By sheer coincidence, I had to attend a funeral a couple of days ago. I’m not just saying it because I just happened to be around in the area, but because the man really didn’t have to die. It all happened very fast and me and my wife were left with no choice but to accept the situation. After all, he was her grandfather. I’m telling you this because a funeral isn’t exactly the perfect place to lay out the ideas for your next article. And when it’s about Quake 4, things get even more complicated. Fortunately for me, a funeral is one of those opportunities where the men in smoking can exchange a few ideas regarding the event they’re attending and sometimes there are even a few surprises in store.

     As it happens, I found some old pictures, which I started to skim over, only to stop as suddenly as I started browsing the photos. My wife, ten years ago! Like the old saying goes, only I know how perverted she is. You can imagine my shock after seeing that young and innocent face again. Don’t get me wrong, the lady was in her 20’s at the time, but after that, this was all I could think about. If I had a choice, what would it be? A young and innocent lady or an educated viperess? To be honest, she couldn’t even hold the flowers straight at the time the photo was taken. This is pretty much what I felt when I played Quake 4. I felt the maturity of the franchise, the seriousness of the producers but most of all the will to resist the temptation of reinventing the wheel. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And to think how wrong this sounds for so many people
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     I know we’re in a very delicate time, when sequels are the most sought after, or to put it frankly, when the publisher are battling out over licenses. In general, few sequels rise to the level of their predecessors… that is, if they want to do that at all. The reason Quake 4 doesn’t fall in this category is the fact that the game was licensed for production to another company. id Software believed that Raven would have a strong word to say about development, and their influence can be clearly seen in the singleplayer mode. You will see that during this article I’m going to talk about single and multiplayer, but I will treat them as two separate games.

     I started playing the singleplayer campaign with the enthusiasm of a gravedigger. I just wanted to get it over with. However, things took a turn for the better. I hope you remember how Quake 2 ended: the Makron is dead and as such, Stroggos has become vulnerable. Taking full advantage of this situation, the humans have taken the fight to the enemy. The name of your character is Matthew Kane, a new recruit of Rhino Squad. There are also other squads in the game and you’ll even run into Raven Squad. The biggest advantage over Doom 3 is that our soldier will engage in various conversations and as a result, some characters will become a key part in the story. The term of characters is somewhat far-fetched, because the story is a thin as human hair. That’s because id didn’t blow any neurons over this and Raven was content with the little. However, you won’t have to fight only in the narrow corridors of a Mars research station. The levels were you have to walk around a human battleship are a nice break from the action and they serve as a launching ramp for the carnage up ahead. The best level in the game is when you get stroggified (I know it sounds weird, but that’s the best term I could come up with) a process which is so brutal and realistically portrayed that after a while I felt a small pain right at the knee level, besides the headache I already had.