete some random goal. It usually comes across as the designers being lazy. Actually, maybe we should add in some online co-op so people can play through the game with a friend! People love online co-op!
Designer 2: Sorry, were you saying something? I was busy sticking my head up my ass. Anyways, I know you're the only person with a clue as to game design, but you're fired, we found a monkey who will work for cheap. Playing alone it is!
Or something like that.
Honestly, the campaign isn't all bad. There isn't a single original thought to be found, but the squad sections are quite fun, even if there aren't enough of them. That is, until they are thrown out completely in favor of having you infiltrate Strogg bases alone. Yikes. I simply cannot fathom why Raven would spend so much time developing great squad AI, then throw it all out towards the end of the game. Well, at least Quake 4 has multiplayer.
Quake 4 is playable over Xbox Live and System Link. The multiplayer mode consists of Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Tournament, and Capture the Flag. In tournament, players fight one on one in a single elimination tournament, with each winner moving on to fight another winner. The rest are pretty self explanatory. The gameplay in multiplayer is a direct copy of Quake 3, except with glammed up graphics. All the best Q3 maps are represented here, including The Edge and The Longest Yard. There are a few new maps as well. Unfortunately, there's nothing new here if you've played Quake 3. The gameplay is exactly the same, except for the addition of the nailgun. One of the returning weapons is, of course, the machine gun, which is still the default starting weapon. This is awful from a balance perspective, as you start with a 'spammy' weapon which people fire wildly into the air hoping for a lucky shot. Blech.
The multiplayer is fun, but is only up to eight players, and there's just nothing new here. If you're getting Q4 for the multiplayer, you are paying $60 for a six year old game with fewer maps than the original. But, if you missed the original, or have a hankering for some old-school deathmatch, this might be a good bet for you, at least until Unreal Tournament 2007 releases.
Graphics:
There is no reason why Quake 4 could not have been developed on the Xbox. It is based on the Doom 3 engine, and does nothing much more advanced graphically than that title, outside of having a few more people onscreen and more outdoor environments. If Doom 3 could run on the Xbox without fault, it seems as if Quake 4 could as well. But, with that said, Quake 4 does look decent.
Environments tend to be pretty repetitive. Copy-cat outdoor trenches will have you losing your bearings pretty often. Levels are all relatively well detailed and character animations are universally great. Character models look alright at distance, but the second you start to look a little closer you will see that they are washed out looking, and generally just not up to next-gen standards. Most areas are dimly lit, which again begs the question, are the developers trying to piss you off? The most common criticism level at Doom 3 was that it was too damn dark and here Quake 4 is dark as well. Not as dark as Doom 3, but you will find yourself having to use your flashlight attachment far too often. You'd think that after seeing id's mistakes on Doom 3, Raven would want to light every level up like the Fourth of July. Not so, apparently. Enemies gib quite nicely, with meaty chunks flying out after a good shotgun blast. Gore is always appreciated in a Quake game, and it's good that Raven hasn't forgotten that fact in Quake 4. Textures are okay and weapons look nice enough. Really, though, there's nothing here that is particularly impressive. If you are looking for something that makes you feel secure in your purchase of a 360, look elsewhere. But if your computer is incapable of running Quake 4, and you want to play it for some reason, this might be your best bet.
Audio:
Ah, sweet, sweet mediocrity. The sound of Quake 4 isn't bad, the weapons all sound alright, the enemies all have sufficiently blood curdling enough screams or primal hatred, and the music is decent enough. Voice actors are quite good, as is the dialog, but since there aren't enough squad sections you won't get to hear those voice actors very often. Nothing bad here, nothing great. It's just decent.
Controls:
What's here controls alright, but it's more what's missing that leaves one wondering. There is no melee button, so if a Strogg attacks you with a melee attack, you will have no way to fight back aside from continuing to fire. There is no secondary fire on any weapon, so all the weapons are straight-up standard issue FPS fare. Having B as the activate button is a strange choice, but I suppose when you're skipping a mainstay console FPS feature you might as well map something to the usual melee button. Aiming feels a bit loose, and stinks of PC-port-itis. Overall, the controls of Quake 4 are merely... average. Just like the rest of the game.
Replay:
It's a pain to play through the single player the first time, so it's doubtful you'll want to do it again anytime soon. Quake 4 features some good multiplayer, but it's only good because it's just Quake 3 with shinier graphics. But if you never played Quake 3, or are looking for some good old-fashioned circa-1999 deathmatch action, you could do worse than Quake 4. Quake 4 also features a good matchmaking that will quickly get you into action and it, of course, features leaderboards. So, if you were living under a rock in 1999, you might find some replay value here. If you played Quake 3, or just want a multiplayer game that has evolved somewhat since 1999, look elsewhere.
Audio:
Ah, sweet, sweet mediocrity. The sound of Quake 4 isn't bad, the weapons all sound alright, the enemies all have sufficiently blood curdling enough screams or primal hatred, and the music is decent enough. Voice actors are quite good, as is the dialog, but since there aren't enough squad sections you won't get to hear those voice actors very often. Nothing bad here, nothing great. It's just decent.
Controls:
What's here controls alright, but it's more what's missing that leaves one wondering. There is no melee button, so if a Strogg attacks you with a melee attack, you will have no way to fight back aside from continuing to fire. There is no secondary fire on any weapon, so all the weapons are straight-up standard issue FPS fare. Having B as the activate button is a strange choice, but I suppose when you're skipping a mainstay console FPS feature you might as well map something to the usual melee button. Aiming feels a bit loose, and stinks of PC-port-itis. Overall, the controls of Quake 4 are merely... average. Just like the rest of the game.
Replay:
It's a pain to play through the single player the first time, so it's doubtful you'll want to do it again anytime soon. Quake 4 features some good multiplayer, but it's only good because it's just Quake 3 with shinier graphics. But if you never played Quake 3, or are looking for some good old-fashioned circa-1999 deathmatch action, you could do worse than Quake 4. Quake 4 also features a good matchmaking that will quickly get you into action and it, of course, features leaderboards. So, if you were living under a rock in 1999, you might find some replay value here. If you played Quake 3, or just want a multiplayer game that has evolved somewhat since 1999, look elsewhere.
Summary:
It's not that Quake 4 is necessarily bad. It isn't. It's just so unoriginal, cliché, and average that it almost hurts. You'll probably have some fun with this title if you play it. The squad sections really are quite good. It's just that monotonous level design, bad design decisions, and a lack of those great squad sections all come together to bring this title down. If you want a great game, this isn't it. If you want a good game, this isn't it. If you want an alright game, this might be it. That is, if you are looking to play Quake 3 with better graphics. Quake 4 is a rental at best, and even that is pushing it for most.
It's not that Quake 4 is necessarily bad. It isn't. It's just so unoriginal, cliché, and average that it almost hurts. You'll probably have some fun with this title if you play it. The squad sections really are quite good. It's just that monotonous level design, bad design decisions, and a lack of those great squad sections all come together to bring this title down. If you want a great game, this isn't it. If you want a good game, this isn't it. If you want an alright game, this might be it. That is, if you are looking to play Quake 3 with better graphics. Quake 4 is a rental at best, and even that is pushing it for most.
