I am pretty much a fan of everything the company 'id' puts out. Doom is my favorite game of all time. I loved the Wolfenstein titles. I really liked Hectic & Hexen. I even have Doom RPG on my cell phone. I loved the first & second Quake titles, as well. With Quake 3, id decided to make a multi-player frag-fest that became very popular. I have never liked the multiplayer side of Quake, however. First person shooters like 'CounterStrike' are more my kind of game. So when I heard Quake 4 was going to be geared toward the single-player side of things, I was very excited. Especially when I heard it would be using the popular 'Doom 3' engine. I was shocked to read that this game was getting very negative reviews. But I went out and bought this game anyways. Quake 4 has it's share of issues, but I am sure glad I went out and picked this game up.
Pros: It uses the now-famous 'Doom 3' engine very well; the indoor enviroments are gorgeous; all of the character models look strikingly realistic; really shows off the power of the Xbox 360; even though the 'Doom 3' engine has been said to not handle outdoor enviroments very well, Quake 4 looks great outdoors (except for one part, but more on that in a sec.); a very cool selection of weapons, especially the new 'Dark Matter gun' (a cooler version of a BFG); all of the weapons sound amazing; the enviromental sounds are absolutely great and add to an already heavy sense of immersion; to my surprise, the voice acting was very good; excellent use of lighting effects, as expected; I found the 'kill everything that moves' type of gameplay refreshing, at least for awhile; same online multiplayer as it has always been, if that's your thing; there is an actual good storyline here........well, at least for the first two acts of the game; lots of cool enemies to shoot or blow up; the boss fights are pretty fun; the vehicle & rail-shooting missions were a nice change of pace; For a first-person shooter, the game certainly is longer than most (for better or worse); the game has many 'wow' moments that you can show off to your friends; a nice plot twist that was the worst kept secret in gaming happens about half-way through the game; it comes with a bonus disc that has a bunch of nice features including a full version of Quake II (which was an excellent idea that I wish more publishers would pick up on).
Cons: About two-thirds of the way through the game, you start to run into a lot of spots where the frame rate plummets; I could probably develop Quake 5 in the time it takes for this game to load a level or a saved game; when you look out one of the tower's windows late in the game, the enviroment looks awful; too many similar looking dark corridors to run through; the look of everything in the game makes you feel like you are playing Doom 3, but less scary; the gameplay is basic 'run-and-gun while you try to find switch' style, which could get old for a lot of people real fast; while the single-player was obviously the main focus here, that left the multi-player gameplay stuck back in the mid-90's; the achievement points aren't laid out very well, as most of them are only available by playing the game online or the single-player game on different difficulty levels; the last third of the game has you running through corridor after corridor and lasts way too long; you do get achievements by playing through Quake 2, but they aren't worth any gamer points.
Quake 4 is a success, in my opinion. Like I said, this game doesn't do anything to revolutionize the first-person shooter genre and even feels dated in some spots. But I really like just playing a game where I get a bunch of cool weapons and go kill some big, ugly aliens. I know a lot of people don't want to play this type of game anymore and want more from their shooters these days. But just like Doom 3, Quake 4 takes me back to a day when a game was just fun to play and didn't really make you think a whole bunch.
I find it funny that when 'Serious Sam' came out, a lot of reviewers praised the game for it's basic 'shoot first, ask questions later' style and called it "old-school". But then when games like Doom 3 or Quake 4 do the same thing, they are called "linear" or "too basic". It really doesn't make any sense to me. If you want your shooters to be fun, then Quake 4 will deliver that to you in spades. Not only that, but it's a pretty good deal since you get 'Quake 2' for free along with it. For some, this might be a weekend rental. But for me, it was a fun game that gave me that 'old-school' feeling like I mentioned earlier.
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