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Quake IV Details Emerge

1up.com has details as released by Activision and id about the upcoming first person shooter Quake IV. The game, in development by Madison, WI company Raven Software, QIV is going to return to the single-player roots of the second Quake title. From the article: " The Strogg are quickly regrouping. However, with the Strogg's planetary defenses still destroyed, Earth's forces can deliver a full and final assault. This time, you're not alone. You are Matthew Kane, an elite member of Rhino Squad, and part of Earth's next invasion wave. An army of soldiers are fighting with you and an arsenal of weapons and vehicles are at your disposal in this heroic and epic battle between worlds."

16 of 93 comments (clear)

  1. Where's Coop by superpulpsicle · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The best part about Quake 1 was Coop and team fortress. We don't need team fortess since we technically have plenty of team alternatives like Wolfenstein. But Coop modes are really lacking in today's games.

  2. A 'Team' helping me out?? by Spokehedz · · Score: 3, Funny

    Don't you mean 'Meat Shield(s)' helping me out?

  3. Rhino Squad? by dougmc · · Score: 4, Funny

    Rhino Squad? I guess it's official -- there must be no good names for squads left now.

  4. What's the point? It's just like every other FPS. by oni · · Score: 3, Insightful

    IMHO, every FPS is just like every other FPS in terms of gameplay. If you've played one then you've played them all. Sure, they keep adding eye candy, but that's about it. Only two FPS games every stood out from the pack in my opinion.

    The first one was Quake 3. The thing that made is so different was the speed of it. That game was fast as hell. Particularly in some of the mods, like RA or threewave or CPMA, it felt like you could run like a bat out of hell. The maneuverability made it feel more like kung fu than a firefight. After playing quake for years, I tried to play UT2k3 and I just felt like I was stuck in molasses.

    The other unusual game was tribes.

    Anyway my point is, RTCW, Doom3, Halo, HF2, they all seemed pretty much the same to me. They're cool. Don't get me wrong (this being Slashdot I'm sure someone will take this the wrong way). All I'm saying is that Quake4 should be a sequel to Quake 3 in terms of gameplay. For the story, yeah you pretty much have to make a sequel to Q2 because Q3 didn't have much of a story. But for the gameplay, they should follow Q3 and make this a game unlike all the others. As it stands, I'm afraid Q4 is going to be YAFPS

    but I'll buy it anyway I guess.

  5. Re:Hexen by th1ckasabr1ck · · Score: 4, Informative
    Raven has done:

    • Heretic
    • Heretic II
    • Hexen
    • Hexen II
    • Jedi Knight II
    • Jedi Knight III
    • Soldier of Fortune
    • Soldier of Fortune II
    • X-Men Legends
    • ... and now Quake IV

    Amongst others.

  6. Meh. by TsukasaZero · · Score: 2, Informative

    As long as this has either:

    A) Big battles like in Rome Total War but in First Person and shiny.
    or
    B) Multiplayer like Quake III.

    I'm good.

    1. Re:Meh. by |/|/||| · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Big battles like in Rome Total War but in First Person and shiny
      Yeah, that would be pretty awesome, and that's pretty much the image I got from this quote:
      An army of soldiers are fighting with you and an arsenal of weapons and vehicles are at your disposal in this heroic and epic battle between worlds.
      Sounds great, but I think it's doubtful. The one screenshot with the article shows a single enemy in a dark room. Can the DOOM3 engine actually handle large outdoor environments with hundreds of enemies and vehicles? I don't know, but I certainly haven't seen anything to suggest that it can. :(

      --
      [javac] 100 errors
    2. Re:Meh. by KozmoStevnNaut · · Score: 2, Informative

      One example and another

      Now, I won't claim that these shots prove the viability for outdoor maps on the Doom3 engine, but they do look promising. The first screenshot from the first link is especially good, I think. The trees underneath the power lines really are that far away. And the map plays really well, too.

      I can't find it right now, but somewhere on the Doom3World forums is a screenshot of a really friggin' big landscape, so big that the Cyberdemon put in is only a few pixels tall at a normal gameplay resolution. And that was with a pretty good framerate, too.

