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.

QUAKE 4

Well gamefans… Quake 4 is finally out. This ain’t no arena, this is a full-blown sequel to Quake 2, and by the looks of it, this one should more than live up to the title. I may have to run out and pick up a copy this afternoon. 🙂

Well folks, it’s 3am and I’m throwing in the towel. Before I go, there’s another issue with Doom 3 I wanted to highlight..

Bugs, bugs, bugs..
So, to add to the 2 problems I mentioned before, there’s a sound problem with the game that seems fairly widespread from some of the articles I’ve seen. (check out this one, and this one for more info..) The problem is that sound cuts out fairly regularly if you use the surround feature with a 4.1 or 5.1 system. From my experience, it’s sporadic at first, but gets worse as the game goes on. My advice: If you haven’t already bought the game, wait until Id/Activision releases a patch to fix all of these problems. This really is a great game, but the technical glitches really start to ruin the experience after a while.