autocratic for the people.

Quake II was a big, big game for me. I bought it in high school, at the same time as two friends and fellow GLQuakers, and we quickly found colored lighting and Threewave CTF to be excellent additions to the first-person-shooter genre. Many nights were spent wandering the hallways of far-off planets, seeking out enemy flag carriers and gunning them down. Quake II multiplayer was not ahead of its time, but it was a fine example of carefully selecting common gameplay mechanics and polishing them until they fucking shined.

As a single-player game, Quake II was unfortunately not so hot. For the first time in an id Software game, the plot was not only a paragraph in the manual, but sort of integrated into the game. It was something about a war in space, or something -- the specifics were hazy. You played as a space marine, sent to another planet in order to destroy the enemy boss. But oh no! An accident occurs during your insertion, and you end up separated from your squad on a hostile alien world, alone but for your trusty sidearm (conveniently mapped to the "1" key; it's called foreshadowing).

The plot quickly degenerated into shoot-guy-flip-switch, as you might imagine, and the game went downhill fast. The aforementioned colored lighting, although cool and useful as a navigational aid, was not enough to elevate the pedestrian gameplay. id seemed not to realize that the priorities of an excellent multiplayer game are not the same as those of a single-player game, and in fact they often work at cross-purposes. Carefully balanced weapons are great online, but when you've slogged through three levels worth of space-jail and are rewarded with a new gun, it'd be nice to get a jaw-dropping moment the first time it's fired.

The single-player vs. multi-player disparity was eliminated in the next Quake game, Quake III Arena. Quake III was a multi-player game only, in the sense that the single-player game was still deathmatch, but against computer-controlled opponents. The company line was that this title bypassed "plot" and "immersion" in order to deliver the best goddamned deathmatch possible. Regardless, it had no story and did not attempt to further the Quake II plotlines.

Which brings us to the next game after Quake III, Quake 4. (Note, not Quake IV.) Powered by id Software's own Doom 3 (not Doom III) engine but developed by perennial id licensee Raven Software, this newest Quake title aims to blend the single-player focus of Doom 3 with the multiplayer focus of Quake III. Impossible? Indeed.

The single-player game in Quake 4 reprises Quake II as much as it continues it. The player looks through the eyes of Matthew Kane, an apparently mute space marine sent to the alien world of Stroggos and ordered to destroy the enemy boss. But oh no, an accident occurs during insertion, and he ends up separated from his squad, alone but for his trusty sidearm. From there, the game progresses in disappointingly similar fashion to every other first-person shooter ever made -- receive orders to turn something either on or off, shoot guys and press buttons until said thing is turned on or off, retrace through half the level, and receive new orders. The missions are repetitive and uninspired, to the point where some (the crate-stacking robot-arm puzzle, for example) are easily solved simply because most FPS players already solved that puzzle in every other FPS. It becomes a relief to enter a room and simply find some enemies, because shooting stuff is mercifully Quake 4's strong point.

Unlike a fair number of FPS developers, Raven Software (the ghostwriters of Quake 4) understand how to make shooting bad guys fun. They nailed the formula with Soldier of Fortune, a Quake III-derived first-person shooter released in 2000, and haven't strayed from it since. In fact, it would be accurate to describe Quake 4 as a cross between Doom 3 and SoF: the ultra-quick movement speed, solid-feeling weaponry, and liberal use of exposed intestines remind me very much of the latter, while the moody visuals and "just feels good" mouse input clearly indicate the presence of the former. Circle-strafing with a smoking shotgun just feels right in Quake 4, so if that's what you're looking for, this is the game. (Although, since this is the Doom 3 engine, there are rarely more than five enemies onscreen at any one time -- Serious Sam fans take note.)

Speaking of moody visuals, you might notice that the graphics haven't really been covered yet in this review. That's because they're great, just as you'd expect. Haze, sparks, and lighting effects are second to none, as you'd expect. Character models are disturbingly low-poly and nowhere near as compelling as Half-Life 2's, as you'd expect. Expectations are set and met in these areas, but nowhere is the bar raised in any way.

That statement extends to other areas, too. The sound is passable, as it was in Doom, with nothing really standing out. Same story with the AI -- shockingly it still blows, and in the same ways. The levels you will find yourself fighting through include a factory, a prison, a zombie-infested sewer, some towers, and a giant arena at the end, with bosses every so often that require lots of shooting at to kill. There are some on-rails vehicle sections, wherein you figure out how to control the vehicle just well enough to wish that the vehicle section would be over. The ending, too, is crap, and exists solely to set up for Quake 5. Quake V. Whatever.

Oh, and about the multiplayer: it consists primarily of maps from Quake II and III. This is true, I swear. They've rehashed past Quake multiplayer, but with the Doom engine. And it's uninspired.

In the end, the miserable failure of Quake 4 is its complacency and unwillingness to improve the series. Quake II and III were great because they introduced one or two new ideas while relentlessly refining the existing ones, making them more and more fun. By comparison, Quake 4 neither introduces any new concepts nor refines the existing ones, leaving the player no better for having experienced it. I guess there's no real reason to innovate when the Quake name guarantees sales, but I wish that Raven would've tried to advance the art a bit since they knew their effort would end up in front of a lot of eyes. The dearth of creativity in FPSes right now is kind of depressing, and I used to look to id to raise the bar even a little bit with each new title. But even I can draw a trend line from Doom 3 to Quake 4, and there's nothing new going on here. Better just to replay Half-Life 2 instead.

posted by avixe @ 10:38 PM