Well I had bad first impressions of its performance, however now I have got my vid card settings fixed I have it running at 1280*1024 medium settings averaging 30-60fps. That's on a 6600gt.

Since there are no spoilers I won't mention the big one I am sure everyone knows already from all pre-publicity, but I have to say that my first impressions of the Guake 4 guy (it just feels weird referring to him by a real name) as being a slow mover improves later on in the game.

Models ingame are much better than I expected from pre-release screenshots, and everything fits together nicely.

Varied (and BIG!) environments however some bits do feel a little bit too Earthy. I know that the general asthetic is carried over from Quake 2 but can anyone explain why an alien species would use the same horizontal yellow/black lines we do as a warning on floors?

Most levels don't have the same polish as D3, however the fact that the environments are much bigger and can thus have less detail crammed into them makes that understandable. That's not to say there aren't some stunning locations in the game. :)

I'm guessing I am just over halfway through right now and this is the first game in a while I haven't yet felt bored enough to cheat to get to the end of a level.

Objectives are a little contrived sometimes, but most of the game truly feels like you are part of a greater war going on all around you. 

o.k i�ve already try!! i think is a good game...much better then doom3... more lights and more action.
I like the guns very much :) guess i will be a small fan of this one! no game will ever bring much atencion as Quake I but guess it was becouse was my real serios game...since duke and doom2 was just a small part of the fun playing offline... online was just Quake I and since then, nothing that i�ve seen beat it!

maby i will find some of u guys in a Q4 server :) 

.. in France, and i don't know when the game will be avalaible... but for sure I will buy it.. or at least find a crack... ;P 

...in England tomorrow. :D Which is perfect timing, because I've had an essay to write this week and most certainly would not have worked on it at all if I had Quake 4 to play. Thanks Activision, you may just have saved my career. 

guess i'm just two hours into the game, but so far i'm quite disappointed. of course, it looks great, but the actual gameplay so far is bleh. it's extremely linear - so far there's no alternative routes at all and nothing to explore.
if i understand Tron correctly, you'll move faster later on in the game, but so far the slow movement also derails the gameplay. and what's with the lame arcade sections a la the atrocious serious sam 2?
i really can't find anything positive to say except that the graphics and models look great.
it also runs better than i had feared - very close to doom 3.

i'm also playing f.e.a.r. at the moment and the contrast when it comes to visceral gameplay, atmosphere, a.i. and plain fun is almost overwhelming. in f.e.a.r i've replayed lots of sections immediately as the fights were just so amazingly cool - in q4 it feels like you've done them 100 times before already. 

ok, everything finally clicked in a level called "Perimeter Defense Station", which was beautiful, tense, loaded with cool details and generally chaotic in a good way. things might be shaping up. will shut up now - at least until i've finished the game. 

I am still not interested in this game whatsoever, and everything I've heard about it makes me less interested. Raven seems to have just fallen off for me, they haven't released a game I was interested in since Hexen 2. Quake 2 was a good game, but this just doesn't seem like it's a worthy sequel. 

Yes...I had suffered from the early feeling of disappointment, but that has vanished, maybe it was the game at the begining, maybe my state of mind, whatever. Things are much better than my first impressions. The weapons are pretty cool, and sound and feel great. I get great satisfaction out of using the shotgun and nail gun, but they are all quite good.

I'm very close to the end I believe, but either I'm missing something, or it is a bug, which will not allow mw to progress..., frustrating. Had a similar thing earlier on where you had to wait for involvement from one of your teammates to progress, however that involvement wasn't forthcoming. Had to repeat the previous section to get it to work as it should. Speaking of teammates, they can be a real pain in the arse, they are just so braindead. Some places, one in particular, they stand around a doorway in like a covering formation waiting for you to go through, and when you do, there is an event which requires you to retreat, but your path is blocked by your team, goodnight!! I would prefer no teammates, but...

The vehicles/Vehicle sections I have seen so far are all pretty lame, and the control is worse than any other FPS with vehicles I have seen. 

