Quake 4

Quake 4
Developer(s)	Raven Software id Software
Publisher(s)	Activision Bethesda Softworks
Distributor(s)	Activision Aspyr Media 1C Company Valve Corporation
Engine	id Tech 4
Version	1.4.2[1][2]
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows Linux Xbox 360 Mac OS X
Release date(s)	Microsoft Windows[3] NA 18 October 2005 EU 21 October 2005 Linux[4] INT 20 October 2005 Xbox 360[5] NA 18 November 2005 EU 2 December 2005 Mac OS X[6] EU 24 March 2006 NA 14 April 2006 Steam[7] 4 August 2011
Genre(s)	First-Person Shooter
Mode(s)	Single-player, Multiplayer
Rating(s)	BBFC: 18 ESRB: M OFLC: MA15+ PEGI: 18+
Media/distribution	Optical disc Download
System requirements Linux 2.4+, Mac OS X 10.3.9+ (PowerPC, x86) or Windows 2000/XP, Athlon XP 2000+, Pentium 4 2.0 GHz or G4 1.67 GHz CPU, 512 MB RAM, 2.8 GB hard disk space, sound card, OpenGL compatible 64 MB video card, Radeon 9700 or GeForce 3

Quake 4 is the fourth title in the series of Quake first-person shooter computer games. The game was developed by Raven Software and published by Activision. Raven Software has collaborated with id Software, the creators and historical developers of preceding Quake games. In this case, id Software supervised the development of the game as well as providing the Doom 3 engine, now referred to as 'id Tech 4', upon which it was built. Quake 4 went gold in early October 2005 and was released on 18 October 2005 for Microsoft Windows and later for Linux, Xbox 360 and Mac OS X. A special DVD Collectors Edition also exists, including promotional material and the game Quake II with its expansions, The Reckoning and Ground Zero. The Xbox 360 version of Quake 4 is based on the Special Collectors Edition, and therefore also includes Quake II. On 4 August 2011 the game was made available through Steam.

Plotwise, the game is a sequel to Quake II and takes place during the same war as Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. Quake II, Quake 4, or Enemy Territory: Quake Wars do not share story lines with Quake or Quake III Arena; their only relation is their names and logos. Compared to other titles in the Quake series, Quake 4 has an increased emphasis on the single-player portion of the game.^[8] A multiplayer mode is available, but it does not involve playable bots like Quake III Arena, without 3rd party modifications.^[9]

Gameplay

Multiplayer

Multiplayer modes are Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Tourney, Capture the Flag, Arena CTF and DeadZone. Players at QuakeCon reported the multiplayer gameplay to include elements similar to those in previous Quake games such as Strafe-jumping or Rocket jumping. Notable new additions to play are the ability to send shots through the teleporters and the advancement of the game physics provided by the new technology including the ability to bounce grenades and napalm fire off of jump-pads.

Like the previous Quake games the multiplayer has a client-server architecture. The network code has been altered from Doom 3, allowing for larger numbers of players on each server (Doom 3 has a four player restriction, whereas Quake 4 has a standard 16 player limit).

One of the changes to the network code is a move from the per-polygon hit detection system used in Doom 3 back to using hit-box system like most other online first-person shooters such as other Quake games and Half-Life. In the 1.4.x point release, these "axis aligned bounding boxes" were replaced with axis aligned octagonal "cylinder", to make the hit-boxes more representative of the model shape.

Movement

The movement of Quake 4 is similar to Quake III Arena and Quake Live, but with the additions of ramp jumping and crouch slides. Crouch slides give players the ability to maintain speed by sliding around corners.^[10] Ramp Jumps allow players to gain extra height from jumping as they reach the top of an inclined object,^[11] which while present in the original Quake, was not included in Quake 2 or Quake III Arena, although mods such as DeFRaG added it.

In the 1.3 point release, there is an increased amount of air acceleration in multiplayer mode, making the game feel faster than the original release. In the 1.4.1 / 1.4.2 releases, there were further changes related to the way sliding on angled surfaces worked, with the introduction of the new "power slide" code,^[12] which makes the game feel even faster.

Story

The Quake 4 single player mode continues the story of Quake II by pitting the player against a cyborg alien race known as the Strogg. The game follows the story of a Marine named Matthew Kane who is a member of the fabled Rhino Squad.^[13] Following the success of the protagonist of Quake II in destroying the Strogg's leader, the Makron, the Rhinos are tasked with spearheading the mission to finally secure the aliens' home planet Stroggos. In the course of the invasion, the squad ship is shot down and crashes in the middle of a battle zone, separating Kane from his companions.^[14] Kane eventually rejoins his scattered team members and partakes in the assault against the Strogg.

