First Pictures of Quake IV

Snaller writes "Yahoos GameDomain are looking ahead to 2005, and have the first pictures of Quake IV. For all those who have missed the Stroggs since Quake 2 - fear not, they are baaack! Quake IV will be made by Raven software using the Doom 3 engine."

Comments

Yet another....

[AtariAmarok]

On the down side, it looks like yet another game where all the colors are too dark (murky greys, greens, and browns). Must every game look like it takes place inside the "Nostromo" from "Alien" (1)? The same old same old. On the plus side, the refinement makes it look as good as the "Final Fantasy" movie. If that is considered to be a plus...

PC Gamer

[th1ckasabr1ck]

There is a ten page (or so) interview/first look at Quake 4 in the November PC Gamer. In it they state (amongst other things):

• With Doom 3 it was horror, with Quake 4 it's going to be war. Doom 3 was slow-paced, tense gameplay. Quake 4 is going to be over the top, all-out action.
• Vehicles! They show a really cool outdoor shot of a bunch of Strogg (I think) fighter jets blasting everything.
• Squad-based gameplay. A lot of the time you will be fighting as part of a squad.
• Their multiplayer goal is to re-create the Quake III experience in the Doom3 engine, which sounds so amazingly sweet to me.
• The storyline picks up where Quake 2 left off.
• Quake 4 will smash the perception that the Doom 3 engine is only good at indoor environments. There are many huge, open, outdoor levels.

Re:PC Gamer

[vjmurphy]

"Quake 4 will smash the perception that the Doom 3 engine is only good at indoor environments. There are many huge, open, outdoor levels."

On the downside, all the outdoor levels take place in complete darkness, and you'll need to push around a spotlight to actually see anything.

Remember when..?

[dasunt]

As much as I like id software, remember when the occasional new game was different and unique, instead of the same old game with graphics updates?

I know there are new games out there that are different, but they never seem to reach our side of the pond.

I want more than FPS 17: This Sequal Requires DirectX 12. I want more than MMORPG: The Quest To Pay Us Money. And I want more than Super Mario Branded Piss Poor Game Remake and Zelda: We Are Whoring This Franchise Out For the Money.

Processing power has increased to insane levels, the gaming industry has more money than Hollywood, and yet we get the same bland crap?

*Waves cane!*

Re:Remember when..?

[parcel]

This is a direct result of the sheer amount of cash required to make a game. As "processing power has increased to insane levels", so has graphic detail, and graphic detail is VERY expensive/time consuming. Modern game production teams are nearly always comprised mostly of artists. The kind of people who could write up a game even like quake3 on their own in their basements with little/no capital are extremely rare if they even exist at all. Game development is vastly different on the ps2 than it was on the intellivision.

So the corporations with the kind of cash hanging around that it now takes to make a game are faced with an option. They can make a few tweaks to an existing model, pay off some reviewers and sell a couple million copies, or create a game vastly different from anything that came before it and run a rather good risk of losing quite a lot of money.

Eventually the market will turn, people won't buy UT 2023, Quake XVII, and Super Mario 4096, and these companies will look at games like Katamari Damacy and Gish that will be taking over the market, and there will be a switch.

But my guess is that this won't happen for quite a long time. People like bland familiarity. Over 60 billion served.

too bad...

[Moustache N Tits]

... the pics are poorly photoshopped. notice the one with the two marines!? one marine isn't even holding a weapon... and the other one is in a different environment all together (notice the red behind him)... oh, and lots not notice the very obvious seams. why in the world would you release a picture of an upcoming game when you can't even do a decent photoshop job. I liked the quake series as much as the next fragger... but I'm weary that Raven has to resort to crap like this...

Re:Looks too much like Doom

[mahdi13]

Looks more like a space-marine theme.

Quake 2 was a space-marine theme, and considering the Quake 4 story takes place after the Quake 2 story...

Your memory fails you.

[Kevin Stevens]

Other than Quake, which completely blew everyone away by going from 2 dimensions to 3, Every game they have produced has been "more of the same" with only graphics, monster, and gun updates. Wolfenstein -> Doom had the difference of what... larger rooms and diagonal walls? Doom II was also just more of the same. Quake - Quake3 were only marginal improvemens also. Doom 3 IMHO was a huge step forward, but again not revolutionary, though I certainly would not call it bland crap- I have found most of their games to be exceptionally good.

