Quake 4 **Spoilers**

[retroborg]

I recently completed Quake 4, so here is a small review of my thoughts...

Quake 4 is a nice intergalactic war game with immense battle & sieges and massive air strike bombardments!
It features very memorable / epic scenes & some of the coolest epic Boss fights by far!

At one point you’re in lead of a hover tank convoy that is off to besiege the Strogg barrier control base that is also under a full scale bombardment from a huge earth-side battle cruiser.
(That spaceship specifically looked a lot like the space federation's frigates in Starwars III, at the siege of Korousant against the Star Destroyers. Those ships looked way cooler than the Star Destroyers.)

The war vehicles that you control are great! That includes Assault Tanks, Hover Tanks & a kick-ass Mech (Similar to Mech Warriors)
The Boss fights are devastating! They’re some of the best you have ever encountered on any FPS till now, really!

At own point (You’re in control of the Mech) you encounter a spider/strider/walker Boss and the huge fire powered used from both sides, leads to the partial destruction of the near by base.
All Bosses are huge, very bad tempered & will not rest until you’re one with the ground!

Other cool moments are:

The part where you control the hover tank and fight the 1st Spider walker Boss that ascends from the pit was such a cool fight!

The huge Guardian Boss that was chasing you all over at the 3 command towers was a pretty scary experience & the fight it self was pretty tough.

The part where you encounter the officer that was Stroggified and warns you to get back as he could no longer control the huge mechanical body. That delivered a shiver down my spine as to what I was going to face next.
Overall, the story line of Quake 4 is not that memorable, the ending sucked and the overall length is on the short side. The absence of a hyper BFG type weapon was below my expectorations.
The Dark matter weapon was nowhere near as destructively satisfying as Doom’s BFG9000 or Quake 2 BFG10K.

Also, the Stroggification scene of Kane was not as gory or scary as one would have expected it to be. I thought that it would have been shown form a third person perspective, like an FMV sequence rather than a “rail-train” trailer in first person view.
Also, one would have imagined that such a high-tech race like the Strogg, would have used laser beams to cut off the legs & arms rather than chain-saws?!

Personally I enjoyed it a bit more than Quake 2, but I can’t say that it introduced anything new to the genre and it was missing the wow factors of Doom3, Half Life 2 & Far Cry.

So if you want a shiver down your spine, play Doom3.
One that is not the faint of hearts, will absolutely love the dark/sinister & evil theme of Doom3. The atmosphere, story line, plot twists are all excellent and features the old-school gameplay that made the genre famous in the 1st place.
In Doom3 you’ll witness some of the most memorable FPS gaming moments.
A truly awesome remake of the original Doom.

But if Sci-Fi, War Drama with immense fire power is your cup of tea and don’t mind the short length, please make your self a favour and do play Quake 4.

[Michael Helgeson]

Quake 4 was never meant to scare you.It is just as you say,a war game.Other then graphics,because it uses the Doom 3 engine,you really should not compare it too much to Doom 3 in regards to expecting the same thing.
Quake 4 is simply like Quake 2 but more advanced.It delivered in every aspect in that regard,with more.

Also, the Stroggification scene of Kane was not as gory or scary as one would have expected it to be. I thought that it would have been shown form a third person perspective, like an FMV sequence rather than a “rail-train” trailer in first person view.
Also, one would have imagined that such a high-tech race like the Strogg, would have used laser beams to cut off the legs & arms rather than chain-saws?!

This contradicts itself.
If they used lasers instead of "chainsaws" I dont think you would have gotten any of the gore you wanted so badly.
Also,the reason it was not 3rd person is because they wanted you to experience it from a fps point of view. If you perfer 3rd person,play Max Payne.

[retroborg]

If it was not meant to scare or disgust you, then how come the body processing stages, were so gory/disgusting & Doom-like?
The Zombie stage, the stage with the Veins & gigantic heart and the stage with the intestines which were all connected to that fat creature. You actually had to over-feed it to make its stomach explode & let the acidic fluids burn through the ground below in order to advance further.

The problem with the Stroggofication scene is that by showing it from a FPS perspective you did not have a very clear view of what they did exactly. A much shorter 3rd person perspective scene would have been much more detailed, gory & horrifying.
But I guess the FPS scene was a clever way to fill a hole in the plot of the stroggofication it self.

[Michael Helgeson]

 If it was not meant to scare or disgust you, then how come the body processing stages, were so gory/disgusting & Doom-like?  

I wouldnt say Doom-like.Nothing in Doom 1 and 2 offered anything like what Quake 4 offers.And Quake 4 is mostly like Quake 2,which was here before Doom 3.Keep that in mind. Also,Ravensoft did Quake 4,not Id.
Dig your Voodoo 3000 or 5000 out and play Quake 2 in Glide again.
It still rocks as a fps.

Since you like FPS so much,did you play Shogo,Blood 2,Return to Castle Wolfenstien,SIN,or Unreal 1 and 2?What about  Chaser or Farcry?
Im still a heavy Wolfenstien player on-line or off.You can spot me often under the name FireFly on Enemy Territories if you are on a low ping server.
To me,scary was RTCW when you were trapped in the underground cript,the mummies and crap still look cool today.That game was non-stop for me,and I clocked in more hours,still do,then Serious Sam First and Second Encounter.
I could care less for the new Sam game,that one was f*cking lame.
I dont mess with Quake 3 anymore,not even Team Arena.To me nothing can touch RTCW multiplayer online or Enemy Territories.

[retroborg]

I was using an NVIDIA TNT1 16MB back in 1998-9 when I completed Quake II.

I got a 3dfx Voodoo II for the sol purpose of playing Unreal 1 with all the awesome glide effects & Lens flares on!
I still have it to this day & have not regretted getting it.
Unreal 1 is one of the best FPS by far!

My Favorite FPS
=================

Aliens Vs Predator II (PC)
Alien Breed 3D I (AMIGA)
Dark Forces – Starwars (PC)
Descent (PC)
Doom (PC)
Doom II (PC)
Doom 3 (PC)
Duke Nukem 3D (PC)
Half Life 2 (PC)
Heretic (PC)
Hexen (PC)
Hexen - Death Kings of The Dark Citadel (PC)
Hexen II (PC)
Hexen II - Portal of Praevus (PC)
Unreal (PC)

What’s yours?

[Michael Helgeson]

Mine....
Return to Castle Wolfenstien
Quake 1 in run in Glide or run on a Dreamcast.I used to play it alot on the DC hack.
Half-Life for DC. I have it burned off on a long strategy disc with a nice high res cover scan.Too bad it was never released.
Shogo. I loved multi-player with the Red Riot
Serious Sam First Encounter
Quake 2
Wolfenstien 3d Mac and 3DO edition.
Doom for Jaguar and pc running under Glide fix.
Unreal 2.
Medal of Honor series for pc,not console.
Call of Duty
Terminator:Futureshock
I have more,but too many to really list.