      --
      Eat the rich.
  7. Re:What's the point? It's just like every other FP by FidelCatsro · · Score: 2, Insightful

    not true , whilst it may tar a few games , Compare Thief , System shock 2 and deus ex alot of fps games do follow a paint by numbers aproch but not all .
    these may not be typical fps games and are far better when compared to rpg games , these are still under the fps brush .
    (the only reason i had windows installed on any system ,untill cedega caught up were these games)

    --
    The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
  8. Re:Doom3, Quake4 and HL2 by |/|/||| · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Well, that's your opinion. I actually prefer single player games. Co-op multiplayer could be fun, but I've never seen it done really well.

    I enjoy deathmatch, CTF, etc, but they get pretty old after a while. The pace is always the same - full throttle. With single player games you get slower paced exploration and puzzle solving (hopefully not just "find the key" puzzles) interspersed with gunplay. You also get characters with different motivations - no actual human character is going to want to hang around and guard the reactor. Only an NPC will tolerate something so boring. Even if you got a human player to do it, they would be "playing the game" rather than "playing the security guard." The NPC guard is more likely to be looking at his watch than strafing back and forth looking for somebody to snipe.

    I guess the sum-up is that I like single player games because they tend to be more immersive. Of course, you could make a multiplayer game with these elements, and maybe such a game exists - but I haven't played it.

    --
    [javac] 100 errors
  9. Re:Doom3, Quake2 and HL2 by syrinx · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Multiplayer is only fun if you know a bunch of other people who have the same game, want to play, etc. (And admittedly, some games are definitely awesome if you have a group of gamer friends.)

    Sure you could play online with random people, but frankly, as a group, people online are stupid assholes.

    Give me a good single player game any day.

    --
    Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
  10. Re:Doom3, Quake2 and HL2 by RsG · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Have you tried the UT games? Best multiplayer FPS I've played.

    But why expect these games to be? People don't play moody dark survival horror games for deathmatch, they play those games alone (preferably with the lights out). Multiplayer FPS is about one thing, single player is about something else, both have their merits. Just because you prefer one does not mean the designers shouldn't make some of each.

    --
    Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
  11. Yay! by Xanlexian · · Score: 2, Funny

    I hope this doesn't turn into, "Quake IV: Forever".

    If so, then I'll just have to play it on my Phantom console.

    --Xan

    --
    "Congratulations, Boots. Your robot has become self-aware. You're a daddy now." -- Dr. Rho Bowman
  12. Re:Doom3, Quake2 and HL2 by IntergalacticWalrus · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "Multiplayer is so much more fun."

    Guess what? Some people have different preferences than you. They may even (gasp!) prefer single-player over multi.

  13. Quake 4 will fail by Ka+D'Argo · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Sorry but this is just bad news.

    If anything id Software should have learned by now what works and what doesn't. After the lukewarm luster of Doom 3 (sorry but the uber darkness of the game combined with no weapon use while using a flash light was fucking ridiculous), they need to stay on course.

    Quake is a multiplayer game. Sure Quake 1 had a singleplayer but it wasn't all that great. id Software's singleplayer kings are Doom and Wolfenstein (though RTCW had both a great single and multiplayer). Quake is their staple multiplayer.

    Honestly if they market Quake 4 as a singleplayer game with a half ass multiplayer like Doom 3, Epic Games will destroy them. The Unreal 3 engine is already looking onpar if not better than the Doom 3 engine (which I assume Raven Soft. will be using for Quake 4), so they aren't behind on eyecandy. They've proven to make solid multiplayers just like id Soft. so this could be a true turning point, where Epic pulls ahead and gains some ground to being second to Valve in multiplayer (unfortunately CS/HL/HL2/CS:S and their mods are still king).

    The screens so far look more like conceptual 3D renderings than actual screens. And even if they are screens they look more like MECH's of some kind. If that is the iteration of how enemies or player models are they look slow and cumbersome, not what we're used to as a fast paced gameplay in Quakes 1-3 (yes looks can be decieving, but if they are just as fast then the models look ridiculous being that large and bulky).

    It's too early to really tell but as said, this could be the game that really kills off id Software. Unless it comes out of the gate awesome then followed by a really good RTCW 2 well then...

    --
    Aw Frell this
  14. Re:What's the point? It's just like every other FP by ildon · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Don't you people read anything about these games before complaining about them? The single player component is modeled after Quake 2, while the multiplayer component is modeled after Quake 3.

    All that remains to be see is how effective the multiplayer is at recreating Quake 3.