Complete: Quake 4

Quake 4 is a direct sequel to Quake 2, it was made by Raven Software in collaboration with id Software.

It turns out, whilst the main character in Quake 2 won a major success against the Strogg, the war is far from over. Now the Big Gun and the Strogg Emperor have been killed a ground invasion of Stroggos is possible and Earth has attacked trying to do remove the threat of the Strogg once and for all.

It was really interesting playing Quake 4 so close to Quake 2, you can really feel the impact that time and technology has made, the id Tech 4 engine is capable of significantly better interactions and improvements in AI, animation and storage technology means that friendly soldiers not only exist but play an active component in the missions of the game. Admittedly they do restrict the amount of time you spend actively fighting as part of a squad, this is still very much a single man FPS, they justify this by making your character a scout, often being sent on ahead to find and deal with other routes and finding a way to let your squad inside.

What makes Quake 4 so interesting to me is that the enemies you are dealing with haven't significantly changed. Most of the Strogg you fight are recognisably the same or very similar to the Quake 2 enemies, though they have much improved models and more impressive sounds and a few minor new tricks. The crude attempts at horror in Quake 2 where you see the results of Strogg processing humans are painted in entirely new lights. You get a lot more detail in game as to what it entails and how the Strogg control and use their human resources.

Doom 3 and Quake 4 still have the best computer interaction I have seen in first person shooters, the way it smoothly moves between pointing your gun at things and pointing your mouse at interfaces feels a lot more natural than zooming in on the interface and having it fill the entire screen when you press an interaction button. While it results in some laughably simple interfaces, but I feel that the trade off is worthwhile.

Quake 4 also avoids the problems of Doom 3 by spending a lot more time in outdoor environments and areas with nice big windows, it doesn't rely on darkness as much to create tension and lets you see pretty vistas. I really like the approach of using what appears to be concept art as skybox backgrounds, it continues the tradition seen in Quake 2 and it gives you a better idea of Strogg cities and other background elements.

The guns in Quake 4 almost all feel good and filling an identifiable role, you get weapon upgrades at various points through the game, a techie will ask to see your gun, play around with it and suddenly it has a new ability. Unfortunately the Railgun has been significantly nerfed, it has a terrible fire rate and its upgrade (shots go through people) is of such minor utility that it isn't really worth being handed out.

I had a great time with Quake 4, it really helped having only recently played through Quake 2 and having it relatively fresh in my mind to contrast and compare.

Completed: Quake II

Quake II is a game with which I have an interesting relationship. I can remember starting it and finishing it multiple times since it was released. But I'm not sure that I ever actually reached the end of the game without cheating. I certainly know all of the secrets in the first couple of levels and how to kill the final boss, but I really didn't remember going through all of the steps the game takes to get there.

Quake II was part of my very first Steam purchase, the id Super pack, back in August 2007. I had intended at that time to finish all of the games in that pack before buying any more. Given the date of this post, that obviously didn't work out.

It is pretty clear from the beginning of Quake II that id software were trying to introduce more story and story elements into their games. It actually has pre-rendered cutscenes, mission objectives that aren't reach the end of this level, some non-hostile NPCs and even an occasional voice over the radio.

The story isn't very complicated, you are part of a failed attack against Stroggos. Your pod malfunctioned which is the only thing that saved you from what pretty much wiped out or captured every other soldier in the attack. Your missions involve taking out key Strogg infrastructure and working your way deeper into their military-industrial complex so that you can take out their emperor and finish the war. A lot of the context and history justifying this is not stated in game but can be found in the manual, which I of course do not have.

The Quake II engine allowed them to relatively convincingly place me in a location. Warehouses, factories, prisons, palaces. They all actually look like they might actually conceivably be these places without requiring that they tell me what they are through other mechanisms. I don't recall this happening much in Quake and the first two Doom games. When you were told you were in a factory district you might then look at the level and think "Oh yeah, I can see that now" but it certainly wasn't something you could just intuit.

This is a shot from the patched version of Quake II

Quake II feels old. There are obvious technical limitations such as the graphics, no widescreen and an odd issue with the music; all of these are fixable with sourceports since ID has open sourced the engine. I used KMQuake, so my screenshots are primarily from that. There is a patch that introduces widescreen support to the basic game, but it also removes the gun viewmodel which makes the game feel very strange to me.

The main reason it feels old is the mechanics, the player runs and guns at high speed, there are tons of enemies, you can carry as many guns as you can find and a large amount of ammo for each and there is no such thing as reloading or alternate fire. I really enjoy this style of game, which is now found in only a subset of FPSs, games like Serious Sam or Hard Reset. Modern FPSes tend to limit your carrying capacity, your speed and do terrible things like having enemies take cover and use basic tactics.

You can see some modern elements creeping in or being trialed. The mission structure links maps together in sets allowing and requiring some backtracking and the player has an inventory. Rather than power ups being used immediately most make there way there, never to actually be used as the player saves them for a rainy day. I know I faced the final boss with an invulnerability and a couple of quad damages sitting unused there, even during that boss fight.

It was good to finally strike Quake II off the list.

Games list at time of post: 390 unfinished titles

Changes since previous post: Finished 1 title