esp ravens ex employee comments

http://www.quake3world.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12669&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0 

have you found any easter eggs? because i haven't, at least not that i could recall...
but there have to be some - it wouldn't be quake without? 

none.
some stashed supplies only 

Was a good fun game. Good enough gameplay and nice maps, and a fairly good atmosphere. Not as good as it should have, too linear and some obvious weakness, and not very progressive, but it's useful to have straightforward fun FPSs as well as proper innovative ones.

Likes:

Good general designs.
Decent amount of monsters.
Stroggos setting.
Any monsters that are strogg-like.
Outdoor bits.
Other marines and proper missions feel.
Nice GFX effects.
Gladiator rail effect.
Stroggification.

Dislikes:

Vehicles (often artificial and silly).
Too linear, on rails the whole time.
Arenas (also silly and artificial).
Not enough proper Strogg monsters (too many pseudo-humans).
Ending boring.
Should have had more Q2-like enviroments.

That'll do. 

Overall, I really liked it, enough to have gone back and played through again this weekend anyway. Seemed solid, felt Quakey, Strogg look fairly Stroggish. Might be imagining things but it sometimes seemed like enemies had different particle FX (blood/sparks etc.) depending whereabouts you hit them. Weapon upgrades work well, taking a weapon that is already good and making it better is the way to go (as opposed to say, Pariah, where most weapons are fucking useless until at least one upgrade has been applied). A more engaging and exciting game than Doom 3 I think.

Where are the parasites? They were my favourite Q2 enemy, I guess there is a creature that looks a bit like one but really isn't the same thing at all. Definitely would have liked some monstrous monsters.

The worst thing about the tank and mech levels is the way the regenerating shields are implemented. It's like the designers saw the regenerating player shield in Halo, but failed to grasp what it was that made that game mechanic fun. In Halo, you get beaten up and the hide in a corner shitting yourself, hoping that the shield regenerates before you are found by the enemy. Once you've been in the clear for a few seconds, the shield charges in a snap. In Quake 4 you fight a bunch of enemies in an arena and your ride gets shot up a bit, but unless you're really trying to get fucked over it's probably still OK. Still, better wait for the shields to recharge though... about a month later the shield starts to charge, another couple of weeks charging follows that and eventually you're good to go! Basically, shield depeletion is only a threat to you if you are impatient enough to proceed without waiting for a recharge. Thus Quake 4's version of shield regeneration serves only to artificially slow your progress through the level.

The grenade launcher's blast radius seems to be about 5 miles. This is both a good and a bad thing.

I like the multiplayer, although it seems like the pure server system still has the same stupid problems for custom maps that Doom 3 did. For goodness sake, just make it work like Quake 3 did! Also, needs more player models. 

http://ucguides.savagehelp.com/Quake4/enemies.htm 

Could they possibly use the word "unrelenting" any more?

The "Putrafication Processing Slave" idea is pretty neat though, I've never seen anything like that... 

Could they possibly use the word "unrelenting" any more?

Yeah, but they're also "brutal" and "devastating" :P

I've never seen anything like that

What, you mean a big blobby boss monster you can't kill with your guns, and instead have to work your way around the perimeter of the room to activate a feature that kills it? 

looks like mancubi. that's a good thing. ^_^ 

What, you mean a big blobby boss monster you can't kill with your guns, and instead have to work your way around the perimeter of the room to activate a feature that kills it?

No. From what I read the impression I got is you can ride the monster or you interact with some part of it's interface to control/kill it. 

That's not how I read it. Interesting.
Is this the case? Can someone who's completed the game confirm..? 

From the list: none of your weapons will destroy the Processing Slave, you simply avoid its attacks while working your way round to the control console situated on the left hand side of it's body. Once the control console is activated the Processing Slave will smash the glass and a door will open to its left.

Ok so you can't ride it, I surmised that from the screenshot of it (looked like you could hop on top of it), but otherwise kinda interesting. 

It's just a stationary mini-boss monster. You run past it avoiding instant-death attacks (on hard skill), and then press a button which kills it. Looks cool but not really the epitomy of exciting gameplay *_* 

defecation slave was a neat one actually
def better than makoron

oh, and you were not supposed to look at it unless you played the game! 

actually, i wasn't planning on getting it soon, but those monsters actually look pretty neat, so i might pick it up now. ;) 

No. From what I read the impression I got is you can ride the monster or you interact with some part of it's interface to control/kill it.

Needs more Shadow of the Colossus.

