quake 4: leftover nightmares

The opening cinematic of Quake 4 pans across the back of a lone space marine, visible against the vast openness of space. The view rotates, and I was shown the marine's face, half of which has been removed exposing the grinning skull beneath. The numerous bodies of other space marines float past the virtual camera amongst the remnants of a space cruiser, foreshadowing the bloodshed that will undoubtedly take place on the battlefields of the planet below.

Cut to a drop ship, and the usual space marine banter taking place amongst the fresh recruits. I could tell the game was trying to capture the sentiments of Aliens - quite possibly the science fiction film that inspired the entire FPS genre. It fails on all accounts. Mostly because my eyes had rolled back into their sockets after hearing my character's name was Matthew Kane, killing all credibility with its complete lack of originality.

My dropship crash landed, leaving me in the middle of a battlefield with the usual starting weapon: a machine pistol. The first of my objectives was to rejoin my squad, which showed a bit of promise. The game makes an attempt at creating the atmosphere of a larger ongoing battle versus the Strogg with the way it places AI controlled marines around you. Part of me thought Quake 4 was going to be Call of Duty in space. Some of the marines are busy firing away at an unseen enemy from a trench, while others seemed to be covering me as I made my way down the hallways of a stronghold. A combat medic is available in the demo level, and during an objective where he must be escorted, you have a healing battery constantly at your disposal. Though for all the preview articles that promised to take us out of the corridors and into the open battlefields, there were few moments where I actually took part in one of these firefights. It was simply the same routine: run up a hallway, open fire, proceed to the next room. Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault, for all its banality, still managed to include squad commands and a summonable combat medic. It was released last fall. Quake 4 has been in development for almost four years.

The enemies in this game are the Strogg, which in their various forms are an uninspired melange of the Borg and demons from Doom 3. The environments have been designed to suit, as each corridor with its metallic trim and bubbling mounds of flesh were indistinguishable from the environments of Doom 3.

To the gameplay. Probably the greatest addition the game has made to the genre was the inclusion of the gun-mounted flashlight, something that was only available to Doom 3 players as a mod. Your vision blurs when taking damage, but this doesn't affect weapon accuracy. In fact, as long as you don't take your reticle off of the target that's shooting back at you, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to make the kill with the same amount of effort. There is also a reliance on cheap scares to build tension, and in this demo level I was treated to not one, but two fleshy fists breaking through walls as I passed by. And while I can accept that the Strogg are mostly humanoid, they don't offer anything to players except a moving target; the most complicated the enemy AI got was constantly sidestepping to avoid my nailgun.

Everyone played Quake and its sequel because of the deathmatching. I mean if the point of the game is to run headlong through hallways shooting monsters, why not allow them to be controlled by humans? Quake III took this aspect of the game and created an entire product, albeit inferior to its contemporary Unreal Tournament. Even then, it's not like the Quake single player campaign was breaking any new ground - it was basically Doom, with portals accidentally opened that lead to evil domains, providing endless fields of slaughter for you and your big gun. I played one of the multiplayer levels in the demo for all of 10 minutes; there was something disturbingly familiar about the level's design, and the lack of any real substance to the gameplay made me wonder what the developers were offering. Was Quake 4 actually meant to be a compelling single player experience? Were they really squandering the multiplayer heritage of the original Quake?

I can't say I was surprised by any of this - the reviews have been carefully reserved, as if gaming media is secretly confessing that Doom 3 was over-rated in the first place. I say this because I am convinced they are the same game, complete with lackluster multiplayer. This is still a stunning mis-step for Raven, though, who is a developer that brought localized damage and gore to new heights with Soldier of Fortune, and made Star Trek cool again with Elite Force. If looking at stunningly detailed graphics is enough to warrant the purchase of a game, you might as well buy F.E.A.R. At least it has a substantial story and more memorable gunfights to make waiting for those loading screens worthwhile.

dead by sunrise