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| [Nov 24, 2005, 12:02 pm ET] - Share - Viewing Comments |
The Quake 4 demo released last night was apparently issued prematurely, and the
following note describes the situation and plans for a follow-up: Here's
the deal, the QUAKE 4 demo that is on a few sites is an untested version of the
demo that was inadvertently on id's FTP. The FTP has since been updated, but not
before this incomplete version got out. The multiplayer portion of the demo
doesn't work online at the moment. This version is not tested and not final, so
if you can let folks know that they should wait for the final version that we're
expecting early next week it would help.
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| 20. |
Re: I installed it and briefly played. |
Nov 24, 2005, 17:10 |
WaltC |
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The fact is people, we have hit the wall. It's easier to make a friggin feature film now than a blockbuster game. These companies have no clue where to take the games next. Projects like STALKER have some good ideas, but who knows if that will ever come out? If it does it will likely be a half ass version of what it was supposed to be.
I installed the demo and while I think some of the technical elements in it are good--a few of them--the game itself lacks depth and scope, and just doesn't involve the player. I have to agree with most of the negative comments I've read here about Q4. It's a few years late and way short of the mark, unfortunately.
ID Software's a game engine company as opposed to a game creation company. So where does that leave Raven, in this case? ID created the engine and Raven created the game, and it just doesn't work. My own opinion of that is that the D3 engine well and truly sucks, sad to say. Even Raven can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but--it's obvious they tried very hard to do so with Q4. But it didn't work.
I think the "old-school," Q3-type shooter has run its course, and people have just tired of brain-dead, unimaginative, unoriginal shooting-fish-in-a-barrel games.
I should think of something to be thankful for today, so...I'm thankful for the fact that Carmack is now working with D3d as his primary development platform instead of OpenGL. No doubt this is in tacit acknowledgement of just how far short of the mark the ID game engines and games of the last few years have been. Hopefully, the change will free him and ID to wax creative in the future as opposed to perpetually trying to squeeze blood out of the turnips known as the Quake3/Doom3 game engines. The D3 engine is just an evolution of the Q3 engine, and accordingly has many of the same glaring deficiencies.
Hopefully, the mess of Q4 won't knock Raven off its perch and will serve as incentive for Raven to expand its horizons dramatically and get out of the Q3/D3-engine rut the company has fallen into. It's a dead-end street.
In short, I'm thankful that Q4 is so poor a game because hopefully we've seen the last of this mediocre, overhyped game engine. I'm also thankful that, hopefully, game publishers will stand up and take notice that simply affixing a sequal number on an ancient blockbuster game name is absolutely no guarantee of success. Unless the game itself matches the expectations of the title, it's merely a sure-fire formula for market failure.
So this Thanksgiving day I'm thankful for Q4 because I hope it shocks the right people into a realization of just how far off the mark their efforts have become. Game companies need to pay as much attention to compelling stories and player involvement as they do to special effects and loud noises and bright colors. The dismal reality of Q4 just may be the catalyst needed to do it, finally, after so many years of boring repetition.
This comment was edited on Nov 24, 17:18. |
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| It is well known that I do not make mistakes--so if you should happen across a mistake in anything I have written, be assured that I did not write it! |
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