The fire rates and clip sizes and projectile speeds and visuals vary slightly, but these three weapons ultimately fulfil the same role. The machine gun, the hyperblaster, the nail gun are all very minor variations on the same theme of spray-and-pray. The main problem is that the roster contains three machine guns. Maybe the biggest let-down about Quake 4, and the root cause of most bad vibes that seem to be directed at it, is its weapon set. Barely used but would be truly fabulous in a Deus Ex-like game. I love the little interactive screens - point your crosshair at them and it’ll turn into an in-world mouse cursor. This alleviates the contrived scattering of human health packs and armour in areas that are supposedly a long way behind enemy lines. These have no function until you’re one of them, when you realise they can be used to refill your health. Similarly, there are strange Strogg devices that look like hearts attached to the walls throughout many levels prior to your assimilation. (Some text remains illegible, but we can put that down to the neurocyte not being fully activated, right?) Not that you ever particularly needed to, but it’s the thought that counts. The really nice touch, though, is that wall signs and telescreens you couldn’t read before are flipped to using stylised English characters instead of random glyphs - now you’re a Strogg, you’re able to understand the words around you. The game could be accused of being sluggish, like most mid-noughties shooters, but after your transformation it’s far more comfortable. The obvious stuff is that your maximum health and armour are boosted, along with your running speed. The sequence itself is pretty well-done, if a little gruesome for my tastes, but it’s how that change from bog-standard human to amped-up monstrosity plays out in the actual game that really shines. Sadly robbed of its power by being spoilered on the bloody box, and in the bloody manual, this is a first-person cinematic where you can only look around at your own body as it is brutally mutiliated and warped into a hideous alien cyborg. Of course Quake 4‘s poster-child feature is the king of all cinematic set-pieces, the Stroggification sequence. Sometimes it’ll just up sticks and letterbox into a cinematic, which is arguably preferrable to lame excuses - like one marine sticking his arm out to stop you going through a door, so that another marine can get set upon by a Strogg without your pesky player interference. While Bulletstorm perfected the formula of making you feel like you were really in it without overt railroading, Quake 4 is from the early days where they ensure your character is kept at a safe distance from most set-piece action. Having said that, some of the scripted sequences that apply that cacophony more directly to you are pretty on-the-nose. THE TURRET AND VEHICLE SECTIONS ARE A REFRESHING CHANGE OF PACE FROM THE REGULAR GAMEPLAY It makes the world feel so much more alive, like events around you really are proceeding on their own. There are unfortunately no subtitles for radio chatter, so it’s easy to lose the precise nature of the screams under the gunfire, but maybe that’s the point - your orders are generally “follow the doors with green lights”, so there’s no need to listen, but the radio chatter from your fellow marines battling in other places adds to the colour of the game.
The cacophony continues throughout, of course. At least 50% of the objectives in the game are some variation on “Regroup with Rhino Squad”.
Jets whooshing overhead, bombs falling, explosions rocking the ground, streaks of dust and smoke - sights and sounds assault the senses despite the pedestrian gameplay at this point (it is an introduction after all). When you wake up in the wreckage of your shuttle, it is to a rampant warzone. This time, though, rather than forging on alone you get to play follow-the-leader with fellow marines - “a lone marine” managed to do a hell of a lot of damage, but this second wave makes a far better go of it with squads and tanks and mechs and air support.
#Quake 4 game full
Picking up exactly where Quake II left off, humanity is in the process of launching a full scale assault on Stroggos and, once again, you’re shot down. The introduction is so completely overblown that it can’t fail to grab you. It must have planted some seeds though, because here I am now with that Quake 4 feeling in my guts. I say I’m late because Simply Red had a single out over the summer, but I didn’t replay Quake 4. I’m not a fan of Simply Red and/or Mick Hucknall by any means, but I generally play games with the radio on in the background and… this kept happening. See, ever since I first bought it, replays have been oddly coincident with Simply Red and/or Mick Hucknall having a new song out. I’m actually a bit late to playing Quake 4.
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