[ QUOTE ]
My only complaints are world textures are super low res and the outdoor lighting has pitch black razor sharp shadows even though it is an over cast day. Apparently there is no such thing as an ambient light in the world of doom3.
[/ QUOTE ]
That and the same spec lvl applied to metal, flesh, plastic, cardboard ect... If I can bring myself to ignore that stuff I find myself having fun Then I run head-long into a glaring example of it and the fun goes running out the window agian.
I'm loving Q4 CTF...physics are nice and i like the overall look, even though i play on low q. Hope the CPMA guys are gonna start their mod for Quake 4 soon, since they will bring more (good) maps to the scene.
As for the current maps, i like some of them. There's 2 CTF maps which i like (the one with lots of jump pads near the flag (multiple stories) and the one with the big pit near the flag). The DM maps are decent as well, imo...Tourney mode is quite nice. Imo they shouldn't have put in Xaero's level as a CTF map...you just jump on the high jump pad, strafe to the right and you land on the opponent's flag...
If you up the gamma (via console) you can make the game to look better, avoiding in certain sense that ugly darkness of the game, a problem of all nm games.
The game is very very short, i finished it in captain mode in 2 days (some hours per day ).
I see that some places are selling Q4 DVD SE for $35 with a notice 'This is the full english import edition of Quake 4: Special DVD Edition'. So are there any differences between this one and the one at Gamestop for $60?
I'm havin' fun with the SP. Not a big deal just another finer version of QII but I like it. I may have to re-install though for the multiplayer 'cause my PB doesn't want to let me turn it on.
I've always been a quake fan. This is a cool addition, but again i have super high hopes for multiplayer... Maybe add a little more q2 flavor to the fragfest. Things i'm looking forward to people maybe hoping to develop are things like jailbreak or something of the sorts.
got it today to the single player is fun as hell tried an mp game but I get very high ping (cs:source was running fine) and the servers were almost empty .
played the Mp today and well it really is a quake 3 estethical update. Same speed almost same maps, the only thing that bugs me is that the game is really dark and the weapons are almost identical (graphicaly) so sometimes you can't guess which weapon you picked till it displays on the screens.
I've spent more time installing the game than I have playing it.
I'm already turned off by the fact that I can't easily access the console. I'm sure there's a way to do it, but why hide it from me? A simple press of the tilde key should be enough. It's been in every quake game, why not this one?
I immediately want to turn EVERYTHING OFF. Effects, weapon models, etc, etc. But I can't, because there's no easy access to the console. I'm sorry, Raven, but hardcore quake players could care less about how "pretty" you'd like to think your game is. We want physics, gameplay, and the option to dumb everything in the game down for the sake of smooth framerates.
"Whatever" So I ran through some of the maps.
They totally ruined The Edge. Though, in all honesty, it's not as if they could have simply imported the map into the game. There's a sense of claustrophobia to the map.
Haste? Quad? Are you serious?
I checked out the q3dm17 remake... uh. C'mon guys.
This game is an absolute failure. At least I didn't shell ou $50 for it. The only thing quake 2 about this game is the Strogg.
[ QUOTE ]
I've spent more time installing the game than I have playing it.
I'm already turned off by the fact that I can't easily access the console. I'm sure there's a way to do it, but why hide it from me? A simple press of the tilde key should be enough. It's been in every quake game, why not this one?
I immediately want to turn EVERYTHING OFF. Effects, weapon models, etc, etc. But I can't, because there's no easy access to the console. I'm sorry, Raven, but hardcore quake players could care less about how "pretty" you'd like to think your game is. We want physics, gameplay, and the option to dumb everything in the game down for the sake of smooth framerates.
"Whatever" So I ran through some of the maps.
They totally ruined The Edge. Though, in all honesty, it's not as if they could have simply imported the map into the game. There's a sense of claustrophobia to the map.
Haste? Quad? Are you serious?
