83 replies to this topic

[jgwdoc]

nagromme, on January 31st 2008, 01:25 PM, said:

You might just push me off the fence into buying Q4 too But with Prey's innovation, it would still have to be me "if I could only have one modern shooter." (And if we forget singleplay, my one shooter would always be UT. Mods galore.)

Though Q4 can't claim much in the way of innovation, I will say that I thought the vehicle levels (hovertank, armed walker, etc) were among the best I've ever played. Worth getting if only for that.

[nagromme]

One thing that put me off about Quake is the impression (from others--I know the demo isn't fair to judge) that you're fighting the same enemies over and over. It sounds like it might be "you again" all the time.

Prey and Doom had less variety than I'd want, too. But Prey's "you again" creature is the Hunters, and I actually enjoy sniping and counter sniping with them. And they're in a very varied word, with lots of things to ooh and ahh at to keep you awake. (Doom's "you again" creature is the Imp. Imp pops out of nowhere. If you whac-a-mole fast enough, you kill it with the shotgun. If not, it takes half your health. So restore from quicksave. Repeat. Endlessly.)

I also haven't seen much variety in the screenshots of Quake 4. It sounds like a "better, brighter Doom 3" with some token vehicle moments (could still be fun--like Halo's token vehicle moments) and pseudo-outdoor scenes. (Which is no terrible thing--I did enjoy Doom despite the flaws.)

But I want to be talked into it Maybe there's more variety than it seems, and maybe waves of Strogg marines are more fun to battle than I thought from the demo.

[Eric5h5]

QuantaCat, on January 31st 2008, 02:54 PM, said:

And it's not that hard to beat DXs storyline, I've done it couple of times for funsies. (and I'm not a hardcore shooter person)

The actual meaning of the sentence you are replying to is this: "It's hard to do better than DX's storyline", or perhaps "It's hard to find a game with a better storyline than DX."  Not "It's difficult to play through DX as a game."  Gotta love ambiguity in English.  

--Eric

[QuantaCat]

I just read it again, and now I got it. Humgh. I am usually better at english than this.. argh. But yes, for its' time, the DX story was pretty cool.

Q4 was fun till the point where I

Spoiler

turn into a strogg

.

I had the feeling there was nothing left to this thing.

[Quicksilver]

nagromme, on January 31st 2008, 02:07 PM, said:

My cautious, ammo-hoarding play style is probably a factor in my play time--I cannot IMAGINE how anyone could finish this game in a day. My FPS skill level too--I'm somewhere in the middle. For some hard-core gamers, a battle might be no challenge, when for the rest of the population it might challenge them for many tries.

Three factors influence the speed at which you complete a game: intelligence, experience, and disposition.  You might just be extra-cautious--for example, I beat Prey in one five-hour sitting.

[iRolley]

QuantaCat, on January 31st 2008, 02:52 PM, said:

Q4 was fun till the point where I

Spoiler

turn into a strogg

.

I had the feeling there was nothing left to this thing.

Come here bro !    I agree, even though this was supposed to be the high point of the game !!! Unfortunatly from there on it turned into a normal One Man Army Shooter. What's more, I think I prefer the slow pace of the "human" marine.

[iRolley]

nagromme, on January 31st 2008, 02:40 PM, said:

...
I also haven't seen much variety in the screenshots of Quake 4. It sounds like a "better, brighter Doom 3" with some token vehicle moments (could still be fun--like Halo's token vehicle moments) and pseudo-outdoor scenes. (Which is no terrible thing--I did enjoy Doom despite the flaws.)

But I want to be talked into it Maybe there's more variety than it seems, and maybe waves of Strogg marines are more fun to battle than I thought from the demo.

The first levels of Quake 4 are memorable. You HAVE to get this game. Unfortunatly at some point in the game there is a turning point, and suddenly the game, TO ME, lost its magic.

Anyway I highly recommend it. I'd say has a higher replay value than Prey. In Quake 4 you can just pick any saved game you have, finish one or two level and move on to something else. In Prey, you'll want to start over from the start and finish the game (which isn't bad, I love games like these, but it make it harder to just get a 20minute gaming fix    )

[nagromme]

Well Quake 4 benches unusually fast on a MacBook X3100, so it's a candidate for when I travel with my Air. Does Q4 still need a CD check? (I hope to avoid buying an optical drive. One of the first things I'll check with my Air is whether Remote Disc works for game checks. Anyone who wishes the Air didn't exist should take heart that optical-less models may make some companies think a LITTLE harder before requiring disc checks.)