Q4 have a physics similar to the one in Q2??
Q2 was the only game where I managed to learn a lot of trickjumps. 

i'm in the middle of the game and it rocks! awesome gfx, mean stroggs, feel of the war around and general fun :) good game, and it's exactly what i expected from q4. 

That PC Gamer gave it. All in all after a rocky start for me, it turned out to be a very enjoyable experience. Maybe a tad short for me, but that's ok.

The Good
Graphics, Some awesome visuals.
Sound, love it, table shakin' goodness.
Level Design, for the most part. Some very cool stuff to be seen.
Action (might be old school, but nothing wrong with that)
Weapons, good feel, sound, etc.
Player Control/Feel.
Atmosphere, sense of being in a conflict.
Some awesome mechanics/machinery, wizbangery.
Multiplayer is an absolute blast.
Silky smooth (for me) System dependant of course
And most important of all..., It's fun!


The Bad
Can feel like the game is on rails.
Could have been more open to exploration.
Teammates are annoying, and tend to get in your way.


The Ugly
Teammates, they can be a real pain in the arse, especially when they cut of your retreat/advance, and cause you to take damage or worse.

Vehicles/vehicle sections, the places where you just 'ride' in a vehicle aren't very good at all, I would have preferred not to have that at all. The vehicles that you could actually drive/control, felt bad, the control was the worst I have experienced in a FPS with vehicles.

At least once, my progress through the game was brought to a halt, because of an event/scripted sequence, that was supposed to occur to allow you to proceed, did not occur, causing me to have to restart that level and play through again. Others have mentioned similar things, some in the same place as I encountered mine.
(the other one I mentioned above, wasn't a bug, just my own foolishness, overlooking the obvious :o( )

Really looking forward to going through this again, and then maybe again...

How does it stand with the other Quakes, well, it can hold its head high as far as I'm concerned. After all it IS Quake4 

Perhaps teammates aren't that annoying, they are useful, and unfortunately necessary for the game, however when they are annoying, they certainly are.

The vehicles, well, they may not be that bad, although they aren't that good either, they are playable. Thankfully they are only a small part of the game.

now off to the servers..., let the killing begin... cue evil laughter... 

This is actually good! To be honest, I was expecting to be highly dissapointed, but it's actually the most fun I've had in a new game for years.

Some of the set pieces and events are spectacular, and I even found the AI pretty good -- this is considering that the Strogg are designed for combat, rather than to act like humans. They've got some pretty cool moves. And unlike most contemporary shooters there seems to be some variety in the enemies from the very begining! Jackpot.

I love this game, and feel it worthy of the Quake series. 

where you have to repeat parts to get things to work right - would you mind posting or emailing details? :) 

some of my initial complaints stand, but i want to strike a more positive note, so:
* it looks completely spectacular, with eye-popping architecture in places and nice details. if looks could kill, i'd be dead by now.
* the monsters are generally adorable - impressive models, neat movements and sounds.
* the weapons are satisfying as well.
now i *will* shut up. just wanted to balance my first post. 

Oh..., those bugs ;)

Well I'm on my second run through the game, (currently nearly finished the Mech section) The place where I encountered the problem was where your team were just about to detonate the EMP device. After you've gone and done your thing, and return, the dude starts trying to detonate, (Trying not to spoil for anyone, but you should know what's going on)well anyway, after that action takes place, the scar faced dude is supposed to give you orders and open something for you, however on my first run through they just stood around the dead guy, and nothing further happened, they just stood there. I had read on some forums somewhere that others had also had a similar thing in the same area. Replaying that level everything worked fine.

I have passed that section on my second time through the game, and it worked fine.

------------------

I don't know what I was on when I played the first couple of levels on my first run through the game, what it was that gave me such a negative view of things, but those first levels rock, it's action from the start. Might be true what they say, that once you reach 40, your mind and body start to go, mine must have just been delayed a couple of years :)

I still feel the same about the vehicles/vehicle sections, but I guess they add a bit of variety, would have been good if the control felt better, and the ones you just rode on allowed a bit more freedom, I guess there would be design restraints as to what the player is allowed to do... just feels really on rails, shooting galleryish. The teammates don't seem to be getting on my nerves as much, maybe I am just used to them, and, or learnt how to deal with them.

