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) 

why didnt u actually use vehicles some more integrated way? could have used mech in more imaginative ways and make player jump in and out of it for some missions 

I actually had very little to do with planning levels/missions. I joined the project late, and by that time most decisions re: game progression and levels were already made. 

I didn't know you were at Raven TOO.

Note to self: keep up 

Ok, so I got this game for christmas, and have been playing it as of today. I started on the hard difficulty (I'm guessing it's "hard", because it's the third one).

Without repeating what everyone else has said, I'll just say that I agree with a lot of you; the vehicle sections suck rancid badger scrotum, really dragging down the overall quality IMO, which is a shame as the rest of the game (y'know the FPS bit) totally kicks arse, being quite a bit more fun than Doom 3 whilst looking just as damn good, and often better.

The squadmate thing works surprisingly well - I get the impression that they're saving my arse just as much as I'm saving theirs, which I'm sure was the intention, and it does work.

Well, I've just got to the Makron atm, and I'm dying quite a lot :} - I'll try to give him another go tonight.

More impressions to come... 

The Rawk:

Looked awesome, sounded awesome etc. etc. Great story and atmosphere. Definately a Q2 game. Even a few nods to the Q2 missionpacks (Gladiators with shields, flying repair bots, to name just two). Great-looking enemies and bosses. Superb realisation of the Quake arsenal; old favourites from both Quake 1 and 2 were there, which kicked mighty arse. Rather scary in places too -very similar to Doom3 in this respect.

Weapon upgrades - a good way of keeping all your weapons relevant whilst the enemy threat increases as the game progresses.

Teammates - having medics and techs that replenish your health and armor (it made me fight to defend them from dying just as much as myself.

The Sawk:

Squadmates acting dumb - standing on the edge of lifts blocking them from going up ~_~, blocking your retreat etc...

Some really inconsistent combats, e.g. the last big arena battle before the final battle. I mean wtf? Fat flying homing missile dudes, then those big spidery dudes, and a ton of other big bastard monsters? The final makron/nexus battle was just such a piece of piss in comparison.

Outdoor areas look kind of meh, but that's probably the D3 engine's fault.

Vehicles/on rails sections - crap. Should have been polished a lot more or omitted.

The "Maybe It's Just Me":

Enemies overall a little overpowered? It seems that even the weakest strogg could completely obliterate me from full health and armour if I didn't carefully consider my tactics and weapon choices. Meant lots of frustration and reloading. (I started on Hard, but brought down the console and changed it to Normal about halfway through; I still got eviscerated a lot though).

Shotgun underpowered? I ended up using this gun the least out of everything; maybe because the game seemed to favour mid/long-range combat I never got much use out of it.

Didn't mind the linearity. It's unrealistic to expect developers to just go around throwing resources into making whole chunks of map that may never be visited by the player. FPS games have been like this for a while now (probably since Half-Life).

Overall, I'd say that Quake 4 stands nicely side-by-side with Doom 3. Both have their strengths and weaknesses, and I don't think that I could really single one out as being better than the other.

Finally, hats off to those on this board who were involved in this game (and I know there's a few of you.) Well done chaps ^_^ 

--- Enemies overall a little overpowered?

Yeah I kinda agree. They strip you to bones real quick. Would have prefered a few more enemy and less powerful.

--- (I started on Hard, but brought down the console and changed it to Normal about halfway through; I still got eviscerated a lot though).

Pussyclart man.

--- maybe because the game seemed to favour mid/long-range combat I never got much use out of it.

Agreed. Generally you don't want shit close where it's harder to avoid, so shotty was down the list. 

I really liked it. It was a lot of fun, and whilst nothing really new or groundbreaking, certainly had me wanting more.

The weapons felt quite nice and satisfying, and the enemy, although looking a bit meh were fairly good fun to fight. The berserkers are a damn sight more scary than they were in Quake 2, that's for sure.

As numerous people have pointed out already, the atmosphere and feeling of being part of a squad, in a war, is really well done.

Didn't think I'd like the game when I saw the screenshots before the game was released, but as it turns out, it's fun and looks good.

Even runs really smoothly on my notebook. I'll try a higher resolution next time (I was at 960*600 widescreen I think.) 

You realize that you need to make a Q4 version of "Pretend Best Friend", yes?

*nudge* 

Maybe you can make it again :)

I haven't bought the game yet, and I'm not sure what daft price PC games cost here in Japan. I think they are expensive though. Might order it from the US. 

pretend boyfriend ? 

Nah, making a second remake of someone else's map would be...I dunno...weird in some way. You can do it. :)

Dunno about "Pretend Boyfriend"--makes me feel like prancing. 

1. Installing the game is like the Tower of Hanoi puzzle, but with only one column.

2. I'm not very far into the game, but so far it feels more like D3.2 than Q2.2. Supposedly that changes later on. 

I keep looking around for "id squad" and "Activision squad" but I haven't seen them yet. 

had a quick run through on level 1 with 280*1024 and ultra quality.

d3 looked more polished but this looks like it has better effects (upgraded engine?).

does it run slower later on or is level 1 a good indicator for system specs ? 

I'm up just past the "spoiler" area, and so far the "peaks" have all been about the same as level 1. I haven't had to adjust the settings. 

rpg, I'll leave it on ultra and the currentresoultion then. 

... and it is a little bit deceiving. However, it is visually very good, and the ambience is more Doom3-ish (but for girls) rather than really Quake-ish... a shame... though

Stroggs are moving like disco dancer when they try to avoid my bullets", not really like brutes running on you...

Well, I would have expected something more intense... well, maybe the next levels will be better, as it is quite annoying at the moment...

Id software, where is the Quake spirit ??