[Smoke_Tetsu]

iRolley, on February 1st 2008, 01:06 AM, said:

Come here bro !    I agree, even though this was supposed to be the high point of the game !!! Unfortunatly from there on it turned into a normal One Man Army Shooter. What's more, I think I prefer the slow pace of the "human" marine.

I didn't think the pace of the Human Marine was too bad although I liked the fast paced style of old school shooters so that made me enjoy when he's a Strogg even more. I also like to go Rambo in games so I don't mind having less squad based action although it wouldn't have hurt to keep it more.

I thought Quake 4 was a lot more run of the mill and generic than Prey but I still enjoyed it anyway. I did enjoy the touches that it brought over from the older Quake games (mostly 2 and a little bit of 1). The main things I didn't like about it where

Spoiler

the missions where you are a turret on a vehicle on rails. That and this one part where you are said turret and you are having to protect a guy while he is disarming some bombs

. I liked most of the Tank parts but didn't like the Mech parts as much. I liked the tanks better because they where faster and more maneuverable which made it funner for me.

I liked the sound effects especially the reload sound for the first machine gun you get. I like Quake 4 better than 3 and is a true sequel to 2. It has an actual single player campaign where Quake 3 is focused around multiplayer with virtually no story (it's even less of a story than the original Doom). My only other complaint is no COOP mode and you are forced to be a certain character.. where in 2 you could be any character in the single player mode and you could play COOP... (I used to play that quite a bit with a family member).


About Prey:
I find it interesting how some people here have said Prey is bad with stereotyping yet I've read magazines praising its portrayal of native people.. and that it's a good step forward in portraying indigenous people in games. One of them was a Gaming Mag (Games For Windows) the other was by native americans (I forgot the name of it or where I saw it but I saw it recently)... one Cherokee posted his comments about it here. Some people (I wont name names) made fun of some of the things in Prey (like the background sounds when you enter spirit walk) but I didn't think they where that bad.  I actually kind of like that a bit more than silent characters like Gordon Freeman. But speaking of 3D Realm's games.. Shadow Warrior's storyline and characters where a lot more stereotypical and racist than Prey ever was. I remember a chinese game reviewer writing an article about how offensive Shadow Warrior was to him. Also talking characters like how Tommy does in Prey has usually been a 3D Realms style thing... Lo Wang and Duke Nukem did the same thing in their respective games... you can expect Duke Nukem to continue that tradition in Duke Nukem Forever whenever that comes out.

I enjoyed Prey and still play it every once in a while. I enjoy the characters, the settings and of course the stuff like walk walking, portals, etc. Some of the puzzles where very entertaining in my opinion. My complaint against the game is it is a bit TOO linear (although I realize that Tommy's mission to save his girlfriend doesn't give him a lot of time to dilly dally) and they could have put more areas to explore and it is a bit too short although I'm not one of those people who measure the quality of a game by how many hours of gameplay it has. But if Prey 2 was less linear, with more variety of locations and more areas to explore I wouldn't complain.

Some of the weapons aren't the best such as the first gun you get. However it is still better than a pistol especially in sniper mode which has always been fun to me. My only real complaint against the weapons is the sound effects could be beefier. The same thing could be said about the weapons sounds in Doom 3 (they where done by the same guy, Ed Lima.. his sound effects tend to be understated). The acid shotgun also didn't pack as much punch as I thought it would.

I'm sure that Human Head is going to address some of the complaints against Prey in its sequel which I am of course looking forward to.

The only thing I really disliked was people telling me I shouldn't like the game because they personally didn't... and saying I should like games like Halo better. They just have different tastes than me is all. I enjoyed Prey more than Halo and I don't care what anyone says to that.... not that I hate Halo or think no one else should like it or even prefer it don't get me wrong. I also play games on the PC so I'm not just some games starved Mac gamer who went gaga over Prey. People tend to be very critical of shooters like these especially ones from id software but that's never stopped me from enjoying them.

[Smoke_Tetsu]

nagromme, on February 1st 2008, 01:42 AM, said:

Does Q4 still need a CD check?

The latest patch seems to have removed the check. Same thing should happen with Prey if it follows the PC version's lead.

[nagromme]

Great!