I checked out the q3dm17 remake... uh. C'mon guys.
This game is an absolute failure. At least I didn't shell ou $50 for it. The only thing quake 2 about this game is the Strogg.
TPE: Your keyboard doesn't matter, it uses control codes. That's why it's bound to circumflex on my keyboard. That's annoying because it'll add the circumflex to the line I'm typing and no allow me to have a colored name in Q3 without cfg editing because ^ constantly toggles the console.
No SouL, that's what you make of it
Q1 and Q2 were single- and multi-player games. Q3 was pure multiplayer.
I found the Q1 and Q2 single-player very enjoyable, and it had very little bearing on the multiplayer aspect.
[ QUOTE ]
Quake is not about single player. Never was and never should be.
[/ QUOTE ]
What are you talking about? Quake1 shipped with crap internet protocols and was almost unplayable online until QuakeWorld debuted seven months later. Quake2 shipped with solid internet capability but absolutely no multiplayer-specific maps; they didn't appear until the point release a month after the game hit store shelves. Multiplayer wasn't the priority with either of those titles.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Quake is not about single player. Never was and never should be.
[/ QUOTE ]
What are you talking about? Quake1 shipped with crap internet protocols and was almost unplayable online until QuakeWorld debuted seven months later. Quake2 shipped with solid internet capability but absolutely no multiplayer-specific maps; they didn't appear until the point release a month after the game hit store shelves. Multiplayer wasn't the priority with either of those titles.
Would Quake be anywhere near as popular as it has been since 1995 if there were only single player available? Quake2 being shipped without multiplayer-only maps, then having a map pack released a month later tells me that the maps just weren't done in time for the holiday screaming.
sledgy: But if it took over half a year for QuakeWorld to come out and make playing Quake online actually worthwhile, why use it as an example, then complain that Quake4's multiplayer isn't worth it? For all we know, there's a pack or update coming out in 2007 which makes it even better than any of the previous games.
Well, the fact that the games were eventually successful with multiplayer is beside the point. Quake obviously *was* about singleplayer to begin with - if multiplayer was the priority, we wouldn't have been banging our heads on our keyboards while dealing with DWANGO and the like.
*edit* was directing my comments to sledgy, not mop.
Vermilion, I do see your point but I'm feeling Soul's more. It was about singleplayer for a little while but it was about multiplayer ever after for a whole lot of people - I'd be willing to bet most people. Quake1's singleplayer was an admitted mish-mash of design elements and not very cohesive. Quake2's was leaps and bounds beyond that but the QuakeWorld and Quake2 multiplayer aspect is what catapulted them into the "great" category - IMO.
Alright, I bought the game and played multiplayer last night. Im not too concerned about the single player. I noticed there's never any vehicles in the multiplayer though. Are there any Deathmatch levels with them?
Q4 multiplayer is terrible, and the single player is extremely dissapointing. No depth, horrible enemy models, and the weps are the same garbage we were playing with 5 years ago.
Originality does'nt even exsist anymore with publisher guidence. They should stop trying to hype up obvious dissapointments..
New guns would be nice, maybe new characters cause frankly the cyborg is beating a dead horse, blocky structures on a red planet is getting bland, oh and you MAY want to consider a story...just a crazy suggestion...i know it's insane, but hear me out...MAYBE...an ending, or something to validate wasting the time.
The most original thing i've seen in this half decade is the grapple shot in Tribes Vengance.
There's a chance a group of guys, upset with today's game standards, will get together and make a better gameplay experience than the professional teams that created Q4 and D3. But, until then I've decided there is no reason to play Q4 atm.
Want new guns? Want originality? Want something revolutionary?
Wait in line for Duke Nukem Forever.
Quake4 wasn't designed to be the all-holy grail of games (it never was IMO) it's just a continuation for the fans. It's engine is more optimized than Doom3's too (especially with the hit detection) and more mod teams are moving over to Q4.
