"I will forever hold the railgun from Quake 2 in the highest esteem. Sound, heft, power. It was awesome. It seems very much like Raven looked back to all the previous versions of Quake and picked the arsenal they liked the most. All are well designed, have good sound effects and are a lot of fun to use, but most seemed slightly underpowered. I was used to my railgun turning most anything into a fountain of crimson gibs, but alas, it now takes several hits to liquefy a foe. Throughout the game, you'll get the odd permanent powerup here and there that modifies a weapon's damage or bestows a secondary firing mode upon it. Pretty cool."

GameGirlz: What steps does id Software take to try and prevent piracy of its games?

Hollenshead: We vigorously enforce our copyright protections and will pursue anyone we find pirating our games. We work with the SPA and their international anti-piracy efforts. Other than that, we send the Cyber Demon out to destroy all of the warez sites :)

"Quake 4 really excels in its single player gameplay department. I know it sounds strange to hear that Quake actually has good solo gaming, but it's the truth because Raven really did do wonders to the franchise. It has everything Doom 3 should have had! To begin with, you will immediately be absorbed into the game due to the personal slant on the storyline. Never, during the entire game, will you ask yourself, "Why am I doing this?" since you'll always be busy reaching a useful objective. Another great thing is that this game finally has variety, and that's the most important thing in any video game of any kind. The problem with some of today's games is that you're always doing the same thing over and over again, and no matter how cool the game is, the repetitiveness usually ends up dulling the whole experience. Doom 3 was a perfect example of this boring cyclic gameplay in which the same events constantly reoccurred. You'd walk down an empty corridor, a door would open, and you would kill all of the baddies. That's about all there is to remember from that game, but Raven made Quake 4 extremely diverse, I doubt anyone would get bored playing it. The game is always switching between large open battlefields, small cramped Strogg bases, and action-packed vehicle sequences, which makes the game extremely fun and very playable. The level design is also tremendously varied and different, so trust me, this game will keep you playing until it's all over."

"I think it's safe to say that anyone who has played Doom III dug the graphics. The problem was that you couldn't see very much since it was a horror driven shooter that relied heavily on shadows and a flashlight. Quake IV is like Doom III with the lights on. Not only can you see more of the world, but that flashlight you had to switch hands to use was put on the barrel of the pistol and machine gun, making navigation much easier in dark areas. Performance is solid and the game looks great even on the mid level settings. Cranked up, it looks fantastic. Not the best visuals on the market, but certainly close to it."

"All of this is made all the more immediate due to the incredibly detailed game environments. There is no game that looks better than Quake 4. The only competition Quake has is from F.E.A.R., but we’ll call it a draw there. Quake’s levels are more interesting and vibrant, despite usually being brown, while F.E.A.R. has those sweet soft shadows and uses shaders and particles more liberally. In every other r.t’s a dead heat."

"One nifty innovation is the new Tourney Mode, which gathers all the players on the server and creates an instant 1v1 tournament, complete with brackets and everything. Players are paired off in their own arenas, and all the first-round matches take place simultaneously. If you lose, you're free to scroll through all the other matches and watch the action; if you win, you keep playing until you reach the finals. (It'll be interesting to see if modders can build on this, allowing admins to manually seed players or support double-elimination tournaments.)"