Quake 4

Now, I'm a quake die-hard, right to the point of skipping Q2 because it was *crap*. Yes, it was. And now we get details of the upcoming Quake 4, which was slavishly awaited-for a year or so after Quake 3, then very-hopefully-so two years after, resigned-and-bored-now by three years later, and today - SIX YEARS LATER -  it's more like, Quake? Four? Care?

Raven, wtf have you been doing?

"Earth is under siege by an alien race. The Strogg are cybernetic warriors--a mechanical frame and decaying body parts stabilized by flesh consumed in a systematic annihilation of other species and civilizations. In a desperate attempt to survive a Strogg attack on Earth, an armada of Earth's finest warriors is sent to take the battle to the Strogg home planet. Earth's initial assault force is nearly annihilated immediately, but one marine manages to infiltrate the base, bring down their planetary defence systems, and kill the Strogg's collective brain and leader--the Makron. Earth assumed the destruction of the Makron would end it all, but it didn't.

That's where Quake II leaves off and Quake 4 begins."

Yawn. Wake me up when it's over*. Also, please get some decent sci-fi novelists in to write your storylines, guys. Go talk to Marc Laidlaw or something, please.

*Of course I'll still buy it and play it, but that's not the point.

Comments

[SharD]

I wonder if they'll use a gravity gun or bullet time*?

*Not taking the paula out of the Doom 3 expansion at all

[einars]

so I am guessing this will have a quake 4 engine? in that case the story doesnt matter and I will just have to wait for quake 4 arena or something like that. although I will probably just spend my money on UT2006 since 2004 was very cool.

[RaynerApe]

There is no Quake 4 engine. It will use Doom 3 engine, perhaps modified slightly. Also, to the author of this blog, if you actually go out and buy it because you have to go out and buy it like every "I must go out and buy it to be a gamer!" idiot out there, then you really deserve the boring story and samey gameplay. Voting with your dollar is a reality and we should buy only games worth of our time.

[Seb Potter]

It's kinda hard to vote with your dollar (we call them pounds over here) when you play and write about games for a living. Still, at least games journalists get to influence purchasing for other people.

I'll be buying Quake 4 as well. Not because I'm forced to, or because I feel that I have to. Not even because I expect it to be a good game. Quake's a part of my cultural heritage, and that's all there is to it.

[A. Jacobson]

"Of course I'll still buy it and play it, but that's not the point."

Same here. *sigh* Just like Doom 3.

With Doom 3, I got 2/3 through the game and just got bored. I ended up switching on God mode and touring through the remainder of the game, enjoying the eye candy (it's really something to just sit there, invulnerable, and study an imp in all its beautifully animated and textured glory while it throws fireballs in a dark room. Wow. Too bad the story/gameplay was so far behind those visuals).

I hope Q4 will offer a little more. Yet I await its arrival with a sense of grim resignation.

*sigh again*

[CorvusE]

I'm sorry, isn't all id software IP about the poly count? If Raven had attempted anything even remotely creative with the license, I'm sure it would have caused grave concerns that they were frittering away their time.

[itomato]

So.. You're such a die-hard that the _story around the whole 'Quake' thing_ bores you to tears?

You decided to just "skip" Quake II, because it was crap? It's one of the reasons LAN parties & nVidia exist, yet it sucked too bad for you..

Do you mind if I ask how old you are?

[Alice]

Mm. The reason LAN parties exist is mostly because of Quakeworld and, some *real* diehards would argue, Doom. Quake II came after, obviously - it wasn't much new.

I went from Quakeworld to Quake 3 Arena, as did a large number of the original qw players, with maybe just a brief stint in Q2 for some of them. I did QW LAN parties, and was on the first UK team. I did Q3 tournies and parties too. That was how it went, from my memory anyway, which is fading because I am now 33.

That should clear it up a bit.

[Seb Potter]

CorvusE: Most iD games have been more about the breakthroughs in rendering technology than the poly count. Carmack's rasteriser for Doom was a work of genius, even if it could only handle orthogonal surfaces. Most of the consumer 3D rendering hardware advances have been driven by iD's games: multi-texturing, geometry acceleration, cube-mapping, per-pixel lighting, full-channel alpha, shaders. Pretty much any game you play today uses features first introduced in an iD game.

Don't forget that DOOM (and to a lesser extent, Wolfenstein 3D) also introduced the concept of community mod development for commercial titles.

itomato: I totally agree with Alice. I know that I was organising LAN parties for Quakeworld (mmm... transparent water), and that QW was the whole reason that most people that I knew bought a 3Dfx card. DOOM and QW dominated our lunch and after-work hours at Sierra long after we got bored with Quake 2. Heck, I got hired on the basis of thrashing my manager on DM4.

Of course, then Half Life hit, and it was pretty much a de facto company policy that we played it all day and night. I have some fond memories of PC Gamer journalists meeting me and the business end of my crowbar at a couple of big tournaments.

Sigh. Those were the days. ;-)

[Chris]

Quake II is my favorite game. I played Q1 for a long time, and I spent a long time complaining about Q2, but finally I converted... True, Q2 was a patch to Quake as far as technology, but where it shines is in refinement of the multiplayer game. The DM maps were near perfect in design. Weapon balance was great, people actually used weapons other than the rocket. Q2 took the chaos of Q1 and honed it into a more precise, if slightly mellower game. My best example of this is the Railgun: I remember falling off of the top ledge in q2dm2, turning 180, and railing an enemy as he watched me fall. Then again, I liked to run around with the chaingun blazing as well ;)

Anyway, my point is that Q2 has some elegance that Q1 is missing. I'm not knocking Q1 at all, it totally rocks. When I want blood and guts and veins in my teeth, I play Q1, and I love it. When I want the impossible samurai railgun shot, I play Q2. I get more satisfaction from the latter.