Customer Reviews

Quake 4

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

Whoa! Some folks are comparing this to DOOM! No way! Firstly, the AI is much improved. You aren't stuck in constant corridors where the AI doesn't have to have a brain. It just has to 'be' right in front of you, and come at you.
Not so here. I have actually watched the enemy AI step away and hide behind a pole until i passed the pole and shoot me in the back! You gotta keep your eyes on this one.
Of course, it can be a system hog. I have a P4 3200 + 1 GIG DDR RAM + 256 MB DDR PCI EXPRESS ATI VIDEO + SOUND BLASTER AUDIO. With those specs, i got a REALLY sweet framerate that hardly dropped under 75 fpm. That with a 1024X768 screen setting and *MOST* features cranked. I was glad they alowed key binding to be changeable, and that they included the save anytime feature also. NO FREAKIN' CHECKPOINTS! I see minor comparisons to HALO and DOOM and even F.E.A.R. But, not so much that the game feels derivative. I thought the graphics were sweet at the settings i chose. And, the weapons sound incredible. You can almost smell the gunpowder. This is worth every penny.

To other reviewers: Reserve judgement till you finish the game. It just gets better and better.

For the rest of you:

****Warning**** Some spoilers below.

Gameplay: The gameplay is fairly basic but still loads of fun. There is some prudence needed on your part, you can't just run and gun all the time and expect to get through.

Weapons: The weapons upgrade is a great idea. Even your weaker weapons at the beginning of the game can be used later in the game for more punch. And they are all useful. The machine gun is great to snipe enemies at a moderate distance. The nail gun is my favorite (especially later in the game). I wish the railgun and the BFG was more powerful though. And I did not like that the railgun has to be reloaded after 3 shots, especially since there is a charging time.

Enemies: This is one of my favorite elements of the game. The enemies are just amazing to watch. They have brought back the Gunner, Beserker, Gladiator, etc. with excellent detail. I wish they didn't disappear after they are dead. So sometimes I get myself killed just so I can get a better look at them. The AI maybe lacking a bit, but that is easily forgiven because of the damage these enemies can do at the harder settings. The bosses are a sight to behold.

Level Design: Amazing, detailed, probably the best I have seen in an FPS. You should upgrade your PC if you haven't done already, it is worth the experience.

Sound: The game sounds are absolutely incredible. The weapons sound very convincing. There is always some chugging and whirring in the background to immerse you in the industrial strogg atmosphere. Do yourself a favor and turn the volume up. The only weak point is the music, the score could have been a lot better (Halo raised the bar a little too high for me, unfortunately).

Kudos to Id and Raven for a spectacular game. We want more! Bring on the expansion packs! I can't wait 6 years for another sequel.

Quoting Reviewer N. Parijat "ShapeSoft": "Everything Doom 3 Should've Been"

I concur with this statement. This game is much better than Doom 3. While it is very similar in looks and controls, that is where the simularities end. For one thing this game is fun, non-stop action and excitement. Doom 3 while fun in some parts could get VERY boring in places causing me not to want to play more tha 30 - 45 minutes at a time. I have just got finished playing this game for 2 1/2 hours straight so you can say this game has me hooked aleady.

The gameplay is much much smoother than D3, that could be due to the fact that I recently upgraded my 128 MB Radeon 9800 to a 256 MB X800XL, but still the game moves as smooth as silk. The weapons sound great and theplayer dialog is also done very well.

The graphics also look VERY good, clear, crisp and clean just how I like it.

The gameplay is also much improved, for one thing there is finally a flashlight on your guns for those dark areas; so no need to wonder around in dark corriders shooting at monsters you can't even see.

I just started playing this game today so I haven't gotten very far, but I can already tell this is going to rank up there with my favorite PC shooters of all time. This game is higly recommended.

I do however recommend a fairly high powered PC, I haven't had any problems with my PC running this game, but those that only have the bare minimum specs might.