^_~ 

I like how they call the rollerball enemy a "convoy." The entity name is monster_strogg_convoy because it's the monster in the convoy missions. :P 

So I tried the demo. Here's my thoughts.

Pros:
+ Character modeling. Raven always seemed to do well with this. The eyes and head modeling especially. Too bad D3 didn't do this as good as Raven did. Honestly most of the effectiveness is in the shine of the eyes.
+ It performed better than Doom 3 generally.

Cons:
- Feels console-ified. It really feels like they watered down the legacy of id's work. I realise there are more features and action and such in Q4, but ever since the X-Box, it really feels like a lot of games these days are lacking because they're compromising for both platforms, and it's like the PC rarely gets a solid-overall title. It felt on rails, to echo the sentiment of many others.

- The sound was horrible. That first enemy you see goes something like "heegh-uuuaaghh!!!" way too many times. Not only that, the weapons sound very weak. The machine gun didn't look beefy enough. The nailgun felt very stiff (ah remember Q1's nailgun? It doesn't do it justice in Q4).

- Is it just me or is the specular x100 in Q4? It really ruined the immersiveness. Bright areas or flashlight lit areas were practically white. I realise Q4 isn't the only game guilty of this, but it seems even more present.

I knew from the start Q4 wasn't my cup o'tea. I didn't wanna play a reinvented Q2. The demo just confirms that dislike, only for even more reasons. 

Monster design is mostly ridiculous. That fat stupid looking monster was just... dumb looking, with those cliche concept-art-jutting-out... canister things from it's body. It's as if "hmm, I really don't have any other ideas for this monster, let's put some jutting canisters on it!" 

playing through still (haven't had enough time to finish it yet :o )

some points i'm thinking of atm:

i'm not really bothered by the linearity of the game. non linearity is fun, but i don't mind if it's absent. i didn't like the one vehicle 'ride' where you're standing in the back of the truck... that kind of shit just bugs the crap out of me... you can't even move at all... it's just stupid... i look around at the 2 other dudes on the truck with me, and they're both ducking for cover... and i'm stuck standing there like an idiot. right.

the second 'ride' in the truck where you have to use the mounted gun also sucked copious amounts of ass. just boring.

first makron encounter roxored, but the first time when i died, the game sent me to the restart/loadgame screen... so i didn't realise
you were supposed to die, and retried a good half dozen times until finally, i died one time, and instead of reloading, sat back for a moment (in frustration) and the makron scene started up properly. one of those 'wtf' moments...

stroggifcation (retarded name, btw...) sequence was darn cool, and well done. being able to see the guy in front of you getting the 'treatment' before you was good.

walking mech vehicle was fun, but annoying to use as it pauses all the time when you switch from forward+strafe to just strafing. very irritating.
hover tank was better as it didn't have the pauses, but it was still sluggish. while that makes sense because it's a tank, after all, it's not really that much fun.

weapon sounds are much much better than anything d3 had except maybe for the plasma gun. they all have much more body than d3's, and sound a lot more like actual guns with power. compare d3's flimsy machine gun to q4's, or, even more so, d3's shotgun to q4's shotgun.

music is pretty cool too. it usually fits in with whatever is going on the screen.

pod sequence, where you crash into that strogg tower was really cool too, and the whole area after that (where i am currently) is totally awesome. the first encounter with the iron maidens was pretty cool, although, i think the pink dress on them looks kind of silly. i'm not sure what raven was going for with that, but it doesn't look all that good to me... i think mainly because it stands out so much. none of the other monsters have any odd features (although, the orange metal on stroggified humans is kind of garish).

anyway, just what came to mind... need to finish it now. :) 

Demo - The intro sequence, all in-engine was nice - and the music in-game was pretentious. 

That's the last game which I bought.
I bought doom3 and quake4
And the xbox version was better than the pc version. I'm fed up with that, why we have no coop mod on the pc game ? 

...as an early Xmas present last night. One tower to go, very little sleep. I'll post comments later but just say now THANKYOU RAVEN for giving the weapons some stopping power. So much more fun to play than D3. 

the demo does NOT show how good this game is, I loved it from 4th map onwards to the very end.

The stroggification sequence was the best in-game cutscene I have ever seen :D

ffs the vehicle sections sucked so hard...

level design was utterly brilliant 

You just started my day on a warm and fuzzy note. Glad you liked it.

(and yeah, I personally wasn't a big fan of the vehicle sections either--didn't feel as strongly as you do, but I certainly didn't love 'em)