![]() ![]() Level design is deeply uninspired: simple corridors and trenches that contain no verticality and no surprise. Movement feels painfully slow compared to the breakneck pace of the first game. And there's no question that Quake 4 is at its weakest when it is most like Call of Duty. If anything separates Quake 4 from the other three games, it is following trends rather than setting them. The action stops every few minutes for dialogue between characters, or for a charming scripted sequence like a Strogg dragging away a screaming marine. The opening hour is not one of circle-strafing your foes while blasting them with a double-barrelled shotgun, but skulking slowly through flat gunmetal corridors, peppering Strogg with assault rifle fire while your squadmates back you up. ![]() The game begins not by plonking you unceremoniously at the start of a map, shotgun already in-hand, but with an elaborate cutscene that sees Kane scrambling to his feet after his dropship crashes, surveying the horror of the wreckage. This is why Quake 4 initially plays like Call of Duty in space. But Quake 4 emerged in the wake of games like Half-Life, Halo, and Call of Duty, which placed greater emphasis on scripted spectacle and telling coherent stories, drawing influence more from Hollywood than pen-and-paper RPGs. Id's early shooters had been primarily inspired by the team's own Dungeons and Dragons games, which explains their mazey maps and ad-hoc storytelling. Quake 4 was developed at a time when the FPS was changing. ![]()
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