Rhino Squad prepares to land on the surface of Stroggos

After performing a number of tasks, such as destroying and capturing Strogg aircraft hangars and defense systems,^[15][16] Kane and his remaining squad members make it to the USS Hannibal. There they are given their next mission: infiltrating one of the Strogg's central communication hubs, the Tetranode, with an electromagnetic pulse bomb in the hope that it will put the main Strogg Nexus in disarray. Kane is tasked with defending the mission convoy,^[17] which takes heavy casualties. After many setbacks, including the destruction of the EMP device by a Strogg ambush, Kane is left to complete the mission, assisted only by Private Johann Strauss and Lance Corporal Nikolai "Sledge" Slidjonovitch. Strauss figures out a way to destroy the core by shutting down its coolant systems. As Kane reaches the entrance to the Tetranode, however, he is greeted by two rocket-equipped network guardians – as well as the newly constructed Makron. The Makron easily defeats Kane and knocks him unconscious.^[18]

Corporal Matthew Kane prepares to take out the Strogg Nexus with his Rail Gun

When Kane finally awakens, he finds himself strapped to a conveyor belt in the Strogg "Medical Facilities", a structure used for turning those captured and killed by the aliens either into protein food or additional Strogg units. In a long and gruesome first-person cutscene, Kane is taken through this stroggification process which violently replaces much of his anatomy with bio-mechanical parts. Before the final controlling neurochip implanted in his brain can be activated, though, Rhino Squad bursts into the facility and rescues Kane.^[19] After escaping through the Strogg medical facility and Waste Disposal plant, fighting off zombie-like half-stroggified humans along the way, Kane is forced to combat his former commander, Lieutenant Voss, who has been fully stroggified into a powerful mechanized monster. (Voss nevertheless retains his own consciousness long enough to warn Kane.)^[20] After defeating this threat, Kane and the remaining marines finally make it back to the Hannibal.

The commanders realize that Kane's Strogg physiology has opened up new possibilities for defeating the Strogg, as he can be used to infiltrate locations previously impenetrable to human forces. The new plan is to directly target the Strogg Nexus Core, a huge centralized brain-like structure which controls the alien forces. The Marines are tasked with infiltrating the three data towers adjacent to the Nexus: Data Storage, Processing, and Networking. There, they will deactivate the Nexus' shield and power up the teleporter used to access the Nexus and send Kane in. Once inside, Kane will travel to the center of the Nexus to destroy the Core Brain and its guardian.

After infiltrating the facility and realigning the data nodes powering the teleporter, and destroying its fearsome "Guardian" creature,^[21] Kane finally reaches the Nexus core. There he meets the Makron in a final showdown and kills it. This done, he destroys the Core and returns to the Hannibal. Celebrating with Rhino Squad afterward, Kane receives word that he has new orders.^[22]

Competitive play

In part due to the similarities to the Quake III Arena multiplayer, Quake 4 was used in a number of professional electronic sports tournaments.

The following competitions have held Quake 4 events:

• Cyberathlete Professional League (2005)
• Electronic Sports World Cup (2006 / 2007)
• QuakeCon (2005–2007)
• World Cyber Games (2006)
• World Series of Video Games (2006 / 2007)

Modifications

Like its predecessors, Quake 4 can be heavily modified. This led to Quake 4 versions of popular mods from previous versions of Quake, such as Rocket Arena,^[23] and Quake 4 Fortress (the Quake 4 version of Team Fortress).^[24] Q4F was abandoned before its creators considered it complete- instead they released an alpha version complete with source code.^[25]

In the competitive gaming scene, there were two principal mods, Q4Max^[26] and X-Battle.^[27] The online Quake 4 competitive community was split between the two mods.^[28][29] A number of the online leagues switched between X-Battle and Q4Max, such as ClanBase EuroCup^[30] and GGL.^[31] Despite this split in the online community, the offline professional LAN tournaments run by CPL,^[32] ESWC,^[33] WCG,^[34] QuakeCon,^[35][36] and WSVG^[37] all used Q4Max.

Members of both the Q4Max and X-Battle teams joined forces with Adam 'SyncError' Pyle of id Software and developed another mod, Delta CTF,^[38] which brought Quake II style CTF to Quake 4.^[39]

Another notable mod is SABot,^[9] which successfully implemented multiplayer bots in Quake 4 less than a month after the SDK was released,^[40] despite this being a feature that some reviewers criticised Quake 4 for not including.^[41]

Versions

Point releases

The initial release of Quake 4 on the PC was version 1.0, and there were small updates to this in 1.0.4 and 1.0.5, which accompanied the linux and SDK releases.

This was followed by the first major patch, 1.1 which introduced features such as ingame downloading of maps, and SMP support. This release was quickly withdrawn and replaced by the 1.2 release, due to an issue found during QA by Activision.^[42][43]

The 1.3 release incorporated changes from Ritual Entertainment, including a new weapon (Napalm Launcher), a new gametype (Deadzone), and a number of maps.^[44] This was also the first release to have Mac support.

