Quake 4 – First Impressions

After spending $50 of hard-earned cash for a look at Id & Raven software’s latest release, I can say that for the most part, I’m pretty impressed. The graphics are nothing short of amazing. Quake 4 is based on Doom 3, and it shows. To a degree, that’s a problem as it’s pretty obvious that a large majority of the textures & models in Quake 4 were recycled from Doom 3. Though to Raven’s credit, they at least took the time to distress them a bit. One definite improvement was the rendering of the characters in the game. I was particularly surprised by the realistic look of the marines heads. The gameplay is pretty good too, though I would’ve expected it to be a little harder. I started on the next hardest level (Lieutenant) and for the most part went unscathed for the 1st hour. It’s still loads of fun though. If I had to rate it now I’d give it 4 of 5 stars, definitely a must-have for FPS fans.