Seriously, do you think id/Raven would leave them stuck in the dark (heh literally) with Doom3 on multiplayer? No. That is why Q4 exists, to quell those that whine how much doom3 sucked for it's unique darkness/tech horror setting and flashlight "weapon". You got the visible game that you wanted.
I am digging it. Good, mindless fun in SP and the MP is almost exactly like Quake 3's which was flawless. My only complaint is that I like the Quake 3 armor shard pick-up sound better
Got it a few days ago and had the bad disc problem, returned it for another copy and it works fine. I'm really enjoying the SP game so far, I really liked the part where the power cuts out in the strogg hanger and the marines you're with turn on their flashlights, I chose to stick with the shotgun so I had to depend on their lights, it was really intense.
The optimizations you seem to think that are revolutionary, are mostly reduced asset complexity. The models are 1800 poly max, doom3 was around 3.5k in some cases.
The multiplayer was cut/paste from q3 litterally, hence the rocket speed being slower, they did'nt account for the different scale size.
All i'm saying is that the price for games is going up and the fun AND originality is plummeting fast. I did'nt like a single game released this year on PC. Every title was hyped up, and failed to deliver anything but gameplay less than that of the previous gen game. They build these things for the lowest common gamer, god forbid they take a risk and throw in some new gameplay elements. Perhaps a timed chase scene, more objective based missions.
Shoot, Find key, repeat is not going to sell me any more games. If ID wanted the modders to make up for the lack in gameplay, why bother having raven make it. Just make the engine availible and spend time on it as opposed to game content.
I mean... come on.. you played the game. Q3 was a godsend for PC gaming and sparked a revolution of community efforts and creativity. Q4 is not. Look at how many people are playing on gamespy, i've seen it as low as 650 people. Efforts wasted, and I'm sure the financial return was only large due to the hype and not satisfied fans.
Yes is was decent, but doom3 impressed me more, at least there was some sense of suspense and story. Though i'm lost as to why ID and raven insist on modeling characters with blocks for heads.
I did'nt like a single game released this year on PC.
I kinda liked Perimeter (or was that 2004?), Battlefield 2 and Earth 2160 but yes, singleplayer FPSes have been huge disappointments not only this year but the last few years as well. I seem to recall that being the reason I bought a Gamecube back in 2002 or 03 or whenever that was. The genre is dead and I cringe when I think what huge wastes of money Doom 3 (at least I finished that one), Return of Evil, Half-Life 2 and FEAR have been. That makes me wonder what singleplayer FPSes I ever liked... Hm, *digs into old bin* Catacombs 3D: Abyss, Quake, Uprising, Magic Carpet 2, Descent, Descent 2, Elite Force, Tron 2.0, Unreal II, Zanzarah (if you count that). Looks like the genre has been dead longer than I thought.
[ QUOTE ]
The most original thing i've seen in this half decade is the grapple shot in Tribes Vengance.
[/ QUOTE ]
I always love when some cool new weapon comes along in a game that is so new and revolutionary.. but oh actually someone made it in a mod for quake.
railgun? check (and you could see thru frikkin walls)
airfist? (thingy in unreal) check
grappling hook? check
gravity gun? check (well it didnt work quite as well.. but you could drop monsters off ledges etc)
user guided missiles? check
multi-grenade types? check
secondary fire? (if you count ones where you pressed a weapon button twice and it switched) check.
posess the powers/attacks of enemies? check
freezegun, flamethrower, pet dog, bouncing bullets, sentry guns, friendly troops, laser guns, rockets that split apart and shot lightning to each other, electrocuting anything caught inbetween..
Im sure theres plenty more..
Dunno the point of this rant, just that it can't be that hard to include an imaginitive idea for a weapon in a game, if all these things were coded for fun into quake.. and if you can't think of one just go right ahead and pillage some quakec archive.
edit: oh yeah, I just remembered that other quake weapon mod classic the 'sodomizer', which fires a homing fist and analy pummels your enemeis to death. Truly a weapon to make the even the most hardened strogg think twice about invading earth..
