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Quake 4 is a thrill ride!
BY DHIRAJ SHETTY
28th November, 2005 Blood, gore and
violence: The legacy of Quake continues! Assigned
by id Software, Raven Software has proved their
worth with Quake 4, one of the biggest and most
violent games of the year. The Quake series, which
began in 1996, was among the first PC first-person
shooters to let you take your multiplayer matches
onto the Internet, and over the years id has
mastered the art of delivering cutting edge
technology.
All the three previous Quake games had very little
to do with one another. The first installment of
Quake was more like a remake of Doom using the
then new Quake engine. Quake II had the human -
vs. - strogg conflict story line, where you defeat
Makron, the leader of the Strogg forces in the
final level. Quake III Arena was totally
multiplayer centric with no single-player
storyline based missions at all. And the latest in
Quake series, Quake 4 is more or less a cross
between Quake II and Quake III. Quake 4 starts off
immediately where Quake II left off in
singleplayer.
There are a series of firsts for id Software when
they released Quake 4. Quake 4 is the first game
by id that has named the lead character of the
game (Matthew Kane in this case). Quake 4 is the
first Quake game not based on a Quake engine; it
uses the Doom 3 Technology to perfection. Quake 4
is the first to have drivable vehicles, assisting
squad mates, etc. It is the first id Game
outsourced to a different developer. And the able
minds a Raven have done a wonderful job in
response to the assignment that they were trusted
upon.
You play as a space marine named Matthew Kane, who
has recently been assigned to Rhino Squad. Since
you're the new guy, obviously your squad doesn’t
trust your skills and some of them even betting
that you won't even survive for one day. You'll
also fight alongside different squad mates at
various levels in the game. Though they are not
perfect, they are definitely better than what
you’d consider from an AI-based entity. They seem
invincible and looks as if they can take unlimited
amount of damage, but just for your kind
information they could die in a firefight
But nevertheless they are really helpful. The environments of Quake 4 are
dark (well, not as dark as Doom 3) and intense.
The game oozes with evilness. There are subtle
musical jabs in dark corridors and behind locked
doors that kind of mimic Doom 3 and make fun of
it’s much talked about its spookiness. While
you'll still deal with a lot of shadowy areas,
this is less about making you jump out of your
seat and more about running and gunning. The
overall design of the levels is incredible and
designed with the theme in mind. It has the same
flickering lighting and subtle background music
like Quake 2. The levels are cleverly designed and
show clear confidence of the guys at Raven. They
are simpler from puzzle point of view and also
appear to be more heavily populated by nastier
creatures – many of which are placed behind
pillars or drop down through elevators (unlike
springing out of no-where like in Doom3) above the
player, meaning the player has to look around a
lot (while getting nagged by their attacking and
bombarding).
The only thing which keeps Quake 4 from achieving
the Best Game of the Year award is that it takes
no chances of innovating the game play. The
weapons aren’t spectacular. While most of them
have their origins in Quake 2, they are not
exactly similar to the ones that appear in Quake
2. But they are the usual set that comes with most
standard FPS games, a standard pistol, and the
machine gun (albeit with a flash light), shotgun,
etc. The nail gun, which disappeared in Quake 2
and Quake 3 finally comes back in Quake 4. The
weapons are upgradeable over the course of the
game. The manual reloading shotgun will get a
clip-fed reloading mechanism, nail gun gets homing
nails (talk about doing evil things!).
Then there is a hyper-blaster, which will have
ricocheting energy blobs when upgraded later and
the lightening gun which has the coolest firing
animation. It’s a pity that you get all this and
the rail gun half way into the game. The BFG,
bio-force gun (popularly known as Big F**king
Gun!! in the gaming circles) is known as
dark-matter gun in Quake 4, and believe me it sure
packs a punch. All these weapons are available in
the multiplayer part of the game, though you don’t
have to reload the weapons manually.
For the first time id has included drivable
vehicles in their game, though vehicle based
missions are a little too basic. The vehicles heal
themselves over time, which make these sequences
very easy. Sadly enough these vehicles don’t
feature in the multiplayer. For the first time,
the multiplayer aspect of a Quake game is not the
coolest part. Though the main idea when developing
Quake 4 multiplayer was to imitate the speed, feel
and adrenaline pushing qualities of Quake III, it
certainly hasn’t been achieved.
The feel of the game isn't quite right and doesn't
manage to pull off the nostalgic feel it was
probably going for. It’s a weird case while the
speed, gameplay and the physics are targeted
towards gaining a Quake III feel; the weapons give
you a feel of Quake II (e.g., the rocket launcher
fires slow Quake II style rockets).
But as you go on spending hours playing in both
single and multiplayer mode, it will shine onto
you that, in fact, Quake 4 is a spectacular piece
of work. id Software's Doom III technology when
coupled with the game's amazing graphical design
in the single-player, becomes an exciting thrill
ride. It certainly does a better job that what
Doom3 did with the brand new engine. Quake 4,
staying true to it s name delivers an
edge-of-the-seat adrenaline rush that begins the
moment you set foot in its darkened corridors. It
is an excellent game to show off the Doom 3
Technology and once again id Software has created
and ultra-violent gorefest.
BY DHIRAJ SHETTY Game Release Date:
Oct 18, 2005 |