I've played Prey on a 1.25Ghz single G4, so that plus Q4 plus UT plus misc. shareware should give me a little fun on the road with my Air. (I don't think Doom 3 ever removed the CD check.)

Re Prey weapons--I love the acid shotgun, but I almost never touched it in singleplay. I just never needed it. (Which made a change from Doom--95% shotgun!) The grenades bothered me because there's such a delay as you get ready to toss. The rocket shield-mode was too cool. The ice weapon had no use that I could see. Sniping was great. And the lightning and sunbeam weapons were the best! After an enemy would kill me a couple times when I tried to make do with regular weapons, it sure was satisfying to decide it was worth spending some sun ammo, and blasting them in the face like a firehose

Freeze would have been fun in multiplayer. I wonder if anyone has made any maps that use it.

Oh, and silly as it is, I like picking up enemies with the shuttle's tractor beam and tossing them around I want to go back and play around more with the moveable cargo and objects, making corrals to put enemies into etc.--just for fun. (And then of course tossing some crawlers in!)

[teflon]

nagromme, on February 1st 2008, 11:13 AM, said:

And the lightning and sunbeam weapons were the best! After an enemy would kill me a couple times when I tried to make do with regular weapons, it sure was satisfying to decide it was worth spending some sun ammo, and blasting them in the face like a firehose

heck yes! that gun was useless until you got the lightening, and then only became a thing of true beauty with the sun beam thing.

[QuantaCat]

..if they'd make Prey 2 more like Prey was intended to, then it might be really great. (ie. more of a hunter than a "omg gots to saev 'er") It'd be like Turok. In space. Against Aliens. That stick phallic items in your head.

[Quicksilver]

QuantaCat, on February 1st 2008, 01:12 PM, said:

. . . it might be really great . . . like Turok . . . Against Aliens . . . That stick phallic items in your head.

Just to be clear: I am NEVER coming over to your house.  

[Frost]

Hah, Quake 4!

Coincidentally, I started playing that again this week and just beat it yesterday. I remembered it being awesome from when I played it in '05 or '06, but not as awesome as it was. Great game; I hope id revisits it with a Quake 5.

iRolley, on February 1st 2008, 02:06 AM, said:

What's more, I think I prefer the slow pace of the "human" marine.

I agree. My favorite parts of the game were when you'd team up with other Marines and move through areas slowly and carefully as a unified fireteam, making use of cover and whatnot and battling your way down hotly contested hallways, making sure you protect the medics and techs so they can fix you and your gear up in between fights... good stuff.

A Quake 4 sequel that's geared more toward the tactical shooter style of Act I would be fan-friggin-tastic, especially with coop play.

Probably one of my favorite parts is right at the beginning when you're disoriented, have NO clue what's going on, fighting's going on all around, and you gotta grab your pistol, team up with a lone Marine, and fight your way into the complex nearby together. That start was what grabbed my interest hard enough to keep me playing.

[nagromme]

Well, three Quake sequels are coming

Quake Wars (soon on Mac)
Quake Zero
and an unnamed Quake series title using idTech 5 (not Rage)

[Smoke_Tetsu]

Doom 4 is also coming (it will probably be an id tech 5 game).

Oh yeah there's one more thing... it's too bad they didn't let you shatter enemies with your wrench after freezing them in Prey like you could shatter enemies in duke nukem by kicking them.

[nagromme]

Really? I thought you could shatter them.

Maybe I'm thinking of Chaos UT2.

[the Battle Cat]

nagromme, on February 1st 2008, 04:47 PM, said:

Really? I thought you could shatter them.

Maybe I'm thinking of Chaos UT2.

Naw.  It was the first thing I tried when I realized I could freeze an enemy.

[teflon]

nagromme, on February 1st 2008, 10:57 PM, said:

Well, three Quake sequels are coming

Quake Wars (soon on Mac)
Quake Zero
and an unnamed Quake series title using idTech 5 (not Rage)

the first is already released, and actually a pseudo prequel. The second is Quake 3 but in a web based format, so doesnt count as a sequel, not to mention it doesnt have a story. The last will no doubt be a true sequel to Quake 4 plot wise et. all

the Battle Cat, on February 2nd 2008, 01:20 AM, said:

Naw.  It was the first thing I tried when I realized I could freeze an enemy.

you sure? i thought you could. or maybe im getting confused with Bioshock...