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Quake 4

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Quake 4 is the fourth title in the series of Quake FPS computer games. It was developed by Raven Software and distributed by Activision. Raven Software has collaborated with id Software, the creators and usual developers of Quake games in the past. This game, id Software supervised the development of the game as well as providing the Doom 3 engine upon which the game was built. Quake 4 went gold early October 2005 and was released on October 18, 2005 for the PC and later for the Xbox 360. A special DVD Collectors Edition also exists, including promotional material and the game Quake II with its expansions. The Xbox 360 version of Quake 4 is based on the Special Collectors Edition, and therefore also includes Quake II.

The story of the series continues from Quake II, because Quake III Arena has an unrelated plot to the former, focusing on online multiplayer and a very limited single player mode that is essentially the multiplayer played against computer controlled bots. Quake 4, like its immediate prequel Quake II, is not related to the first Quake in any respect other than the name and the logo.

Contents

Gameplay

Single Player

The Quake 4 single player mode continues the story of Quake II pitting the player against a cyborg alien race known as the Strogg. The game follows the story of a Marine named Matthew Kane. Kane is a member of a military unit known as Rhino Squad. The Marines' mission is to secure the planet Stroggos, homeworld of the Strogg but their ship is shot down and that is when the action begins.

Gameplay features include vehicle based combat with several vehicles introduced throughout the game and squad based combat on occasions where Rhino Squad fight alongside you, including medics and technicians in your squad which can heal you or repair your armor. Around a third of the way through the game events lead to Kane being captured and then partially "Stroggified"—that is, turned into a Strogg—but the process is interrupted by Marines before completion so Kane retains his free will. This turn of events allows for more gameplay changes including the ability to understand Strogg communications as well as advancing the story.

Spoilers end here.

Multiplayer

Multiplayer modes are Deathmatch, Team-Deathmatch, Tournament, and Capture the Flag. Players at Quakecon reported the multiplayer gameplay to include elements similar to those in previous Quake and Doom games. Notable new additions to play are the ability to send shots through the teleporters and the advancement of the game physics provided by the new technology including the ability to bounce grenades off of the jump-pads.

Like the previous Quake games the multiplayer has a client-server architecture. The network code has been altered from Doom 3, allowing for larger numbers of players on each server (Doom 3 has a four player restriction, whereas Quake 4 has a standard 16 player limit). One of the changes to the network code is a move from the per-polygon hit detection system used in Doom 3 back to using hit-box system like most other online first-person shooters such as other Quake games and Counter-Strike.

Bots

Quake 4 came without any bots for multiplayer play. User-made bots for practicing offline for users with only a dial-up connection or filling LAN servers are being developed by many dedicated fans of the game. Two prominent bots are [Jarad "TinMan" Hansen's SABot] (a.k.a Stupid Angry Bot) and [Alpha Omni-bot], which perform very well on the retail multiplayer map packs as well as user-created custom maps. There is also the [Oak Bot] which is still in development.

Weapons

The following weapons are included in the final version of Quake 4. All of these weapons appear in at least one of the other Quake games (except for the Dark Matter gun) and are for the most part similar to their counterparts in those games.

Gauntlet
Very short range melee weapon consisting of a spinning saw blade. (Available in multiplayer, replaces the Blaster)
A Strogg harvester on patrol. The machine gun is shown.
Enlarge
A Strogg harvester on patrol. The machine gun is shown.

