Quake 4

The Good
OK, maybe my One-line Summary was too rough already, but there is a piece of truth behind it. Anyway, let us get to the good parts of this game.

Beginning with the graphics - it's good, in fact, it looks beautiful, cause it's using the Doom 3 engine. Some improvements have been made from Doom 3's engine however. The lighting is a lot better, the blood and gore look more beautiful and realistic, and the game became more colourful overall. Although not all things have been improved goodly, for example, maybe it's just me, but the character models seem kinda too cartoonish, but that's not a complaint, they still look good.

Not much to say about the sound, there are no soundtracks like in the previous games, only sometimes an ambient sound can be heard in the background, and just like in Doom 3, there is a cool soundtrack playing in the main menu. The sound effects created by the weapons or other effects like explosions aren't to be glorified. What we got left are the characters. The monsters on the other hand, sound hostile, cool and businesslike, so they are OK. The way they speak the Strogg language makes it even better. The voice acting isn't like in F.E.A.R., but it's still well done, especially in combat situations.

The single player campaign is quite interesting and long enough to take us on a good and memorable adventure. It won't exactly blow you away and make you wanna play it many more times, same goes to multiplayer, but it's still fun. The weapons arsenal is rich, filled with weapons from Quake 1 and 2, such as the Nailgun, the Lighting gun, the Railgun, but also has a new cool introduction like the Dark Matter gun, which is, though a replacement for the legendary BFG10K, but is almost as powerful and has its own interesting effect.

Most enemies from Quake 2 return, and some of them, like the Gunner, in a very good and familiar form, some though, just like some monsters from Doom 3, had to wear a stupid looking new costume, and behave even more stupid. This doesn't ruin the gameplay though. There are a few new entries too, by the way.

Unlike in Quake 2, the "friendly" AI is now even useful in combat and helps you defeat the Strogg. They sometimes come in handy and are surprisingly strong when compared to the Strogg. Medics and engineers can heal your health and armor respectively. You can also ride tanks and walking robots as you progress through opened deserts of Stroggos.

The missions and objectives aren't too special for games of this type, and even for Quake 2. They are pretty similar to the game's prequel.

The multiplayer is taken directly from Quake 3, and hardcore fans of Q3-s multiplayer would perhaps be pleased, all others won't, and this is where we get to the flaws of this game...

The Bad
The small flaws made in the single player campaign weren't those which didn't make this game a hit it was supposed to be. It's all the multi-players fault. It's just too much Quake 3. I don't understand 1 thing - they put so damn cool vehicles in the single player campaign, and also added medics and engineers to it, then why not make multiplayer the same tactical warfare experience? Instead, they just took some maps from Q3 and Q2, added some new, took a couple of Q3-s power-ups, mixed it all together, and voila, there we have it - an updated Quake 3 with graphics, models and weapons from Quake 4. Sounds kind of stupid, don't you think? Will, i'll tell ya, if you read this, and believe all what i say, than the multiplayer is exactly as bad as you think right about now.

This is why Quake 4 couldn't keep up a tactical war with Call of Duty 2, F.E.A.R. and other successful shooters of that year, because it used the primitive caveman tactic of Quake 3.

The Bottom Line
Will, in case you didn't get my point correctly, Quake 4 isn't a BAD game, the single player campaign is fun and that's OK, but just don't play its multiplayer to be disappointed. If you are looking for a sequel to Quake 2, i would even, in fact, recommend this to you. It really is a sequel to Quake 2, lets face it. And besides, making a sequel better than a prequel is very, very hard, especially by a different company.