Quake4...,Lovin' it!! 

So far so good. I hate my squadmates, I hate the marines, I hate riding on vehicles.
When it for a seldom five minutes lets me go on my own, it is the rocking.

My specs;
Athlon XP 2600,
1GB RAM,
GF4200ti 128MB.
Runs fair enough at 640x480 medium quality. Framerate dips when there's like two dozen people in the scene with 5 lights on every surface and a hojillion sexplosion effects going on in the skybox.

Overall score so far: Giraffe. 

ok, so i am schizophrenic - so what.
my total frustration over the quake guy slowness has totally dissolved (i try not to spoil anything, so i'll keep it vague) and now it's not only fantastic looking but also great fun. thank god, as i really wanted to like this game. and now i love it!

first f.e.a.r and now this. brilliant. 

Finished my second run through last night, awesome stuff, looked around a bit more, found some more things than the first time, I even appreciated my teammates presence this time through.

Multiplayer is very addictive, fast and brutal. Does become a bit spammy when there is to many on the map, which is to be expected, but when the numbers are right...ROCK. Gets better and better the more you play.

Vehicles... :( 

I do say, I believe I found some wierdness lunaran. The jumpads in mp are targeted to info_location entities (the sucessor to q3s target_location), as if it where a common garden variety target_null. Outrageous, I could hardly believe my eyes, I had to have a brief lie down. And don't get me started on info_locations not actually being used as they should, why in my day mumble mumble... 

Tinman: If it works why get all outraged? :) 

If it was just the game, and they dropped all the fucking retarded storytelling, and dropped the fucking retarded vehicle segments, it would be a very awesome game. As it is, it is just good.

SPOILERS:
The boss with that scarface guy who sticks his pole into the sparkly bits was fucking difficult. The flying fat thing that I thought was the Makron was also fucking difficult, but more bearable than the scarface guy. The final boss fight was a joke. Didn't even die once.
However, in the last 1/3rd of the game, I rarely had more than 70 health. I often had to complete entire levels with nothing more than 30, and then I had to run gauntlet around all monsters and just pray I never got hit.
This was on normal skill mind you.

Also on the latter levels everything ran a lot slower than usual for some reason.

Climbing those three identical towers was pretty meh. The first time it was cool.

This game has made me more anti-American. I fucking hate the fucking US marine corps now. Shut up. I promise (not a promise) this will be the last game i ever pay for that contains lots of marines running around and being oh so tough and mean and like glory and honour and shock and awe and shit like that because that was getting old already in q2.

Kinn: You are SO fat!





Conclusion: Go buy this game but remember to turn off the sound whenever someone (in the game) is talking to you.

Biff: You are SO old! 

agreed regarding fucking american marines... so boring.. 

CZG, no storytelling is better than crap storytelling. Also, would one of you raven employees like to explain why everyone knew about the plot twist before the game was even released, and how people at Raven feel about it generally? I've seen a lot of people complaining that it was spoiled for them in the previews because too much information was revealed.

Anyway, still no comments from me. I probably won't get a chance to play until Christmas, but I am kinda looking forward to it based on the decent feedback it has received (from people who I respect, rather than some hack journos with their tongues placed firmly on Gabe Newell's shaft).

Oh, how is the music? 

Well, As soon as I found out how to turn it off,(60 sec's after I first heard it)it was only a distant memory. What I did hear wasn't my thing. FYI,
seta s_musicVolume "0"
in the Quake4config.cfg turns it off, default is "0.5". There is no actual menu option to alter the music volume individually.
I never listen to game music, whether it be in game or not. Music is the first thing to be turned off for me.
The ambient sounds etc I liked alot, as I did with Doom3, it really helps build the atmosphere. The sound in general I thought was well done. Love the weapon sounds.