Blaster
Low damage pistol, can be charged up to do more damage; not very powerful, but has a flashlight attached to it. (Available in single player only)
Machine Gun
The starting weapon in all multiplayer maps, a full auto rifle. The Machine Gun has a flashlight attached to it. (The gun will be upgraded throughout the game [double clip size])
Shotgun
A devastating close range weapon (will be upgraded throughout the game [faster reloads and increased clip size])
Nailgun
A rapid firing yet high damage weapon (will be upgraded throughout the game) (rate of fire, larger clip size and target lock-on capability [when target is locked-on, the nails will guide themselves to the target])
Grenade Launcher
Launches grenades which blow up upon impact or after three seconds
Rocket Launcher
Launches high damage rockets at a quick rate (will be upgraded through out the game [laser sight homing rockets])
Hyperblaster
Fires blue plasma balls at a very high rate of fire (will be upgraded throughout the game [plasma balls can bounce off walls and hit the target by ricochet])
Railgun
Shoots a high damage, ultra high velocity slug (leaving a beam-like glowing trail). Recharges about every 2 seconds, has a zoom mode so it can act as sort of a "sniper rifle" (will be upgraded through out the game [increases power output allowing slug to penetrate multiple targets])
Lightning Gun
Continuously fires a medium-damage stream of energy at target (will be upgraded through out the game [can damage multiple targets])
Dark Matter Gun
Hurls a slow-moving yet incredibly high damage and large radius dark matter ball. In its trajectory, the dark matter ball sucks enemies inside the ball and destroys them. Weaker enemies won't be sucked in, but simply vaporized into bloody gibs. This is widely seen as a replacement of the BFG10K from Quake II, and some fans have reacted negatively to it.

Competition

Quake 4 was chosen by the Cyberathlete Professional League and the WSVG (World Series of Videogames) as the official 1v1 game for their upcoming 2006 World Series events. The first Quake 4 tournament for the CPL was held from December 14 to 18, 2005 in Dallas, Texas. LanWar and Dreamhack were the first tournaments for WSVG Quake 4 Tour, occurring simultaneously, causing the majority of European players to attend Dreamhack and North American players to attend LanWar.

Many top names attended the Summer '06 CPL Event (Renamed to Intel Summer) such as Alessandro "stermy" Avallone, Johan "toxic" Quick, and Johnathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel (First Place CPL World Tour Finals), quite possibly being the most competitive Quake 4 tournament to date. (Note: Anton “cooller” Singov, arguably the best Quake 4 dueler at the time of the event, was unable to attend due to visa issues).

Major upcoming lans are Quakecon 2006 and WSVG Brazil.

Reviews

Reviews of the game have mainly been positive. Websites and magazines such as IGN and UGO praised its single-player campaign, graphics and Hollywood voice-acting, but complained that its multiplayer — the Quake series' biggest selling point — was far too similar to that of Quake III. Nonetheless, a few days after release the majority of reviews gave Quake 4 scores of 80-90%. EGM gave a mixed rating to the Xbox 360 port, claiming that the single-player campaign was not creative enough to compete with other games such as Half-Life 2 and Halo 2

Ports

Quake 4 was released at the launch of the Xbox 360 and is Xbox Live compatible. Due to the fact that Quake 4 needed to be developed in a short time period in order to meet the launch of the Xbox 360, there have been major issues with frame-rates for the console adaptation, earning it the award for Most Aggravating Frame Rate / Best Slideshow in the GameSpot.com Best and Worst of 2005 list. These frame rate issues only occur in rare instances where lots of enemies and large explosions are occurring on screen at the same time while playing in Standard Definition; however, when played in High Definition frame rate issues occur more frequently due to increased processing demands at the higher resolution. In addition, the Xbox 360 port of Quake 4 has very long load times and Xbox Live glitches that result in problematic multiplayer experiences as documented by game review sites as well as on Activision's support pages for the Xbox 360 version. The Xbox 360 version was initially priced the same as the PC Special Edition DVD and features the same content as that edition, however as of May 2006 the Xbox 360 version has not received any patches to fix its numerous problems unlike the PC version.

Aspyr Media published and released Quake 4 for Mac OS X, on April 5, 2006 as a universal binary, compatible with both PowerPC- and Intel-based Macs.

id Software continued their tradition of supporting Linux by releasing a Linux version of the Quake 4 binary executable, which players could download for free from id. The Linux version was made available a few days after the release of the game itself.

External links

Official websites

Community websites

Competition websites

Custom Maps

Information websites

 

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