Product Description

Play as space marine Matthew Kane, an elite commando with a mysterious (and possibly checkered) past whose reputation as a tough soldier precedes him. Kane has been drafted into Rhino Squad, one of the squads of space marines currently assaulting the planet Stroggos, home of the strogg aliens.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2006 in Video Games
• Brand: ACTIVISION
• Model: 81017
• Released on: 2006-09-08
• ESRB Rating: Mature
• Platform: Xbox 360
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds

Features

• Collect incredible new weapons -- from the standard shotgun and grenade launcher to the new Dark Matter Gun
• Fight with the support of an elite squad, using tactical skills to prevail over a deadly enemy
• Battle outdoors using tanks and walkers
• Compete online in fast action arena-style multiplayer games

Customer Reviews

Reasonably Good FPS for Mindless Fun Shooting
Quake has a long, infamous history as a hard-hitting first person shooter that is not afraid of gore. With the XBox 360, Quake truly steps up its attention to detail.

This classic game has been around for eons. I remember the old days of Doom and Hexen - and wow, have we come far since then! We now see a very cinematic version of the FPS epic series, with cinematic style intro sequences reminiscent of Alien and other great sci-fi series.

You're in essence a space marine, part of the Rhino group. Your team is shot down from the sky while landing on a hostile planet, taking out the Strogg. From that point forward, all you need to know is that you have to blow up pretty much everything that moves.

I'm sure, with the never-ending sequence of sequels that come out, that people will compare this to old versions of Doom and Quake. They'll also compare it to Halo. Really, unless you want to play with old-system games for years on end, you have to find other things to play. I love Halo and Halo 2. But eventually I want to play new games, if only to try out new maps.

Quake has a whole different look-and-feel than Halo does. It's a different universe, a dark, bloody one full of industrial grunge. It's more "gritty". And, to be honest, as much as I love Halo, I really appreciated the marines in Quake 4. They appeared to actually work as a team. My medic and techie hung out near me, healing me and giving me support. In Halo it seemed like your teammates were the traditional "red uniformed security dudes" from Star Trek - only around to act as cannon fodder during the current episode. In Quake 4, they were much more long lasting, if you played things well.

Is this a killer app? Probably not. The graphics are rather impressive on the HD TV - but for example the sky is static. Pretty, but static. The textures down in the mines are detailed, bloody, grungy and very dark - but it gets repetitive. The gameplay is simply blasting, blasting more, blasting more and some dodging. The sound is a stream of bullet blasts.

But that being said, that is all the Quake series has ever intended to be. It's a fun way to blow off steam. You have a hard day at work or school, and you come home to blast away enemies for a few hours. It's very stress-relieving. You feel like you make some progress, it's easy to save and pick up the story later on. No complex puzzles, no intricate stealth sequences. It's all about blasting away with great accuracy.

If you're a FPS shooter fan, it would seem silly to sit stationary and hold your breath until you turn blue, or until Halo 3 finally emerges. Buy Quake 3, have fun blasting away at dark-and-gloomy enemies, and tune your skills. Other games will be coming out eventually for you to get that eye candy you crave.

Unfairly maligned game
Much maligned game. Unfairly. For those not in-the-know, the Quake franchise is basically what the ID guys did after they got bored with Doom. Quake4 is what they did after they got bored with Doom3. Doom 3 PC-to-xbox was well received, Quake4 wasn't well received in general, but the PC-to-360 translation seems to have gone fairly well though some complain of frame rate issues. They never bothered me. The other games you will have seen in the Doom3 engine / xbox universe would be Prey and the upcoming QuakeWars. Wolfenstein (very ugly looking port on the xbox) was Quake3 engine so not related.

CONS:
- early desert levels look uninspired, boring. If you left the game early, I can see why it got such bad press.
- goofy arcade shoot-`em-up game elements in which you shoot stuff and it flies up into the air. Reminds me of a boorish arcade game.

PROS:
- fantastic looking Doom3 engine.
- once you get beyond the external desert levels, much better maps and environments begin to kick in.
- variety of enemies with their own characteristics.
- slight twist on the health/armor pack. You also have techs that occasionally travel with you and can fix your health and armor. the also use the health station concept that Half-Life2 uses.
- good array of weapons. The weapons get upgrades which is nice. The lightning gun can hit multiple targets. I especially like the Dark Matter Gun which shoots a slow beautiful purplish-black inky deathlike projectile.
- no need to consult the internet due to glitches or non-intuitive gameplay.

Again, I don't know where to place the story. It's like criticizing a bad low-budget horror movie, it's almost unfair. But anyway I do like the story-twist where they make you the enemy, giving you access to enemy health packs, enemy language, etc (Prey also works this way) although the process by which this happens is too reminiscent of a cut-scene toward the end of Half-Life2. Doom3 Resurrection of Evil also ripped-off the Half-Life Gravity Gun so apparently the ID guys like Half-Life a lot. Consider it an homage.

And why is this guy still only a corporal after saving the planet?

It isn't Halo, it isn't trying to be. It's trying to be a good Doom3 derivative and that's exactly what it's good at.