The 1.4 release was tagged "beta" and was developed by id software rather than by Raven / Activision. This incorporated a number of community requested changes such as the introduction of Q4TV, and unlocked framerates. This was followed by 1.4.1 beta, and finally by the "1.4.2 final" release, which is not a beta version. The 1.4.2 release also includes the "Community Map Pack", which are the winning maps entered into a competition run by id software.^[45]

The original demo version of Quake 4 was based upon version 1.0, however due to the number of changes made to the multiplayer gameplay, there is an updated demo specifically for multiplayer, based upon the 1.4.2 release.^[46]

Non-Windows platforms

The Quake 4 Linux Installer allows the game to run natively on Linux systems

The Xbox 360 version of Quake 4 was released at the launch of the Xbox 360 and is Xbox Live compatible. There have been major issues with framerates for the console adaptation, earning it the award for Most Aggravating Frame Rate/Best Slideshow in the GameSpot.com Best and Worst of 2005 list.

In addition, the Xbox 360 port of Quake 4 has very long load times and Xbox Live glitches that result in problematic multiplayer experiences, as documented by game review sites as well as on Activision's support pages for the Xbox 360 version. This version was initially priced the same as the PC Special Edition DVD and features the same content. Unlike the PC version, however, as of November 2008 the Xbox 360 version has not received any patches to fix its numerous problems.

Aspyr Media published and released Quake 4 for Mac OS X on 5 April 2006, initially only for PowerPC based Macs, but then later as a universal binary compatible with both PowerPC- and x86-based Macs.^[47]

id Software continued its tradition of supporting Linux, with Timothee Besset of id releasing a Linux version of the Quake 4 binary executable. The game can be downloaded for free from id's servers, though it requires a licensed copy of Quake 4 for Windows or Mac in order to run. The Linux installer was made available two days after the release of the game itself.

Other versions

The German version of the game was not just localized but heavily censored and is not multiplayer compatible to any other release. This version was rated 16 and older by the USK. The international uncensored version did not receive a USK classification and was subsequently indexed by the German Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien.

There are other localized versions of Quake 4 that are compatible with the international version.

At the spring 2007 IDF exhibition Intel Corp. demoed Q4RT, a raytraced version of Quake4, running on a blade server composed of four Core 2 Quad based machines.^[48]

Reception

Reception
Aggregate scores
Aggregator	Score
GameRankings	81.68%(PC)[49] 75.52% (X360)[50]
Metacritic	81/100 (62 reviews)[51]
Review scores
Publication	Score
GameSpot	8.0/10(PC)[52] 6.6/10(X360)[53]
IGN	8.2/10[54]

Quake 4 received positive to generally favorable reaction for the PC version of the game, with game databases Metacritic and MobyGames giving the game aggregate review scores of 81/100 and 79/100 correspondingly.^[51][55] Websites and magazines such as IGN and UGO praised its single-player campaign, graphics and Hollywood voice-acting, but complained that its multiplayer was too much like Quake III's. GameSpot gave Quake 4 an 8.0 and it also said: "The single-player is great fun, but the uninspired multiplayer leaves a lot to be desired." PC Magazine gave Quake 4 a good review for both singleplayer and multiplayer gameplay.^[56]

The Xbox 360 version of the game fared slightly worse with critics when it was released but still received generally positive reviews, scoring 75/100 on Metacritic, and 72/100 on MobyGames averaged scores.^[57][58] Electronic Gaming Monthly gave a mixed rating to the Xbox 360 port, claiming that the single-player campaign was not creative enough to compete with other games such as Half-Life 2 and that the game ran poorly on the 360. IGN scored Quake 4 8.1/10 saying "Quake 4 is one of those games that will appeal to console gamers who haven't owned a PC for years. The single-player campaign is varied and pretty interesting, getting better after you're Stroggified. The enemies go from dumb and running right at you to diverse and more interesting in the second half of the game, and there are a few cool boss fights worth your while. The gory graphics and excellent lighting are well done and they'll appeal to many gamers looking for a fast, shiny game to just let loose on." GameSpot gave it a worse rating than the PC version: 6.6. They also wrote, "There's a good game in Quake 4, but it's buried under several layers of highly disappointing graphical performance issues." X-Play gave the Xbox 360 version a 3/5 and the PC version a 4/5.

References

1. ^ 1.4.2 Patch^{[dead link]}
2. ^ 1.4.2 Demo^{[dead link]}
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52. ^ [1]^{[dead link]}
53. ^ [2]^{[dead link]}
54. ^ McNamara, Tom (13 October 2005). "Quake 4 Review". IGN. http://pc.ign.com/articles/658/658263p1.html. Retrieved 11 October 2010. 
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External links

• Raven’s official Quake 4 site
• id’s official Quake 4 site
• id's official Quake 4 SDK Documentation site
• TTimo's official Quake 4 for Linux FAQ
• Quake 4 at the Open Directory Project