I watched it over someone's shoulder at work ... and ohmigod, I must play. I'm gonna stop by Best Buy after work and pick it up for the long Thanksgiving weekend.
I will be thankful that I'm not playing Quake 3! >:)
I'm actually enjoying the single player as well as the multiplayer. Learning a little more about the Quake story and getting an introduction to the engine before I embark in a long career of fragging on THE EDGE once again.
Does anyone know if you can use any vehicles in multiplayer? Also, how do I instal punkbuster for it? I chose to not instal it during Quake 4 instal and now almost every server wants it enabled.
Less content in a prettier packge. No CTF, recycled maps, slim character selection, slow multi player weps, insane requirements for any game above 8 players. I have to play on low on a 3.2ghz 1gig ddr2 and PCI-E 6800 256meg. THAT is ludicris.
I bought a copy from Thailand for 25$ shipped, it's all I think it's worth. They should just sell single and multi seperate at reduced cost.
I enjoyed HL2 for a little bit, but the lack of any fathomable story and repetative enemies killed it for me. The physics puzzles were nice, but rarely used.
Unreal XMP is the last FPS I truely enjoyed. Great speed, great gameplay, vehicles, many weps, many alts etc. And that was just a free addon. It had more flair than Q4. But all aside. It has potential, just not $55.00 a copy of it.
Point being, i'm not understanding why modders have to make up for the lack of content. Q4 is as bare bones as you can get. And is it just me or does Halo and Q4 rip thier openings straight from Starship Troopers.
Just to not sound like a total defeatist. I am assisting with a Smash TV mod Just don't steal the idea and run hehe.
Bought Q4 today, installed it without a hitch, played through the first couple of levels - very enjoyable!
For a start it's not as dark as Doom3, which I appreciate... although this does diminish any "scary" factor Doom3 might have had for the most part, I find it much easier to play, and not get lost in corridors that look identical.
The monsters all look cool from what I've seen so far. Nice that they got some vivid colour back into it too.
The blaster was an annoyingly crap weapon, fortunately I only had to use it for about 30 seconds before picking up the machinegun, which I find to be very satisfying - it's nice and accurate and gives a good feeling of power, even if it's just one of the lower-end weapons.
The characters seem much more personable this time round ... now that they all seem to play a part, they're more lively - it's not just "Private Davidson" sitting at a table reading the newspaper and saying the same canned lines again and again, it's Corporal Whoever shouting at you to get a move on, and then getting your back to give covering fire. Basically the characters feel more "necessary" to the game, whereas in Doom3 they felt more like flimsy devices you had to use to move to the next level.
It seems they've done some good optimising along the way, I'm running at 1024x768 full detail, no AA, but it runs perfectly smoothly, even in heavy scenes - Doom3 used to chug at that resolution and detail even if I was just walking around an empty corridor, so whatever they did, it seems to have worked - the detail level is nice and consistent.
Basically I'm having a load more fun than Doom3, the pace seems pretty good, D3 always felt slow to me, maybe it's because I'm used to deathmatch play, but it's nice to be able to feel like you're not moving in treacle half the time.
I can't wait to try out the multiplayer, and then have a go at getting a model of my own into the game... admittedly when I was first reading about Q4 and seeing screenshots, I didn't have very high hopes, but since its release i've been hearing good things, so I went out and bought it. I haven't enjoyed a game this much to want to put my own stuff in since Quake 3 and Morrowind, really ... the only thing I'm looking forward to more now is getting my hands on Unreal Engine 3
Replies
My only complaints are world textures are super low res and the outdoor lighting has pitch black razor sharp shadows even though it is an over cast day. Apparently there is no such thing as an ambient light in the world of doom3.