A dud from id Software's grenade launcher
There are good first-person shooters out there. Those shooters contain a story that captivates the player enough to blast through a dozen or so levels of shooting, dodging, and grenade-lobbing. Those levels generally have multiple objectives that are varied, from bombing a structure to rushing a certain location and killing everything from point A to point B while staying alive. Those shooters are generally accompanied with attractive graphics and pulse-pounding music. The Xbox 360 version of Quake 4 doesn't have many of those qualities. It's not a terrible game, but it's one of the least impressive shooters I've played this year.



In Quake 4's brainless campaign, you'll strap on the armor of the space marine Matthew Kane, a member of the Rhino Squad that is attacking the evil Strogg on their home planet. The biomechanical beasts are foul, dirty, and ruthless--and a small twist near the middle of the game will show you and Corporal Kane just how dirty the Strogg can be. I thought that it was nice for Raven to throw in a truly unexpected story twist but I never really found the rest of the game to be very interesting. At least the second half of the campaign is fast, frantic, and intense. It's preferable to the first half. Overall the game is about 10-12 hours long, clocking in at or near the shooter average.



It's the gameplay that had me let down and shaking my head. Quake 4 plays like a good first person shooter...from 2001. The fragging is so ridiculously generic from the start of the game until the very end. Some will say it's just Quake's traditional gameplay, I say it's boring. You'll pick up progressively stronger and better guns but at the same time your enemies get a little faster, a little bigger, an a little more deadly. There's a balance established between strong weapons and strong enemies. However, most of the action consists of running forward throughout similar rooms, finding the Strogg, and shooting them until they fall over and their corpses disappear. They don't move around much at all, they often don't even try to evade your fire, and they don't try to outsmart you in the slightest bit. Usually they'll stand in place, move towards you, and shoot you without taking much cover or attempting to get around you for an easier kill. A few of the enemies have different tactics but these tactics are usually just slight variations from the "stand-and-shoot" or "run-and-slash" strategy. It's disappointing when games like Call of Duty 2 have such impressive intelligence.



The guns you get can be pretty cool but I discovered that almost anything can be killed quickly and effortlessly with a few well-placed shotgun blasts or an entire clip of machine gun ammo, even near the end of the game. The enemies don't take much cover, which is an example set for the player--running around and mindlessly shooting doesn't have many repercussions, because it isn't necessary to hide very often. Because of this, even inexperienced gamers can plow through this game's action. If you have to play through this game, play it on a hard difficulty setting unless you simply want to cruise right on through it. The only things that break up the action even the slightest bit are a few vehicular distractions, which are admittedly a lot of fun. One of them puts you on the back of an on-rails truck, shooting off the Strogg with your own weapons. The next throws you into the cockpit of a hovering tank, where you can quickly fire off missiles and pound the opposition with machine gun fire. The most exciting and last vehicle is the walker, which can use lock-on missiles and machine gun fire to rapidly take down enemies. These distractions are a lot of fun and it's a shame that the rest of the game is so generic.



Multiplayer, on and offline, isn't any more interesting than the single-player. What should have been a robust, fast-paced, frantic set of games turns out to be pretty dull and generally unexciting. Eight people can join up in a single game and of course you can frag each other in deathmatches but there isn't anything here that impressed me in the slightest bit. All these years I've heard about how much fun Quake can be in terms of multiplayer and I'm let down by gameplay that simply isn't interesting. Not to mention, Xbox Live is very inconsistent and the already-low frame rate (which I'll mention momentarily) makes Quake 4 more frustrating to play than it ever should have been.



Visually, it is very difficult to classify Quake 4. There were certain parts during the game that I was admittedly impressed with Raven's choice for art and style. There is a lot of detail throughout the environments, from blood-splattered walls to gears and mechanisms scattered around the various rooms. Even the nicely-lit interior locations, which compose most of the game, are interesting. Corridor shooting isn't nearly as repetitive when the bulk of the graphical factor isn't stale and boring. On the other hand, player models are very generic and almost every marine looks like his partners. One marine might have different hair and another might have a different skin color. The models also look so jagged without a high-resolution screen that it appears they have spikes or fur. Quoting a friend, "Quake 4 has cactus graphics." The effects are extremely dull, whether it's the Nintendo 64-calibur muzzle flash or the fire and smoke effects that would look at home in a generic Playstation 2 game. The music isn't very good, either. Where Perfect Dark Zero set a mood with its tunes, Quake 4 does nothing to pump the player up for any battle or confrontation. It's not epic, it's not exciting, and it fails to impress me at all. The voice acting is alright, but the dialogue is so cliched and generic that it cancels out any sort of impressing aural quality.



Overall, Quake 4 is a big disappointment. What was supposed to be a visually stunning, fast-paced, pulse-pounding shooter ends up being one of the most dull launch titles on the Xbox 360. The story is interesting enough to pull you through 10 hours of generic and brainless action, and the vehicular distractions are a quick and effortless blast, but that's about the furthest Quake 4 goes. If you're a Quake fan, I wouldn't question you if you rented the game but I'd have to frown down on anyone who decides to buy this game. There isn't enough here in terms of depth or new, modern shooter attractions. Pick up Perfect Dark Zero or Call of Duty 2 instead. Believe me, you won't regret it.