My Rig
======================
AMD Athlon64 3000+
MSI K8N Neo Platinum
ATI RADEON X800XL 256MB
1GB Corsiar Value Select PC3200
200GB Maxtor 7200RPM HD
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS

First to those who say this game is slow or has crappy graphics, you guys need serious updates to your computers. Quake 4 works as good as any game on my machine (AMD64 3200+, 1gb RAM, GeForce 6600 256mb). The graphics and textures in this game are amazing, great improvements in AI, the bosses are awsome and its got that quake 2 feel. I wondered how Doom 3's engine would fare in more light and it exceeded my expectations.

I have always loved the Quake series over Doom and Wolfenstein and Quake 4 is a true successor to the series and loads of fun to play. Raven has put id to shame by making much better use of id's amazing engine. Go ahead and frag some strogg ass!!!

The Quake series is made by the same man/team/company that makes the famous Doom games. Quake 4 is even built around the same 'engine' that Doom3 is. So yes you can say Doom3 and Quake 4 are similar (down to the cut screens that end by rotating back into the players point of view). However I found this game to be much more enjoyable. Here are some reasons Quake 4 is better then its 'sister' game Doom 3:

-In Quake 4 you actuall have squad members that react to you. Unlike Doom3 and F.E.A.R. where it is you against the world you will often find other Marines around the map. There are medics that will heal you and techs that will 'mod' your weapons or recharge your armor. Not only are their other Marines but there are actually members of your squad that will help you complete your mission. Unfortuantly though there are several scripted events that result in the death of Marines that you can not stop.

-The weapons are true to the Quake series. The weapons are fun to use, and besides the pistol all of them are useful for one situation or another.

-You can actually see. The biggest complaint is Doom3 was the flashlight. It was good idea, but ID didn't really think it out. In Quake 4 the levels are bright and your flashlight is attached to your weapon (ala Halo) Unfortunatly though it is only on the pistol and SMG, although it wouldnt be very realistic to have a flashlight on a rocketlauncher so I am not going to fault Quake 4 with this. The SMG is still effective athrough out the game though so its not a problem.

-Doom3 was a 'remake' of the original Doom while Quake 4 is a continuation of Quake 2 and in part the original Quake. Your success in Quake 2 is even mentioned several times in Quake 4. The begining of Quake 4 is very reminicint of the movie Starship Troopers. Through a briefing with your squad you learn that while a lone marine (you in Quake 2) fought through the Strogg and defeated the main Strogg (forget its name) that the Nexus which is basically the central brain of the Strogg.

Ok so thats why Quake 4 is better then Doom3. However there are some problems with Quake 4:

-I think I might have heard some music but nothing that rivals the masterpiece that is the Quake 2 soundtrack. I knew that NiN (Trent) wasn't able to do the soundtrack for Quake 4 but I hoped that they would still do a knock off. But unfortunatly there is practically no music through out the whole game.

-The game is pretty linear. There is never any question about where you have to go. There are no puzzles, not even the simple ones like in Doom3 and definatly no complex ones like Half-Life 2. The only puzzle you have to do is find a way to direct a laser beam to open a door, which I accomplished in one minute.

-Beating the "bosses" isn't very hard or very rewarding. The first 'boss' was actually the hardest. The giant King Kong (with a jet pack) that was the most hyped up was not only easy to beat but when I did kill him no one said one word via the radio even though for the entire 5 minutes leading up to him the radio was alive with 'Small Arms dont hurt him' and 'No one can stop him'. Also King Kong was the only bug I could find. After I killed him and his body feel to the floor and disapeared like all the Strogg the blast from his jetback stayed behind. In other words there was two giant flames hovering about 10 feet over the ground.

Overall its a great game (better the Doom3), and I am sure that there will be a expansion pack released soon. I wouldn't pay 50 dollars for Quake 4 but seeing that you can get it on Amazon for $40 (already!) I would recommend this game to any fan of First Person Shooters.