[/ QUOTE ]
That and the same spec lvl applied to metal, flesh, plastic, cardboard ect... If I can bring myself to ignore that stuff I find myself having fun
heres an accurate review of the game:
http://www.somethingawful.com/jeffk/hotgamez2005/page-4.html
[/ QUOTE ]
Easily the best review of any game I've ever read. The FEAR one is really top notch also.
As for the current maps, i like some of them. There's 2 CTF maps which i like (the one with lots of jump pads near the flag (multiple stories) and the one with the big pit near the flag). The DM maps are decent as well, imo...Tourney mode is quite nice. Imo they shouldn't have put in Xaero's level as a CTF map...you just jump on the high jump pad, strafe to the right and you land on the opponent's flag...
The game is very very short, i finished it in captain mode in 2 days (some hours per day
P.S.: Got it today, and I like it a lot. Just my PC is a bit slow
End of story. I really hope someone makes a good version of Sudden DEATH! My favorite map of all time.
played the Mp today and well it really is a quake 3 estethical update. Same speed almost same maps, the only thing that bugs me is that the game is really dark and the weapons are almost identical (graphicaly) so sometimes you can't guess which weapon you picked till it displays on the screens.
I'm already turned off by the fact that I can't easily access the console. I'm sure there's a way to do it, but why hide it from me? A simple press of the tilde key should be enough. It's been in every quake game, why not this one?
I immediately want to turn EVERYTHING OFF. Effects, weapon models, etc, etc. But I can't, because there's no easy access to the console. I'm sorry, Raven, but hardcore quake players could care less about how "pretty" you'd like to think your game is. We want physics, gameplay, and the option to dumb everything in the game down for the sake of smooth framerates.
"Whatever" So I ran through some of the maps.
They totally ruined The Edge. Though, in all honesty, it's not as if they could have simply imported the map into the game. There's a sense of claustrophobia to the map.
Haste? Quad? Are you serious?
I checked out the q3dm17 remake... uh. C'mon guys.
This game is an absolute failure. At least I didn't shell ou $50 for it. The only thing quake 2 about this game is the Strogg.
add
+seta com_allowConsole 1
to your q4 shortcut and you should be able to access the console easily
tpe
I've spent more time installing the game than I have playing it.
I'm already turned off by the fact that I can't easily access the console. I'm sure there's a way to do it, but why hide it from me? A simple press of the tilde key should be enough. It's been in every quake game, why not this one?
I immediately want to turn EVERYTHING OFF. Effects, weapon models, etc, etc. But I can't, because there's no easy access to the console. I'm sorry, Raven, but hardcore quake players could care less about how "pretty" you'd like to think your game is. We want physics, gameplay, and the option to dumb everything in the game down for the sake of smooth framerates.
"Whatever" So I ran through some of the maps.
They totally ruined The Edge. Though, in all honesty, it's not as if they could have simply imported the map into the game. There's a sense of claustrophobia to the map.
Haste? Quad? Are you serious?
I checked out the q3dm17 remake... uh. C'mon guys.
This game is an absolute failure. At least I didn't shell ou $50 for it. The only thing quake 2 about this game is the Strogg.
[/ QUOTE ]
sounds like you were expecting quake3, not quake4
Quake is not about single player. Never was and never should be. Single player is nothing more than an introduction for new players.
Q1 and Q2 were single- and multi-player games. Q3 was pure multiplayer.
I found the Q1 and Q2 single-player very enjoyable, and it had very little bearing on the multiplayer aspect.
Quake is not about single player. Never was and never should be. Single player is nothing more than an introduction for new players.
[/ QUOTE ]
Word.
Quake is not about single player. Never was and never should be.
[/ QUOTE ]
What are you talking about? Quake1 shipped with crap internet protocols and was almost unplayable online until QuakeWorld debuted seven months later. Quake2 shipped with solid internet capability but absolutely no multiplayer-specific maps; they didn't appear until the point release a month after the game hit store shelves. Multiplayer wasn't the priority with either of those titles.
