But the thing that made my draw drop in the game was quite sadly enough a rather mundane and boring shot...

In the opening cinematic, there is a shot where all the marines are sitting down in the dropship before it is hit, the lighting, the models, texturing makes it look pre-rendered like a cgi movie from just a few years ago. 

Only the brushwork. Someone else laid it out originally.

And czg's right about the spoiler.

And that's all I'm going to say from here on out. 

Is mentioned on the box and the manual ffs _<_><><_>_ 

In the multiplayer mode for people who jumped there first you have the Stroggified Kane model.

I actually liked knowing the spoiler was coming up, it meant that I kept on waiting for it to happen in various fights and made them more tense. 

Game becomes alot more enjoyable after that spoiler... =) Was too damn slow before, should have happened earlier...
I'm definatly enjoying this more than Doom3, although the atmosphere isn't quite as nice, and the progression is very linear. 

yeah, It's just like Doom3 in this respect, with less dark corners and some side doors to open just to find a dead end.
Still no ambushes while crouching, and still NO secrets. I remember when re-playing q2 I was thrilled to find the secret level which took you into a space ship, did not find it the first time I ran through the game.
But this deserves it's own thread (what was wrong/could have been done better in Q4 SP); I think some of the enemy sounds could have been improved, I loved the old sound of the iron maiden from q2. 

normal fps bits are fun (thats where you`r on your foot and indoors)
wehicles/target practice parts fail
and outdoor looks bleh for the most part
indoor levels are nice, I like the lighting

monstes are nothing exciting so far , except huge red spiders

overall, this game reminded me of Elite force1/2 (by Raven/ritual) rather than quake
I dont really mind squadmates. Not bad attempt at making player feel involved into a military operation and AI is quite good

performance:
Game runs like shit on the older hardware
-ati 9600xt some slowdowns even in 640x480
-ati 9800 some bad FPS in 800x600, ok in 640x480
-fx5900 medium/800x600 with rare slowdowns
(no AA/aniso there ofcourse)

and at settings low/640x480 it just looks ugly
(no wonder)
gameplay is quite faster than in d3 and when u get fps drops in combat and cant aim - its just not fun. Im enjoying Qfour much more after changing 9600xt to fx5900 and o/c my ram+cpu slightly 

But it does have secrets! I've found quite a few armor health stashes etc that are hidden away(doesn't tick off a counter though.) No secret levels either as far as I have found. 

no, I meant real secrets, a secret level would have been nice, a cave level somewhere you could kill some secret lab experiment about a new weapon or, in the game trend, to give you a weapon upgrade so you could kill
more stroggos on hard skill :). 

...very, very dark. Not overall but so far filled with unrealistically pitch black shadows. 

that's teh d3 engine for you :} 

... then how about the lack of Quad damage in singleplayer? I was looking forward to finding a few scattered around, nomatter how 'unrealistic' it may be. 

I was looking forward to finding a few scattered around, nomatter how 'unrealistic' it may be.

"The Stroggs would NEVER put their quads here." 

Yeah. I don't think I like the D3 engine to be honest, or at least not the way it's been executed so far.

Harsh lighting + complex textures > having impressive designs + clear visibility = dissappointed smables 

the failure of shadow-volume realtime light at convincing outdoors illumination has never been so apparent ;/ 

smables means shambler you dump russkie! 

awesome game!
the sound rocks everything i know - this probably is the first game that really makes me realize what a subwoofer can be good for. all the explosions and stuff (war athmosphere, similar to cod, but more accustucally intense) - great! the weapons sound cool, too, especially the machine gun (which usually sounds like a grandma taking a shit in most games).
there was also some nice looking machinery - one thing i appreciated about doom3, too.
i'm pleasantly suprised the game runs very smooth on my machine - in fact even better than doom3 - both in 800*600 + high quality settings. i experienced some minor slowdowns only once or twice.

the strogg player model doesn't look that good, though, it's not stroggy-mean enough, too skinny, orange and all...
why can't the dead marines be ragdolled??
and yeah, gameplay is extremely linear (in fact, there is *always* *only* one way), but i didn't expect it to be any different, so it's okay. still a cool game.

the stroggification comes too early in my view. i hope this doesn't mean the game is as short as i fear (i'm at the waste facility now, i think), because that would really suck ass. doom3 felt kind of long - in a positive way - but about q4 i will see... 

some maps after stroggification but before the Mech have choice of routes actually - just need to look around more 

About sounds, I thought the machine gun actually sounded pretty bad, dunno... just sounds so plastic, feels like a toy or something. Rest of the sounds are fairly good, music is pretty bleh though, sometimes it sounds like something you'd hear in some ww2 game or something. =\
Still enjoying the game though. 

tried mp: maps are cliche - 45 degree angles, trims , prefab walls - like ztn q2 maps . and many maps look the same 

I'm going a bit OR with this, but did anyone actually like the HL2 secrets? There were plenty of them, but I NEVER felt rewarded by them. I would spend ages stacking fucking crates up to reach a secret area and find a fucking box with a clip in it...

..thanks for nothing, bastards.

One thing I like to find is hidden areas, where the reward for finding the secret comes from a small area you can expklore that contains neat details or cool views onto another part of the level (such as a good sniping spot, or view of enemy patrols etc.) Finding a health pack or ammo is so cliche. 

a bit OT. 

 

While certainly not a carbon-copy of Q3 multiplayer, the speed, simplicity, and sense of "weight" in a Q4 deathmatch make it feel similar to me. In fact, I think this is the only decent, competitive deathmatch game to be released since Q3. Raven did a great job of incorporating the best aspects of the entire series into Q4, without sacrificing SP or MP gameplay.

For me, Christmas came early this year. 

no double jump here :\