ArcmChair Empire have brunted up their review of Quake 4, sparing it a great 8.0/10.0 overall verdict.
"The weapon choices are varied and change slightly with weapon modifications as you progress through the game. As you play through the game, you will encounter technicians that will upgrade one of the weapons in your inventory. You can't choose what upgrade or when it's performed, but as a scripted event, it allows the game to scale its difficulty as you progress through the game along with your weapons. This is so that you don't have to play through the first third of the game with only the shotgun, and have to wait until the later levels to get the nail gun. Of course the game still paces the weapon selection somewhat, but I found the weapon upgrades kept the weapon selections fresh and useful. However, once the last few levels were reached, the weapon selection in my opinion did feel somewhat lacking. Perhaps it was because I didn't find anything that I felt suited my gaming style, however, in some battles it did feel that I was missing one weapon which would have made some of the more challenging firefights, more enjoyable."
The official Creative Soundblaster website has conducted a fresh interview with Zachary Quarles; Senior Sound Effects Designer/Music Composer of Raven Software regarding the audio engine renderer of Quake 4 of course, from its OpenAL support to 5.1 surround sound audio itself, to Creative's proprietary EAX Advanced HD v4.0-5.0+ API, any occlusion low-pass reverb effects that are bounded to follow, and the like. Here's a snoop from it:
"Q4: The OpenAL audio implementation in QUAKE 4 is really great, how was it done and how does audio hardware take advantage of it?
Zachary: From the programmatical (Good Lord, is that even a word?) angle of things, Carlo Vogelsang from Creative Labs came out to the Raven offices towards the end of the development cycle and began work on the actual code-implementation of OpenAL. From there, I went through all the levels in the game and mapped out reverb areas. This information is based around the use of portals in the game. If you shift into a new portal area, then the opportunity to use a slightly different reverb setting is presented to you. It was simply a case of deciding how we wanted the reverb to sound and how often it played a role. Of course, outdoor areas were pretty much dry, while the portions of the game that take place in dank sewer-like passageways become remarkably thick with reverb."
Don't forget to head on over and check out the entire interview for the complete run-down.
Leveldesign.nl have appended up a new community-based fan interview on their forums with Corey Peters; Designer of Raven Software, Jim Shepard; Programmer of Raven Software; and Tim Willits; Lead Designer/Co-Owner of id Software about all kinds of specifics and techniques regarding the Quake 4 QE Radiant editor (such as brush optimizations, visblocking, triggered scripted name events, and so on) that shipped with the game, and how it's been modified since its DOOM 3 release build (further optimizations, the GUI editor, development of it, the FX editor, and etc...). Here's a nugget from it:
3. "Will you add functionality to the editor and help support additional community created functionality in the future?"
Obihb
Answer:
Tim Willits, Lead Designer/Co-Owner/id Software
"Both id and Raven have been working hard to get the Xbox 360 version of the game out as well as the PC demo and the first QUAKE 4 SDK, and both teams are committed to continuing to support the QUAKE 4 mod community through www.iddevnet.com/quake4. There is already a ton of information available on the site, and we will continue to update that page with information, instruction, and any other news or initiatives that would interest QUAKE 4 mod makers."
Over at the official id Software website, Todd Hollenshead; CEO of id Software has commented on the rather egregious flaws of the Quake 4 SP/MP demo release. Here's what he had to say:
"On behalf of id Software, I would like to express our regret over the snafu with the Quake 4 demo last Wednesday. We wanted to get the demo out before the Holiday weekend here in the U.S. and were working hard with Raven and Activision to make that happen. A bug in the multiplayer was caught at the last minute and we decided to hold off on the release. Single player was unaffected by this bug. Unfortunately, in our preparation for the planned release the bad build was mistakenly put on our public FTP instead of a staging site, and was apparently seen and downloaded by a website or two, and propagated from there. We tried to get the word out to mirrors and websites that multiplayer was broken in the build and not to mirror the file, but due to the late hour and the impending holiday, the request to pull it back was too little, too late.
We are working on finalizing the demo for release as soon as possible, but we want to be as certain as we can to avoid making the same mistake twice. I'm sorry for everyone who spent time downloading the demo and found the multiplayer was broken. Hopefully a properly functioning Quake 4 Demo can make amends.
On behalf of id Software, I would like to express our regret over the snafu with the Quake 4 demo last Wednesday. We wanted to get the demo out before the Holiday weekend here in the U.S. and were working hard with Raven and Activision to make that happen. A bug in the multiplayer was caught at the last minute and we decided to hold off on the release. Single player was unaffected by this bug. Unfortunately, in our preparation for the planned release the bad build was mistakenly put on our public FTP instead of a staging site, and was apparently seen and downloaded by a website or two, and propagated from there. We tried to get the word out to mirrors and websites that multiplayer was broken in the build and not to mirror the file, but due to the late hour and the impending holiday, the request to pull it back was too little, too late.
We are working on finalizing the demo for release as soon as possible, but we want to be as certain as we can to avoid making the same mistake twice. I'm sorry for everyone who spent time downloading the demo and found the multiplayer was broken. Hopefully a properly functioning Quake 4 Demo can make amends."
The Quake 4 demo has finally been released, but unfortunately, only the SP portion of it is fully functional right now as the MP side is having its own daft issues and bugs. Weighing at a hefty size of 326MB (ouch for 56k modem dial-up users!), be sure to grab it over at Worthplaying.
Boomtown have joined the club with their review of Quake 4, scoring it a certainly thrifty..... 5/10 overall rating. Here's one of the..... err, better snoops from it:
"The graphics truly are amazing and as mentioned earlier you don't need a high-end PC to get the better of them. I managed the whole game in High settings and a resolution of 1024x768. [...] Graphically it is one of the best-looking games on the PC.
The sense of war in Quake 4 is also one of its best features. [...] You really get the sense you are one man in a full-scale conflict."