The last version I played of Quake before this was Quake Arena, which I liked, however I've always been a fan of FPS games so I looked forward to playing Quake 4 after trying out the demo.

The graphics are killer and the AI seems to be very reactive. There are some very immersive levels and the play is fast-paced and adrenaline-pumping. However, there are a few things that I didn't like about it.

1. The gameplay does not change much. Most of the levels are dark interior rooms with horrific, lumbering, enemies coming in predictable waves ala Doom.

2. It would have been nice to have more vehicle based missions. There was entirely too much running around waiting for some ornately grotesque creature to jump out of the darkness and not enough "mission-based" levels.

Overall, the game was worth the money, but there was room for improvement.

Doom 3 is my favorite FPS of all time, due to the atmosphere and total immersion. Quake is nothing like this. Half Life 2 was good if you like long stretches of boredom with small spurts of easy combat. Quake is better than this. While I had hoped Quake 4 would be based on the original Quake, a game which was the Doom 3 of its time as far as scary atmosphere, and the Counterstrike of its time as far as multiplayer, Quake 2 served as a suitable base for the game.

Quake is an action game, pure and simple. It is very immersive in the war against the Strogg, and reminds me a lot of a more adult, mature, and bloody halo. Lots of Baddies, great vehicles, linear, and even better weapons. The storyline is good enough, with some twists here and there. People love to whine about the AI, well you dont need good AI when you have like 5 ppl attacking at once from different directions. Whats the point? Your squadmates have the best AI I've ever seen.

Graphics are unbelievable if you have a good system, but there is no darkness to hide the flaws if you have a mediocre system. Doom 3 runs much better than Quake.

Multiplayer is a quake 3 clone + lag, dont buy it for that. Half life 2's engine is so much better for multiplayer.

So if you like an overrated doom 3 clone system hog with japanese-style horror over the red white and blue gore of ID software, buy F.E.A.R. If you like non linear games, buy Far Cry. If you like boring puzzle games that mix shooting with Tetris, but Half Life 2. And if you like Halo style action + a hard edge, buy Quake 4.

I haven't played doom, and wasn't particularly impressed with Quake 1 or 2 when it came out so I wasn't expecting much from this, nevertheless I picked up this title ad hoc one day in the bargain bin. I can ramp it up to 'Ultra Qualitiy' on my PC and with my new Sennheiser headphones this game is a great deal of fun. The graphics and sound quality is outstanding and really this is a first rate title.

Quake 4 probably suffered mostly from its release coinciding with the release of F.E.A.R. In many ways F.E.A.R. is a superior title and if you have to choose between the two then F.E.A.R. is the way you ill want to go. But if you have the extra cash, or you can pick it up in the bargain bin then you won't be dissappointed by Quake 4.

Strengths:

* Outstanding graphics and textures
* Oozes atmosphere
* Immersive story line (well at least to get you into the action)
* Quality sound

Weaknesses:

* Fairly linear
* Can get repetitative.

Despite the fact that this game was largely ignored, it is better than most products out there. Well worth a try, particularly since it is now in the bargain bins.

This is the game Doom 3 should have been, no pda's to pick up, no fiddling with the flashlight, just run, shoot, wet your pants, repeat. New generation graphics with "old school" FPS action, got to love it.

I'm a Quake addict from the Wolfenstein era. Great Single player. Not as scary or biting your nails type of intensity. Doom III is, I think better for that. However, I'm disappointed in the multiplayer. It seems like Quake 3.2. Same maps. Nothing really new. You would seem like your playing the third of the series. Graphics are not like the SP. I wish. They're more like III. I was very disappointed. They didn't even put any effort to get any new maps. Forget about vehicles. I thought I was gonna ride a mech style vehicle. Wasn't worth 60 bucks. Wait until it's 30. In the meantime, the best and most fun MP game I've ever played is Call of Duty United Offensive. Try it. It'll get even cheaper when version 2 comes out next week.