[ QUOTE ]
Quake is not about single player. Never was and never should be.
[/ QUOTE ]
What are you talking about? Quake1 shipped with crap internet protocols and was almost unplayable online until QuakeWorld debuted seven months later. Quake2 shipped with solid internet capability but absolutely no multiplayer-specific maps; they didn't appear until the point release a month after the game hit store shelves. Multiplayer wasn't the priority with either of those titles.
[/ QUOTE ]
pwned
there's a pack or update coming out in 2007 which makes it even better than any of the previous games.
[/ QUOTE ]
You mean Enemy Territories: Quake Wars?
*edit* was directing my comments to sledgy, not mop.
Im loving the remake of THE EDGE.
I want to do TFQ4.
Originality does'nt even exsist anymore with publisher guidence. They should stop trying to hype up obvious dissapointments..
New guns would be nice, maybe new characters cause frankly the cyborg is beating a dead horse, blocky structures on a red planet is getting bland, oh and you MAY want to consider a story...just a crazy suggestion...i know it's insane, but hear me out...MAYBE...an ending, or something to validate wasting the time.
The most original thing i've seen in this half decade is the grapple shot in Tribes Vengance.
Wait in line for Duke Nukem Forever.
Quake4 wasn't designed to be the all-holy grail of games (it never was IMO) it's just a continuation for the fans. It's engine is more optimized than Doom3's too (especially with the hit detection) and more mod teams are moving over to Q4.
Seriously, do you think id/Raven would leave them stuck in the dark (heh literally) with Doom3 on multiplayer? No. That is why Q4 exists, to quell those that whine how much doom3 sucked for it's unique darkness/tech horror setting and flashlight "weapon". You got the visible game that you wanted.
The multiplayer was cut/paste from q3 litterally, hence the rocket speed being slower, they did'nt account for the different scale size.
All i'm saying is that the price for games is going up and the fun AND originality is plummeting fast. I did'nt like a single game released this year on PC. Every title was hyped up, and failed to deliver anything but gameplay less than that of the previous gen game. They build these things for the lowest common gamer, god forbid they take a risk and throw in some new gameplay elements. Perhaps a timed chase scene, more objective based missions.
Shoot, Find key, repeat is not going to sell me any more games. If ID wanted the modders to make up for the lack in gameplay, why bother having raven make it. Just make the engine availible and spend time on it as opposed to game content.
I mean... come on.. you played the game. Q3 was a godsend for PC gaming and sparked a revolution of community efforts and creativity. Q4 is not. Look at how many people are playing on gamespy, i've seen it as low as 650 people. Efforts wasted, and I'm sure the financial return was only large due to the hype and not satisfied fans.
Yes is was decent, but doom3 impressed me more, at least there was some sense of suspense and story. Though i'm lost as to why ID and raven insist on modeling characters with blocks for heads.
I kinda liked Perimeter (or was that 2004?), Battlefield 2 and Earth 2160 but yes, singleplayer FPSes have been huge disappointments not only this year but the last few years as well. I seem to recall that being the reason I bought a Gamecube back in 2002 or 03 or whenever that was. The genre is dead and I cringe when I think what huge wastes of money Doom 3 (at least I finished that one), Return of Evil, Half-Life 2 and FEAR have been. That makes me wonder what singleplayer FPSes I ever liked... Hm, *digs into old bin* Catacombs 3D: Abyss, Quake, Uprising, Magic Carpet 2, Descent, Descent 2, Elite Force, Tron 2.0, Unreal II, Zanzarah (if you count that). Looks like the genre has been dead longer than I thought.
The most original thing i've seen in this half decade is the grapple shot in Tribes Vengance.