This is what id does. They make FPS games. Asking them to do something completely different is like asking Britney Spears to start making hardcore rock music.

Game genres are similar to music in that certain styles go in and out of favor. A few, like RPG's and FPS's are always around. Others like puzzle/adventure games go in and out of style like disco/dance music does every few years. The main difference between the two is that regardless of how fun a certain genre is (aka side scroller) if it is deemed outdated it gets buried and is never really seen again.

look as good as the "Final Fantasy" movie

[dpilot]

Remember when the graphics mantra was, "Toy Story in realtime on a graphics card?" Did anyone notice when we passed that landmark? I won't even get into the, "There's more to games than graphics quality and speed," since others are covering that area so well.

Years back, I read an article about what happens as you model people better. Once you get to the threshold of recognition, simulated people become "cute." For the most part, improve the simulation, and they get cuter. Then as you get more realistic, you reach a threshold, and they're no longer cute, they're *wrong*, and repulsive. According to the article, the brain has a line between "art" and "real" and as long as you're on the art side you're OK. But once you cross to the real side, you'd better *be* real, or else.

This gap between art and reality forms a chasm that may have to be crossed in the laboratory, because in-chasm games may not be marketable. (Hey, how about a "zombie" single-player FPS game? Zombies are *supposed* to look "wrong", and you can't see yourself in first-person.) Plus, why bother? I predict a resurgence in classic animation in a few years, once the novelty of today's 3D wears off and as we approach the chasm.

One of my pet fantasies as graphics get more realistic is to get into young kids' games. You know, things like "tag", "hide and seek" - the things I really did. Disgusting idea really, worse than battery-powered kid's vehicles. Even worse, I'll bet such a game would sell. I think I'd cry all the way to the bank. I'm happy I don't have time to even try such a thing.

Re:look as good as the "Final Fantasy" movie

[EnVisiCrypt]

It's called the uncanny valley, and you can read more about it here

Plastic wrap

[supabeast!]

One thing that really bugged me about Doom III was that everything appears to be wrapped in plastic. Be it metal, skin, paper or stone, everything was shiny. When I look at the Quake IV shots I see the same thing. I don't see this in games like Farcry, Painkiller, or UT 2004 (Or the next-gen UT engine demos) so I'm assuming that it's just got something to do with Doom III's lighting engine.

Does this bug anyone else.

Re:Plastic wrap

[TomorrowPlusX]

As an opengl programmer, I understand, and have noticed this too. The thing is that in a way, they're showing off. They're showing how good their per-pixel specular lighting is and as a result everything gets the quasi-shiny effect.

This is almost certainly their way of saying "look how next-gen our lighting system is" since a few years ago you had to rely on the fixed pipeline for lighting textured fragments, and this resulted in very non-shiny materials.

I haven't played any of these games ( I'm on a Mac, sigh ) but I'm guessing it's really just a matter of art direction. Farcry, Painkiller, et al, have artists who Know What They're Doing. The ID team are great programmers, but their artwork looks like old Boris Valejo fantasy paintings. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But they probably could use a little breadth to their work.

Clearly, the Doom 3 engine is amazing. They just happen to have painted themselves into a dark, gloomy, *shiny* corner.

Re:Plastic wrap

[Have Blue]

I personally chalk this up to the sudden appearance of detailed shaders. 3D games have had a certain "look" for years- a look that is missing a lot of aspects of real scenes. A lot of stylistic tricks were created to get around these limitations and improve appearances, and this is what we became used to as "looking good" or "realistic graphics". Suddenly, it becomes possible to put a lot more detail into things, the bar is raised, and the tricks can be replaced with more realistic alternatives- but this breaks the expectations we've developed.

The real world really does have a lot of shiny things in it- walk around your room/office and see how many things have faint or blurry reflections in them, and how many have specular highlights (that change location depending on your view angle).

whaaaaa?

[Eil]

Have they gone mad? How can I possibly bring myself to shell out for a new Quake title that Carmack himself didn't lovingly craft with his own hand and sick, twisted brain?

Heresy, I say!

Whoa.

[mshiltonj]

That monsters in the first pic has a HUGE FRICKIN NIPPLE!

see for youself. -- it's casting its own shadow.