Quake 4 First Impressions (SP)

[Czechmate]

Well, it's the Doom 3 engine, so there are a lot of lighting effects. If you have the hardware, the game is certainly pretty. Strangely, though, being that engine, it's a DirectX game. (No idea how that worked out.)

As for the level design, I'm still early in the SP game, but it's a lot of corridors with some outside areas (far more than Doom 3 mind you). There are still the cheap-thrill-monster-breaking-through-a-wall things going on, but it is more open and not so damn dark. And, apparently the guys you play as in Quake 4 can hold both a gun and a flashlight at the same time! Technology marches on!

You often work with multiple AI teammates, and so far, they aren't particularly stupid to where it's annoying. There are a few "GTF out of the way!" moments, but nothing that's a game-breaker.

Again, it's very early in, and I'm expecting things to get better. No telling if they will of course, but the pacing is much more action (in comparison to Doom 3), and much less "walk into a dark room and grab something to force everything to appear" sort of pacing.

More as I continue. Feel free to add your SP comments. (I'll get to the MP eventually.)

~Czech

[Czechmate]

Fans of Quake 2 (and it's almost original Doom style), beware. While this is somewhat of a free-wheeling FPS, there are objectives, things to "capture", things to "disarm" and/or "blow up", etc. You have to complete these tasks before the next areas open up. I'm not saying this in a bad way, but so far, it's not an open-ended experience.

Instead, it's very much a "Complete Objective A and you'll get Objective B" sort of thing. What happens between A and B is usually up to you, but it's not a run-through-shit-to-the-end sort of affair, like the original Unreal or games of that ilk.

Half-Life 2 had a great balance with this, in that you knew what you were supposed to do, but how you did it was often times completely unique to you. Quake 4, so far, is a lot more linear. Again, it's the MP that's the longevity, but I'm hoping the SP picks up a little and gives you commands like, "OK, go through this entire freakin' level alone, shoot everything, and we'll meet you at the end." So far, that hasn't happened.

Keep in mind that I don't want Serious Sam out of Quake 4, but at the same time, I want to interact, not just participate.

Anyway, the graphics are still way over average, the gameplay itself is decent, and I'm not bored. I'm just not sure this is what I was expecting from the SP aspect of things.

~Czech

[BuddhaMan]

I got it today too. I never liked the Doom 3 engine as there is no rival to HL2 out there (yet). It's way too dark like Doom 3.

I can't get widescreen to work either. You select "widescreen" aspect, but the selection menu doesn't change or anything to let you pick a widescreen ratio so you can still only pick form the standards (like 1024 x 768, etc). also, a few games let you pick from 16:10 aspect (HL2 again), but Q4 only has the 'noraml widescreen of 16:9. BOOO! I hacked Quake 3 into doing widescreen, maybe I have to do the same for Q4.

I bought it for the MP gameplay. Maybe that'll be better.

[BuddhaMan]

MP online is very choppy...even with the settings way dumbed down. You definately need a beefy machince to play this (just like Doom 3...maybe more).

[Artis]

i played q4 for about 20 minutes last night. i played one ctf 8v8 map and it ran very smooth. i was on one of the id texas servers though so ping was a non-issue. i tried doing my ghetto style of quake jumping but couldnt really get going on it and it didnt seem like anyone else was either. i havent tried the sp yet.

i also got fear and started playing the sp on it. im not big into horror or jumping out of my pants so i was a little freaked out by it. also, it ran kind of choppy even on medium settings. i had the same thing happen with hl2 so it must be something with how my machine is configured. ill put it on my other gaming comp and try it there and see how it goes.

[Artis]

oh and i also bought barbarian invasion, the new expansion to rome: total war. :)

[MalorieKnoX]

I get to be in my first hurricane!

[Artis]

you go girl.

[Artis]

wilma that is.

[Czechmate]

I played one round of CTF (12v12) and it wasn't choppy at all for me at 1600x1200 with everything maxxed out. This isn't one of those uber-machines either; it's one I built. It's an 80GB hard drive, an FX-55, 1GB of Kingston Hyper-X RAM (400MHz DDR) and an ATI x800 card. It's a little high-end, I guess, but I didn't experience the choppiness that Buddha did.