[/ QUOTE ]
I always love when some cool new weapon comes along in a game that is so new and revolutionary.. but oh actually someone made it in a mod for quake.
railgun? check (and you could see thru frikkin walls)
airfist? (thingy in unreal) check
grappling hook? check
gravity gun? check (well it didnt work quite as well.. but you could drop monsters off ledges etc)
user guided missiles? check
multi-grenade types? check
secondary fire? (if you count ones where you pressed a weapon button twice and it switched) check.
posess the powers/attacks of enemies? check
freezegun, flamethrower, pet dog, bouncing bullets, sentry guns, friendly troops, laser guns, rockets that split apart and shot lightning to each other, electrocuting anything caught inbetween..
Im sure theres plenty more..
Dunno the point of this rant, just that it can't be that hard to include an imaginitive idea for a weapon in a game, if all these things were coded for fun into quake.. and if you can't think of one just go right ahead and pillage some quakec archive.
edit: oh yeah, I just remembered that other quake weapon mod classic the 'sodomizer', which fires a homing fist and analy pummels your enemeis to death. Truly a weapon to make the even the most hardened strogg think twice about invading earth..
downsizer writes:
[ QUOTE ]
I did'nt like a single game released this year on PC.
[/ QUOTE ]
what about half-life 2?
I've owned all the Quake games, and I enjoyed them for the single player, never the multi.
I will be thankful that I'm not playing Quake 3! >:)
Does anyone know if you can use any vehicles in multiplayer? Also, how do I instal punkbuster for it? I chose to not instal it during Quake 4 instal and now almost every server wants it enabled.
I bought a copy from Thailand for 25$ shipped, it's all I think it's worth. They should just sell single and multi seperate at reduced cost.
I enjoyed HL2 for a little bit, but the lack of any fathomable story and repetative enemies killed it for me. The physics puzzles were nice, but rarely used.
Unreal XMP is the last FPS I truely enjoyed. Great speed, great gameplay, vehicles, many weps, many alts etc. And that was just a free addon. It had more flair than Q4. But all aside. It has potential, just not $55.00 a copy of it.
Point being, i'm not understanding why modders have to make up for the lack of content. Q4 is as bare bones as you can get. And is it just me or does Halo and Q4 rip thier openings straight from Starship Troopers.
Just to not sound like a total defeatist. I am assisting with a Smash TV mod
For a start it's not as dark as Doom3, which I appreciate... although this does diminish any "scary" factor Doom3 might have had for the most part, I find it much easier to play, and not get lost in corridors that look identical.
The monsters all look cool from what I've seen so far. Nice that they got some vivid colour back into it too.
The blaster was an annoyingly crap weapon, fortunately I only had to use it for about 30 seconds before picking up the machinegun, which I find to be very satisfying - it's nice and accurate and gives a good feeling of power, even if it's just one of the lower-end weapons.
The characters seem much more personable this time round ... now that they all seem to play a part, they're more lively - it's not just "Private Davidson" sitting at a table reading the newspaper and saying the same canned lines again and again, it's Corporal Whoever shouting at you to get a move on, and then getting your back to give covering fire. Basically the characters feel more "necessary" to the game, whereas in Doom3 they felt more like flimsy devices you had to use to move to the next level.
It seems they've done some good optimising along the way, I'm running at 1024x768 full detail, no AA, but it runs perfectly smoothly, even in heavy scenes - Doom3 used to chug at that resolution and detail even if I was just walking around an empty corridor, so whatever they did, it seems to have worked - the detail level is nice and consistent.
Basically I'm having a load more fun than Doom3, the pace seems pretty good, D3 always felt slow to me, maybe it's because I'm used to deathmatch play, but it's nice to be able to feel like you're not moving in treacle half the time.
I can't wait to try out the multiplayer, and then have a go at getting a model of my own into the game... admittedly when I was first reading about Q4 and seeing screenshots, I didn't have very high hopes, but since its release i've been hearing good things, so I went out and bought it. I haven't enjoyed a game this much to want to put my own stuff in since Quake 3 and Morrowind, really ... the only thing I'm looking forward to more now is getting my hands on Unreal Engine 3
One step at a time...