With Quake and Quake 2 being
my two favourite games of all time, and will
unlikely ever be beaten, it would be hard for
me not to have high hopes for Quake 4. It didn't
make much difference that id Software had dropped
the job into the talented Raven Software's mits.
Heretic, Hexen, Soldier of Fortune, Star Trek
Voyager and all their sequels; these were all
solid, professional and, most importantly, fun
games. So Raven taking over the Quake duties
is almost as good as id doing it themselves.
And as it turned out, Quake 4 felt like a superior
game to Doom 3.
While Doom 3 took place almost
entirely inside tight futuristic bases, unfortunately
Quake 4 didn't try to re-invent the wheel here
and is almost exactly the same. The only difference
is there are more outdoor areas and the level
design is a little better. Everything is easier
to see, there's much more variety in design,
although it's still only the 'base' style, so
expecting Painkiller level of variety will leave
disappointed. While there aren't huge awe-inspiring
set-pieces, it's all solidly good looking. Sadly,
the id Tech 4 engine just doesn't seem capable
of doing huge, sprawling areas. So Raven are
stuck with a corridor crawl similar to Doom
3.
Having said that there are
some big outdoors areas, but they are lacking
in detail. The three biggest levels are the
vehicle-based ones. And these copped a lot of
flack from players suggesting they ruin the
game. As it turned out, only 3 in 33 levels
are vehicle based, and one of them is only several
minutes long. In all, a maximum of 10% of the
game would be vehicle based.
While the engine is restricted,
the way it does lighting looks fantastic, especially
when your team-mates have their flashlights
on and they're cast all over the inner depths
darkened base. So it's a shame there have been
very few games using id Tech 4, just Prey, Quake
Wars and Wolfenstein following.
Gameplay in Quake 4 was all
solid. The enemies had plenty of variety and
all looked fantastic. It's just disappointing
that they weren't more closely related to Quake
2. The Berserker, Gunner and a few others were
there, but not recognisable from Quake 2. Different
attacks, speeds and difficulty means they're
basically new enemies. Iron Maiden was a little
more obvious, but again apart from being female,
could be a completely different enemy. Arguably
the more fearsome of Quake 2, the Gladiator,
makes a return in Quake 4. But he's quite different;
slower with a railgun that seems easier to avoid.
So while there weren't many similarities, in
some respects and homage aside, it's probably
a good thing because the Quake 2 enemies were
very basic in their attacks compared to Quake
4. This isn't 1998 anymore.
Most of the weapons make a
return. The Machine Gun is much better, there's
no Double Shotgun but the Single Shotgun packs
enough of a punch to play almost the entire
game through just with these two weapons. The
Hyper Blaster, now your fourth weapons, is a
good switch up as it packs a punch but also
has plenty of ammo. Grenade Launcher, Railgun,
Lightning Gun are all very similar to Quake
2. The Rocket Launcher is a little faster but
requires reloading, meaning I didn't use it
much. The new gun is the Nailgun, which is very
fast paced but I didn't find it to be particularly
effective compared to the Machine Gun/Shotgun
combination.
I played on medium difficulty
and it was fairly spot on. The first half of
the game was fairly easy and it was a long time
before I died, but the second half steadily
got tougher with some great boss battles to
finish the game off.
So overall I really liked Quake
4. It did feel like another Raven game; very
similar in level design to their others, but
that's a minor criticism because all their games
look good. And with id Tech 4, great! While
it doesn't live up to the groundbreaking prequels,
it's great to have a solid, fun, return to Stroggos.
With slightly better level design and much more
fast-paced gameplay, I preferred it over Doom
3.