The SP is slowly getting more interesting as well.

~Czech

[FADES]

I'm sure I will love it no matter what. I think I would be a terrible FPS game critic. I have loved every one I have played. lol

[Czechmate]

Artis,

I talked with Steve at CGM and told him about your issues with FEAR. His response: "Well, he shouldn't feel bad. On a dual 7800 GTX system running at 1600x1200, I get, on average 25 FPS."

That's the highest end video card configuration you can have yet, and he's also running on an FX-57. In other words, it's bringing systems to their knees at anything above middle-of-the-road settings.

~Czech

[BuddhaMan]

Artis: I too tried rocket jumping (I'm a little better than "ghetto style" :)), but I couldn't get it to work right. I need to try it online as the player movement is waty faster in MP online than SP offline.

I loaded the game, then did this command in the console and it moved like I was in molasses (still in SP mode me thinks)

map mp/q4dm6

the forward slash for commands isn't needed anymore and MP maps are in a sub directory so that's how you load them now (read the readme file that came with the game for more info on that if you need it...that's where I read it ;)).

[Artis]

so fear played a little better the more i played it last night. seems like my system got warmed up or something. it was that or i just got used to it. i also noticed that in fear if you enter a room and it says, "Saving checkpoint..." you should let it do its thing before you start moving again or you will be skipping for the next 5 seconds or so. its pretty fun and pretty creepy. i was on vent last night with shad and shanks and it helped being on there, haha. me and shad were both playing and every now and then we would both just say, "holy shit that was fucked up". haha

[Vyper]

Argh! I'm playing on my low end (now) GeForce 5200, and AMD 2200+ with 1gb of generic ram and its so choppy as to be almost unplayable even at very low everything. Now I am playing the demo but even so. It looks cool but I can't afford a 2k upgrade just to play the damn thing. :(


Artis,

I talked with Steve at CGM and told him about your issues with FEAR. His response: "Well, he shouldn't feel bad. On a dual 7800 GTX system running at 1600x1200, I get, on average 25 FPS."

That's the highest end video card configuration you can have yet, and he's also running on an FX-57. In other words, it's bringing systems to their knees at anything above middle-of-the-road settings.

~Czech

[Czechmate]

There is no $2000 upgrade needed. The problem is that videocard. The 5 Series NVIDIA cards were a big piece of shit, and the 5200 (along with the 5800) are the worst of that batch.

Get a GeForce 6600GT or a Radeon x800 Pro for around $200 and that will handle your issues.

~Czech

[FADES]

I have a 6600GT that ran FEAR pretty well, Vyper. So I am guessing it will run Q4 pretty good. I am only using a half gig of ram too. I guess I am just agreeing with Czech that all you really may need is a new vc.:)

[B_G3ntl3]

uh...we dont allow people to agree with czech....if you keep this up, you may face some sort of penalty

[BuddhaMan]

One week ban from the w4r forum for fadey? (where's the punishment in that really...) :D

All in agreement say "eye".

[BuddhaMan]

I played Q4 on the lowest setting possible and it wasd almost tollerable. I think I may have found my issue though as ATI has released new drivers to "address issues in Q4 and FEAR". since I was running older drivers to work with CoD, I'll have to give these new ones a go.

http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=20856

The webpage says for people experiencing problems with "Quake 4 and X1K graphic cards"...did a new ATI card come out and I not hear about it? WTF!?

Well shit...I guess so! X1800, X1600, and X1300

http://www.ati.com/products/gamer.html

[Czechmate]

There's always new crap. But you should know that already. There was a driver fix lin January 2004 for COD (or somewhere around there). The drivers are just getting better since then.

~Czech

[BuddhaMan]

I was sticking with the older ATI drivers when artis had that problem with CoD when it was unplayable. We have the same cards and I didn't want the same problem. Older drivers didn't have the issue. Now that I'm having a different issue with a different game, I'm willing to make the jump to new drivers and see what happens.

EDIT: latest release drivers from ATI work great with CoD and totally helped me out on Quake 4...plays good now. i gotta get used to the gameplay...definately different from Q3.

