I’ve been playing the all-too brief Quake 4 demo.
It’s incredible! It’s one of the best FPS’s ever, and I’ll rate the demo alone higher than Half-Life 2 (but not 1).
Brief Description
There’s an opening which is best seen and not described; suffice it to say the first few moments are simultaneously scary and impressive in a quiet way. In a flash, it tells you all you need to know about the game: this is not an epic story. It’s about grunts and killing.
This cuts to a further scene where they introduce your character (very briefly) and some of your teammates in Rhino Squad. The Liutenant gives an update on what happened (this is a continuation of Quake 4): a soldier managed to enter the Strogg’s defense matrix and shut it down, opening the way for a mass attack, and killed the Strogg high-muckety-muck.
Then things don’t go so hot. You awake in the crashed space vehicle with nothing but an autoblaster. As a matter of fact, they’re quite surprised that you’re alive; apparently the medics were too busy with other casualties stemming from the massed invasion. After patching you up, you head into a nearby Strogg facility. Along the way, you help some boys from Badger squad waste some Strogg.
This first the first look at the AI in the game, and it’s pretty good. The Strogg mostly make poor soldiers: they run on raw brute force, with no tactical understanding. But your guys are great: they seek out cover, intelligently follow you, and help you waste the enemy quite efficiently. Also, it looks like the marines are doing a number of the Strogg where they can bring their tactics to bear; even ordinary soldiers look they’re getting at least 4-5 to 1 kill ratios.
You continue in a farily normal, but top-notch FPS frame for a bit, picking up a machine gun, nailgun (which seems likely to invaluable in the higher difficulties), and shotgun (the shotgun felt a little too weak to me). Other soldiers help you out effectively when they’re present, and there’s lots of hiden goodies to find. Later on in the mission, you enter the Air Defense trenches; looks like they need to shut down the future version of a SAM battery, and you’re the one to do it.
The game looks great; even on my outdated machine (near the lower limit of their systems req’s), it plays smoothly and appears fairly god, though I know I’m missing the best textures. Quake 4 looks like a solid entry into the series, and if/when I get some $$, I’m definitely picking this one up.