Quake 4 IGN Review
Quake 4
One of the shooter legends enters the 21st century, but not completely.
by Tom McNamara
[-72447]
October 13, 2005 - As someone who's been playing id software games since the Wolfenstein 3D days, it's been intriguing to watch shooters go from genre diversion to one of the most compelling reasons to play games on a computer. With companies like Epic, DICE, and Valve in the mix, we've been spoiled with a wide spectrum, from awesome single-player, huge multiplayer battles, and last-man-standing tournaments. And with players actually competing for money these days -- some of them earning enough to avoid having to actually work for a living -- the FPS has become a force to be reckoned with. Id Software has been there the whole time, particularly in multiplayer. For Quake 4, they handed the reins to Raven, who themselves have worked with id and its engines for over ten years now. These guys are no slouches, and the production values of Quake 4 prove this beyond a doubt. The game has a good share of "gee whiz" moments, with huge monsters, huge explosions, and huge vistas. You'll see some things that Doom 3 didn't indicate its engine was capable of -- some of which we saw in the Prey E3 demo video. And multiplayer has that same feel we've come to know from Quake: hectic, chunky, and bombastic. However, in the long run, the game is not quite what we've come to expect.
Unlike previous installments, single-player is there in a big way, with a winding plot, a cast of characters voiced by Hollywood actors, objective-based gameplay, light squad tactics, and countless set pieces. In fact, so much effort was put into the single-player presentation that the amount of multiplayer seems to have suffered as a result. For one reason or another, the franchise's priorities have zigged instead of zagged, and what we have now is nine MP maps, with only the Tournament Mode distinguishing it from the usual setup of deathmatch, team deathmatch and CTF.
But we're getting ahead of ourselves. The Quake 4 story picks up where Quake 2 left off, with the Space Marines fighting the Strogg, this time on the enemy's home planet, Stroggos. You'll take the role of Corporal Kane as the Marines attempt to basically annihilating their Borg-like nemesis. You'll crash land in the middle of trench warfare, and it's off to the races as one superior officer after another sends you off to retrieve people, destroy key locations, and infiltrate deep behind enemy lines. Sometimes you'll be accompanied by game-controlled team members -- typically a technical officer who can repair your armor, and/or a corpsman who can heal you up to full health.
They hold their own pretty well, doing more damage than we're used to seeing from game-controlled teammates, and taking even more punishment than you can, on some occasions. Sometimes they run ahead before you can get yourself in good tactical position, though, and sometimes they hang back in front of a door while you stand there for several moments before you realize that the scripting requires you to take point. And over the course of the game, you'll meet techs who will give one of your weapons an upgrade, like increased magazine size, projectile ricochet, or target tracking.
Unfortunately, while their pathfinding was solid, they don't do much to get out of your way if you need to pull back quickly. Which you'll need to do, because some of the enemies can take an impressive amount of punishment -- and dish it out, too. If a friendly is standing right behind you, he'll stand rooted for a precious second or two. I never died as a result, but I did get hit a lot harder than I would have if my guys had been more responsive. (And they're all guys, too. You'll hear female voices in the radio chatter, but the only female character model I saw was on the Strogg side).
Other than that, though, single-player was pretty straightforward and hassle-free. In fact, I found it to be a little too straightforward. The areas felt a little linear, with locked doors kind of magically unlocking as I triggered mission completion events. I'm certainly no game designer, but I think the game could have benefited from navigation markers, rather than just blocking your progress from one end to the other with a series of gates. At least the environments look good; there's a lot more color and variety than in Doom 3, and previous Quake games, for that matter. While some areas smack strongly of Doom 3, the bulk of it quickly departs from the "science lab corridor" syndrome. There are a lot of outdoor areas, for one thing (although the sky texture could look better).
And while the shooter purists will roll their eyes at the notion of vehicles in a Quake game, they're actually fun and intuitively controlled. Their presence in the story doesn't feel necessary, but I find it hard to believe that a gamer wouldn't want to bomb around in a hovertank, blasting the crap out of bad guys and inflicting general mayhem. Like the on-foot stuff, though, it was a little too straightforward, with armor and shields automatically regenerating if you sat idle and unmolested for a few seconds, and infinite ammo. Those aspects turned these sections of the game into a shooting gallery. That's not a bad thing, necessarily, but it detours from the visceral immediacy we're used to in Quake.
Lastly, single-player combat feels behind the times, with enemies generally choosing to stand right in front of you and fire, with some hopping from side to side to spice things up. Then there's the next tier that heads right for you. Sometimes they run, sometimes they amble, but there isn't much tactical consideration to it. One enemy has a grenade launcher that he'll aim with fairly good accuracy, and there are some units later in the game that do make attempts to keep themselves in one piece, but there's little of the challenge we've experienced in shooters like Call of Duty, Far Cry, Tribes: Vengeance, or Brothers in Arms. This is one of the reasons why it will take you around ten hours, maybe less, to finish the campaign.
But like I said, the production values are great. You'll fight some truly huge beasties and wend your way through some cool and varied environments. The voice acting is uniformly excellent too, except some incidental lines of dialogue do get repeated a bit too much, sometimes with the same line from the same voice actor issuing from two different people within the span of a minute. That's relatively rare, but it is noticeable.