[Vyper]

Good to hear Czech and Fadey. :) Although according to the check system program I only have 93 mhz above req's on my processor speed. :P LOL

[Artis]

well my ati drivers are way old because none of the catalyst drivers work for cod. i get an opengl error that is basically unfixable. reformatting does nothing. i may try these new drivers but i doubt they will work. oh and buddha, i have an agp x800 xt pe in my amd 64 machine and a pci-e x800 xl in my intel puter.

[FADES]

Sorry about agreeing with Czech.

Fuck you, Czech. You are wrong. I don't agree with what you said one bit.;)

Vyper, that is better than 93 below!

[Stuffit]

I was very excited about getting my hands on Quake4 and FEAR, and after playing them both for about 12 hours each I have to say that FEAR is in a completely different area of gaming. Scares the shit out of you at times and then gives you the FPS “killing time” at others. Smooth as hell running and so far very fun to play. Quake 4 MP is well, Quake 3. The reason I played UT was the movement and action just seemed so much better to me. Quake 4 sucks in MP I think, no different that Quake 3. SP Quake 4 is nothing more that a warmed over DOOM3 experience. Yes, as check said it is a little more open and not quite as dark, but totally DOOM 3, you run or walk down this corridor, kill some creatures, move to the next dark room and kill some more that jump out, move up to the catwalk and kill, elevator down and kill 5 more. dark, dark and dark. There is some outside action and not all of the rooms are dark, but none the less it’s so far just like DOOM 3. I’m counting on it getting better.

[Czechmate]

Q4 does get better over time. But thanks for agreeing with me. :P

And Artis, the ATI drivers haven't had that issue for almost a year now. Upgrade to the latest and greatest.

~Czech

[Artis]

its been less than a year since i had the problem kevin but ill try again and have it not work. it only does it on my amd 64 machine. the intel machine works fine with the newest ati drivers on the x800 xl. i wonder if its because i have the x800 xt pe that you reviewed kevin. maybe its not a final version? maybe the firmware needs to be updated?

[Czechmate]

I'm running an Athlon FX-55 with an x800 XT and there are no issues. If I gave you a card (I don't remember if I did), then you got what is known as an engineering sample. Those are the cards that are the blueprint for every other card in that line. It's not a "beta" by any means.

~Czech

[BuddhaMan]

Artis: just so you know...I installed the "driver only" option so I don't have all that other BS on my machine...just the driver and that's it.

http://support.ati.com/ics/support/DLRedirect.asp?fileIDExt=a23f9327866d3bafd064964c9 f0fcb6f&accountID=737&deptID=894

The above is the first link listed in the "Low Speed - Dialup" section

[Artis]

thats all i do too buddha. ive tried everything in the book before and it didnt work. ill try it again but i doubt it will work.

[BuddhaMan]

I thought you might have been installing the Catylist Control Center and all that otrher junk.

[Stuffit]

Artis is just worst at computers :P

[Artis]

....as of 6 months ago or whenever it was that i re-formatted, etc. any 5.x at drivers would not work for opengl games regardless of what i did. 4.12 work so i stick with them. on my machine with an x800 xl it works with all ati drivers. diff vid card, diff computer so i dunno. no biggie.

and...

eat a dick stuffy.

[Stuffit]

arty, thanks for that, but realy.. what games are you playing in opengl..? I thought all the new ones we play are direct 3 d.?

[Artis]

cod

[Czechmate]

COD is OpenGL, but that's about it. COD2 is DirectX and, strangely, Quake 4 is also DirectX. It's weird because it's the Doom 3 engine, which is OpenGL. I've no idea how that worked out.

~Czech

[Stuffit]

and there you have it arty, no more open gl bs for you to deal with.

[GRAAAAAA!!]

Anyone having trouble playing fear with a low end vid card..do this..

if you have a system with 1.7 ghz or above .. then in preformance settings set the system settins to med.

if your graphics card is the fx series. Then you want to tweek the card settings a bit and test it in the preformace menu. Best thing to do is set everything on "low" for your card settings and then start tweeking the advanced vid card settings by turning up the textures and video ect. until you find out what works best for you.