Quake IV Details Emerge

1up.com has details as released by Activision and id about the upcoming first person shooter Quake IV. The game, in development by Madison, WI company Raven Software, QIV is going to return to the single-player roots of the second Quake title. From the article: " The Strogg are quickly regrouping. However, with the Strogg's planetary defenses still destroyed, Earth's forces can deliver a full and final assault. This time, you're not alone. You are Matthew Kane, an elite member of Rhino Squad, and part of Earth's next invasion wave. An army of soldiers are fighting with you and an arsenal of weapons and vehicles are at your disposal in this heroic and epic battle between worlds."

Where's Coop

[superpulpsicle]

The best part about Quake 1 was Coop and team fortress. We don't need team fortess since we technically have plenty of team alternatives like Wolfenstein. But Coop modes are really lacking in today's games.

What's the point? It's just like every other FPS.

[oni]

IMHO, every FPS is just like every other FPS in terms of gameplay. If you've played one then you've played them all. Sure, they keep adding eye candy, but that's about it. Only two FPS games every stood out from the pack in my opinion.

The first one was Quake 3. The thing that made is so different was the speed of it. That game was fast as hell. Particularly in some of the mods, like RA or threewave or CPMA, it felt like you could run like a bat out of hell. The maneuverability made it feel more like kung fu than a firefight. After playing quake for years, I tried to play UT2k3 and I just felt like I was stuck in molasses.

The other unusual game was tribes.

Anyway my point is, RTCW, Doom3, Halo, HF2, they all seemed pretty much the same to me. They're cool. Don't get me wrong (this being Slashdot I'm sure someone will take this the wrong way). All I'm saying is that Quake4 should be a sequel to Quake 3 in terms of gameplay. For the story, yeah you pretty much have to make a sequel to Q2 because Q3 didn't have much of a story. But for the gameplay, they should follow Q3 and make this a game unlike all the others. As it stands, I'm afraid Q4 is going to be YAFPS

but I'll buy it anyway I guess.

Re:What's the point? It's just like every other FP

[FidelCatsro]

not true , whilst it may tar a few games , Compare Thief , System shock 2 and deus ex alot of fps games do follow a paint by numbers aproch but not all .
these may not be typical fps games and are far better when compared to rpg games , these are still under the fps brush .
(the only reason i had windows installed on any system ,untill cedega caught up were these games)

Re:Doom3, Quake4 and HL2

[|/|/|||]

Well, that's your opinion. I actually prefer single player games. Co-op multiplayer could be fun, but I've never seen it done really well.

I enjoy deathmatch, CTF, etc, but they get pretty old after a while. The pace is always the same - full throttle. With single player games you get slower paced exploration and puzzle solving (hopefully not just "find the key" puzzles) interspersed with gunplay. You also get characters with different motivations - no actual human character is going to want to hang around and guard the reactor. Only an NPC will tolerate something so boring. Even if you got a human player to do it, they would be "playing the game" rather than "playing the security guard." The NPC guard is more likely to be looking at his watch than strafing back and forth looking for somebody to snipe.

I guess the sum-up is that I like single player games because they tend to be more immersive. Of course, you could make a multiplayer game with these elements, and maybe such a game exists - but I haven't played it.

Re:Meh.

[|/|/|||]

Big battles like in Rome Total War but in First Person and shiny

Yeah, that would be pretty awesome, and that's pretty much the image I got from this quote:

An army of soldiers are fighting with you and an arsenal of weapons and vehicles are at your disposal in this heroic and epic battle between worlds.

Sounds great, but I think it's doubtful. The one screenshot with the article shows a single enemy in a dark room. Can the DOOM3 engine actually handle large outdoor environments with hundreds of enemies and vehicles? I don't know, but I certainly haven't seen anything to suggest that it can. :(

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Re:Doom3, Quake2 and HL2

[RsG]

Have you tried the UT games? Best multiplayer FPS I've played.

But why expect these games to be? People don't play moody dark survival horror games for deathmatch, they play those games alone (preferably with the lights out). Multiplayer FPS is about one thing, single player is about something else, both have their merits. Just because you prefer one does not mean the designers shouldn't make some of each.

Re:Doom3, Quake2 and HL2

[IntergalacticWalrus]

"Multiplayer is so much more fun."

Guess what? Some people have different preferences than you. They may even (gasp!) prefer single-player over multi.

Re:What's the point? It's just like every other FP

[ildon]

Don't you people read anything about these games before complaining about them? The single player component is modeled after Quake 2, while the multiplayer component is modeled after Quake 3.

All that remains to be see is how effective the multiplayer is at recreating Quake 3.