The weapons are also pretty fun, especially with the mods you'll get over the course of the game. The single-barrel shotgun is quite powerful -- almost too powerful -- and you can zoom in with the assault rifle scope and squeeze off targeted rounds with semi-automatic fire. Like Doom 3, there is no alt-fire on any of weapons. Instead, right-click will engage a zoom, if there is one. There's also no leaning around corners, but the relative simplicity of combat doesn't make that a problem. At any rate, you'll have plenty of weapons to choose from for given situations, with a grenade launcher, nailgun, hyperblaster, rocket launcher, and the Dark Matter uber weapon. There aren't any grenades you can actually throw, but the pistol and assault rifle have flashlights attached to them, and they have energy meters or anything like that. Your teammates will automatically flick theirs on when in dark areas, which is a neat visual effect.
Speaking of dark areas, you'll find little of that absolute darkness that was everywhere in Doom. More importantly, you will almost never be ambushed by "monster closets" (hidden pens that open up and unleash the enemy, typically from behind), and you won't have a mass of Stroggs appear out of nowhere when you pick up a piece of armor that's sitting, potentially suspiciously, in the middle of a room.
In fact, armor, ammo and health are pretty easy to come by, on the default difficulty, and there are often those team members around who can quickly repair your armor and heal you up. The sheer amount of Marine-issued gear stretches impressively deep into Strogg territory, to the point where I found myself wondering how the stuff got there. I realize that this mechanic is necessary to keep Corporal Kane alive and fighting, but the suspension of disbelief gets stretched pretty thin right there. There are other questions that popped into my head as I played through the game, but I can't talk about them without spoiling some plot twists, unfortunately. It wasn't "mindless summer action movie" bad, though, so I didn't mind too much.
So that's single-player, more or less. Multiplayer was fun across the board, although having only nine maps to work with felt a little restricting. And unfortunately, only a few of them displayed that creative flair we've become used to from Quake. They also felt engineered for around 16 players. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as I fondly recall playing Quake 2 on a LAN back in college with as few as two or three players. As long as the map is geared towards that number of people, it can be just as much fun as 64-player mayhem. However, it is disappointing that the game doesn't ship with a map that feels good for more than 16 people. Apparently, this is the price we pay for multiplatform development. On the bright side, the collector's edition comes with Quake 2 and both of its official mission packs (Ground Zero and The Reckoning). Although there's a large segment of gamers who never dipped their toes into Quake 2, it would have been nice to have just a few more MP maps slipped in there. Like twice as many, but what can you do. Id and Raven look like they're really into the console thing, so a few elements of what's ostensibly a multiplayer franchise might get "streamlined," with one of those elements being? multiplayer.
At any rate, a couple of the maps stand out, particularly Xaero, which takes place in the middle of space and involves platforms and pillars you'll jump to, with nothing but stars below you. For the most part, though, the maps don't show a lot of imagination. I don't expect the sometimes silly pomp and grandeur of Unreal Tournament, but I do expect something that feels a little less boxy than this batch. And something a little more atmospheric. Instead, the maps feel a little disconnected from the game. There's one from Quake 2, but too many of them have nothing to do with Quake 4's art style. As I find myself saying, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. But I like a cohesive presentation.
Closing Comments
It's a curious direction that Quake 4 has taken this time around, with the heavy emphasis on single-player, apparently at the development cost of multiplayer, previously its very selling point. And while the SP production values are certainly expensive-looking and sounding, the actual combat mechanics feel a step behind the evolution of the genre, and not in an intentionally retro way. And it's difficult to pin down why it turned out that way, because Raven Software is known for having its finger on the shooter pulse. One can only speculate. Despite its shortcomings, Quake 4 is a genuinely fun game. It just won't keep you entertained for as long as you expect. It's also in the midst of some stiff competition, notably FEAR and Call of Duty 2 (and even Day of Defeat: Source, for that matter). There's a lot of shiny wrapping, but the gift inside is disappointingly small. If there had been a vehicle-based mode with only one map, I think things could have been much different, because I had a lot of fun with those. It would also be cool to see the weapon mods available in MP in some fashion. On the PC side, at least, there's always the possibility of that being added in, either by Raven or amateur designers. Too bad for the 360 guys that no downloadable content is planned.
IGN's Ratings for QUAKE 4 (PC)
Rating Description See Our Glorious Home Theater Setup!
out of 10 click here for ratings guideGet Ratings Information
9.0 Presentation
You'll see some things that Doom 3 didn't indicate its engine was capable of, and vehicle controls are intuitive
9.0 Graphics
Impressive use of the Doom 3 engine, and the character models don't have as much of that plastic look.
8.4 Sound
Hollywood actors lend some key voice talent, and there's plenty of ambient sound. Music is tasteful and well-placed.
8.0 Gameplay
Combat is relatively simple, and multiplayer is disappointingly limited.
7.5 Lasting Appeal
Short singleplayer, and not enough MP flavor to truly set it apart.
8.2 OVERALL
(out of 10 / not an average)
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