Quake 4 = Old Skool blasting
A nice little intro sequence kicks the game off reminding me first of Starship Troopers with the bodies floating in space before moving on to shamelessly rip off the dropship sequence from Aliens. Okay, not a problem, we’re on familiar ground here but let’s hope there’s a bit more originality in here than the intro sequence suggests. So you of course crash land and then find your way to your squad commander who gives you your next objective… and that’s pretty much the essence of the whole game.
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Click for larger imageJust as Doom 3 totally over-used the ‘fetch this to fix that to lower this to go there’ objective, Quake 4 sees you being passed from pillar to post from one superior to another completing various objectives. In between you might spend a short while on the Marines mothership where you get to pick up a little more backstory on yourself and why everyone thinks you’re so special. Truth be told, given the number of times I was told to go and help some other bloke, I was starting to wonder if my fellow soldier’s awe was because I had the most fearsome case of the clap ever seen in the Marine Corps or something.
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Click for larger imageA new addition to Quake 4 is the ability to use vehicles… in the form of a hover tank and a mechwarrior style cobat exoskeleton, both of which in a rather arcadey move have infinite ammo and rechargeable shields and armour. Quake purists might baulk at such an addition but it does add some much needed variety as Quake 4’s gameplay is starting to look just a bit dated when lined up with it’s contemporaries.
Click for larger imageAnd that’s the absolute biggest problem with Quake 4, it feels so dated even though it’s wearing the latest all singing and fizzing graphics engine, it just feels old. A bit like Lethal Weapon 4, you get the feeling id should have stopped with Quake 3, called it a day and moved on. Quake 4 brings absolutely nothing new to the FPS table, and I wouldn’t penalise it for that anyway as pretty much everything has been covered by FPS games now anyway. But it’s what Quake 4 misses out that makes the game feel dated.
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