a bundle of generic D3/Q4 questions

Well I'm astonished, surprised and overwhelmed... seeing how many threads are here about Doom3.

I'm also more surprised to notice, that none of them ask people to write down which weapon they like the most, which monster they find the most scary, or which part of the game was the "enjoyabliest".

Is it really so, that very few people have played this game (which IMhO eats HL2, FarCry and other silly games for breakfast), and even fewer have thought to share?

Ok, ok. Here's my point. It's not exaclty what the thread indicates.
Now that Quake 4 has been available for some time (and without question some of you have even finished playing it), I'd like to hear which one do you think is better? D3 or Q4? Why? Or maybe you think that those games cannot be compared? Well, whatever you have to say regarding either one of those products, I'd like to hear it.

I myslef haven't yet accomplished Quake 4, so I won't answer my own question yet.

I think I had more fun playing Quake 4, honestly, because it was a little more varied.

Having said that, althought they're both FPSes, theyre different types of FPSes so on that level, some comparisons would be biased.

Doom 3 was awesome. Quake 4 was Awesome + 1.

I'm currently playing through Quake 4. It's starting to get pretty repetitive, so I'm taking a break for now. Hopefully the battles get more interesting later on, but I think it's just bigger enemies, bigger guns, etc.

Overall I think Raven did a great job with the game though. Only a few spots that really made me think they were unfair or poorly designed.

udderdude said:

I'm currently playing through Quake 4. It's starting to get pretty repetitive, so I'm taking a break for now. Hopefully the battles get more interesting later on, but I think it's just bigger enemies, bigger guns, etc.

I take it you haven't met your old buddy from Quake 2 yet? No, my friend, this is not only about bigger and badder guns and stroggs.

I haven't finished Q4 yet, but I think I already have an oppinion about it. It has more entertaining plot than Doom3, especially the one... you know... after meeting an old firend (no spoilers, please) - Doom3 definitely lacked something like that. However the Stroggos atmosphere, that I have gotten used to from Q2, is completely ruined. The enemies' designs are... tacky. For example: Gunners were one of the most characteristic creatures in all FPP games, now they grunt around, and scream like arabian terrorists. Something completely un-stroggish. Something you wouldn't expect from a machine. And that goes to a great majority of ground units. I'd really like much more to see the old Tanks, Gladiators, Gunners, Berserkers and others. In Q2, each unit had it's character, now they all almost act the same, they are all much quicker, shoot a lot of projectiles around, and their sounds are irrecognisable. About 50% of monsters here, would fit better in Mars, than Stroggos.

Weapons are also too generic. Okay, the animations are superb and what-not. But who the hell told those people (and not only them, since this is a mistake, done in many productions) that shotguns are so inacurate? If they were, nobody would use them in combat. Also, what did they do to my lovely Railgun? Why do I have to hit a single Strogg about 2-3 times to kill him? And why do the grenades fly such a short distance? A well trained marine would hand-throw those cans much further, that's for sure. The best weapons in this game (and not only for design, but also their usefulness), are the Blaster, Mgun, Nailgun and RL.

Dunno how this translates into Multiplayer weapons. I think they act different.

Okay, so despite those facts, the game plays well. It just doesn't have the industrial feel of old sweet Stroggos. Think of it as of something new. And this new game, including controlable veicles, the feeling of taking part in a great war (first missions), interactions (it doesn't really matter they are linear and hard-coded) with characters, and finally many various places, also those vast-open canyons and outskirts of Strogg city; this is all well done.

Summing up:
Q4 is much more action oriented, there's a lot of things going on around you, and a few more abilities not met in D3, as it drives you through many different "zones"; but fails it somehow, when it comes to quake2 reference, and weapon designs.
Doom3 is more consistent. Stays with one simple plot, and aims at suspense atmosphere. To say it straight - Doom3 is scary, Quake4 can be brutal and disgusting. Doom3 also handles better it's small closed locations, and you won't experience serious FPS drops (while you can in Q4). Finally, Doom3 has much, much, much better monster designs, and fails it much less in weapon desgins (yeah, the shotgun is again inacurate, and a 60 rounded chaingun?).

Anyway, I must say both those games are realitively enjoyable.

I´m currently in the last parts of Quake4 I guess (after fighting the network guardian).
The one thing Quake4 does better then Doom3 is the combat, particularely the way how enemy encounters are set up. In Doom3 they totally overused spawning demons (mostly Imps), so you always knew there would be another demon teleporting in when you progress further. In Q4 it´s triggering waves of Strogg that come rushing out of the farther rooms of the level. It feels more real and it gives the player a short ammount of time to make a tactical decision on how to approach the fight.

What I liked better in Doom3 was the integration of story elements through the PDA and interactive consoles etc. In Quake4, all story is solely communicated through spoken language (which is often a bit hard to understand for someone who isn´t speaking English as his first language, especially with all the accents and noise in the levels). The interaction in Doom3 was deeper, in Q4 you often just rush from one room through the next. The level design is also way too linear for my taste, even worse then in Doom3 and just as bad as in Halflife2.

I also didn't like the feeling, that I am being atacked on Stroggos. At least in some places the Stroggs should be patrolling locations, or stand guard at some points; just like all good, old games did. Quake4 fighting makes you want to shout: "Time-out, bastratds! I'm attacking you! Not the other way!"... But I agree, that it has more surprises and is more intensive than Doom3.

Any web site where you can see all the enemies from Quake 4?

http://www.planetquake.com/quake4/sp/guide_s3p1.shtml

Acullly, while I'm here:

How do the difficulity setting work?
is it like other id games (higher the difficulty the more badguys there are) or like half-life (higher the difficulty the more damage badguys take)

Half of the weapon icons look very familar....

you do know that quake 4 DM is Quake III arena DM with different weapon models right?

Take a look

In Quake 4, I find it odd that there's an enemy called light tank, but no heavy tank! wtf!!

Captain Red said:

you do know that quake 4 DM is Quake III arena DM with different weapon models right?

Take a look

The weapons are the same and they did port over The Longest Yard, but the game play feels different to anyone who's played Quake 3 for any length of time. Switching between the two takes some adjustment because the physics models are pretty different. I've had a hard time getting my co-workers to make the switch for after-work deathmatches because of it.

baronofhell said:

In Quake 4, I find it odd that there's an enemy called light tank, but no heavy tank! wtf!!

Eh, there is one, it's called the Heavy Hovertank.

-H