- View topic - Quake 4 Review - - Free Message Board Hosting by FreePowerBoards.com

Unlike previous installments, single-player is there in a big way, with a winding plot, a cast of characters voiced by Hollywood actors, objective-based gameplay, light squad tactics, and countless set pieces. In fact, so much effort was put into the single-player presentation that the amount of multiplayer seems to have suffered as a result. For one reason or another, the franchise's priorities have zigged instead of zagged, and what we have now is MP maps with a 16-player cap, with only the Tournament Mode distinguishing it from the usual setup of deathmatch, team deathmatch and CTF.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. The Quake 4 story picks up where Quake 2 left off, with the Space Marines fighting the Strogg, this time on the enemy's home planet, Stroggos. You'll take the role of Corporal Kane as the Marines attempt to basically annihilating their Borg-like nemesis. You'll crash land in the middle of trench warfare, and it's off to the races as one superior officer after another sends you off to retrieve people, destroy key locations, and infiltrate deep behind enemy lines. Sometimes you'll be accompanied by game-controlled team members -- typically a technical officer who can repair your armor, and/or a corpsman who can heal you up to full health.

They hold their own pretty well, doing more damage than we're used to seeing from game-controlled teammates, and taking even more punishment than you can, on some occasions. Sometimes they run ahead before you can get yourself in good tactical position, though, and sometimes they hang back in front of a door while you stand there for several moments before you realize that the scripting requires you to take point. And over the course of the game, you'll meet techs who will give one of your weapons an upgrade, like increased magazine size, projectile ricochet, or target tracking.

Unfortunately, while their pathfinding was solid, they don't do much to get out of your way if you need to pull back quickly. Which you'll need to do, because some of the enemies can take an impressive amount of punishment -- and dish it out, too. If a friendly is standing right behind you, he'll stand rooted for a precious second or two. I never died as a result, but I did get hit a lot harder than I would have if my guys had been more responsive. (And they're all guys, too. You'll hear female voices in the radio chatter, but the only female character model I saw was on the Strogg side).
Other than that, though, single-player was pretty straightforward and hassle-free. In fact, I found it to be a little too straightforward. The areas felt a little linear, with locked doors kind of magically unlocking as I triggered mission completion events. I'm certainly no game designer, but I think the game could have benefited from navigation markers, rather than just blocking your progress from one end to the other with a series of gates. At least the environments look good; there's a lot more color and variety than in Doom 3, and previous Quake games, for that matter. While some areas smack strongly of Doom 3, the bulk of it quickly departs from the "science lab corridor" syndrome. There are a lot of outdoor areas, for one thing (although the sky texture could look better).

And while the shooter purists will roll their eyes at the notion of vehicles in a Quake game, they're actually fun and intuitively controlled. Their presence in the story doesn't feel necessary, but I find it hard to believe that a gamer wouldn't want to bomb around in a hovertank, blasting the crap out of bad guys and inflicting general mayhem. Like the on-foot stuff, though, it was a little too straightforward, with armor and shields automatically regenerating if you sat idle and unmolested for a few seconds, and infinite ammo. Those aspects turned these sections of the game into a shooting gallery. That's not a bad thing, necessarily, but it detours from the visceral immediacy we're used to in Quake.

Lastly, single-player combat feels behind the times, with enemies generally choosing to stand right in front of you and fire, with some hopping from side to side to spice things up. Then there's the next tier that heads right for you. Sometimes they run, sometimes they amble, but there isn't much tactical consideration to it. One enemy has a grenade launcher that he'll aim with fairly good accuracy, and there are some units later in the game that do make attempts to keep themselves in one piece, but there's little of the challenge we've experienced in shooters like Call of Duty, Far Cry, Tribes: Vengeance, or Brothers in Arms. This is one of the reasons why it will take you around ten hours, maybe less, to finish the campaign.
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FP-AnthrAx.