Quake 4 Visual Preview

Andre Medeiros writes "CNet is featuring a visual preview of the upcoming entry in the Quake series." From the article: "Bodies everywhere - As you can see, Quake 4 stays true to a well-worn first-person shooter trope: no matter where you go, your expendable fellow Marines will litter the ground and silently warn that you're about to be ambushed by plasma-wielding aliens."

Pass!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I'll wait for an actual game to be made using the engine before spending any money. Thank you.

Crates in the Preview!

[Aix]

According to Crate Review System [oldmanmurray.com], this might be the best game ever! No one's even played the game yet and we've already seen crates [cnet.com]!

(Disclosure: this joke is already half-made in the article.)

Re:Escaping Reality.

[Walt Dismal]

When does the Hot Coffee mod come out so I can see Stroggs having sex with dead headless Marines?

They just turned up the light...

[Shazow]

Actually, it [i]is[/i] Doom 3, with the same levels, except they turned up the light. :D

- shazow

Re:Crappy low-res pictures...

[Atzanteol]

Wow! this screenshot [ign.com] looks remarkable!

It's Not All About Quake, You Know...

[MiceHead]

Frankly, I don't know what the big deal is -- id Software no longer has the monopoly on the first-person shooter. We're an indie studio that's about to announce development on a sequel to our 2004 shooter, and I'm here to tell you that you don't need a big budget, or, well... any budget... to create a triple-A game. Check this out:

• Shot #1 [dejobaan.com] - This is screenshot from our prototype running in realtime. That's a shot taken at 80x60 (4-bit color), but it can go as high as 100x80 with 32 colors on higher-end machines.
• Shot #2 [dejobaan.com] - This demonstrates the engine's realtime shadowing. Every single pixel has its own shadow, which is something no other platform can say. Further, it's done without pixel or vertex shaders, making it compatible with older systems. (However, they must support the Photoshop "emboss" plugin.)
• Shot #3 [dejobaan.com] - In 1998, lens flare was all the rage. 2005 is the year of the bloom [neilblevins.com]. Or maybe it's a glow effect? I can't remember which one it was -- I'll check with our marketing department and get back to you on that.
• Shot #4 [dejobaan.com] - You're thinking, "Hey, that's nice, but I bet you can't do all three effects at once." Well, we can, and we did.

All right, so I suppose it's tough for an indie studio to compete with Quake IV. But here's hoping that we can carve our a niche in the hearts of gamers everywhere. After all, you don't always need a cool million to write a game. Sometimes all you need is 96k [theprodukkt.com].

Re:They just turned up the light...

[Shazow]

Hey, what do you expect if you need to render double the photons? :D

- shazow

Re:Doom3 done right

[macdaddy357]

It will be pale in comparison to Duke Nukem Forever. You wait and see!

Re:Game of the week! Woohoo!

[el_womble]

I know what you mean, but I always listen to 'relaxing' music like Texas and Natalie Umbruglia (it was the mid 90s) to calm my thoughts and make me more deadly. You know your in trouble when your walking through a supermarket, 'Torn' comes on and your the only one reaching for your sidearm, calculating the threat and looking for cover.

There have been two other games that have temperally changed my worldly perspective. Jet Set Radio Future: driving along and thinking that I could be going faster if I'd bought my skates and was grinding along the central reservation and up that lamp post, jumping 30 meters over that build etc... and Tekkan 3: after a 24 hour tournament, left me in situation where everytime I moved my fingers I could see the moves it would produce. Very distracting - especially when coding.

I always think this is a sign of a good game, but it is always the precursor to a big argument. My significantly better half, quite rightly, doesn't like it when 'that stupid z box thingy' gets more attention than her.