Some pretty, pretty lighting there
The story begins right where Quake II finished. You, along with an assorted collection of tough space marines, are on a dropship, speeding towards the Strogg’s home planet – Stroggos. Naturally, you crash rather hard, finding yourself in the bottom of a trench amongst all sorts of chaos, where you must find your very own Rhino squad. The story branches from there - but don’t expect too much drama.
If you’ve ever played a first-person shooter before, then you will know exactly what to expect. Your job is to guide Kane through various areas, which usually consist of a dark industrial area or dirty trenches, killing any Strogg that might get in your way, jumping on the back of a vehicle when appropriate, and completing whatever your current objective may be. Objectives are never terribly difficult, usually consisting of opening a door for your squad (while they stand around and do nothing at all, the lazy gits), or locating and then reporting to a squad leader, who apparently has nothing better to do than wait for you.
Often, you'll have one or more other men aiding you in the good fight, so some basic squad tactics can be employed – which usually will consist of flanking. These men will generally guide you through the game, and are, surprisingly, quite intelligent for what they are. Not that they really need to be though, as the level design in Quake 4 is, basically, perfectly linear, and enemy AI is…well, pretty stupid to be blunt. The Strogg seem to be from the school of run-directly-at-the-enemy tactics, even if they have no projectile weapons to shoot you with – even the bigger, badder enemies seem to act like this. While this is somewhat disappointing, it does seem like an intentional ploy to portray the average Strogg grunt as a moron.
The linear levels, stupid enemies and basic gameplay make it all sound simple, right? Well, that’s because it is. Quake 4 is a straight, old-school, balls-to-the-wall shooter. There are no complex puzzles. There are no genre-redefining ideas. Quake 4 does not to try to innovate. But, there are plenty of Strogg to shoot and many different guns to shoot them with – and really, that’s all the average punter buying this game is going to expect. It’s worth noting that the game is generally much brighter than Doom 3 and comes with the added bonus of having a torch strapped to a few guns, should things get too black.
The nail gun is rather proficient at chewing through Strogg
The arsenal is your standard Quake fare. Most old favourites return – the rocket launcher, nail gun, rail gun, blaster, and more – as well as a few new guns, too. Each of the guns are damn fun to use too, right down to the petty little blaster, which is more than capable of holding its own. If one thing is strange though, its just how colourful the guns are, usually drowning in primary colours. Odd.
Shiny – that’s the best way to sum up the visuals of Quake 4. Running on the Doom 3 engine, everything looks terrific. Characters and environments, from the most insignificant Strogg enemy to the huge enemy fortress, are all immaculately detailed. The lighting is even better, with torches acting more realistically than ever before, and lights casting multiple, very accurate, shadows. However, like Doom 3, everything seems just a bit too shiny, reminding you just how artificial the whole thing is. The world just seems overwhelmingly fake, especially in contrast to the more organic feel of games like F.E.A.R. and Half-Life 2. Of course, you’ll need a pretty hefty PC in order to appreciate it in all its shiny beauty.
Voice acting is surprisingly good and appropriately cheesy without going over the top. The various hulking marines all thankfully have a unique voice, which is a nice attempt to differentiate between your various squad members during the game. The score is also suitably epic without going over the top. The guns themselves are a bit disappointing – for instance, your basic blaster sounds like a pea-shooter, and the reliable machine gun sounds far too rattly for its own good.
The single player game isn’t particularly long. FPS experts should be able to roll the game in a couple of days even on the harder difficulty settings, while novice and intermediates will take only a bit longer. The multiplayer extends this, but, on the whole, is disappointing. It’s largely the same as pretty much all past Quake games in this regard, with little new ideas. There are some decent new maps, but aside from that, it’s your standard deathmatch/co-op system, with most maps made for only 16 players. When you have games like Battlefield 2 pulling off 64, you have to wonder what went wrong. But what really hurts it is the significant lack of players online. Considering the game isn’t very old and has already fallen out of favour, it’s unlikely Quake 4 servers are going to be jam-packed very often.
You might find this a little ‘shocking’ – ahaha!
Quake 4 is, all in all, a competent, old style shooter. Despite linear levels, stupid enemies, basic gameplay and a surprisingly disappointing multiplayer element, Quake 4 is pretty damn fun to play. It’s not a particularly memorable or long-lasting experience, but those after a quick slice of no-brain entertainment can’t really go wrong with Quake 4.
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